Somalia is beyond a failed state

Garrett Jones:

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Experts call Somalia a failed state. This is a sophism. Somalia was a failed state in 1990 under the last central government of the mildly insane Mohamed Siad Barre. Nowadays, one could call Somalia a space between countries. Or simply a feral nation. This is the place that perfected the practice of extorting cash from international aid organizations in return for allowing the aid groups the privilege of feeding other starving Somalis. (Gangsters R Us, with Third World panache.) When the United Nations tried to intervene and establish a central government in 1993 (an admittedly naive effort), the Somalis united just long enough to drive off the foreigners and resume their embrace of warlords and clans.

I was there in 1993, running covert operations in Mogadishu for the CIA when the U.N. effort was wrecked. President George H.W. Bush had sent the Marines into Somalia to feed the starving children, and President Clinton was attempting to install a Jeffersonian democracy in a medieval culture. The Clinton theory was that the U.N. would use its peacemaking powers to force the Somali factions into a political accord, and then peace would break out.

Unfortunately, nobody told the Somalis. They viewed the U.N. and the U.S. as foreign invaders bent on Christianizing their Muslim culture while destroying the power of the clans and warlords. This dispute spawned a series of attacks that cumulated in the Battle of Mogadishu between the U.S. Task Force Ranger and Somali clan fighters, as portrayed in the film "Black Hawk Down." After losing 17 elite troops to an African mob in a single night, Clinton lost all stomach for further "nation building" involving U.S. casualties, and the U.N. effort collapsed. After that, the world largely went back to ignoring the Somalis.

Now the Somalis are poised to insist that the international community tune back in while they commit an auto-da-fe on CNN. Somali Islamists, modeling themselves on the Taliban, have taken control of most of the country, driving the warlords out of the cities and into the bush. The internationally recognized Somali interim government (an effort by neighboring countries to get the clans and factions to agree to some sort of consensus government with which the world can interact) is surrounded in the provincial city of Baidoa, about 160 miles northwest of the capital. When the roads are dry enough to allow military operations, the Islamists will swiftly overwhelm the interim government unless outside help arrives at the last minute.

Already, a team of Al Qaeda-style suicide bombers have blasted Baidoa. The Islamists make no bones about their plans to install a fundamentalist government and to begin "rescuing" their brethren in neighboring countries (read all of East Africa) from the oppressive rule of the Christian Crusaders. Somalia's neighbors are bracing for a regional war, and the U.S. State Department says 10 countries are taking sides in some fashion. Ethiopia, which has a restive Muslim south and a history of being a target for Somali brigandage whenever the Somalis pause in their intra-clan feuding, is sending troops to back up the interim government and oppose the Islamists.

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There is more and it makes the case that this will be a place where Islam goes to war with Christians again. The evidence is pretty stark. The situation there is not yet ripe for intervention again. It may be easier to get rid of the Islamist religious bigots after they have consolidated their gains in the country and start threatening their neighbors.