US Sources Question French Intervention Strategy In Mali

Sometimes the most interesting nugget in a story comes buried all the way at the end; that is the case here with this story on Reuters about France's sudden involvement in the slow-burning civil war in Mali. Near the end of the Reuters piece is this comment from the infamous “anonymous source”, identified by Reuters as a US military official, who asks: “I don't know what the French endgame is for this. What is their goal? It reminds me of our initial move into Afghanistan.”

Before we unpack that statement, a little background on the current situation in Mali. Until last year, Mali had been considered one of the more successful states in West Africa, though a state that still dealt with a long-simmering issue of civil unrest in the northern part of the country where separatists hoped to carve out their own homeland. In one of the great examples of the law of unintended consequences, this bid received a massive shot in the arm from the US/French/British-led campaign to support the rebels in Libya in their bid to oust Moammar Gadhafi. His overthrow meant the return of thousands of Tuareg mercenaries, formerly employed by Gadhafi, to their homelands in northern Mali, where they teamed up with al-Qadea-leaning militias and turned a minor bit of civil unrest into a full-blown civil war.

The Malian army, not happy with the way the war was being run, staged a coup, overthrowing Mali's president (The Guardian's Glenn Greenwald notes this is a double-irony for the West since the coup was led by a US-trained army captain). With no functioning military, the Tuareg/al-Qaeda alliance took control over half of the country before having their own setback when the Islamist militias turned on their Tuareg allies. 2012 ended with the situation in Mali an utter mess and Mali's neighbors pleading for assistance to prevent Mali from turning into a failed state haven for al-Qaeda-linked groups.

The US has been promoting a strategy built on the “Somali model”, at least the most recent version of foreign intervention in Somalia, which has been the most successful in the past 20 years. In practice, this means providing funding and logistical support to troops from neighboring African nations who will do the actual fighting. In Somalia this, has been a mix of primarily Ugandan, Kenyan, Ethiopian troops who have managed to largely defeat Somalia's homegrown Islamist militia, al-Shabaab, and restore some semblance of a functioning government to Somalia.

That was the plan, at least for Mali as well, until last week when the French began spearheading their own much more direct intervention, which started with airstrikes against Islamist positions, most notably surrounding the city of Gao. There are now also reports of French special forces troops on the ground in Mali. Why France decided to launch their Mali mission is a topic that is actively being discussed, though it could likely be because the force of 2,000-3,000 peacekeepers from a collection of West African nations would not have been ready to deploy for several months, perhaps not until September, and perhaps not even then.

And that brings us back to our unnamed US military source.  He/she goes on to add: “Air strikes are fine. But pretty soon you run out of easy targets. Then what do you do? What do you do when they [the  militias] head up into the mountains?”  Sadly, since he/she is anonymous, it is impossible to know if they asked these same important questions when the US went stumbling into Afghanistan and Iraq. Perhaps they are offering up these comments as a sort of advice, hard-won knowledge from the foibles of those two US interventions. But it is hard not to read these comments as being both hypocritical and condescending given the past decade of US foreign involvement, our continued questionable presence in Afghanistan and the calls by the DC warhawks, particularly those of the neoconservative stripe, for a US campaign against Iran, yet another military mission that is unlikely to achieve its tactical goal – elimination of Iran's nuclear program – while possessing a high likelihood of spurring a whole chain of unexpected and unintended consequences.

The “Somali model” idea pushed by the United States sounds good on paper, the problem is that while Somalia had several neighbors with large populations – Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia – to supply troops, the would-be ECOWAS force for Mali is being drawn from a collection of fairly small states like Ghana and Sierra Leone, not countries known for having large and robust armies. Nigeria is the one large neighbor that is pledging troops, but Nigeria is also dealing with their own separatist movement (MEND – the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta) and their own Islamist uprising (Boko Harum), so it is hard to understand why the Nigerians would then suddenly have such better luck when operating in Mali when they have struggled so much against these two groups at home. The proposed Malian peacekeeping force is also made up of only 2,000-3,000 soldiers; by contrast, the Ugandans alone contributed up to 16,000 troops to the ANISOM mission in Somalia. 

Our unnamed source is asking some good and important questions, but they are questions that highlight the problem with the international community since 9/11: there is now a far greater motivation to intervene in troubled nations (especially when supposed “al-Qaeda” forces are involved) and to intervene right away!  But these proposed interventions are launched without clear military objectives in mind, and more importantly, without a plan for the “day after” the initial military campaign is launched, or in other words, without an exit strategy.  The United States has spent 12 years trying to find a way out of Afghanistan, you have to wonder if France will now find that it was very easy to get into Mali, but that it will be very hard to get out.

African Nations Calling For Intervention in Mali

In case you were wondering where the world's next armed conflict will be, the West African nation of Mali is looking like a good candidate. 

Members of ECOWAS, the Economic Community Of West African States, is building support for a resolution they will present to the United Nations Security Council requesting an armed force be deployed to the northern part of Mali to combat a growing Islamist movement that ECOWAS says could destabilize the entire region.

Map of Mali

“It is not just a threat for the region, but the world,” said President Mahamadou Issoufou of Niger and the man leading the charge on ECOWAS' appeal to the UN.  Issoufou called Mali a potential “West African Afghanistan”, alleging that terror groups from Afghanistan and Pakistan are recuriting among young Islamic militiamen in northern Mali, adding that: “it is an international threat that needs an international response so this is why we have decided to take this to the Security Council.”

Mali, once held up as a model of stability in Africa, has suffered a bizarre and sudden collapse in recent months.  Mali's problems were kicked off in March when a group of army officers overthrew the government of democratically-elected President Amadou Toumani Toure over, what the army guys thought, was Toure's mishandling of an ongoing uprising by Tuareg tribesmen in the north of the country.  The Tuaregs were once the favored mercinaries of Libya's Moammar Gadhafi.  When the Gadhafi regime fell, thousands of well-trained, well-armed Tuaregs flooded back into their native Mali and began causing trouble.  The coup plotters claimed that Pres. Toure was not giving them the material and support they needed to effectively fight the Tuaregs.

But it quickly became clear that the coup plotters had no grand plan for governing and Mali fell into chaos, which, ironically, allowed the Tuaregs to launch a major offensive and seize half of Mali.  A power-sharing agreement ended the coup crisis, but the problems with the newly empowered Tuaregs remains; now they are pushing for the creation of an Islamic state carved out of northern Mali.

