Piracy off the Somali Coast

     By the way, there is a huge business beach-landing goods on the Somali coast and then moving it over the border into Kenya. This sidesteps their corrupt import bureau and tariffs.

     Anyway, do you think Sharia law approves of piracy?  America backed the Ethiopian military effort to destroy the last government in Somalia's capital Mogadishu a few years ago, called the Islamic Courts Union.  You can be DAMN sure no one in America will receive the news from ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN or FOX that piracy off the Horn of Africa is, in part, a consequence of American Foreign Policy.

Language And Conflict: New Categorization of Problem Types

     Noam Chomsky, to try to point out the error of my ways, pointed to the 1994 Rwandan genocide as an example of a deadly conflict within one language community.  Of course I'd known about this event, and consider it only one among many major events in the last couple decades, but more recent e-mail conversations about Rwanda with Chomsky have led me to an insight I hadn't previously had.

     Some of the problems, and certainly the class Chomsky was thinking about, concern when groups speaking different languages share one country, or government, and fight over power, land or access to resources.  I like to point to the examples of Switzerland and India as possible ways to handle this.

     A different set of problems emerge when you take one (large-enough) language community and divide it up with internationally recognized (sacrosanct) lines.  Examples include, but are not limited to

• Kinyarwanda-Rundi, although small, the part in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been particularly influential.  I made that graphic specifically to show Chomsky what I was talking about, and it was key to helping me get to the understanding I am trying to relay in this post.
• The Taleban, or, more exactly, the Pashtana tribesmen of the Hindu Kush and Koh-e-Sulaiman mountains (Pashtan is singular, Pashtun is the Indian corruption of the word).
• The Sudan (Deby, President of Chad, comes from a tribe which is half in Sudanese Darfur.
• The Kurds
• The Somalis (still without a government, 17 years running).
• Even Ossetia. Divided between Russia and Chechnya

Again, as if you needed any reminding, all of these borders were drawn up by Europeans, who, generally speaking, organized things for their own interests (if you look at the Pashtana map, it looks as if "divide and rule" was their interest).

     Somali, Rwandan, Kurdish, Pashtana and Zaghawa speakers have all, definitely hosted rebel groups on one side of the border to attack and destabilize the government on the other.  In fact, all of them are doing it today.

     Peace out.

Susan Rice

     Her name is popping up in relation, perhaps, to the post of the National Security Advisor under the Obama administration.  I've read her name twice in the last month in relation to Africa.  Is she any good?  Not at all.  Admittedly, in the first event I will relate, she was doing Bill Clinton's bidding.

     Twice in the last decade Kagame (Tutsi) of Rwanda and Museveni of Uganda have invaded the Democratic Republic of Congo because, principally, both Mobutu Sese Seko and then the Rwanda/Ugandan installed Joseph Kabila both "allowed" rebel Hutus, including 1994 genocidaires, to launch attacks into Rwanda.  Rwanda and Uganda couldn't keep their act together, and one faction of anti-Kabila rebels became known as the RCD (you can call them "the Rally"). The Rally has few of their own aims (although, sure, they'd like to take over the Congo), they are a proxy military outfit of the Rwandans.  When Susan Rice was Asst. Sec't of State for African Affairs, she met with the RCD leaders in Kigale, capital of Rwanda.  This is about as big as endorsement of violent, raping, thuggish, thieving, mineral-smuggling rebels (who, admittedly, might also have some legitimate grievances) that can be imagined by one author.

     Later, under her own power, in December, 2001, Susan Rice declared that Osama bin-Laden had been arming and training the Somalia warlords (Gen. Farah Aideed, among others) who attacked and killed some U.S. troops in 1993.  Is there any solid reason, post-9/11, to bring up the eight year old attack and blame al-Qaeda for it?  No public U.S. or U.N. personnel in Somalia at the time ever noted any links to terrorists.  The Somalis themselves deny it completely.  There was a lot of (relatively misplaced) focus on Somalia at the time, and Susan Rice appears to be like on of those bloodthirsty Bushies when she (baselessly? entirely baselessly? seems like it) brands a whole country "terrorist." 

     The book I was reading today, which reminded me of this incident, noted that Somalia is actually a pretty bad "safe haven" for terrorists.

1. There is no one to protect them from kidnappers, either.
2. There are no available western targets anywhere nearby (not one embassy, even).
3. They are foreigners, where there are almost no foreigners, and so would stick out badly.

No, if you are a terrorist, you want a big, multi-ethnic metropolis where you can blend in.  You want an easily corruptible government that will overlook small, non-lethal parts of your operation (as long as none of the locals get hurt, and I make a buck, whats to stop me, says the cop, taking the bribe).  Near perfect anarchy, however, is useless.

Back to Blogging: Watching the NY Times Lay Down

     Been away from the computer for a while.  The author of FiveThirtyEight is pro-Obama, but his methodology is public.  His polling aggregation is fairly attractive, and the numbers about now look good (if you don't want John McCain to win, anyway, they look good).

     A french paper of non-high-repute published a communique between a Deputy French Ambassador and the French government, suggesting a dictator for Afghanistan is probably NATO's best bet.  The story included a comment that the U.S./NATO plan is doomed.  But a few other NY Times stories basically laid down for the administration.  There was a very long story on a holiday (Eid al-Fitr, end of Ramadan) party held by Iraqis.  Yah?  Really?  Give with the details, NY Times!  Um, I take it back!  A story on Afghanistan's poppy production was basically the repeat of the hopes and wishes of the Governor of Helmand.  The story re-affirms the hard-to-believe story that the poppy problem is a Taliban problem.  Helmand is not near the many parts of Afghanistan which are increasingly Taliban controlled.  In fact, this U.S. State Department map of poppy production from March, 2008 doesn't overlap well at all with this 2007 map of Taliban influence.  Sure, the Taliban has influence in Helmand, which is a Pushtun(Pashto-speaking) area, but they are much stronger in/near the Waziris, Peshawar and Jalalabad.  I suppose they could be farming in the South and sending the funds to the East, but they are strong in the East, not so much in the South.  Here is another, more recent, map of violence in Afghanistan, which furthers the point.

     The NY Times laid down again when discussing violence in Somalia.  The article starts by bemoaning the lack of health services in one of the most anarchic nation-sized places on Earth, firmly blaming the Somali Islamists who are battling the Ethiopian backed government.  But Somalia is actually divided into Somaliland, Puntland, Gulmudug and Ethiopian/Islamist embattled areas.  Most of the physical space of Somalia has no connection to the Ethiopian connected areas, much of which has been under very limited control of the Ethiopian backed government at any time (De Jure Government areas on the map).  Do I want Islamists to run Somalia?  No, I'd prefer they got their act together, educated their kids until their brains spin, and ran their own show.  Arguably, I'm for Greater Somalia (although I know neither Kenya nor Ethiopia is going to give up an acre of land without first shooting a lot of people, no matter what the people on that land might want).

     Somalian Islamists are throwing out _two_ (not all) aid groups from their areas.  This a week after four CARE offices were raided.  The NY Times doesn't even ponder that maybe the US Gov't was using these groups as cover for their operatives.  Keeping Americans ignorant is the job of a newspaper?  Bah.

Another article, which I swear did more covering for Wall St. in the print version, suggests that Germany might weather some sort of global depression (always possible, now more likely than some other times) best.