A (Very) Faint Glimmer Of Hope In Somalia

For reasons best left to a psychologist, the Geek has always harbored a degree of fondness for the Somalis. Perhaps it is because they formerly fought out politics with poetry contests. Perhaps it is because they formerly were a rather laid-back people in a country with a strange, eerie, and quite hauntingly lonely beauty.

In any event he has watched the descent into bloody Islamist jihadist chaos in recent years with a mixture of pity and loathing. The Union of Islamic Courts had little to recommend it as a government other than the fact it was better than the years of warlord driven fighting which preceded it. The US sponsored overthrow of the UIC by Ethiopia had nothing to recommend it. It was yet one more very bad notion of the Bush/Cheney administration which defies rational analysis.

If the intent actually was, as represented by the neocon ninnies of the time, the denial of Somalia as a safe haven for Islamist jihadists, it was a counterproductive failure. The Ethiopian Army did dispatch the UIC. Beyond that they simply opened the door wide for the far more objectionable Al-Shabab. This crew of Islamist jihadist thugs assured only that the situation in Somalia went from the Fifth Circle of Hell to the First.

Other than the highly unlikely use of Western (that means US) troops, the only hope for stability ever emerging in the unfortunate artifact called Somalia was that of al-Shabab alienating the locals by its own constant movement to the more extreme. When that happened, and given the experience of Islamist jihadists in both Iraq and the Pakistani FATA, it was more a matter of when than if, and if there existed in Somalia a simulacrum of government, there would be a chance of bringing peace back to the vast, silent land.

Sheik Ahmed Sheik Sharif was more or less elected by the Transitional Federal Government in concert with assorted foreign powers. The Sheik has much in his favor. He is quite popular in the south of Somalia which is also the area most heavily dominated by al-Shabab. And, he was a heavy, perhaps the heavy in the old UIC.

Ahmed Sharif has moved to exploit divisions not only within al-Shabab but between that group and the rival Hizbul Islam. He has also sought with some slight degree of success to gain the support of tribal leaders aligned with neither jihadist entity.

The excesses of al-Shabab seem to have reached a tipping point with its recent campaign to extract gold and silver teeth from the mouths of any Somali so "Western" as to sport such appliances. Not unlike the anti-smoking effort involving chopping off fingers waged by the Islamist jihadists of Anwar province, this "purification in the name of Islam" monstrosity proved to be over the edge in the eyes of the locals.

Apparently far more Somalis see themselves as possible victims of al-Shabab's novel approach to dental surgery than envisioned themselves liable to lose hands and feet to the machetes of al-Shabab's Shariah enforcers. The tooth pulling brigade constituted one fear too many.

In the eyes of many Somalis who cannot for one reason or another flee the place for the dubious comfort and not much more certain safety of refugee camps in Kenya, al-Shabab had overstayed its welcome. Beyond that, there was no reason to support al-Shabab anymore. The Ethiopians were gone. And, rather than providing peace, stability, and justice, the "Youth" were responsible for violence, chaos, and arbitrary, unpredictable violence.

At the same time the Transitional Federal Government is hanging on. Perhaps even more than merely hanging on given the increase in the number of voluntary recruits for the new security forces receiving both arms and training in Djibouti. The minuscule African Union peace keeping force of four thousand under-armed and under-equipped men have shown a new and welcome willingness to do more than simply defend a few blocks around the government headquarters and port.

With the prospect of victory receding and popular support melting faster than an ice cube at high noon in Mogadishu, divisions within al-Shabab are showing themselves. These are not surprising as al-Shabab has never had a tight organisational structure nor a chain of command with both legitimacy and coherence. And, beyond the imposition of its own version of Shariah, al-Shabab has not had much of a long range political goal.

It is these features which give some hope for Ahmed Sharif being able to snatch a reasonable approximation of victory from the wide open jaws of defeat. It is also what may make al-Shabab even more dangerous than it currently is.