This is too much for ECOWAS, which claims that the only way to stop the Tuaregs and their Islamist supporters now would be through an international military force.  ECOWAS hopes that the bulk of the support for any UNSC-mandated mission will come from the United States and France.  French President Francois Hollande has stated that France would be ready to support such a mission if it receives the Security Council's blessing.  No word from the US about their possible support for the ECOWAS proposal.

How's That Coup Working Out For You?

That's a question that a group of army officers in the West African nation of Mali have to be asking themselves right about now.  Two weeks ago, a group of mid-level officers overthrew the democratically-elected government of President Amadou Toumani Toure over what they felt was President Toure's incompetent handling of the uprising by Tuareg tribesmen in the northern part of Mali, which began in January. 

But since a group of officers led by Captain Amadou Haya Sanogo siezed the presidential residence, Mali's army has been in disarray, and the Tuaregs have been taking full advantage, seizing a string of Malian cities, including the historic Timbuktu.  For their part, the Tuaregs say that they launched their uprising in response to continued oppression by the Malian government in Bamako, located in the southern part of the country.  The Tuaregs are fighting for an independent homeland that they would carve out of the northern section of Mali.  They have dubbed their militia the “National Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad”; there are reports that the Tuareg numbers have been bolstered by fighters formerly employed by Moammar Gadhafi's regime- since the Libyan leaders is known to have favored Tuareg mercenaries for their loyalty and fearsome reputation across west Africa.  Of course, since Gadhafi's downfall, these men have been mercenaries without a job.

The Malian military was upset by the government's handling of the uprising and by the heavy casualties they were taking in fighting the Tuaregs.  But many international observers are saying that the actions of Capt. Sanogo and his fellow coup plotters were impulsive, and that they seized the presidential residence without any plan as to what to do next.  That their coup seems to be having the exact opposite of its intended effect – rather than improving its effectiveness, the military campaign against the Tuaregs has all but fallen apart – seems to back up this assessment.  To make matters worse, it has been discovered that Capt. Sanogo was actually one of a group of elite Malian soldiers who were selected to receive advanced anti-terroristtraining in the United States, which makes you wonder just what the US was teaching these “elite” soldiers since they seem to have totally screwed up their own anti-insurgency campaign with the coup they impulsively decided to stage against a president who was scheduled to leave office next month anyway.

What happens now is anybody's guess.  Mali's neighbors are taking moves to seal their borders, isolating Mali in response to the coup.  But, at the same time, it is clear that the Tuareg uprising has gotten past the Malian army's ability to handle, so without foreign assistance, it is likely to continue.  Also in question are the whereabouts of President Toure, who hasn't been seen since the coup.  Everyone seems to agree that he is safe, somewhere within the country, though reports then differ, suggesting that he is either trying to seek asylum with the French government, or that he is being protected by a cadre of loyal soldiers, which also suggests the possibility of a counter-coup.   

Post of the Month: Somalia and the Resoure Curse

FYI - the most popular post on A World View for the month of March was this one about Somalia and the potential for them to suffer the "resource curse".

Oil has been discovered in the autonomous region of Puntland in north central Somalia.  On the surface, this should be a great deal for Somalia, a source of revenue that the war-torn country needs to try to start a new future.  But too often for developing countries, a valuable natural resource only leads to more poverty and more instability.  Will this happen again in Somalia?  Only time will tell.

Is Kony2012's Gain The African Union's Loss?

The African Union has announced they will be sending 5,000 troops to put an end to the vicious reign of warlord Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army once and for all.  The AU's action comes on the heels of the most successful viral video ever, the Kony2012 campaign, which brought the attrocities of the LRA to a global audience.  But is the mission to stop Kony coming at the expense of the African Union's peacekeeping mission in Somalia?  Head on over to PolicyMic and check out my latest post to see the rest of the story.

Somalia's Latest Problem: The Resource Curse

It is looking like Somalia may have another problem to soon deal with: the resource curse.

The first oil from a new well drilled in northern Somalia could flow to the surface just weeks from now.  As is typically the case when a new national resource is discovered in an under-developed nation, the new oil patch is being described as the cure for Somalia's ills – a domestic source of income that will promote stability and development for the nation that will bring the Somalia diaspora home.  The reality is much more problematic.

While Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG) has signed deals for oil exploration, the oil field is actually located in the northern part of the country in Puntland, a semi-autonomous region of Somalia that has little to do with the TFG.  To further complicate matters, the TFG's mandate runs out in August (it is suppose to be a “transitional” government after all), so what will happen to their authority to enter into contracts such as this is a question.  And the presence of foreigners looking for wealth in their land has drawn the attention of Somalia's Islamist militants.  A little-known Islamist militia, which according to The Guardian is led by the ridiculously named Shiekh Atom, has pledged loyalty to Somalia's top terror group, al-Shabaab and has declared all oil contracts signed in Puntland to be null and void.

Some Somalis are also skeptical about the potential for oil to save their country.  It is a promise that seldom works out as well as promised, especially in Africa.  One only has to look at oil-producing countries like Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria, where the quality of life for the population in the oil-producing regions has actually gotten worse since the discovery of oil, for evidence of this trend.  A number of Somalis cited in articles about Puntland's oil are skeptical of the alleged windfall coming to their nation and worry that most of the wealth will wind up in the hands of foreign companies.

There also seems to be a little confusion over what's actually being drilled in Puntland in the first place.  When a potential new oil or gas reserve is discovered, it is practice to first drill a test well to analyze the quality and commercial viability of the field.  Yet in a conference on Somalia last week, British Prime Minister David Cameron said that not only was the first oil expected to flow from the Puntland well in the coming weeks, but that pipelines had also already been laid to the coast so that the oil could be exported – construction of a pipeline typically doesn't occur until you know you have a viable field on your hands, otherwise it is a lost investment.

The oil news out of Puntland also puts this story from December 2010 in greater context.  The government of Puntland had announced the signing of a deal with a shadowy private security firm; the deal was allegedly to fight pirates along the Somali coast, yet security efforts were focused inland.  The suggestion at the time was that firm's real purpose was to protect foreign workers who were prospecting for natural gas reserves in Puntland's interior.  

Things Fall Apart: Afghan Editon

For the latest indicator of just how screwed up things in Afghanistan truly are, there's this report based on a study of migration patterns in and out of the country by the International Organization for Migration.  Last year more than 30,000 Afghanis sought asylum outside of Afghanistan, a jump of 25% from the year before, though the actual number of Afghans leaving the country though is likely much higher since human smuggling from Afghanistan and Pakistan has become a billion-dollar business. The numbers point to the reversal of a trend – following the overthrow of the Taliban, Afghanis flocked back to their homeland with the hope of starting a new life.  But, according to the IOM, the situation reversed in 2007, when the security situation began to deteriorate.  Fewer Afghans are now returning home, while the number trying to leave has increased each of the past four years.

