Gettleman on Somalia
If you have the chance, please do read Jeffrey Gettleman’s article on Somalia in Foreign Policy magazine. It’s not only a great piece in its own right, but it’s a useful corrective to some of the imperial hubris that’s often wafting around in Washington:
In more than a dozen trips to Somalia over the past two and a half years, I’ve come to rewrite my own definition of chaos. I’ve felt the incandescent fury of the Iraqi insurgency raging in Fallujah. I’ve spent freezing-cold, eerily quiet nights in an Afghan cave. But nowhere was I more afraid than in today’s Somalia, where you can get kidnapped or shot in the head faster than you can wipe the sweat off your brow. From the thick, ambush-perfect swamps around Kismayo in the south to the lethal labyrinth of Mogadishu to the pirate den of Boosaaso on the Gulf of Aden, Somalia is quite simply the most dangerous place in the world.
The whole country has become a breeding ground for warlords, pirates, kidnappers, bomb makers, fanatical Islamist insurgents, freelance gunmen, and idle, angry youth with no education and way too many bullets. There is no Green Zone here, by the way—no fortified place of last resort to run to if, God forbid, you get hurt or in trouble. In Somalia, you’re on your own. The local hospitals barely have enough gauze to treat all the wounds. [...]
It’s crunch time for Somalia, but the world is like me, standing in the doorway, looking in at two decades of unbridled anarchy, unsure what to do. Past interventions have been so cursed that no one wants to get burned again. The United States has been among the worst of the meddlers: U.S. forces fought predacious warlords at the wrong time, backed some of the same predacious warlords at the wrong time, and consistently failed to appreciate the twin pulls of clan and religion. As a result, Somalia has become a graveyard of foreign-policy blunders that have radicalized the population, deepened insecurity, and pushed millions to the brink of starvation.
There’s an enormous tendency in this town, and in establishment circles more generally, to see American involvement in a situation as by definition offering a solution. And certainly the United States has involved itself constructively in many situations around the world over the decades. But it’s not some kind of law of nature that us poking around somewhere is a good idea. And in Somalia, at least, our involvement has been hugely destructive. Not, I think, because we meant badly. But because we’ve been unable to simply accept that the internal politics of Somalia and the regional politics of the Horn of Africa just aren’t something that the American people or the American government are knowledgeable about or competent to deal with. We’ve engaged fitfully, thoughtlessly, and in a manner that usually involves us getting manipulated by the much-better-informed and much-more-committed players on the ground.
47 Responses to “Gettleman on Somalia”
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February 20th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
We’ve engaged fitfully, thoughtlessly, and in a manner that usually involves us getting manipulated by the much-better-informed and much-more-committed players on the ground.
I’m rather the imperialist, but I acknowlege this is the default for every action that we’ve undertaken in both 1st and 3rd world countries over the last two centuries. Even the ones that were ’successful’.
The USN and USMC have had some sort of ‘fitful’ action pretty much every year since John Adams.
So, I’m glad to see you’ve finally backed off of the meme that everything currently wrong with the horn of africa is GWB’s fault.
February 21st, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Am I totally insane or did you post this yesterday already?
February 21st, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Al: Nobody has useful expertise in Somalia. On what basis do you think the UN or the AU know anything we don’t? There’s ample recent evidence that Somalis don’t like their neighbors, and I doubt they’d like Nigerians or Chinese any better.
The US should support the two peaceful regions’ regimes (Puntland and Somaliland), and do nothing about the rest of the country, because that’s all we can do. We can put an offer out there to rebuild the place, if and when the warring parties agree to peace. That big carrot is all we really have.
February 21st, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Somalialand is the only save place in east africa. They have had elections and do consider themselves to be independent from somalia. The AU and USA do not want to recognise it as independent. If recognition does not take place, somalialnd might get dragd in to the chaos.
February 21st, 2009 at 1:53 pm
On that note, I’m always amazed when people talk about the Clinton administration’s alleged racist and eeeeevil indifference to the genocide in Rwanda. What were we supposed to do with our omnipotent superpowerness? Bomb the hell out of things? That always helps. Ground troops? Oh goody. Economic sanctions?
