HE President Sharif Ahmed – Wrong Place Wrong Time

[Thierry.]

First of all may Allah have mercy on those that perished on the 3rd December 2009.

 

Dear Mr President

 

Whilst many of us support the noble ideas of uniting the nation through peace and negotiation, it appears reality has once again woken us up from the rosy dream of holding hands like a bunch of hippies in the 70’s.

 

The sole responsibility of this tragic incident ends with you and your cabinet, like Harry Truman said the “buck ends with you”.

 

At worst you and your cabinet are feeble and way out of its depth and at best you should be indicted for gross negligence. Your security apparatus resembles that of Dad’s Army, yet more embarrassingly your strategy to combat the enemy is non existent.

 

After the incident of Beledweyne we hoped that you and your cabinet would become more inventive in your battles with the savages who make the Orcs in the Lord of The Ring look like hobbits.

One would have expected by now that you would have given your allies (IGAD, US, EU, Arab Union, Central regions, Puntland, Somaliland et al) no option but to put military footmen on the ground, but because of lack of strategy and clarity you are on the back foot when you should have kept your enemies busy.

 

With sincere advice either radically change your strategy to this mayhem or resign and receive the governmental equivelant of a P45.

 

Regards,

 

T

[Abu-Salman]

may Allah forgive dead Muslims, Aamin

 

 

Clearly, there is a striking parallel between our predicament and the seemingly intractable security situation in places such as Afghanistan;

it basically boils down to the ideal and values for which a governmental soldier would fight and sacrifice himself as well as the discipline among largely uncommitted and addicted troops.

 

Thus, the only way out is to trade to the fullest extent possible support from now toothless warlords and corrupt politicians for more morally defensible opponents, while disbanding gradually the ridiculously oversized parliament alongside a minimal bureaucracy, maintaining only what could be sustained without any foreign interference (their boycott means simply the TFG will rely more on Western and warlord assistance).

 

Having said that, one could only symphatise with Sharif's uncomfortable position between the two groups and his relative lack of support even from the new Puntland administration (it was recently reported a Shabab official did already switch to the TFG and HI position is not that far way from his).

 

Crucially, while diasporas like the Eritreans contribute regularly to their government's PR and budget, Somalis need to realise that even the best leaders could only do so much in an acculturated milieu where sectarism and lack of civism reign supreme.

 

Thus, what needs to go is this self-defeating assortment of primitive, sectarian ego and zero-sum mentality, complemented by the colonial legacy of crude, myopic individual materialism and total disregard for the general interest...

 

 

Welcome Back Thierry.