The reason most cite is the rapidly deteriorating security situation within Afghanistan, a situation most only expect to get far worse once the United States and the rest of the coalition wraps up its peacekeeping mission in 2014.  Europe remains the top destination for Afghan migrants, though for Afghans without the resources to get all the way to Europe, Iran is a low-cost option – a person can be smuggled across the border for just a few hundred dollars.  Most who take this route hope to one day earn the funds to get on to Europe.  And Afghan familes that can't afford to bring everyone out are choosing to send their sons abroad, a situation that will likely only make conditions in Afghanistan worse as the young men who could be rebuilding the country go abroad.

The migrant situation should be another indication of how badly the US-led coalition has managed reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan and the woeful ineptitude of Hamid Karzai's government.  Aside from its crushing levels of corruption, Karzai's government has failed in its most basic mission – providing security to the Afghan people.  There have been reports from around the country that in some cases the Afghan armed forces and police behave so poorly towards their own people that some villages actually prefer to be back under Taliban control.  And then there is the issue of Taliban infiltration into the Afghan Army.

There was another tragic example of this infiltration last Friday, when an Afghan Army soldier turned his weapon on the French troops instructing with his unit, killing four of the French soldiers and wounding 15 others.  The attack by their supposed allies has the French so enraged that they are threatening to end their participation in Afghanistan and bring their troops home.  “The French army is not in Afghanistan to be shot at by Afghan soldiers,” said France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy.  This move would be a critical blow to the coalition, since the French are one of the few participating countries that is actually sending properly armed and trained troops into Afghanistan in the first place.

If Afghanistan is going to have any hope for the future, the trend of migration has to at least be stopped, if not reversed.  For that to happen, Afghans have to believe that their country actually has a future,  and that means that the US and coalition partners have to get serious about nation-building and in forcing the Karzai government to see itself as a servant to the people and not a wealth-extraction machine for the Karzai family.

Tide Turning In Somalia?

An update now on the ongoing conflict in Somalia.  We have been following Kenya's mission against the militant al-Shabaab organization in southern Somalia – Kenya launched a large-scale military operation designed to capture al-Shabaab's base of operations after the terrorist group attempted to stage several kidnappings of foreign tourists in northern Kenya.  After the mission seemed to bog down, thanks in part to the arrival of the monsoon season and a strategic withdrawal by al-Shabaab, the Kenyans are reporting a number of successes.

According to a report in Bloomberg, the Kenyans claim to have killed as many as 60 al-Shabaab militants in an airstrike.  Other actions in the previous week killed another 25 al-Shabaab fighters, according to the Kenyans, who put their own losses at six soldiers killed and 22 wounded since their offensive, dubbed Operation Linda Nchi, began last year.  Along with the Kenyan military presence, or perhaps inspired by it, other nations in the region are increasing their cooperation in Somalia.  The intelligence agencies of Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia are now coordinating their efforts in Somalia and also at preventing reprisal terror attacks in their respective countries from al-Shabaab, the working group claims to have thwarted several attacks planned around the New Year holiday season.  While al-Shabaab has largely operated within Somalia, they did stage a high-profile suicide bombing in Kampala, Uganda, at a World Cup viewing party in 2010 that killed as many as 70 people; this attack was to protest Uganda's support of the African Union peacekeeping (or Amisom) mission in Mogadishu, Somalia, where Uganda currently supplies the bulk of the troops.

The three nations, along with the Amisom mission and some of Somalia's other neighbors like Djibouti, are also increasing their military cooperation.  Ethiopia is also reported to have conducted military operations in the past few weeks within Somalia as well.  All of this is making my prediction here that Somalia could turn into Africa's next Great War seem like more of a possibility.  Some on the Kenyan side are predicting that based on their recent successes, al-Shabaab could be near collapse.  While this may or may not be true, it is worth remembering that the last time a strong Islamic movement was defeated in Somalia – the Islamic Courts Union (or ICU) – a period of chaos followed as outside forces withdrew feeling like they had “won”, while the remnants of the ICU fought amongst themselves with the more militant al-Shabaab eventually emerging as the victor.  The lesson here should be that if the Kenyans are right and al-Shabaab is defeated, that the victors need to stay engaged with Somalia providing security and allowing for the development of a legitimate government, rather than calling it a day, going home and letting something even worse than al-Shabaab emerge from the chaos.

A Resource Curse Prescription For Kurdistan?

Is the Iraqi region of Kurdistan about to feel the effects of the Resource Curse?  That's the feeling you get from this piece in Foreign Policy about the development boom currently underway in the Kurdish capital Erbil. 
 
While suddenly finding vast reserves of a highly-valued natural resource should be a blessing for an under-developed country or region, history has often shown the opposite to be true: rather than focusing on development projects that build infrastructure and improve the lives of the public at-large and establishing a scheme so that all the citizens can share in the windfall produced by the resource in question, what tends to happen is that vast sums of money are spent on lavish, but ultimately ineffectual projects, corruption is rampant, and while a few individuals become fabulously wealthy (typically individuals who are members of or friends with the ruling regime), the masses tend to stay in poverty, sometimes their living conditions actually worsen as has happened in the Niger Delta in Nigeria.  That is the resource curse.
 
And early indications are it is starting to take shape in Kurdistan.  Iraq is widely believed to have the last remaining untapped, easy-to-access oil reserves on the planet – an unintended side effect of decades of sanctions levied against Iraq's former ruler, Saddam Hussein.  It just so happens that a large portion of those reserves lie in the northern portion of the country, in the areas now controlled by the Kurds.  The Kurds are eager to exploit these resources and have begun signing contracts with foreign oil companies.  This has led to a massive influx of foreign cash to Erbil.  But how much of that cash is making its way to average Kurds at this point is unclear.  That, as FP notes, Erbil now has three luxury hotels under construction, but no modern hospitals, is not a good sign.
 
To make matters worse, the Kurds and the national government in Baghdad are still negotiating over who actually controls the northern oil fields and how the revenue will be divided, meaning there's no master plan for how the oil revenues will be used, nor apparently is there adequate oversight of the oil projects getting underway, all of which makes it likely that Kurdistan could be the latest victim of the resource curse.

