Originally posted by mystic: Second the fact that he fled from Baidoa, the city were the warlord government was positioned until a month ago demonstrates that the government hasn’t provided any sort of assists to the residents of Baidoa, but was able to inflict profound ordeal on thier lives. I know. What did they do with the $100 million collected between fall 2004 and end of 2005?

Originally posted by mystic: My dignity and pride as a Somali refuses to accept this warlord government as a government that represents me or any rational Somali. I agree. My pride and dignity reject this puppet regime as well. I wonder if that's enough though. Few governments are supported by their people. Approval ratings (which are essentially support levels) for the US president are less than 35%. For congress, they're less than 20%. So 4/5 Americans do not support congress and 2/3 don't support the president. Yeey could argue (based on clan loyalties) that he's more popular than Bush and that the TFG and the parliament have more "support" than the US congress. Strange if you look at it that way but probably true. I heard an interesting khutba at Friday prayers today. Wadaadadu are a strange lot, walaahi. I couldn't do what they do. The Imaam dude kept going on and on about how to treat people (even so-called kufaar) and to greet them and be nice to them. So I drifted off and thought of how Somalis are hunting down fellow Somalis in the South with the help of US AC-130 gunships and Ethiopian troops. Anyway, he finally wrapped up the sermon with encouragement to embrace your brothers and not to be distrustful of them. Not to spy on them. Not to talk behind their back. And not to hurt them with your words or actions. And to care for them. And to visit them when they're sick. So I drove back to work thinking how far Somalis have come from those sound teachings. TFG, ICU, Ethiopia, US, AU, AL, EU, or whatever, it's us who've forsaken each other. Everyone else is exploiting our divisions.

They're in hiding or have been captured or killed.

Pentagon Sees Move in Somalia as Blueprint By MARK MAZZETTI Published: January 13, 2007 WASHINGTON, Jan. 12 — Military operations in Somalia by American commandos, and the use of the Ethiopian Army as a surrogate force to root out operatives for Al Qaeda in the country, are a blueprint that Pentagon strategists say they hope to use more frequently in counterterrorism missions around the globe. Military officials said the strike by an American gunship on terrorism suspects in southern Somalia on Sunday showed that even with the departure of Donald H. Rumsfeld from the Pentagon, Special Operations troops intended to take advantage of the directive given to them by Mr. Rumsfeld in the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks. American officials said the recent military operations have been carried by the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command, which directs the military’s most secretive and elite units, like the Army’s Delta Force. The Pentagon established a desolate outpost in the Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti in 2002 in part to serve as a hub for Special Operations missions to capture or kill senior Qaeda leaders in the region. Few such “high value” targets have materialized, and the Pentagon has gradually relocated members of the covert Special Operations units to more urgent missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. But officials in Washington said this week that the joint command had quietly been returning troops and weaponry to the region in recent weeks in anticipation of a mission against members of a Qaeda cell believed to be hiding in Somalia. Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told members of Congress on Friday that the strike in Somalia was executed under the Pentagon’s authority to hunt and kill terrorism suspects around the globe, a power the White House gave it shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks. It was this authority that Mr. Rumsfeld used to order commanders to develop plans for using American Special Operations troops for missions within countries that had not been declared war zones. But since the retreat of the Taliban in 2001, when American Special Forces worked with Afghan militias, Mr. Rumsfeld’s ambitious agenda for Special Operations troops has been slow to materialize. The problem has partly been a shortage of valuable intelligence on the whereabouts of top terrorism suspects. Mr. Rumsfeld also dispatched teams of Special Operations forces to work in American embassies to collect intelligence and to develop war plans for future operations. Pentagon officials said it is still not known whether any senior Qaeda suspects or their allies were killed in the airstrike on Sunday, carried out by an AC-130 gunship. A small team of American Special Operations troops has been to the scene of the airstrike, in a remote stretch near the Kenya border, to collect forensic evidence in the effort to identify the victims. Some critics of the Pentagon’s aggressive use of Special Operations troops, including some Democratic members of Congress, have argued that using American forces outside of declared combat zones gives the Pentagon too much authority in sovereign nations and blurs the lines between soldiers and spies. The State Department and Pentagon took control of Somalia policy in the summer, after a failed effort by the Central Intelligence Agency to use Somali warlords as proxies to hunt down the Qaeda suspects. The trail of the terrorism suspects in Somalia, blamed for the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, had long gone cold. But American military and intelligence officials said that the Ethiopian offensive against the Islamist forces who ruled Mogadishu and much of Somalia until last month flushed the Qaeda suspects from their hide-outs and gave American intelligence operatives fresh information about their whereabouts. The Bush administration has all but officially endorsed the Ethiopian offensive, and Washington officials have said that Ethiopia’s move into Somalia was a response to “aggression” by the Islamists in Mogadishu. In the weeks before the military campaign began, State Department and Pentagon officials said that they had some concerns about the impending Ethiopian government’s offensive in Somalia. But as the Ethiopian’s march toward war looked more likely, Americans began providing Ethiopian troops with up-to-date intelligence on the military positions of the Islamist fighters in Somalia, Pentagon and counterterrorism officials said. According to a Pentagon consultant with knowledge about Special Operations, small teams of American advisers crossed the border into Somalia with the advancing Ethiopian army. “You’re not talking lots of guys,” the Pentagon consultant said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “You’re talking onesies and twosies.” NY Times

