Somalia

I keep writing about the neglected fronts in the fight against al-Qaeda and showing how fundamentalist Sunni Islam is rising worldwide while Bush mires us deeper and deeper into the war in Iraq, a war that had nothing to do with the people who attacked America on 9/11.

Somalia has been part of the war on al-Qaeda for many years now. And yet Republicans seem hell-bent on ignoring it. When Clinton had stabilized 90% of Somalia, with the (sometimes reluctant) cooperation of most of the Somali leaders, Republicans complained that his intervention (initiated by the elected George Bush) had no strategic purpose and no exit strategy. Odd that they said that about a nation that went on to become a focal point of al-Qaeda activity and which is now poised to become a regional disaster, yet they don't say the same thing about Bush's Iraq quagmire which also has no obvious strategic purpose, except to distract from the war against al-Qaeda, and has no exit strategy. Clinton recognized the situation in Somalia as one where religious fundamentalism and political chaos would prevail if we did not act to stabilize the are. Yet, Republicans blocked his efforts, forcing a withdrawal and subsequently political chaos resulted, leaving it to al-Qaeda linked, Taliban-like fundamentalists to provide a measure of stability. The jist of a BBC Radio show I participated in was just that: Somalis welcomed the US intervention, hoping it would bring stability, felt betrayed when the US left suddenly, then, after years of civil war, welcomed the fundamentalists as providing some safety and stability. In effect, Republican neglect of the region, along with neglect of Afghanistan, Pakistan and a whole slew of nations, was allowing what I call a nascent fundamentalist Sunni Caliphate to get going, creating fundamentalist, often al-Qaeda linked groups to form all over the world.

Current TV, Al Gore's innovative TV channel, has done some pretty amazing things. They got film crews into North Korea, into places in Iraq far from the Green Zone, and were the first journalists into a Somalia arms market before the Islamic Fundamentalists took Mogadishu. It is their willingness to go where most journalists don't have the balls to go that makes the network worth watching.

Back when they went in to film Mogadishu in chaos, with battling warlords and their factions making arms dealing a major industry, it was astonishing the constant aura of threat that permeated Mogadishu under the warlords. These are the people Clinton had nearly defeated, but lack of Congressional support led to a withdrawal that allowed a resurgence of chaos. And Bush sat back allowing that chaos to happen, making the Islamic Fundamentalists the ONLY option Somalis had for stability.

When I participated in a live radio broadcast some months back discussing the initial takeover by the Islamic Fundamentalists, most of the Somalis who participated considered the Islamic takeover a good thing for one reason: it promised stability. They expressed their appreciation for the American intervention and a sense of betrayal at the American withdrawal. In the absence of American influence, they saw the fundamentalists as the only way to end the chaos.

And so Mogadishu and the whole Southern half of Somalia fell to fundamentalists and Bush did nothing. By and large the Western Press did nothing but report from a distance. But CurrentTV went in to see what life was like under the Somali Taliban.

Back in June, I think it was, my blogging about Bush's disastrous foreign policy failures enabling a rising Islamic Fundamentalist Caliphate, as I described it, got the attention of BBC radio. They invited me to participate in a call in program about the rise of Islamic fundamentalists in Somalia, which was my first 30 minutes of fame. I didn't really feel like I came off well on their show as it wasn't really a format I was comfortable with, but it sure was flattering to have my blogging noticed!

Since then I have continued to write about our increasing losses to Islamic fundamentalism and our failures to counter it. Most recently I wrote about the rise of fundamentalists in Bahrain. I criticize the Republicans for failing to back Clinton's attempts to stabilize Somalia and to stop al-Qaeda, instead chastising him for being "obsessed with al-Qaeda" as if that was a bad thing. I criticize Bush for putting the war against the terrorists who attacked us on the back burner in his rush to attack the two Muslim nations arguably most opposed to al-Qaeda: Iraq and Iran. By picking on these three groups, Bush has picked fights with three completely disparate parts of the Muslim world: secular Sunni, fundamentalist Sunni and fundamentalist Shi'ite. Attacking all three in essence confirms in the eyes of much of the world the accusation that Bush has declared a Crusade on all Islam.