For that matter, the US is always blamed for not “doing something” about the Holocaust, other than, you know, helping to defeat Nazi Germany militarily.
February 21st, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Why am I not surprised that Yglesias wants to hand over Somalia to Islamist rule? Oh that’s right, because most Yglesian hipsters are Islamophiles.
Somalia, remember, is that charming country where two Italian nuns were butchered in 2006 after Pope Benedict made the apt, and true, observation that Islam is a gravely deficient religion, and that its basic problems are rooted in the denial of the Logos (i.e. the second person of the Trinity). If we hand it over to the Jihadist hordes, as the hipster islamophiles would choose, we can expect more of the same.
February 21st, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Hector, that was most excellent. What other societal problems come from “denial of the Logos”?
February 21st, 2009 at 2:14 pm
Somalia is rumored to have oil reserves? Not to dismiss the depth of their humanitarian crisis, but countries without exploitable resources tend not to show up on or radar.
Hector, are you a U.S. citizen? Just exactly how rare is it for two people to be butchered here? And what do you think getting caught under a bomb with your sleeping family is like? Being put down for a nice little dirt nap? This good and bad murder meme is laughable.
February 21st, 2009 at 2:15 pm
What other societal problems come from “denial of the Logos”?
People with too much time on their hands?
February 21st, 2009 at 2:30 pm
So where does this leave us with regard to projects like the “Save Darfur” campaign? Seems like a lot of the rhetoric surrounding that cause blames inaction on racism or elitism or what have you. But what if we just really don’t know what to do? I remember reading the Gourevitch book about Rwanda, then watching Hotel Rwanda, thinking that such projects seemed to be hinting that we could have done SOMETHING. Rescue people. Or take out the radio station. Or build a radio station. But can we? Should we?
February 21st, 2009 at 2:48 pm
“Hipsters”, well golly gee whiz, daddy-o, looks like you took the 3D cube straight from 1950ville, where even the coupe de ville are as obsolete as your ideas. 23 Skidoo pal, its the 21st century, there ain’t no air in your tires and even bazooka joe has gone and grown up. If you got nothing new to say, why don’t you take it for granted that someone else has already said it, and said it better.
As for handing the place over to Islamist rule, well, whatcha got left in your pants big boy? Is that a gherkin in your pocket, or are you just all out of hard ideas. Dubya’s great idea of having the Ethiopians invade as his proxy army lasted about as long as Dubya’s free money. The Ethiopians have gone home. Things have degenerated back to SOP hellhole.
Turns out the Islamists were an improvement. Too bad sanctimonious nimrods had to screw it up.
Somalia, remember, is that charming country where two Italian nuns were butchered in 2006
Remind me to tell ya sometime about the busload of nuns in El Salvador sometime.
Islam is a gravely deficient religion, and that its basic problems are rooted in the denial of the Logos (i.e. the second person of the Trinity).
Oh yeah, that’s probably it.
February 21st, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Skeptic,
Don’t be dumb. I’m a FMLN supporter myself, and I despise the ARENA regime and its Reaganite backers as much as anyone. But the fact that the United States supported the murder of nuns in the 1980s does not mean that we must do so today. I despise ARENA, and I also despise the Jihadists.
I notice that none of you are denying the reality that you guys are, in fact, Islamophiles.
February 21st, 2009 at 3:11 pm
Hector, you snippy little dog shaver, you might want to mind your manners. All this calling of people as ‘hipsters’ and ‘islamists’ does you no good. It merely opens doors. You might not enjoy what comes through a door you open, capische, Cabanaboy?
Now, I am not an Islamophile, and I’ll thank you not to make that accusation. Things could get unpleasant.