The lack of a unifying vision makes al-Shabab open to the expansive notions which power al-Qaeda and similar Islamist jihadist organizations. Foreigners have been arriving in Somalia every day as venues such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and the FATA become too dangerous. From the perspective of any Islamist jihadist capable of strategic thought, Somalia, in conjunction with Yemen, is a very desirable target.

Yemen is under increasing threat from the Islamist jihadists as the spreading insurgency in the north of that country demonstrates. Should both Somalia and Yemen fall under complete or majority Islamist jihadist sway, the southern approaches to the Suez Canal would be in the jaws of a very hostile vise.

The government of Yemen is not much to write home about, but it is far, far more of a reality than is the TFG of Somalia. From the operational perspective, the more attractive area, the more vulnerable one, is Somalia.

Assuming that there are Islamist strategists as opposed to mere mouthers of slogans, the race is on. The race is between the ability of Ahmed Sharif to exploit divisions in the local jihadist ranks and the ability of foreign origin Islamists to take over and give both coherence and direction to the al-Shabab gunsels.

The course of the race will become more evident in the next month or two. The probable outcome will be apparent before the end of the year. While the Geek really does hope that Ahmed Sharif will pull it off for the sake of a good and decent people who deserve far better than they have been experiencing, the race is very much in doubt.

It will take more, much more than forty tons of US furnished arms and ammunition to tilt the race in the better direction. It is to be hoped the Obama administration realizes this before the finish line is reached.

A Pretend Action For A Pretend Country

Here we go again. In an action for which no real justification was given, the Obama administration has decided to send weapons and ammunition to the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia. The swag will be dispatched indirectly through African intermediaries so as to avoid offending regional "sensitivities."

The State Department took great pains to point out that this indirect assistance is being provided in accordance with UN Security Council resolutions and does not represent any escalation of American involvement in the blood soaked sands of Somalia. Well, don't we all feel better knowing that the panjandrums of the "international community" will look kindly at this tid-bit of too-little-too-late assistance to a completely artificial government which does not fully control even a small enclave, a kind of "Green Zone" on the microscopic scale.

It has long been the Geek's view that the totality of the geographic expression called "Somalia" is not worth whatever might be today's American equivalent of Bismarck's famed "Pomeranian Grenadier." Somalia does not and never has had any organic reason to exist as a nation-state.

The entire concept of "Somalia" is a legacy of decisions made by long dead politicians in Europe. During the rush to de-colonization forty and more years ago, "Somalia" was cobbled together by the assorted artificers of Europe and the United Nations.

With flourishes of pens on pieces of parchment simulating paper, the rude assemblage of tribes and warlords was transformed to the dignity of nation-state status regardless of any structural or cultural realities. Without the slightest genuflection in the direction of the real world, the high minded of two generations ago crafted yet one more imitation country and stood back, quaffing champagne in commemoration of their broadminded nature and total disregard for the inevitable invocation of the Law of Unintended Consequences.

The concatenation of distant, high minded "statesmen" and local men of great ambition lurched along for a couple of decades before disintegrating in the aftermath of the US sanctioned removal of an obnoxious dictator, Said Barre, in 1991. Two years later in a remarkably poorly conceived and pathetically executed "humanitarian relief" operation, the US provided an object lesson in how quickly it could be defeated.

Al-Qaeda, which was already represented in Somalia, took quick notice of how the US could be forced to retreat by the high visibility deaths of a couple of dozen Special Forces personnel. The rapidity of the US bugout was, shall we say, an emboldening sight for Osama bin Laden, et al.

Over the next fifteen or so years the road in Somalia was all down hill. An increasingly bloody hill at that. For a brief while the slide to total chaos was arrested by the Ethiopian army, which undertook a "stability oriented operation" with US support. But, even the Ethiopians could be worn out by the willingness of the Islamist jihadists to both die and kill.

The "international community" stuck its well-meaning fingers back into the Somalian grinder with the Djibouti Agreement between the fiction they had created called the Transitional Federal Government and an anti-government entity, The Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia. At the end of the talk-shake-and-grin session, the assembled Deep Thinkers carpentered an agreement which placed a one time head of the Islamist jihadist group, Al-Shabab, one Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, as the Chief of State and Head of Government.