This Week At War: Kenyan Edition

Kenya is pressing on with their first military mission abroad, as their troops this week pushed deeper into neighboring Somalia in pursuit of militias allied with Somalia's Islamist al-Shabaab organization. The two sides have already fought several skirmishes, with both Kenya and al-Shabaab claiming to have killed a handful of the other side's fighters. The real battles are shaping up though as the Kenyans plan to take several strategic, al-Shabaab-held towns, including the vitally important port city of Kismayu, al-Shabaab's main link with the outside world. And Kenya is warning residents in ten Somali towns to expect to be “under attack continuously” during the next few days as the Kenyan military pursues al-Shabaab militias. That warning came by way of the Twitter feed of Kenyan military spokesman Emmanuel Chirchir, though you have to wonder if sending out messages via Twitter is really the best way to warn civilians in one of the poorest and most chaotic regions on the planet.

The upcoming attack is part of Operation Linda Nchi, which symbolically means “Protect the Nation” in Swahili. Kenyan officials say that they were spurred into action after al-Shabaab members crossed the border and kidnapped several European tourists from resorts in northern Kenya. Tourism makes up a major part of Kenya's economy, so the Kenyans felt they couldn't let the cross-border raids go unanswered.

But some analysts are questioning the wisdom of Linda Nchi. The Kenyans themselves are unclear about whether they intend to occupy Kismayu, assuming they get that far, or whether they plan to just capture/kill as many al-Shabaab fighters as they can in the city and then leave. And if they do leave, what keeps al-Shabaab from just retaking the area once the Kenyans are gone? It is worth noting that Ethiopia found itself in a similar situation a few years ago and launched their own invasion of Somalia in 2006 in response to cross-border incursions by Islamist militias along their border with Somalia. The Ethiopian army won some early victories against the militias, but soon found itself bogged down in a hit-and-run guerrilla war (much like the ones the US military found itself engaged in in both Iraq and Afghanistan). After two years the Ethiopians had enough and pulled their troops out, leaving a peacekeeping force from the African Union to fight al-Shabaab. The same thing then is likely to happen to Kenya should they decide to stay in southern Somalia. The Kenyans so far haven't offered any plans for how they would stabilize the region as a way of keeping al-Shabaab from returning. The old Kenyan strategy, which we discussed here a few months ago, was to prop up a separatist state in the border region of southern Somalia called Azania (or Jubaland depending on who you talk to), whose “government” pledged to fight al-Shabaab. But according to Tedai Marima on Al Jazeera, working with the folks in Azania/Jubaland can cause a whole new set of problems, since the state they would like to create also includes Somalis living on the Kenyan and Ethiopian sides of the border as well.

And then there's al-Shabaab themselves. Al-Shabaab tends to follow the insurgent's playbook and avoids direct conflict with professional militaries wherever they can, preferring hit-and-run attacks; or just outright acts of terrorism. As “punishment” for supplying the bulk of the troops in the AU peacekeeping mission, al-Shabaab staged a suicide bombing in Uganda's capital, Kampala, last year that killed 70 people. Al-Shabaab has now threatened similar attacks in Kenya.

There's also evidence that al-Shabaab is deepening their ties with the world's most famous terror outfit, al-Qaeda. A correspondent with The Guardian reporting on the ongoing drought in southern Somalia filed this story about al-Qaeda distributing humanitarian aid at an al-Shabaab-run refugee camp. Even more disturbing for Western anti-terror operatives is the claim that the relief group was led by an American al-Qaeda calling himself Abu Abdullah Muhajir. It is not unheard of for Somali-Americans to return to Somalia and take up with an Islamist militia – a recent suicide bombing in Mogadishu was traced back to a recently-returned Somali-American. But Muhajir was described by The Guardian as being “white” and a full-member of al-Qaeda, which changes the equation a bit. It could be a sign that al-Qaeda is taking a serious look at lawless Somalia, which hasn't had a functioning national government for 20 years now, as a new Afghanistan, a central base of operations for them to use while they try to rebuild.

Next For Liberia: Oil?

Steve LeVine, over at his excellent energy-themed blog The Oil and The Glory is reporting that the war-torn West African nation of Liberia is looking to oil as the catalyst for rebuilding after decades of civil war. Large deposits of oil are known to exist in the Gulf of Guinea along Africa's coast. Nigeria was the first nation to cash in on the offshore riches, Ghana joined the club of oil exporting nations late last year. Now Liberia is hoping that the good fortune and oil reserves will continue to spread west. Exploration activities will begin in a few months. If the reserves pan out, Liberia could be producing oil by the end of the decade.

Near the end of his piece LeVine talks about the threat of the “resource curse” striking Liberia, it's a point worth taking a closer look at. In case you're unfamiliar with the term, the resource curse is a concept in international development coined to describe situations where impoverished nations suddenly discover a valuable natural resource, but instead of lifting the nation out of poverty, the country is gripped by corruption, crime, and political (occasionally actual) infighting, with the people in some cases winding up poorer than they were before the resource was found. The resource curse has struck nations around the world, but the causes are often the same – poverty produces a poorly-educated population and civic institutions that barely work, if they function at all. The country can't absorb the wealth suddenly flooding into it: institutions that barely worked before now have massive budgets to mismanage, politicians often become fixated on pet projects to build their legacy without concern over whether or not they help the nation (skimming a healthy amount off the top is also commonplace), and fights break out over control of the natural resources, sometimes rising to the level of insurgencies if not full-blown civil wars. Foreign companies historically have taken advantage of unsophisticated local governments to sign deals that massively favor them while depriving the people of promised wealth.

Given the fragile state of civil governance in Liberia, you can't be terribly excited about their prospects. They could do a lot worse than to follow the example of their Ghanaian neighbors, though. Faced with a similar petro-windfall, Ghana has taken pains to try to avoid the resource curse. Part of that plan has been to start an education program to create a home-grown generation of oil engineers, accountants and other experts, the nation developed a comprehensive strategy to become energy independent within the next 10 years and to fund needed infrastructure projects, and debates over what to do with the oil money have become a staple of public discourse. It is too early yet to determine how well Ghana has done, but they are actively trying to avoid becoming the latest victim of the resource curse.

From The Horn Of Africa, Vows Of Revenge

The Islamic Militant community was initially quiet following the death of Osama bin Laden on May 1, but they're starting to make up for lost time with statements vowing revenge for the killing of their spiritual head, and now the top Islamist group in the Horn of Africa has weighed in. According to regional media reports, Somalia's al-Shabaab (“the youth”) has said they will “take revenge for him [bin Laden]” in a videotaped statement by their media wing. Al-Shabaab's likely target won't be the United States or its forces but rather the “non-Muslim invaders” in Somalia – troops from the African Union's peacekeeping mission to the failed state.