As for the murder of nuns? Well, that’s just terrible, wherever and whenever it happens. However, its not like murdering nuns is peculiar to Somalia, or to Islamists. In fact, as you’ll acknowledge, Latin America was quite the shooting gallery for clergy through the 1970’s and 1980’s. It doesn’t take a ‘hipster’ to point that out. Nor does it take an ‘Islamophile’ to point out that Latin America is not a muslim region.
February 21st, 2009 at 3:17 pm
By the way, the ‘trinity’ is theological nonsense.
February 21st, 2009 at 3:23 pm
By the way, the better link to that same article, so it’s one page rather than five pages, is:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4682&print=1
(I’d try hyperlinking, but this commenting system doesn’t have a Preview function and I don’t trust it).
February 21st, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Don’t you ever read the War Nerd, Matt?
A. Those Khat-chewing youngsters (recall that the median age is ridiculously low, like in the teens) actually like being crazy gangster warlords.
and
B. The piracy happened because of an environmental crisis that will crop up with increasing frequency in the next decade or two: Taiwanese, Korean, and Japanese trawlers have been pillaging those waters for the 100 million or so Japanese who are addicted to fish.
Ordinarily, there would be a government to step in, but, see A, there isn’t any. So those fishermen turn to piracy, and guess what, that shit pays.
February 21st, 2009 at 4:16 pm
It’s stuff like this that shows you’re more interested in getting in jabs than arguing in good faith. The TFG has zero authority with anyone in Somalia. When you have a “government” of a country that isn’t even located in that country – the TFG mostly operates out of Kenya – then you’re just embracing a useful fantasy. The leaders of Somaliland have actual authority. The moderates Islamists whose power was destroyed by the Ethiopian invasion at least were recognized as some type of authority by the people in the area. Now instead of a bad semi-governmental structure they have no governing structure and more anarchy and a greater sense of radicalization among the Islamists in the area. Al, you should just be ashamed with yourself.
February 21st, 2009 at 5:16 pm
I see Hector is on a Christian rampage again. He doesn’t seem to mind at all when nuns get killed by Catholics, but he sure gets riled up when Muslims kill them. And, of course he sings the praise of the Nazi Pope. Remember, joining the Hitler Youth was a choice, and Benedict chose to join the Nazis. And remember that Hitler was elected by Christian population. If the Muslims ever want to kill as many Jews as Christians have, they have a lot of catching up to do.
That said, bring back the Islamic Courts. If nothing else, they kept the piracy under control. I don’t ever expect Somalia to be a peaceful democracy with human rights. My sights are aimed much lower. I just want whatever happens in Somalia to stay in Somalia. I just want an end to the piracy. The Ethiopian invasion caused piracy to flourish while the ICU rule caused it to stop. And if Hector wants them to stop killing nuns, the solution is simple: don’t send nuns to Somalia. Don’t send them to South America, either. The Catholics don’t like nuns and priests any more than the Muslims do. In fact, they kill them with greater speed. If you want your nuns and priests to be safe, send them to Turkey. Only one priest (and no nuns) has ever been killed in modern Turkey. More have been killed in the US. I’m guessing more have been killed in Italy too, but I don’t have numbers on that.
February 21st, 2009 at 5:59 pm
“If you want your nuns and priests to be safe, send them to Turkey.”
Actually, you should send them to Tibetan refugee camps in India. Those are safest places in the world. But that’s because they are completely devoid of any Christian influence. The Tibetans would never kill a priest or nun, or anyone else for that matter. But if Christians started to infiltrate the Tibetan community, violence would surely increase. When people become Christian, they become violent. History shows that very clearly. Buddhism is the least violent religion and Christianity is the most violent religion. In the end, I hope that Christianity never infects the Tibetan community. They are the last peaceful people on the planet. If Christianity infects them, they will no longer be peaceful. The Tibetan community has already been infected by Western culture, and violence has started to creep in. If Christianity hits the Tibetans, all Hell will break loose. They can survive Western culture, but they will never survive Christianity. Christianity is a disease that can never be cured.