It was hoped that this one time "extremist" turned present day "moderate" would cut the political ground out from under Al-Shabab or, failing that, some of the other proliferating Islamist jihadist groups. Of course, as with all the other efforts to fabricate something from nothing, the Djibouti Agreement didn't work out as planned.

Al-Shabab has gone from victory to victory. As the refugees flee, the nauseating thugs of Islamism have gained control of most of the rump of Somalia. (The rump is that part of the initial Somalia less the purportedly semi-autonomous regions of Puntland and Somaliland.)

Al-Shabab is given to the most extreme and barbaric interpretations of Sharia as evidenced most recently by the lopping off of the right hands and left feet of four young men convicted according to the Islamist understanding of due process for the crime of theft. (The reports of the public maimings are silent as to whether an anesthetic was used or if the surgical instrument--a machete--wielded by the hooded executioners was sterilised. Oh, well, it is all in the hands and will of Allah.)

When not lopping off limbs or stoning girls who have the bad judgement as to be raped, the Warriors of the Prophet's Will extend hospitality to Al-Qaeda and others of that ilk. As life has become more exciting and shorter in Afghanistan and the FATA of Pakistan, there has been an increasing flow of Al-Qaeda trigger-pullers and wannabe suicide bombers into Somalia.

It is that last fact and that alone which gives any justification for any American involvement no matter how indirect and minimal in the Somalian blood stew. Arguably, the aid announced today is too late by months, if not years, and too little by orders of magnitude to have any positive impact on the situation in Somalia.

As the pirates of the Somalian coast have demonstrated with a clarity which cannot be denied by anyone, Somalia has strategic importance for the national interests of the United States and many other countries. The cruciality of Somalia is enhanced by the deterioration of stability in Yemen.

The control of Somalia and Yemen by Al-Qaeda or similar Islamist jihadist groups brings with it the realistic possibility that the turbaned thugs would be well sited to interdict entrance to the Red Sea. To state that free transit of the Gulf of Aden is critical to the economic stability of the West as well as large portions of the Mideast is to belabor the obvious.

If the Obama administration is serious about protecting the national and strategic interests of the US, it is necessary to prevent the Islamists from gaining uncontested control of Somalia--and Yemen. The same may be said of Her Majesty's Governments and the other governments within the European Union. Tentative measures such as that announced today by the State Department are of little, if any, utility if the policy goal is assuring al-Qaeda and other Islamist entities are not to be given an immense advantage.

The US may be involved in two distant and frustrating wars. Even if we can say with a straight face that we have done all we can do in Iraq, the same cannot be averred concerning Afghanistan. Afghanistan is at the tipping point. The next twelve to eighteen months will determine whether or not the US and its coalition partners achieve the minimum necessary strategic goal of "not-losing." Next door in Pakistan the government may have achieved the initiative but it is a very long way from having bested Taliban in the struggle for authority.

It seems that the last thing the US needs is one more war. Certainly Somalia in and of itself is not worth a war. It is not worth a single American death. The idea of creating a functioning nation-state in Somalia is even more loonie tunes than the notion of Afghanistan as a liberal, pluralistic democracy.

The alternative to direct involvement by US and other Western forces in Somalia is the acceptance of an Islamist jihadist sanctuary on one of the most important sea lines of communication. The domination of Somalia by al-Shabab and its al-Qaeda "guests" will bring in its train an Islamist jihadist success in Yemen. Not only would the Gulf of Aden be held in jihadist jaws, the combination of Yemen and Somalia would give the Islamist jihadists a well positioned base for efforts directed against the totality of the Horn of Africa as well as the House of Sand (AKA Saudi Arabia.)

It may be that the Obama administration has awakened at long last to the threat presented by Islamist jihadists in the geographic expression called "Somalia." If that is the case, the response would be risable were it not so tragic in its potential consequences.

Mr Obama likes to see himself, present himself, as a conciliator, a (to use a cliche the Geek has seen too often in the past year or so) "builder of bridges." All of that is very nice, very comforting, very laudable. It is, unfortunately, quite out-to-lunch.