One country that has been growing more wary of al-Shabaab is neighboring Kenya, which fears that the instability in Somalia could spread, both through direct terror attacks launched by al-Shabaab and through Somali refugees fleeing to Kenya to avoid fighting between al-Shabaab, the African Union peacekeepers and the militias supporting Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG) - the internationally-backed attempt to bring governance back to Somalia after a two decade absence. Last month, Kenya offered their support to “Jubaland”, a new autonomous region in southern Somalia, which borders Kenya. In announcing their semi-independence, the government, so to speak, of Jubaland also pledged their determination to fight al-Shabaab. According to Kenya's Daily Nation newspaper though, Jubaland is less of an expression of self-governance than it is an attempt by Kenya to create a “buffer zone” within Somalia proper between Kenya and the forces of al-Shabaab. “The Jubaland initiative will be Kenya’s first major attempt to reassert its influence in a country that has posed a major social and security nightmare for the last two decades,” said Elias Bare Shil, a former member of Kenya's parliament, adding that Jubaland could not only help Kenya with security but also reopen a trade route to the Somali port city, Kismayu, which fell into al-Shabaab's hands several months ago.

Kenya's willingness to so overtly interfere in Somalia's internal operations is an expression of frustration over how long the international community has allowed the Somali situation to fester. While the TFG is a sincere attempt to establish a working government in Somalia, it has been underfunded by the international community and under-supported by the African Union, which has had difficulty in even finding member nations to send troops to the peacekeeping mission. As a result, the TFG militias and AU troops have had a difficult time just keeping control of just Mogadishu, Somalia's capital city, and have been wholly unable to bring law and order to the rest of the nation.

Kenya will likely face a stiff fight from al-Shabaab for control of Jubaland, while al-Shabaab will also look to make good on their public declaration of revenge in the name of bin Laden. It seems like it will be a tense next few months in the Horn of Africa.

As Somalia Crumbles

The international community's three-year effort to end piracy off the coast of Somalia is a waste of time; that was basically the message presented by the Foreign Minister of Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG), Mohammed Abdulahi Omar Asharq, to an anti-piracy conference in Dubai on Monday. “The race between the pirates and the world is being won by the pirates,” Asharq told attendees at the conference, adding that, “it is ... clear that piracy can only be uprooted on land, where it grows and persists.”

Asharq is echoing a sentiment expressed by a number of military and piracy experts over the past few years (despite what Donald Trump may think): that so long as Somalia exists as a lawless state without a functioning national economy, the lure of the big money to be made capturing and ransoming ships along with the ability for pirates to operate from several port cities along the long Somali coast, piracy will continue in a big way in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden. But international anti-piracy efforts have concentrated almost solely on intercepting pirates at sea, not trying to bring order and security to pirate ports like Haradheere and Eyl. The attempt of restoring a national government to Somalia, the TFG, is woefully underfunded and militarily only supported by a mission of African Union peacekeeping troops drawn from a handful of nations. The military of the TFG/AU mission spends most of its time fighting against the al-Shabaab Islamic insurgency, leaving them unable to provide security in the port cities and rout out the pirates.

And indications are that there won't be a boost to the TFG coming anytime soon. Last week the region of Azania (also known as Jubaland) announced their break from the central government in Mogadishu, announcing that they had become a semi-autonomous region and naming their own president. This would make Azania/Jubaland the second semi-autonomous region in Somalia, along with Somaliland in the far north, which considers itself an independent nation, even if no one else in the world does. The new president of Azania/Jubaland announced his intention to battle the militants of al-Shabaab, though Foreign Policy notes that Azania/Jubaland may be less a case of people striving for self-determination and more a case of one country meddling in their neighbor's affairs. Kenya is said to be the driving force behind the creation of Azania/Jubaland. The Kenyans have become concerned about al-Shabaab spreading south from Somalia, creating Azania/Jubaland then could be a convenient way for them to send their troops in to battle al-Shabaab without formally invading Somalia.

Karzai And The Kook

Late last year a small-time, crackpot pastor in Florida named Terry Jones threatened to burn a copy of the Islamic holy book, the Koran. Jones' motives for this act of religious hatred were never really made clear, other than it served as a grade-A publicity stunt for his tiny, 30-member church. US military officials warned ominously that if Jones went ahead with his Koran burning, it could have dire effects on US troops deployed in Afghanistan along with harming US credibility across the entire Muslim world. After milking this stunt for its full publicity value, Jones backed off on his plans. So end of story, right?

No. Apparently, with little of the fanfare of his earlier attempt, two weeks ago Jones made good on his threat and did burn a copy of the Koran, after a “trial” where Jones acting as judge found Islam “guilty” of, well, I don't know what since it's hard to tell what this nut is talking just about anytime he opens his mouth. Unlike last year, the US media boycotted coverage of Jones' stunt, applying it seems the same logic to his lunacy as they now have to another collection of nuts masquerading as a church, the folks from Westboro Baptist – those fine people who “protest” at the funerals of US soldiers and public figures. Recently media outlets decided to stop giving these publicity-seeking cretins airtime. Jones' Koran-burning seemed like that hypothetical tree falling in a forest – there was no hue and cry from the Muslim world, even though news of his act of blasphemy did make it all the way to Afghanistan somehow, where there were a few low-key, peaceful protests.

That is until Afghan President Hamid Karzai decided to get involved in the matter. According to Sunday's Fareed Zakaria GPS on CNN, after the initial low-key protests Karzai went on Afghan television and made a fiery speech denouncing Jones and his actions and also demanding an official apology from both President Barack Obama and Congress. Karzai's tirade did what Jones could not; it sparked an outbreak of rioting in the Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif. The target of the Afghans' wrath though turned out not to be US troops, but rather a UN compound where aid and reconstruction efforts for the region were located, at least seven UN workers have been killed so far and unrest in Mazar-i-Sharif is said to be continuing.

