Wait, Havent We Already Been Here
Before?
Posted by
Charles Featherstone on
January 5, 2010 05:42 PM
According to the Jerusalem Post,
the next group of people we must be afraid of are inching closer to
control of Somalia, whatever THAT means:
- A hard-line Islamist militia known as
Al-Shabab is capturing key areas throughout Somalia, but analysts
differ over whether the group can actually take over the country.
- Al-Shabab has become the focus of much Western media coverage
recently for its use of Taliban-style justice, including stoning
suspected adulterers and severing the limbs of thieves.
- The Al-Shabab administration in Kismayo, around 500 kilometers south
of the capital Mogadishu, began by clamping down on clothing, making men
shave their moustaches, grow beards and wear pants no shorter than ankle
length.
Okay, Im trying to remember didnt, at some point a few years
ago, a Somali Islamist group called the Islamic Courts Union (or
something like that) manage to take control of enough of the country to
constitute a government, only to be toppled by a U.S.-backed Ethiopian
invasion and occupation of Somalia, an occupation that became costly for
the Ethiopians in terms of men and treasure (as occupations are wont to
do)? Theres something that calls itself a government in Mogadishu, and
it has international recognition, but it clearly has little legitimacy
outside whats left of the capital, especially if the Shabab are seizing
and holding places.
Oh, but this will be yet another place to whine and fret about, to
posture over, to lob the occasional missile at and send the occasional
sojer to shoot and kill. So many places to wage war in, so little money
or men.