February 21st, 2009 at 6:09 pm
Well, I suspect that there’s been no shortage of homicidal Buddhists. Basically, people can be assholes in any religion, and bad behaviour has a lot more to do with economics and opportunity than with faith.
I’m amused by Hector’s rambling about the logos and the trinity. Yep, you grow up getting this stuff shoveled down your throat and you take it for gospel. He’s merely naive in assuming that his crazy superstitious logic is automatically better than some other crazy superstitious logic.
But hey, wait for it. He’s gonna call us all ‘hipsters’ again.
February 21st, 2009 at 7:27 pm
“Well, I suspect that there’s been no shortage of homicidal Buddhists.”
No doubt, we call them ‘criminals.’ In Christianity, there are plenty of criminals, but many of them are called ‘churches’ or ‘governments’. There is plenty of history of Christian governments and churches committing unspeakable acts. In Buddhism, there are far fewer acts of systematic violence. Granted, Christian violence is so extensive that the finite nature of the planet precludes any real competition. Christians had a monopoly on violence in North America, South America, Europe, and Africa. Antarctica has never been colonized, so Christians have behaved properly there. The only continent left is Asia, the majority of which was brutally conquered and colonized by Christians. Thailand and Japan are the only countries in the world to avoid the Christian colonial enterprise. These are the only countries in the world were we could possibly talk about how some religion other than Christianity was somehow more violent. In every other country in the world, Christianity has proved to be the most violent religion. This is not to say that Buddhism is perfect, just look at Sri Lanka and Burma. Although in the case of Burma, the Buddhist clergy are solidly against the junta. If this were a Christian country, like say Germany, the clergy would certainly fall on the side of a genocidal government. If one on wants to argue that Christianity is a peaceful religion, one must ignore all of history after the First Council of Nicea in AD 325. Before that, the Christians were peaceful people. Since then, they are simply genocidal maniacs that make the Muslims look tame.
February 21st, 2009 at 7:44 pm
“[T]he internal politics of Somalia and the regional politics of the Horn of Africa just aren’t something that the American people or the American government are knowledgeable about or competent to deal with.”
This ignores a key reality: that the problems of Somalia do not belong entirely to the Somalis. Somali piracy threatens sea trade. Hundreds of thousands of Somali people have fled to other countries. The last time a group like the ICU ran wild in a country, it created a safe haven for international terrorists to attack the United States. I could go on…
The point is sometimes action is necessary even if you’re not qualified to take action; in that instance, you’re obligated to get competent.
February 21st, 2009 at 7:57 pm
If you know Gettleman’s history as a reporter, it’s all the more amazing what he says here. The guy is a violence adrenalin junkie. For example, when working for the NYTimes, for a little home break rest from trying to get kidnapped in places like Fallujah, in 2004, he busied himself with the Camden, New Jersey beat.
February 21st, 2009 at 8:33 pm
Matt: “There’s an enormous tendency in this town, and in establishment circles more generally, to see American involvement in a situation as by definition offering a solution….But because we’ve been unable to simply accept that the internal politics of Somalia and the regional politics of the Horn of Africa just aren’t something that the American people or the American government are knowledgeable about or competent to deal with. We’ve engaged fitfully, thoughtlessly, and in a manner that usually involves us getting manipulated by the much-better-informed and much-more-committed players on the ground.”
And this is the clown that wants us to stay in Afghanistan.
Can you say “hypocrite”? I knew you could. Now try “ignorant hypocrite”.
What the FUCK difference is there between Somalia and Afghanistan in this context?
And don’t haul out that hoary horseshit about “well, the Taliban let Al Qaeda attack us”. That was George Fucking Bush’s fault, not the Taliban, that Al Qaeda was able to do a successful major terrorist act in the US with absolutely no prevention (and quite possibly some assistance by way of deliberate omission).
The Taliban could have been convinced to stop allowing Al Qaeda to reside in their territory once they thought Al Qaeda was too much of a PITA because of the heat it brought down on them. They were almost ready to hand over bin Laden in 2001, but Bush wasn’t having any.