So why did Karzai make a speech designed to whip his people into a frenzy so long after the fact? Frankly it's probably because Karzai is as much of an unstable, publicity-seeking nut as Pastor Terry Jones. And Karzai is in a snit both because Afghanistan lately has been relegated to the backpages by world events like the earthquake in Japan and the symbolic seismic shift in politics across the Arab world, and also because of US/Coalition demands that Karzai take steps to better govern his country like cracking down on corruption and introducing some transparency to his government. Karzai's standard response to calls for governmental reform - particularly when they strike close to home, like the recent run on the Kabul Bank, managed in part by his relatives - has been to try to deflect attention by railing against civilian casualties caused by the Coalition's anti-Taliban operations; “they”, the outsiders, are trying to run our country and are killing our people, is the usual subtext of these messages from Karzai. The Koran-burning then just provided Karzai with a convenient deviation from his standard script.

It is bad enough for the US/Coalition, now a decade into this Afghan adventure, to have such an incompetent, corrupt leader in the Afghan government. But when you have someone so actively working against the mission and efforts to rebuild his own country (keep in mind the people killed in the Koran protests were UN workers trying to lead relief efforts), you have to question the whole validity of the mission, especially when the intelligence community has been saying for some time now that al-Qaeda – the reason behind the mission to Afghanistan in the first place – has moved on to other bases around the world. One has to wonder if at this point it would be better to leave the continued efforts to provide security and reconstruction in Afghanistan to regional neighbors like Pakistan, India and China, perhaps building them around projects like the TAPI pipeline that would benefit the entire region. As Congress argues over cutting the budget, the $100 billion allotted to continuing the Afghan mission seems like a good place to start.

Body Snatchers Redux

Last Tuesday the Council of Europe voted to endorse a 27-page report accusing the prime minister and other members of Kosovo's government of operating a human organ smuggling ring during the Kosovo-Serbia War in the late 1990s. The alleged ring was discussed earlier in this post, but in short, a branch of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) known as the Drenica Group is accused of smuggling both Kosovars and captured Serbian soldiers into Albania, where they were executed and their organs harvested for transplant (for a tidy profit of course). This is on top of other more run-of-the-mill criminal activities Drenica is said to have engaged in like drug smuggling and prostitution. The man in charge of the Drenica Group at the time is Kosovo's current Prime Minister Hashim Thaci; much of the leadership of what then was the KLA is now Kosovo's government.

The Council of Europe report will do nothing to boost the image of Kosovo, which had already taken a hit over allegations that their most recent parlimentary elections were far from fair and open. Nor will they help to change a perception that Kosovo is less of a country than it is a massive criminal enterprise. Black market activities, like drug smuggling, are said to make up a large chunk of Kosovo's economy; in fact the joke going around Russia when Afghanistan recently recognized Kosovo's independence was that this marked the first time that a drug supplier had recognized the independence of one of their major dealers.

But the heinous nature of the crimes – the murder of people to sell their organs – trancends mere criminal activity. Not surprisingly, the government of Kosovo is vigorously denying the charges and Thaci is even threatening to sue the author of the report, investigator Dick Marty, for libel. What remains to be seen is if the European Union will take up the charges laid out by the Council of Europe. As Al Jazeera's Laurence Lee notes: “given that a number of Western countries, including the US, have now formally recognised Kosovo it's an open question whether there's the political will to pursue Hashim Thaci.” Good question indeed.

And frankly, for all their talk about support of human rights, the European Union has been fairly weak in taking steps to actually protect them, especially among certain less-favored populations: the Roma (or Gypsies) in Central Europe, ethnic Russian minorities in the former Soviet Baltic republics and African migrants in places like Italy and France. Since Kosovo is a pet project for the EU and the Serbs, at least until recently, were cast in the role of Europe's bad guys, it will be interesting to see if the EU takes the allegations contained in the Council of Europe report seriously. I won't be holding my breath.

Baby (Doc) Come Back

In what's either the biggest act of political hubris in a long, long time, or the execution of a cunning plan to retake power, Haiti's former dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier returned to Port-au-Prince last week after two decades in exile. His sudden arrival threw the country's already shaky political establishment into turmoil; for his part, Duvalier said he was returning to help his country rebuild after the massive earthquake that leveled large parts of Port-au-Prince and killed perhaps as many as 300,000 people – though he offered no explanation on why then he waited a whole year to make his return.

And that has people speculating that Duvalier is hoping to take advantage of the political vacuum which currently exists in Haiti. The presidential elections held last November have been marred by charges of fraud and vote-rigging; a run-off between the two top candidates still hasn't been held. Meanwhile, Port-au-Prince remains a city of rubble and refugee camps with an out-of-control crime rate. This seems to have spurred former Duvalier loyalists to lobby their boss to fly in from exile in Paris to try to retake the reins of power, a motivation at least partially confirmed by Duvalier's lawyer, Reynold Georges, who said of his client in an interview with al-Jazeera: “he is a political man. Every political man has political ambitions.” Georges added that under the new Haitian constitution that he helped to draft, Duvalier has the legal right to stand for election.

So far though, Duvalier has only stood before a Haitian judge to answer charges of corruption and embezzlement dating back to the end of his reign in 1986. Baby Doc Duvalier ruled Haiti from 1971 to 1986, taking over for his father Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier. The rule of the Duvalier clan was marked by authoritarian rule and widespread human rights abuse; the Duvaliers kept power in large part thanks to a brutal militia known as the Tonton Macoutes. When Baby Doc was finally overthrown in a popular revolt, he is said to have taken a large chunk of the national treasury with him into exile, nearly $6 million of which still lies frozen in a Swiss bank account. A Haitian judge now has three months to decide whether the criminal case should continue against Baby Doc Duvalier; meanwhile he'll likely be staying in Haiti whether he wants to or not, his passport was seized by Haitian authorities.

As for the question of why would Haitians even want a brutal dictator back in the first place, it is likely an expression of just how frustrated people are over the slow pace of reconstruction in Port-au-Prince. Despite pledges of billions of dollars in foreign aid, little work in the capital has actually been done. Much of the money is tied up in political and bureaucratic red tape, and Haiti's current political turmoil isn't helping the situation. It is worth noting that the crowd who met Duvalier at the airport included a fair number of young people, all of whom were likely born after he fled to Paris. They don't remember the brutality of the Duvalier regime, but have only heard the stories of how Haiti was once not an economic basket case. Given the current sorry state of affairs, it is a powerful image.