^ Aamiin. They did put up a good fight. May Allah forgive their sins and grant them Jannah.

^ I hope he's right, atheer. Mystic, what do you think of this quote below? Mohamed Mohamud Hilowle, a 28-year-old father of two whose family fled the recent fighting around the government base of Baidoa to a displacement camp in Mogadishu, told me his children go for days without food. "I work with my wheelbarrow to transport goods for people and pay the little money I earn for the food of my family; but for a week I was in bed for malaria and my children were in the streets begging," he says. Mr Hilowle says his one strong wish is to get a lasting peace so he can send his children to school.

Life in Mogadishu is still full of fear - the scars of Somalia's 16 year-old anarchy make everybody in the capital suspicious about the future. There is no reliable security because the streets have become a no-man's land. The government troops, and the Ethiopians forces who supported them to take the capital from the Islamists, are still confined to a few military compounds. Periodic gunfire still resounds about the city between various freelance militia and bandits who are taking advantage of the power vacuum. The troops are concentrating on their own safety rather than that of the entire city. Unknown gunmen have carried out four hit-and-run attacks against the government troops and their Ethiopian backers in the past two weeks. At least five people were killed and seven others wounded in the attacks. 'Mad drivers' Although the real identity of the attackers is unclear, it is widely believed they are the remnants of the Islamic courts' militias or others unhappy with the presence of the Ethiopians. Such random attacks have created fear among the civilians who had enjoyed relative safety under the Islamists' six-month rule. "Walking in the city at night is a scary one," says bus driver Ali Botan Sa'id. "Cars drive like mad and there are no traffic rules. "You can drive in any lane so it's difficult to avoid military vehicles and their possible attackers as you never know where they may appear from." Mohamed Mohamud Hilowle, a 28-year-old father of two whose family fled the recent fighting around the government base of Baidoa to a displacement camp in Mogadishu, told me his children go for days without food. "I work with my wheelbarrow to transport goods for people and pay the little money I earn for the food of my family; but for a week I was in bed for malaria and my children were in the streets begging," he says. Mr Hilowle says his one strong wish is to get a lasting peace so he can send his children to school. "I need peace; I need a government and I need employment as a labourer to support myself and my family," he says. Checkpoints Both the interim president and the prime minister are now in Mogadishu attempting to win the confidence of local people, civil society groups and academics. They have also met with two former veteran politicians, Abdulkassim Salat Hassan and Ali Mahdi Muhammad, who each have headed failed interim administrations during the civil war. The advice from one and all is to get Ethiopian troops to withdraw from the country and replace them with African peacekeepers. Meanwhile, the warlords who terrorised the capital before the rise of the Islamic courts, are back but are getting short shrift from residents who are fed up with them and clamouring for governance. But many fear that the clan-based warlords could organise themselves again if the lawlessness and insecurity persists. Roadblocks, where clan militia raise funds by extorting money from hapless motorists, have appeared on roads leading out of the capital. On Wednesday, police raided one checkpoint and 11 gunmen were captured and remanded to jail. 'Revenge' Mohamud Digsi, who runs a chemist shop, is pessimistic about hopes of reconciliation. For the government to stamp its authority on the capital, Mogadishu's clan militia need to join the army, which at the moment is mainly composed of soldiers from distrusted northern clans loyal to the president. But Mr Digsi does not see warlords easily complying to calls for disarmament and army integration. "These guys thrive on anarchy and will never make peace," he says. His feelings are also shared by taxi driver Aweis Mohamud. "Somalia is a nation held hostage by the gun and warlords - and unless real reconciliation is agreed among the various clans there is little chance of success for any government," he says. The air attacks carried out in the remote south of the country have also created fear among the ordinary Somalis. "The US has been silent about what has been going on in Somalia since the failure of the UN-led peace operation in 1995," says Abdu-kadir Abdulle whose relative died in an air strike on Sunday near Ras Kamboni. "Now it has started bombing our civilians, it is really revenge for the 18 US soldiers killed here," he says, referring to the incident in 1993 when two US helicopters were downed in Mogadishu. Others do not necessarily interpret the US intervention as revenge, but think it spells an end to any hope of meaningful help from the US to find a lasting peace. Salad Ahmadey agrees and says the US is only pursuing its "war on terror" and is not really interested in seeing Somalia stand on its own two feet. "No-one is committed to help us. Every Somali is for himself," the 25-year-old businessman says. Garowe Online

