Dec 17th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Everything Working as it Should
The blog is mostly to criticize, but for a moment let’s offer some praise. The UN Security Council has voted to authorize a multinational military mission to try to bring the Somalia piracy situation under control. And it seems the mission is going to be led by China. And it seems that rather than freaking out, the US Navy is happy to see the spirit of international cooperation at work. Good job all around! This is international relations and international security at its best.
Now if only we hadn’t screwed Somalia up in the first place….
44 Responses to “Everything Working as it Should”
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December 17th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
And it seems that rather than freaking out, the US Navy is happy to see the spirit of international cooperation at work.
Maybe because we’ve had a multinational force there headed by admirals from several different countries for the better part of seven years (and there were other forces that preceded this one). Really, would it kill you to put aside the snark for a second and learn the nuts and bolts on how our non-iraq foreign policy actually works?
December 17th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
it’s the same kind of ignorance that was on display when Biden criticized ‘the thousand-ship navy’
December 17th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
And the people at firedoglake further demonstrate their ignorance and prejudice by neglecting to mention that the CNO, the PACOM comanders, as well as the PACFLT commanders have made fairly regular visits to China over the past decade.
December 17th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
“And it seems the mission is going to be led by China.”
I aver that Pompey is the man for the job.
December 17th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
At no point in its dealings with the United States had Somalia been in an unscrewed state. When blaming people for Somalia, you need to start with the USSR, and Egypt, England and Italy probably did more screwing than the US.
December 17th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
I aver that Pompey is the man for the job.
Somalia, Cilicia …same thing.
December 17th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
I think you’re making an uncharitable interpretaion of Matt’s point (re: freaking out). I think he’s saying that typically, our military (which does so many international ops around the world) has no problem with collaboration.
It’s the current civillian leadership that has the problem.
But we didn’t screw up Somalia. It was already screwed up. We just helped make it worse by encouraging the Ethiopia invasion, becuase this admin. gets played like mugs by any dictator or military regime who says “I’m gonna do x, y, and z… to fight Islamic terrorism! Gimme money.” It’s like they never learned when dictators and revolutionaries played us in the Cold War. The only lesson Republicans seem to take away from our past failures is that we just need to do it harder next time…
December 17th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Whatever our sins in Somalia, it most certainly was not us who screwed it up “in the first place.”
My pick: fascist Italy. Jerks.
December 17th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
“I aver that Pompey is the man for the job.” Just no Crassus the rich, please. He really specializes in slave uprisings and besides, all those crucifixes are a pain to clean up after the crows and vultures get to the crucifiees.
December 17th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
We certainly didn’t help in Somalia, but when it comes to screwing up countries, I have a simple rule. Look to Europe. Anywhere you go in the world, some European country screwed that place up. The only exceptions are Thailand and Turkey (never colonized). They screwed themselves up pretty well on their own. To their credit, both countries are making real improvements. Thailand had a recent hiccup, but they’re back to their normal corrupt but prosperous situation. Turkey has become a model of economic development and has done a great job of eliminating corruption.
The most interesting country is India. They actually have a real debate about whether the Raj was helpful. But the more I travel there, the more I’m convinced they’d be better off without British rule. One of the highlights of the Raj is the rail system, but just try to buy a ticket there. If you can do it in less than two hours, you’re lucky. The rail system combines the ruthless bureaucracy of the British with the hopeless ineptitude of the Indians. I have actually become convinced that the Vogons of Douglas Adams’ books really do exist. And they run the Indian railways.
December 17th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
I think the consensus seems to be we did not mess up Somalia, well think again. After world war II and defeat of the Italians by the Brits, the bits of Italian administered Somalia (Ogaden) and Eritrea in the North were given to Ethiopia by the then American administration to please Haile Sellasie, inspite of protestation from the British, and guess what, both of them are hot spots 60 years on.
December 17th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
Oh, don’t get me wrong, Dan.
“Screwed up,” I can buy.
“Screwed up in the FIRST PLACE,” on the other hand…
December 17th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
America, fascist Italy, the ever-scheming British…
Wow. When liberals argue about who screwed up Somalia, one thing’s certain: somehow it had to be white people.
December 17th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Jaakkli,
Why do halfwits like you have to interject with liberals argument in every subject you have no clue off.
Just in the past few years, the bush administration used American tax payers money, breaking all sort of US/UN sanctions to let the murderous ethiopian regime to buy massive amount of arms from North Korea (the supposedly axis of evil) not to mention paying the very bastards that dragged American rangers body in Somalia millions to fight yet other enemies. Where does being liberal fit into it.
December 17th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
“Just no Crassus the rich, please. He really specializes in slave uprisings and besides, all those crucifixes are a pain to clean up after the crows and vultures get to the crucifiees.”
Indeed. Crassus was good at repressing domestic dissent, but when you sent him on overseas missions, well, he tended to lose his head.