Duvalier's return has also prompted speculation that another ousted Haitian leader may stage his own comeback: former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was driven from power by another coup in 2004. Unlike Baby Doc though, Aristide is said to still have broad support among the Haitian population. For his part, Aristide insists that the coup against him wasn't a popular uprising, but rather a manufactured revolt secretly backed by the United States because economic reforms he proposed to fight poverty and improve the lives of average Haitians would have a negative impact on American business interests in Haiti. According to this editorial by Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Aristide's decision to disband the Haitian army also factored into the United States' decision to support his ouster, since the army's main duty was to protect the country's small, but powerful upper class as well as international business interests, primarily from the United States, Canada and France. Weisbrot goes on to cite information contained within the Wikileaks dump of US foreign policy cables that contend to show the United States pressuring Brazil, the nation heading up the UN coalition supposedly providing security in Port-au-Prince, not to allow Aristide to return to Haiti from exile in South Africa.

The official position of the US State Department is that Aristide's return would only confuse the political situation in Haiti. But with near anarchy on the streets of the capital, an indefinitely-postponed presidential election and the return of a brutal former dictator, it's hard to imagine how Aristide's return could possibly make things worse.

A Somali Union

There's news from Somalia that two of the rival factions struggling for control of the county have decided to set aside their differences and unite. Unfortunately it's two of the really bad factions that have decided to unite – the rival Islamist militias of al-Shabaab and Hizbul Islam. Previously, the two groups had been battling for control of the capital, Mogadishu, as well as for a few port cities along the long, and lawless, Somali coast. But the two groups decided to set aside their differences and unite to fight what they see as their common enemy – Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (the TFG) and the 20,000 troops from the African Union that are helping the TFG to keep their tenuous toehold in Mogadishu. While the AU troops aren't a particularly strong fighting force, they have been enough to keep al-Shabaab and Hizbul Islam from overrunning the capital – especially since al-Shabaab and Hizbul Islam have spent more time fighting each other than they have the AU forces.

One factor behind the linkage of the two insurgent groups could be the fact that lately, Hizbul has been getting the worst of the battle with al-Shabaab and there are signs that Hizbul itself could split in two. That's the result of a failed offensive Hizbul launched recently against al-Shabaab troops in Mogadishu. Members of Hizbul from southern Somalia were angered that Hizbul's commanders – who come from clans based in the northern part of Somalia – decided to let Hizbul's southern Somalis make up the majority of the attacking force, and to thus take the bulk of the casualties. But for the moment, the two groups seem to be satisfied to let bygones be bygones; they handled their new union the way that two rival corporations would – with a press conference to announce the merger and explanations of who would serve in what leadership roles and that the new group would continue to do business under the al-Shabaab name – after all, why mess with a successful brand?

Joking aside, the militant merger could make things worse in Somalia. With the two groups not fighting against each other, they may in fact do a better job of battling the AU troops, a situation that won't be good for the Somali TFG. And at the press conference, the new al-Shabaab threatened stepped-up terror attacks outside of Somalia, even promising attacks in the United States if President Obama didn't lead the nation to a mass conversion to Islam (apparently word of the “Birthers” and the other fringe groups who think that Obama already is a Muslim haven't reached Somalia yet). It may be a mistake though to dismiss these claims as mere bluster. In July an al-Shabaab terror bombing killed more than 70 people who gathered outside the Ugandan capital, Kampala, to watch the World Cup; Kenyan authorities are pointing at al-Shabaab as the force behind a December 21 bombing that killed one (the bomber) and wounded 40 others on a Uganda-bound bus. Al-Shabaab has vowed to attack Uganda and Ugandans particularly because troops from that country make up the bulk of the African Union forces operating in Mogadishu.

Meanwhile a mysterious private security firm has been hired by the TFG to provide security in Mogadishu. Saracen International is the same private militia recently hired by the northern Somali region of Puntland to head up “anti-piracy operations”, a mission they will somehow do without boats (as I speculated in this earlier post, Saracen's real mission in Puntland is more likely to protect prospective oil and gas fields ashore rather than hunting pirates at-sea). Saracen is being funded by an unnamed Persian Gulf state, though neither Puntland nor the TFG are willing to disclose exactly who; international observers are concerned about who is supporting Saracen along with believing that the group's operations could be in violation of various arms embargoes against Somalia.

African Democracy: One Step Back, One Step Forward

Two tales of democracy from Africa today, one hopeful, the other not so much...

Cote d'Ivoire (also known as the Ivory Coast) for nearly a month now has had not one but two presidents. International observers, including the United Nations, declared opposition leader Alassane Ouattara the winner of the November 28 elections, which they further certified as free and fair. But that's not good enough for the current Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo who, like a pope in the Middle Ages, just went ahead and had himself sworn back into office at the same time that Ouattara's inauguration was taking place. Gbagbo refuses to recognize the results of the November 28 vote, which he has called “a coup” (admittedly an odd way to describe a democratic election).

The UN, United States and Ecowas – the economic bloc that includes most of the countries in West Africa – are all calling on Gbagbo to stop the nonsense and gracefully step aside – well, as gracefully as one can after pretending to be president for a month... The problem is that Gbagbo still has many in the state security apparatus and military backing him, which has paralyzed Cote d'Ivoire for the past month. And indications are that the situation could be turning ugly. Ouattara's side said they have reports of 200 dead and 1,000 injured among their supporters at the hands of security forces supporting Gbagbo, they also claim other supporters have been abducted and raped. Amnesty International said they are receiving “increasing” numbers of reports of political violence. It's worth noting that Cote d'Ivoire narrowly avoided a full-blown civil war in 2002 and had previously been one of West Africa's most stable and most prosperous countries. But all of that now seems in danger because of one very stubborn man.

But the news out of Africa certainly isn't all bad as another West African nation inaugurates their first democratically-elected president in their entire 50-year history. On Tuesday Alpha Conde was sworn in as the Republic of Guinea's first-ever elected president in a ceremony attended by heads of state from across the continent. Since gaining independence from France, Guinea has been run by a succession of military strongmen; change in government only came at the end of a gun. Things didn't look promising after the most recent junta took power in 2008, despite promises by the junta that they would hold open elections “in the future”. The situation further deteriorated after the junta's leader Captain Moussa Dadis Camara was gravely wounded in an assassination attempt and forces loyal to him massacred 150 opposition supporters and reportedly beat and raped hundreds more. But Guinea's interim leader, Sekouba Konate, followed through on the pledge to hold elections, which were won by Mr. Conde, himself a long-time opposition leader and advocate for democracy who had once been sentenced to death by an earlier military regime. The 72-year old Conde ran on a platform of change and development for the impoverished Guinea, which has rich deposits of bauxite, the ore used to make aluminum.

Though the swearing in of Conde is just a first step, if a country that has spent a half-century ruled by military juntas can have open democratic elections, then that's a hopeful sign for good governance across the continent.