Somali government troops backed by Ethiopian soldiers have captured the last stronghold of the Union of Islamic Courts, the defence minister says. Col Barre Aden Shire said the town of Ras Kamboni, in south-eastern Somalia, fell after several days of fighting. Remnants of the militia are now reported to be hiding in dense forest along Somalia's border with Kenya. Ethiopia has led a military campaign against the Islamists, who controlled much of Somalia for six months. The US this week launched air strikes against Islamists, who they accuse of harbouring al-Qaeda members suspected of carrying out attacks against US embassies in East Africa. The Islamists denied they were sheltering senior al-Qaeda operatives. The US air strikes have been condemned by some regional powers, including Djibouti and Eritrea, and have been criticised by Oxfam for leading to apparently high numbers of civilian deaths. New realities "Government troops and Ethiopian forces have captured Ras Kamboni after heavy fighting," the defence minister told the Associated Press news agency. As news emerged of the fall of Ras Kamboni, interim President Abdullahi Yusuf met warlords in Mogadishu in an effort to agree a pact. Earlier, warlords who battled for control of Somalia for 16 years agreed to surrender their weapons after a clan gunfight left at least five people dead. "The warlords and the government have agreed to collaborate for the restoration of peace in Somalia," said government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari following the talks in Somalia's presidential palace. "The agreement means they have to disarm their militia and their men have to join the national army," he said. He named the warlords who had agreed to disarm as: * Mohamed Qanyare Afrah * Musa Sudi Yalahwo * Omar Mohamed Mohamoud * Issa Batan Alin * Abdi Hassan Awale Qeiybdid * Omar Habeb * Bashir Raghe Shirar. They formed a US-backed alliance last year but were driven out of Mogadishu by the militants of the Union of Islamic Courts. Aid workers report that more 1,000 people have been wounded since fighting erupted in December. BBC

LOL @ Villa Somalia. If anything else, you gotta commend him for the perseverance.

Originally posted by xiinfaniin: ^^Don’t be another Castro basher adeer; there are too many of such nomads here already! I reap what I sow, Xiinow. I started calling these guys names and it's natural they respond in kind. I don't see Horn attacking you and calling you names. Sometimes frustration takes hold of us and we utter that which we later regret. Besides, I don't consider clannist and secessionist to be insults. I hate to think I'm either of those but one can be both a clannist and a secessionist and still talk sense. Who cares what anyone is, really. We're all here to share ideas, not underwear.