December 17th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
as a somali, this certainly spells the end of the traitorous warlords who rule the breakaway region of puntland where all the pirates hail from. No more pirate money my dear war criminal friends. I cannot wait to see them destroyed. Half the troubles of somalia luck human trafficking, pirate smuggling, bringing foreign invaders into somalia fir the first time in the history of somalia all come from puntland.
by the way, when will the united nations pass a resolution forbidding foreign vessels from europe and asia to illegaly fish in somali waters and dump nuclear waste huh?
December 17th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
This is great. China spends it’s money, it’s oil and hopefully it’s ships and their crews to stop pirates. Plus we get to see the Chinese military in action, critique them when they screw up (inevitable as everyone else does) and finally see any weaknesses we can use when they finally make a move for Taiwan.
December 17th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
Anywhere you go in the world, some European country screwed that place up. The only exceptions are Thailand and Turkey (never colonized).
1. Turkey is semi-European anyway; remember the whole “sick man of Europe” epithet? Also, this way we can pin a lot of Middle Eastern problems on the Ottomans and not break the theory.
2. Japan was never colonized by Europe; when Europe started sailing around the world conquering it, they basically shut everybody out until the U.S. sent Matthew Brady there in the mid-1800s, but then they weren’t really colonized by a foreign power until the U.S. in 1945.
3. Liberia was an American colony, not a European one.
December 17th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
Seriously we need to see Piracy in Somalia as more like a primitive tax than an “international threat”. I’m sure that there’s some southern Republicans repressing urges to dress up like Peter Pan and fight some pirates think it is fun to fantasize about “waging war on pirates” but it’s definitely stupid policy. Piracy doesn’t impact insurance rates on shipping as much as nearby instability (like say wars in the Gulf Wars) and no one ever dies. I don’t even detect Matt’s usual sarcasm when he says “Good job all around”, but the UN security council deserves no credit for their willingness to act on this harmless and negligible threat to stability; especially when it can’t agree to intervene in Darfur or prevent militaristic democratic republics from illegally invading to topple minor despots.
December 17th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
Based on what I’ve read about Turkey recently, I’d say claiming that Turkey has done well on cleaning up corruption is pretty premature.
They still have a “deep state” over there as far as I know.
December 17th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
Oh, crap, they went and got a blue-water navy when I wasn’t looking?
December 17th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
Adam Villani,
From what I recall reading, Turks are genetically pretty close to European, the fact that they speak a Central Asian language notwithstanding.
Fostert’s point is rather meaningless anyway. The overwhelming majority of the world’s countries were colonized by Europeans at one time or another, so yes it’s true that ‘most screwed-up countries are former European colonies’, but only in an utterly trivial sense. One of the world’s most messed-up countries today, Afghanistan, was never a colony. Ethiopia has quite a culturally advanced and hard-working people, and I expect them to make great progress once they get back on their feet- but whatever problems Ethiopia does have, they weren’t really the fault of Western colonialism. Nepal and Bhutan are very poor and were also never colonized by Europe.
December 18th, 2008 at 3:19 am
“Now if only we hadn’t screwed Somalia up in the first place….”
This has got to be the stupidest things Yglesias has ever written. The list of people who’ve screwed up Somalia is long and detailed (and over 90% Somali – perpetually warring clans is an awful, awful, awful way to set up a society in the first place and makes any kind of indigenous material or intellectual progress all but impossible).
True, the US’s involvement in Somalia hasn’t been …. helpful but it’s been on average no worse than anyone else’s.
December 18th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
The choice was not between giving Ogaden to Ethiopia or Somalia, the Choice was between giving it to Ethiopia or Britain. You’re chastising the US for failing to support British colonial ambitions in Africa.
December 18th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
Not at all, usually the Brits are the masters of f***ups when it comes to colonies, but to their credit, when they were the victors after the defeat of Italy at their hands and in possession of all Italian colonies, they suggest keeping all the Somali ethnic group including ( British Somaliland, Italian Somaliland and Ogaden which was part of it), but America disagreed and gave the slice of Ogaden to the then ally Haile Sellasie as he coveted the area and was on a mission to enlarging Ethiopia. He did the same in the north with Eritrea, the rest is history.
December 19th, 2008 at 8:49 am
Again, you are saying that the US should have assented to giving African territory to the British. This was land that was not part of any European colony before WWII. The British wanted to use the war as justification for stealing the land for themselves.
Considering that they had spent the entire war trying to barter military assistance to Ethiopia for colonial status, it was reasonable to assume that they had designs on Ethiopia after the war. They wanted Ogaden as the first step of a take-over. They didn’t give a damn about the Somalis and had every intention of being their colonial overlords in perpetuity. They didn’t leave Somalia until 1960.
Had the British insisted on a “greater Somalia” that would have been independent, you would have a point.
December 19th, 2008 at 9:43 am
Oh I agree, the Brits did not proposed it trying to look after the Somali’s cohesion but their interest, I was just trying to demonstrate American and foreign interference goes back far, and people can not just say we did not cause Somalia’s downward spiral. All the actors including the Somalis are responsible.
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