Tali-scam

If you've read this site for awhile, you probably know that I've been pretty critical of the whole US/NATO mission in Afghanistan; but the latest story about the Taliban imposter warlord takes the cake. In case you missed this one, here's a brief recap:

For the past few months the idea of negotiating with at least the more moderate elements of the Taliban has been gaining traction, the rationale being if more reasonable pieces of the Taliban could be peeled away and reintegrated into the Afghan establishment, it just might put an end to the insurgency. Symbol of these efforts were the ongoing negotiations with one Mullah Akthar Mohammad Mansour, a “senior leader” with the Taliban. NATO thought that Mansour was valuable enough to lay a lot of cash on him (six figures by some accounts) and fly him in for meetings with President Hamid Karzai. Sounds great, except that the “Mullah Akthar Mohammad Mansour” wasn't the real Mullah Akthar Mohammad Mansour, a fact that the coalition is just learning now. Who this pseudo-Mansour was/is – whether he was a simple scam artist, a Taliban agent or something else entirely – will remain a secret since he snuck across the border into Pakistan and disappeared once the jig was up. Beyond being hugely embarrassing for the coalition to be scammed like this, what does the pseudo-Mansour affair say about the coalition's whole vaunted counter-insurgency strategy in the first place? The core idea of COIN is that you get to know your adversary on a personal level so that you can out maneuver him in the hearts and minds of the general population; but how well can the coalition know their enemy though if they don't even realize that one of their top commanders is in fact an imposter?

The Taliban imposter story would be criticism enough of the ongoing Afghan mission, but it comes out at the same time as the results of Afghanistan's recent parliamentary elections are being made public, and while attempts are being made to present them as a triumph of democracy, it's looking like the Afghans have succeeded in running an even more corrupt election than their last fraud-plagued vote. So far Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission (IEC) has managed to toss out 1.3 million ballots – about one-quarter of all votes cast and more than the million votes tossed out in Hamid Karzai's reelection last year – along with about 10% of the elected candidates. And here's where things start to get interesting: in the last election, the fraud swung heavily in favor of Hamid Karzai, ballot boxes were stuffed with Karzai votes, those for his main challenger Dr. Abdullah Abdullah were tossed out; this time the vote seems to have gone heavily against the Pashtuns, Afghanistan's largest ethnic group and traditional cultural elites.

One explanation being put forward is that the Taliban is also heavily Pashtun, so vote turnout was lowest in the provinces where the Taliban is most active allowing other ethnic groups, like the traditionally oppressed, but largely peaceful Hazaras, to turn out in large numbers, giving them a larger-than-expected share of the Afghan Parliament. But a simpler explanation is also emerging – a good, old-fashioned money for votes scam. There are reports in several news outlets that members of the IEC contacted various candidates and offered to give them more votes (or take away votes from rival candidates) for the right price. Backing up this claim are stories of elected candidates suddenly being told that they in fact “lost”. The situation is worst in heavily-Pashtun Ghazni province, which weeks after the vote still has no official results due to widespread claims of fraud. The situation has gotten so bad that Afghanistan's Attorney General Mohammed Ishaq Aloko announced he'll be launching an investigation into vote totals across the country as well as into the IEC itself. In other words the situation is quickly turning into Florida 2000, only on a country-wide scale and with heavily-armed terrorist militias.

And just to put a sad post-script on this whole story, check out this photo-essay from Foreign Policy of pictures of Kabul in the early 1960s, during that all-to-brief time when Afghanistan looked like it was on its way to becoming a modern, democratic, fairly-liberal state.

Save Somalia, Let Al-Shabaab Win?

That’s the outside-the-box proposal writer Daniel Howden put forward in the UK’s Independent on Friday. Al-Shabaab (who we have discussed in numerous posts here) is the main Islamist group opposing Somalia’s internationally-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG), the body that is supposed to return Somalia to functioning country status. But the TFG is doing a generally lousy job of it, fighting more amongst themselves than with al-Shabaab, other Islamic militias or the Somali pirates. The TFG is backed by the international community, much of what military power they have comes from 6,000 or so African Union peacekeepers, the majority of whom are from Uganda. Al-Shabaab apparently took notice of this a few weeks ago, conducting suicide bombings in Uganda that killed more than 70 people. The predictable knee-jerk reaction has been for Uganda to commit to send more troops into Somalia to take on al-Shabaab.

But Howden argues that this is exactly the wrong thing to do. Instead the world community should pull back on their support for the TFG and let al-Shabaab take over the country. His rationale is a two-part one: despite years of support, the TFG has been petty and ineffective, there’s no reason to think they will change anytime in the future; while on the other hand if al-Shabaab were to win control of Somalia, the group would likely quickly fall apart due to their own internal infighting.

It’s an interesting suggestion to say the least. On one hand, I agree with his assessment of the TFG, where there is a situation disturbingly similar to the one we have with the Karzai government in Afghanistan – that government also has been, and continues to be, hopelessly corrupt and incompetent, yet the US/NATO/etc. coalition is stuck with them, a factor that goes a long way towards making Afghanistan a no-win situation. But you have to ask, if we follow Howden’s advice, what happens if al-Shabaab doesn’t collapse? The group has pledged its allegiance to that global terror umbrella group, al-Qaeda; and thanks to the Uganda attacks, al-Shabaab has demonstrated their ability to stage terror attacks outside of their borders. So, would this just amount to creating a terrorist safe haven along the Horn of Africa, one that would be able to wreak havoc across much of the eastern part of the continent? On the other hand, if al-Shabaab does take control and does, as Howden suggests, fall apart, then isn’t this just another sad reset for Somalia, another return to a state of war and anarchy? The vacuum left behind after Somaila’s government first collapsed in 1991 was filled by warlords; when the warlords were defeated, the vacuum was filled by the Union of Islamic Courts, an umbrella group for a collection of Islamist factions; when Ethiopian peacekeepers drove the Courts out of Mogadishu, they were replaced by al-Shabaab, and on it goes…

Ultimately, it’s hard to see the US, the African Union, Uganda or Somalia’s neighbor Ethiopia going along with the “give up on the TFG” strategy (in fact it’s easier to see all involved just getting themselves in deeper as Uganda has already indicated they would). But it is good to read ideas from people like Howden, who are definitely thinking outside the box, especially when we’ve seen how poorly the whole traditional “counter-insurgency” idea has worked so far in Afghanistan in combating Islamist groups like the Taliban (or in this case al-Shabaab) and in establishing an actual effective national government.