Sunday, December 23, 2007

"Why does Somalia receive less international attention than Darfur?"

Julie W., a graduate student in Global Affairs at NYU, e-mailed me a set of four thought-provoking questions about Somalia's future. With Julie's consent, I'm posting her questions and my replies in four successive posts. (To read the posts in their proper order, begin here.)

Here is Julie's fourth question:

A UN representative recently said that the current situation in Somalia was the worst humanitarian crisis in Africa. Why do you believe that the humanitarian crisis in Somalia has received so much less international attention than the situation in Darfur?

. . . and my response:

Sad to say, ever since our humiliating retreat in 1993, most Americans have not wanted to hear about Somalia at all. Our purposes in "invading" Somalia in 1992 with a massive show of military strength were far more altruistic than were the Ethiopians' last year, and the results -- at least initially -- were far more positive and humane. But, as we know, after our efforts had saved tens of thousands of Somali lives, things went sour, largely because we Americans undertook to repair the "root causes" of Somalia's problems by force. When Gen. Aideed and others resisted our repair efforts, most Americans reacted -- not unreasonably -- as if we'd had our hands bitten while trying to feed people. Never mind that it was far more complex than that, the result has been that Americans have generally been unsympathetic to humanitarian crises afflicting Somalia ever since.

What's worse, since 9/11, Americans have been led to believe by their government that Somalia, in its perpetual state of anarchy and violence, was an ideal "breeding ground for radical Islam" if not a training camp for al Qaeda suicide bombers. Accordingly, they've registered little surprise that their government has not only condoned but encouraged and supported Ethiopia's invasion of its neighbor under the banner of the "war on terror."

Darfur, meanwhile, has been a poster child for humanitarian intervention, a place where hateful Arab rulers have tormented and brutalized virtuous and impoverished black farmers by unleashing horse-mounted killers called "janjaweed" (as evil-sounding a name as you could possibly think of!) to burn their villages and rape their women. How could good and evil be more clearly delineated? How could we not come to the rescue of the people of Darfur? (To my mind, what's been inexplicable about Darfur is how slow we've been to come to its rescue. Perhaps it's because we're afraid of having our hands bitten once again. . . .)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Any human being would be shocked to know what america has been up to this year in somalia.

Not only has the united states financed financially and politically the ethiopian invasion of somalia, they have also actively took part in the war.

In one point, they killed 200 nomadic somali's in the somali countryside with powerful AC130 gunships, all this in the name of fighting terror.

The ethiopians are a poorly trained army that are deeply disliked by the somali people.
The ethiopians have batted the capital city with their tanks thereby driving 1.5 million somalis out of the capital city.

Now we have a serious humanitarian crises in somalia, where 1.5 million somalis do not have access to clean water or food or even shelter.

If anyone would like to know what made america do all this, it is because the somali people drove out the hated evil warlords who were the same ones that killed 600, 000 somalis and 18 american marines.
When the somalis got rid of the warlords that setup a new government called the islamic courts union.

There was one problem, america did not like the idea of seeing somalia having an Islamic government even though the government brought 6 months of peace and stability to somalia and chased out the warlord gangsters.

My friend, that is why somalia is not in the media, and that is why the Americans do not want know one to know the evil they have committed against the poorest nation on earth.
But the rest of the world especially the middle east watch on their screens the daily violence that america has created in somalia even though the western media make no coverage of the disaster in somalia.

Here is a video that explains, everything, why America invaded somalia, its a good interesting video, enjoy.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=b7MbCj_iMgw&feature=related


Now in somalia we have a terrible situation, the warlords are back in power but this time there are ethiopians that are raping and killing somalis.
So the hell that the somali people were in has become a greater hell.

I just wish that george bush and key members of he's administration can be taken to court in the future for crimes against humanity if there is any justice in this world.