^ Right on, atheer. Accept the TFG or risk eternal damnation. The TFG is eternal damnation. This is the same false dilemma Sophist was throwing around.

No one on the continent has responded so far to the call for 8 000 African peacekeepers for Somalia, perhaps because it looks like it will be some time before there's enough peace to keep. Uganda has promised about 1 500 troops, but not moved decisively to send them. Nigeria, South Africa, Senegal, Benin and Ghana, among the other nations on whom hopes were pinned, have been reticent on the matter. "For us to send troops would be to enter a serious quagmire. We would be perceived to be fighting the US war on terror. Any peacekeeping force there would lose credibility," said a senior South African foreign affairs official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. After Somali government forces backed by Ethiopian troops drove an Islamic movement out of the Somali capital earlier this month, United States, European Union, African and Arab diplomats called for an African peacekeeping force envisioned at 8 000 soldiers. Since then, sporadic attacks have targeted Ethiopian troops in Somalia's capital, fighting has continued in southern Somalia, and the US this week launched an air strike against al-Qaeda suspects the Islamic movement is accused of harbouring. Many African countries are already occupied with peacekeeping missions in other parts of the continent, so may be reluctant to take on the considerable challenge Somalia poses. A United Nations peacekeeping operation in Somalia in the 1990s saw clashes between foreign troops and Somali warlords' fighters, including the notorious downing of two of the US military's Blackhawk helicopters in 1993. The Blackhawk debacle led to the US withdrawal from Somalia in 1994, and that was followed a year later by the departure of UN peacekeepers. "There is strong thinking that foreign troops may not be the panacea everyone wants it to be," said Iqbal Jhazbhay, a Horn of Africa specialist at the University of South Africa. "The history of southern Somali since 1991 has shown that the area is averse to foreign troops even if they are African or Muslim." A senior US official in Kenya said on Thursday US diplomats were doing everything possible to persuade African countries to contribute to a new force, but that security was a major issue. Nonetheless, the official, who was authorised only to speak on condition of anonymity, said on Thursday he still hoped the vanguard of an African peacekeeping force would be in Mogadishu within weeks. With Africa's largest population, one of its mightiest militaries and massive revenues from the continent's biggest oil industry, Nigeria has often contributed to and led military intervention and peacekeeping missions in the past. But it has never participated in a mission as far away as Somalia, and most of its peace forays have followed comprehensive peace deals, or at least came when talks were under way. Talks between the Somali players have stalled. Nigerian troops have battled rebels and militia fighters in Sierra Leone and Liberia and taken major roles in regional and UN peacekeeping missions that later calmed those countries. Nigerian troops are on the ground in Côte d'Ivoire, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo -- three nations still wracked with insecurity. As to Somalia, Nigeria Foreign Affairs Minister Joy Ogwu told the Associated Press on Thursday no comment would be made on peacekeepers until after an African Union summit set for January 29 to 30 in Ethiopia. Like Nigeria, South Africa has been a major contributor to peacekeeping missions in Africa, with troops in Sudan's Darfur, Burundi, Congo, Côte d'Ivoire and along the Ethiopian-Eritrean border. Richard Cornwell, an analyst with the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies, said South Africa's peacekeeping troops were "very thinly stretched," with 3 000 soldiers deployed. South African Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said she wants to see the speedy deployment of peacekeepers to Somalia, but a decision on her country's involvement needs to be made by the Cabinet, which is only expected to meet in late January or early February. Senegal's military spokesperson, Colonel Antoine Wardini, said his country had not been contacted. In Benin, Defence Ministry spokesperson Hamidou Boni said the country was not making any preparations to send a force, while in Ghana, military spokesperson Colonel Dzotepe Mensah said he was not aware of plans to contribute troops to Somalia. Uganda has gone further than most, committing to 1 500 troops for Somalia. Uganda's Parliament was to hold a special session to give its army permission to deploy a force in Somalia. No date for the session has been set. "Certainly it would be a matter of some surprise were the [African Union] to be able to mount a sizable or effective operation in Somalia within the next few months," analyst Cornwell said. - Sapa-AP Mail & Guardian

