And then there is Somalia

Somali refugees in Kenya, REUTERS/RADU SIGHETI

Perhaps because most of us really know nothing about Somalia (how many of us could point to it on a world map?) the evolving/devolving/collapsing agony there is producing explanations that cut through a lot of fluff.

Ruben Andersson provides links to European and African media discussion of recent events in Somalia.

A Non-Arab Arab has made a bold attempt to explain how the current US-backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia and our bombing of putative Al-Qaeda fugitives (who may have been just refugees) within Somalia looks in the Islamic world.

Somalia is poised to become yet another disaster for US foreign policy (and yet again putting the focus on what it means to the US while the rest of the world more or less ignores the humanitarian, economic, political, and social disasters it will create locally and regionally for Somalia and the Horn of Africa).

...this is going to be yet another Bushie disaster because the important thing in the long run for creating peace, stability, freedom fries (something for American lefties, righties, and realists in there) is to not allow Salafi Jihadists (who have zero chance of ever winning power militarily or at the ballot box) to "win" by letting their "clash of civilizations" worldview become the guiding worldview of the majority of Muslims and Arabs.

The actions of the US and its allies in Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon, etc. all are massive examples of which give credence to this worldview. US support for secular dictators throughout the Islamic world is another. Now it looks like Somalia will be added to the list (and once again, the US public will be sleeping as it happens and left ignorantly pondering "why do they hate us" the next time something nasty happens as a result).

Looks like people of good will in the U.S. are going to have to learn some more unfamiliar geography.