It is long past time for the Obama administration to do what the seemingly hyper-muscular Bush-Cheney administration never had the geopolitical good sense to do. It is time to take the war against Islamist jihadism back to the place where it started. Somalia.

Do it now. Or do it later. The brutal truth is that the Islamist jihadists must be confronted and killed wherever and whenever they appear. The longer the reality is ignored and the requirements of reality denied, the harder the task will be. The longer the US and the rest of the West wait, the higher the final butcher's bill will be.

It ain't pretty. But, the real world of passionate hates and fears never has been.

Somalis Feed Al-Shabab Some Raw Meat

File this one under the When Will They Ever Learn heading. Or, better, perhaps, put it under the category Do They Really, Really Want To Learn?

The "They" in this case is the pretend parliament of the pretend state, Somalia. In a move totally lacking in either surprise or rationality, the parliament of the Somalian Transitional National something or another unanimously passed the imposition of Sharia on the "country." The move was explained as was the earlier approval of the measure by the cabinet as a being a way of appeasing the Islamist jihadists of al-Shabab.

As has been said many times before, appeasement is like tossing raw meat to a wolf in the expectation that by so doing the wolf will become a vegetarian.

The Transitional National Something or Another (TNSoA) will have to do a powerful lot of appeasing. It effectively controls a few blocks in what was once downtown Mogadishu. The Islamist jihadists of al-Shabab have nearly all of southern and central Somalia under their gun--and version of Sharia.

Failing this, the fall-back position has been the assertion that by embracing Sharia as the basis of Somali law, moderate Islamists and Sufis will be mobilized to support the TNSoA.

Right. Fer sure, dudes.

These two positions were also invoked to justify the selection of Sheik Sharaf Sheik Ahmed as the capo d'tutti capi of the TNSoA. Sheik Ahmed is a "moderate" Islamist who was once the Grand Panjandrum of al-Shabab. His selection was presumed to be an appeasement of his one-time followers.

The current al-Shabab heavies made a collective rude gesture and kept on shooting, bombing and stoning women. A motley crew of Sufi and "moderate" Islamists gave rhetorical support to the Sheik. At least they used his selection as Maximum Leader to excuse self-interested shooting back at the al-Shabab gun thugs.

There is just one little problem with the expectations expressed by the TNSoA.

The appeasement won't work. That reality is inherent.

Sharia is susceptible to human interpretation as is any and every system of jurisprudance. The Sharia of the TNSoA may be indistinguishable in application from that of al-Shabab. The difference between Brand A and Brand B versions of Sharia will be nonexistent. In that case why not just let al-Shabab take over? At the least lives will be saved--for now.

In the event the TNSoA version of Sharia is less repressive in application, less oppressive in effect, then there is no reason to believe that the True Believers of al-Shabab will toss in the Koran and go back to whatever peaceful pursuits they followed before going on Allah's War. Right now al-Shabab has power. It is feared. Further, it is winning. Without a strong, strong inducement extending far beyond the mere adoption of Sharia, even all-the-way-and-then-some Sharia, there is no reason to give up the pleasures of killing, raping, stealing and generally raising merry hell in the finest traditions of Somali history.

As has been seen dramatically in Pakistan, appeasement comes a cropper from the very moment it is attempted. The government of Pakistan effectively surrendered to the Islamist jihadists of Swat. They have their much desired Sharia. No woman is safe. Neither is any man who doesn't want to grow a beard. Neither is any video store, Internet cafe or other business which is not fully Sharia approved.

Did that satisfy the Islamists?

Don't be silly. Of course not. Islamists are total in their goals. Swat was not and never could be enough to satisfy them. Now they want the entire country to go Sharia Heavy. Even were that to come to pass, the Islamists would have more demands. They would go from demand to demand until the last slice of the Pakistani salami disappeared down Islamist throats.

It is this reality which puts the lie to those who aver that the ending of Somali piracy can only happen when Somalia has a fully functioning and effective government capable of enforcing the law (of course, only that which is fully compliant with Sharia) and providing meaningful employment to the young men of Somalia. Not even the endorsement of this position by SecDef Gates makes it right.