NAIROBI, Jan. 12 (Xinhua) -- Global aid agency Oxfam said on Friday that recent U.S. attacks in Somalia mistakenly targeted nomadic herdsmen and killed 70 people. In a statement issued in Nairobi, the Britain-based agency said bombs have hit vital water sources as well as large groups of nomads and their animals that had gathered round large fires at night to ward off mosquitoes. "Further reports have also confirmed that bombings have claimed the lives of 70 people in the Afmadow district. Under international law, there is a duty to distinguish between military and civilian targets," Oxfam said. "These reports must be taken seriously. These communities are already struggling to survive after a severe drought last year followed by a widespread flooding," said Paul Smith-Lomas, Oxfam's regional director for Horn, East and Central Africa. Oxfam and its partners warned that the recent escalation in violence is making it extremely difficult for aid agencies to reach people in need. The aid agency said since late December violence in Somalia has forced an estimated 70,000 people to leave their homes, and has exacerbated an already dire humanitarian situation. Last year, Somalia was hit first by a severe drought and then the worst flooding in 50 years, leaving some 400,000 people homeless. China View

A whole range of voices from the international community have been calling for an African peacekeeping force in Somalia as soon as possible to help create order out of chaois and insecurity. But is any country - other than Uganda, which has promised around 1,000 troops - prepared to put its soldiers where its mouth is? In theory, everyone who needed to approve it has done so. The United Nations okayed the idea back in December, before the war between Islamists and the interim government. And the African Union (AU) and east African body IGAD say they're willing to send more than 8,000 peacekeepers. But given the challenges of pacifying a country where people carry guns like handbags, African nations seem reluctant to get involved. Ethiopia - which dispatched the Islamists from Mogadishu and other key towns - has accomplished its mission and wants to withdraw its troops within weeks. But without Addis Ababa's muscle, Somalia's interim government - now precariously installed in Mogadishu - looks decidedly wobbly. "What's happening here is that the government is asking for peacekeepers to establish their authority for them, so it's not surprising that people are sucking their teeth a bit," says Sally Healy, an associate fellow of the Africa Programme at Chatham House. "You can hardly blame them for saying 'after you'." Even if they wanted to, African countries simply don't have the cash to send in the necessary troops and equipment without outside help. Uganda's Monitor newspaper reports that the government has written to the United Nations and African Union "begging for logistical support" as a troop battalion awaits parliamentary approval to deploy in Somalia. It needs not only money, but bullet-proof vests, hats and other military gear, the paper says. The Ugandan Defence Ministry has reportedly yet to receive an answer, but there's a little more time because parliament is in recess and isn't due to restart business until January 30. Providing parliament does give its blessing, however, those bullet-proof vests are likely to be sorely needed. Following the sorry failures of U.S. and U.N. peacekeeping missions in the mid-1990s (remember Black Hawk Down?), Healy says Somalis might be hostile to any outside force. And trying to operate in an urban environment where most people are fully armed would be "a very unhappy prospect", she adds. Other African countries that might offer troops include Nigeria, South Africa, Senegal, Benin, Ghana and Malawi. But so far most countries are sticking to the line that they've yet to be asked formally for contributions. Sudan gave signs months ago that it might be willing to send soldiers to Somalia, but that idea seems well out of the window now. Not only did it not approve of the involvement of Ethiopian troops in Somalia, but it's also got its own significant problems with worsening conflict in the western region of Darfur and shaky peace in the south. Nigeria's foreign affairs minister has been quoted saying the Nigerian government won't comment until after an AU summit in Ethiopia on Jan. 29-30. The U.S. air strike at the beginning of this week may also have complicated matters. On top of that, some African nations already have peacekeepers in Ivory Coast, Sudan and Congo, and just don't have a lot of spare capacity. Despite the apparent urgency to bring in a peacekeeping force to prevent a security vacuum, Healy says it probably wouldn't make that much difference: "The absence or presence of peacekeepers won't substantially change the prospects for stabilisation. The transitional government may be able to come to some arrangement with the warlords that controlled Mogadishu before the Islamists - but that is a political process." Even if African countries do manage to stitch together a peace force, a few thousand more men with guns won't help Somalia's rival clans share power more equally or lead to a representative government with real popular support. Reuters

Is that fool wearing the same shirt for the third straight day? What happened? Zenawi didn't send enough laundry detergent? What a miserable lot that sits on that couch.