Disrupting Al Qaeda could have been done in a much cheaper fashion that didn’t require trying to “nation build” a country that has never been a nation in history.
And it’s quite likely that sooner or later some Somalia nuts with a grudge against the US will hit us which will make the Al Qaeda argument moot in the case of Somalia.
There was and is NO case to be made for invading Afghanistan OR Iraq OR Somalia OR Iran OR Pakistan. These are wars for the personal profit of the military-industrial complex and the banks that finance them and the oil companies and nothing more. There was and is NO legitimate reasons for them.
Matt (slowly) figured some of that out vis-a-vis Iraq, but he still hasn’t a clue when it comes to Afghanistan.
February 22nd, 2009 at 12:18 am
Nice that everybody is thinking ahead to doing things that might be useful, instead of just trading blame and name-calling.
Has anyone considered the possible opportunity that the change of administration might provide in this one place that is off the domestic political radar screen?
Especially because the Islamic Courts are going from strength to strength again, the Ethiopians are leaving and we are not doing much about it, wouldn’t this be as good a case as any for Obama to pursue a “reset” vis-a-vis Somalia. Something like this memo to the courts, “hey, uh those guys (Bush admin)who attacked you and backed the Ethiopian invasion. Yeah, just wanted to mention they weren’t us, and, we didn’t know what they were doing, and we (Obama admin) wouldn’t have done the same thing. Um, so we were thinking it might be a good idea if we mostly just supported a political resolution of Somalia’s situation and neither of us pull some proxy moves against each other, OK. In this way, we can keep the rhetoric down and we could be less likely to have Somalian Islamists be more genuinely and publicly hostile, and can avoid Osama making this appear as a “win” for his side in the world.
February 22nd, 2009 at 12:37 am
Skeptic,
I was raised an atheist, genius- my father was a particularly militant atheist, although I was also exposed a bit to Hinduism through my relatives. I converted to Christianity in college. That is why I take my faith more seriously than a lot of cradle Christians take theirs.
As for a logical proof of the Trinity, please see my blog post below, specifically the second paragraph, explicating the first sentence of the Gospel of St. John.
http://patriabolivariana2008.blogspot.com/2008/12/rumination-on-trinity.html
February 22nd, 2009 at 4:16 am
Hector, that’s really interesting. I was raised Atheist as well. I converted to Christianity to avoid discrimination. I liked the words of Jesus, but I could never accept the Trinity. It made no sense to me. Now that I’ve studied all the religions, I think the Trinity is hands down the most ridiculous concept of any religion. I haven’t read your defense of it yet, but I’ll take it with an open mind. Nobody has ever been able to explain what the Holy Spirit is, and that includes many priests and preachers. If you can explain it, more power to you. So I’ll go to your link, and I’ll try to understand it.
February 22nd, 2009 at 4:41 am
Okay, I read your defense of the Trinity, and I still have the same questions. Let’s just start with one: how is God different from the Holy Spirit? You don’t address that issue, and no Christian I’ve ever met has addressed that issue, either. My interpretation (and this is the only interpretation I know of) is that God represents the conscious aspects of creation and the Holy Spirit represents the subconscious aspects of creation. Am I right about that? You failed to even try to describe the Holy Spirit in your writing, so I don’t know what you or any Christian might think what the Holy Spirit actually represents. That’s what makes the Trinity so strange. We can all get the the Father and the Son, but what’s the Holy Spirit? No Christian has ever even known what that is or has even tried to explain it to me. And you didn’t even come close in you explanation. So let’s hear it now. What is the Holy Spirit? I want the explanation that no Christian has ever given. You think you’re a Christian scholar, so tell me. What is the Holy Spirit? It’s the greatest mystery in all of religious study, and no Christian that I know of has ever explained it. You could become the greatest religious scholar in history if you could just answer that question. But that’s what’s so strange. This issue has been around for more than a thousand years, and nobody wants to answer it? If nobody can say what the Holy Spirit is, I’d assume the entity doesn’t exist at all. And that says that there isn’t a Trinity. It’s just a binary system. But I believe that God doesn’t exist, so it’s just Jesus. He had some great words to say, it’s shame his followers don’t listen to them.