Sharia allows piracy. The limitation is that the piracy must be directed against the ships of infidels and apostates. The ever-so-Muslim Ottoman Empire had no problems with such of its outlying territories as Tunis engaging in systematic, government sponsored and run piracy as long as the ships and crews seized and enslaved were not Islamic (and Istanbul got its share of the vigorish.)

Historically there have been few ways of making money in Somalia beyond subsistance agriculture and herding. One has been conducting trade in exotic African commodities such as ivory. A second has been dealing in slaves, particularly the transport of Africans to the Arabian states. The third was piracy.

While the trade in body parts from African animals has been reduced in recent years, it still exists. The same can be said regarding human trafficking. But, both of these avenues of enterprise can employ only a few.

Piracy is the big employer. The big money maker. This will not change when Somalia gets a government--if it ever does. Too much must not be made of the few months during which the Union of Islamic Courts functioned as a central government. While, as is to be expected, apologists for the UIC insist that it eradicated piracy and would do so again under the name of al-Shabab, the reality is that conditions in the transitory regime of the UIC were too chaotic for piracy to emerge on an industrial level as has been the case more recently.

The way piracy is stopped is to make it unprofitable compared to the risks involved. This means interdicting pirate boats before they can seize a target. It means killing pirates to either prevent seizures or to recapture ships from them. It means pursuing pirates wherever and whenever they are located. Killing them if they resist. Trying, convicting and jailing them if they don't. Above all, it means preventing ship owners or insurance firms from paying ransoms.

The French and the Americans have shown how it can be done. So also have the Dutch--to a limited extent. A Dutch commando unit (probably Dutch Marines, a completely professional and tough bunch as the Geek knows from personal experience) captured a pirate "mothership." They liberated the captive Yemeni crew. Then, after disarming the pirates, the Dutch cut them loose.

Dutch law gave no alternative. But, the Dutch may have another bite at the apple. Pirates have captured a dredger with a Dutch citizen as a member of the crew. The hijack took place over three hundred miles from Somalia. The dredger is under surveillance by US and other nations' assets.

Dutch law allows the arrest of pirates if one of the victims has Dutch citizenship. One can only hope that the Dutch warship, The Seven Provinces, is underway at flank speed to the present location of the captive dredge. And, that the commandos on board are good-for-go one more time.

The new breed of pirates must be taught the lesson finally learned by pirates of past centuries. Every man's hand is against them. The only sure reward for piracy is berth space in Davy Jones' Locker.

How Far Can A Collapsed State Collapse?

Sometimes it seems that Somalia is one of those amazing astronomical phenomena, an imploding star. For a while the collapse of a star makes sense, it cools and shrinks, cools and shrinks some more. Carried far enough the one-time stellar body becomes a dwarf and then a neutron star, cold and dense beyond imagining.

Then, life in the universe gets really weird. If the star keeps shrinking it rips through the fabric of space becoming a black hole--a portal sucking endless energy and matter to who knows where and for who knows what purpose.

Here, in the privacy and comfort of our own planet, Somalia is doing a mighty fine imitation of one of those collapsing stars. It now seems to be teetering on the edge of the final implosion, of becoming a terrestrial black hole into which many can enter and nothing useful emerge.

If you think back a few years, during the short and not-particularly-bloodless period of the ascendancy of the Union of Islamic Courts, the name Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed will come to mind. Before the UIC was ousted by the Ethiopian army at the behest of the "international community" he was one of the leaders.

At that time a group going by the name of al-Shabab was the armed (and quite dangerous) wing of the Islamic Courts. It was the guns of al-Shabab which propelled Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed and his associates into power. And kept them there until the superior firepower of the Ethiopians (temporarily) trumped the assorted Wahhabists and Salifists of the gun slinging youth.