^ War ileen balaayo. There's not a person on this site that does not know the material you're made of. Your only saving grace is no one really cares. I told you to move along so heed my advice.

^ I've got no time for you. Move along. Originally posted by LIQAYE: Me being compared to oodweine Ok, so that was unfair. The pink elephant yaa Liqaye is the occupation. You see, I don't believe for a moment A/Y and his cabal have the strategic wherewithal to convince Ethiopia to invade. Ethiopia needed two things: an excuse to invade and stooges to give them some level of legitimacy, however small. They found the former in some of the rhetoric coming from the ICU and the latter in this puppet regime. That's all water under the bridge now. All the milk and honey scenarios you elucidate, and with which any decent person must agree, won't happen until the occupation is gone. And by GONE I mean it and all its stooges are gone. One cannot make a fox the keeper of the hen house. No matter how bad things could get, simply having the fox keep the keys to the hen house is inherently flawed. Even worse, the shameless fox doesn't even try to tell us he's anything but a fox. He's flaunting the fact that he is everywhere he turns. The alternative? Put up with them for a decade or two, you say? Well, let's see. What can happen in a decade or two? In a decade or two we went from a brutal dictatorship to anarchy to clan fiefdoms to "semi-autonomous" regions to a semblance (albeit brief but popular) form of governance in the ICU. Essentially, we've gone around a circle but not all the way through, yet. Are you telling me the culmination of all that has happened is to be satisfied with an occupying force trying to install some of the most miserable characters this nation has ever produced? Come on atheer. And what makes you think a puppet regime that is so easily willing to ride on the backs of foreign invaders today will allow you to "peacefully" unseat it in a decade or two. I don't know what the best way forward is. This puppet regime is not it.

^ There's no point. Move along. General Dude Smith???? LOL. War ileen balaayo. The man has more skeletons in his closet than a graveyard does and he accuses people of being flip-floppers and opportunists?

Liqaye, what of the pink elephant in the middle of the room? And if you don't know what that is, I'm not gonna read any more of your Oodweyne-style posts.

^ You got it all wrong atheer. They attack me for my good looks. I would respect you if I felt your passions were riled up only by an Ethiopian presence in Somalia, but alas, I do not and I think that is sad. It's up to you what you think. Your respect is neither here or there and I couldn't care less what you believe, feel or suspect. Your miserable record speaks for itself. refused to continue the line of reasoning it had chosen, instead it chose to say that some other movement would arise, perhaps in a burst of psychedelic lights it would arise like a pheonix from the desert? Maybe this moevement would be made up of half-men and half-machines dedicated to the service of the ordinary people? The inability to articulate a coherent way forward and realizing the utter failure of this puppet regime are not mutually exclusive. My entire (ill-constructed) argument is that this wicked regime is not the way forward but the exact opposite.

I didn't read any of Dye's work. It seems like the kind of thing I would be interested in. Chomsky writes mostly on US foreign policy. You know, invasions, occupations, carpet bombings, etc.. He also writes about the US empire and how it affects other powers in the world. I'll be sure to read Dye's work now that I know about him. To tell you the truth though, reading guys like Chomsky is pretty depressing. He paints such a vivid picture of a nasty world that makes you feel almost hopeless. Not completely, however. It's midnight, I'm off to bed. Hold the fort.

You were destined to be a Chomsky fan from birth.

More sincere? What makes you think I'm not?

^ Here, watch this video while you pass the time. Scroll down to about the middle of the page.

^ LOOOL. Dogs living with cats is exactly right. Fiqqi is a budding photography student. He needs a few more pictures of waterfalls, grazing camels and scattered clouds to complete his masterpiece.