February 22nd, 2009 at 4:53 am
And I will make this threat/promise: Every time you write something, I will ask you, Hector, to explain what the Holy Spirit is. This will happen until either you or I die. Granted, you’ll get off the hook when I don’t notice you have written something. But you have to admit that the Trinity is a really strange concept given that one part of it has never been explained. It’s especially strange when the people who believe in it can’t even come close to explaining it.
February 22nd, 2009 at 5:04 am
Shorter fostert: the Trinity is pure bullshit. The Muslims were right. Prove me wrong or lick my ass.
February 22nd, 2009 at 12:29 pm
“Logical proof of the trinity”? You have to be kidding. I read Patrick’s blogpost, and its a staggering list of unexamined premises nesting inside each other like those little Russian dolls.
As one example: “God is necessarily perfect,” Is perfect a meaningful measurement? I can go with omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent. But perfect? Or omniperfect? We’re applying a very subjective measure which, I’d argue is meaningless applied to a transfinite being.
“and that the essence of moral perfection- the most perfect moral sentiment- is love.” But is that really true. Is love even a moral sentiment? Let alone, the most perfect moral sentiment?
“God is love, and has been love, for ever. But if that is true, then God must be a community of persons. For no one can love himself- not with the highest, truest degree of love. True love requires an object.” Maybe for petty humans. But God, by simple definition of being god, stands outside any categoy or requirement we impose.
Besides which, even if we accept all of the foregoing, why does God have to be a community of persons to love? According to this windy nonsense, all God requires is an object that is non-God. God creates these all the time in the form of Us, the Universe, Angels and various theological cosmological realms.
I’m sorry, but these bouts of circular reasoning you rely upon prove nothing. And their entertainment value is limited.
So anyway, you going to call us all ‘Hipsters’ or what?
February 22nd, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Skeptic,
My name isn’t “Patrick”. And my argument is basically an extended gloss on Anselm’s ontological argument, so you may want to start there first.
February 22nd, 2009 at 4:12 pm
“You should move deeper into the quicksand of irrationality and incoherence.”
Mmmm No.
February 22nd, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Is the concept of “Trinity” logical? According to one of the best logicians of all times, Johannes Duns Scotus, yes. One the other hand, perhaps the most logical is the theology of Douglas Adams:
They gazed at God’s Final Message to His Creation in wonderment, and were slowly and ineffably filled with a great sense of peace, and of final and complete understanding.
Fenchurch sighed. “Yes,” he said, “that was it”.
They had been staring at it for fully ten minutes before they became aware that Marvin, hanging between their shoulders, was in dificulties. The robot could no longer lift his head, had not read the message. They lifted his head, but he complained that his vision circuits had almost gone.
They found a coin and helped him to the telescope. He complained and insulted them, but they helped him look at each individual letter in turn. The first letter was a “w,” the second an “e”. Then there was a gap. An “a” followed, then a “p,” an “o,” and a an “l”.
Marvin paused for a rest.
After a few moments they resumed and let him see the “o,” the “g,” the “i,” the “z,” and the “e”.
The next two words were “for” and “the”. The last one was a long one, and Marvin needed another rest before he could tackle it.
It started with “i,” then “n,” then “c”. Next came an “o” and an “n,” followed by a “v,” an “e,” another “n,” and an “i”.
After a final pause, Marvin gathered his strength for the last stretch.
He read the “e,” the “n,” the “c,” and at last the final “e,” and staggered back into their arms.
“I think,” he murmured at last from deep within his corroding, rattling thorax, “I feel good about it”.
The lights went out in his eyes for absolutely the very last time ever.
Luckily, there was a stall nearby where you could rent scooters from guys with green wings.
This theology removes the paradox between benevolent God and the existence of Evil, but it is a bit thin if we want to use it to escape social anomie, a paramount problem in Somalia.
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