The Ethiopian troops proved over the next two years to be far better at looting, killing and alienating virtually all Somalis then they were at stabilizing the resultant chaos. At the same time the African Union showed an ability almost unequalled--even by the UN--to talk, bemoan, wring hands, make promises and do nothing effectual as Somalia spiraled into a continuous state of collapse.

Somalia became a dwarf state, a red dwarf drawing its color from the blood spilled by both the Ethiopians and the varied internal fighters, most notably al-Shabab.

During 2008 al-Shabab's fighters--overwhelmingly the products of Saudi Arabian funded Wahhabist mosques--shot, knifed and beheaded their way through the country. Throughout the year the Transitional National Authority created by the "international community" stalled in endless internal turmoil and revolving door officials. As refugees fled to Kenya and Uganda and the Ethiopian army decided it had pillaged enough, the "international community" cast about for a (final?) solution.

One was finally found a few weeks ago. In an effort at reconciliation in Djibouti, the "internationals" hit on a solution to halt the implosion. It was decided to bring back Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed.

Now Sheik Ahmed was hailed as a "moderate Islamists." All the reasons adduced only a couple of years earlier for the necessity of removing the Union of Islamic Courts and Sheik Ahmed were forgotten. No longer was the Sheik the illegitimate head of a brutal, repressive, human rights violating bunch of Sharia powered thugs. Now the Sheik was the man of the moment, the new President of the New-And-Improved Somalia.

Presumably the folks in Djibouti, both Somali and foreign, believed (or convinced themselves, it is an open question) that Sheik Ahmed had the juice necessary to bring al-Shabab into the fold, to convince the jihadists to put aside their AKs and RPGs, their violent commitment to Sharia of the most bloody and repressive sort.

Apparently the lads of al-Shabab having become accustomed to the joys of victory, of stoning women, of decapitating apostates who somehow transgressed the nuances of the al-Shabab version of Sharia were not in a hurry to welcome back Sheik Ahmed and turn "moderate." For them, (to paraphrase Barry Goldwater in 1964) extremism in defense of Sharia is no vice and moderation in the pursuit of total victory is no virtue.

Al-Shabab is not happy with the Sheik. Other Somalis, particularly Sunnis of the non-Wahhibist, non-Salifist sort are among those who are, if not happy, at least willing to accept the Sheik as a force for peace.

Another group which is pleased enough with Sheik Ahmed is comprised of the Sufis of Somalia. They are so pleased with the Sheik and so displeased with al-Shabab that the Sufis have formed their own militia, the militia is named Ahlu-Sunna Wal-Jama'a. Recently the militia has enjoyed defeating al-Shabab in a handful of skirmishes in central Somalia.

While the idea of Sufis as warriors may come as a surprise to most Americans and Westerners generally given the mystical nature of the ancient Muslim sect, Sufis actually have quite a record of both the will and the ability to fight. It might be recalled that the followers of the Mahdi in Sudan a century and a quarter ago, the so-called "dervishes" who defeated General "Chinese" Gordon and took a fair amount of killing a decade later by the Maxim guns of the Anglo-Egyptian expeditionary force, were largely Sufi in affiliation.

The Sufis must feel they have no choice. Wahhabist and Salifist doctrine holds that Sufis are heretics and thus, like all such apostates, must either repent or die. Al-Shabab has already demonstrated that it is not likely to shrink from this task.

The combination of Sufis and non-Wahhibist, non-Salifist Sunnis are both capable and increasingly motivated to offer resistance to al-Shabab and those such as al-Qaeda which support them. This means the sectarian predicated slaughter in Somalia has a real potential for rapid escalation.

Al-Shabab gives no hint of a willingness to blink as the conflict becomes eyeball-to-eyeball. The Sufis have no options other than flight or fight. The Sunnis in the middle have the same choice.

Against the backdrop of nearly two decades without an effective central government and considering the patent inability of those artifacts of the "international community," the AU, the UN or the International Crisis Group to do more than jawbone and pass resolutions, the probability of further sanguinary implosion looms large. When True Belief meets True Desperation, the black hole opens wide.

And, through that hole the remnants of Somalia as well as the hopes and efforts of the "international community" will be sucked to oblivion.