Clintoon Legacy Update: Mogadishu Captured by Al Qaeda Group

[PittsburghAfterDark]

Well, so much for that Clintoon milestone. Yes, Clintoon, I did not make a typo.

Warlord militia advance towards Mogadishu-residents
08 Jun 2006 10:15:00 GMT
Source: Reuters

NAIROBI, June 8 (Reuters) - Warlords defeated by Islamist militia in the battle for Mogadishu have advanced back towards the Somali capital from their stronghold of Jowhar, residents said on Thursday.

The residents, reached by phone from Nairobi, told Reuters the Islamist militia, who took Mogadishu on Monday and had threatened Jowhar, were pulling back towards the town of Balad, on the road to the capital.

Women protesters gather before attending a pro-Islamic courts union rally at Fagah in Somalia capital Mogadishu June 6, 2006. Islamic militia vowed to turn Somalia into a religious state on Tuesday, pushing north to take more territory after winning a three-month battle for Mogadishu. The banner reads, "The U.S. is looking for a vengeance or revenge, mister. Know this, the more you oppress us, the stronger in our faith we shall get".
Link (http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L08179589.htm)

Clintoon cuts and runs after a bloody nose? This is what happens.

Good job Bill, that blowjob you received surely helped the people of Somolia huh?

[AlonzoMourning23]

You do realize that the warlords are the reason there is no effective government in somalia, since they toppled it. They have divided the city between them, there is no security for the average person in areas they controlled, and they have looted much of the city. They islamic courts also have stronger public support than any other group.

They have been accused of having terrorists in their group, but even the u.s. doesn't claim that they are an al qaeda group. The head of the group is a known moderate, 2 of the 11 courts are what are in question, one of which is headed by a man who used to be in a now disbanded group linked to al qaeda, but was not an al qaeda group. The concern is those may aid them. 9 out out the 11 courts are not considered extremist.

The Islamist militia that now controls Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, has emerged out of a judicial system funded by the powerful business community to try and bring some law and order to a country without a government.

But over the past two years, the Union of Islamic Courts has emerged into Somalia's strongest fighting force - forcing the warlords who have controlled the capital for the past 15 years into retreat.

BBC Somali Service editor Yusuf Garaad Omar says they are the most popular political force in the country.

There are 11 autonomous courts in Mogadishu, some of which have periodically tried to clamp down on robbery, drugs and what they say are pornographic films being shown in local video houses.

At first they concentrated on petty crime but by the mid 1990s they had progressed to dealing with major crimes in north Mogadishu.

Thieves had their limbs amputated and murderers were executed.

Mr Garaad says that despite protests from human rights bodies, north Mogadishu residents were pleased to enjoy law and order - in stark contrast to south Mogadishu, where crime was rampant.

The system has since further expanded and the Islamic courts also validated transactions such as the purchase of houses and cars.

They also oversaw weddings and divorces and expanded their authority across most of the capital, while staying out of politics.

"They were really trusted by the people, who had no other institution to go to," Mr Garaad says.

Clan courts

The Islamic courts say they want to promote Islamic law rather than clan allegiance, which has divided Somalis over the past 15 years.

However, all but one of the 11 courts is associated with just one clan - the Hawiye, who dominate the capital, but they are divided into sub-clans.

In order to avoid accusations of clan bias, each court would try members of their own sub-clan, wherever the alleged crime was committed.

Some clan elders in north Mogadishu have now set up their own court, independent of the union.

Al-Qaeda links?

The union's public face is its chairman Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, a moderate who sought to assure Somalis and the international community this week that the Islamic Courts were no threat and only wanted order.

Mr Ahmed, 32, is a law graduate from Libya and former secondary school geography teacher.

But the union does contain radical elements.

Two of the 11 courts are seen as militant; one is led by Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, on an American list of terrorism suspects because he used to head al-Itihaad al-Islamiya, which was linked to al-Qaeda.

Mr Aweys says al-Itihaad no longer exists and also denies accusations from some western diplomats and observers that there are training grounds for Islamic fighters in Somalia.

He is, however, strongly critical of the United States and its "war on terror".

Western diplomats are also concerned by Afghanistan-trained militia commander Adan Hashi Ayro, whose militiamen have been implicated in numerous killings of Somali nationals, as well as five foreign aid workers and a BBC producer, Kate Peyton.

Hated

But Somalia is a strongly Islamic country and many people support the courts.

During the years of warfare and anarchy, many Somalis have increasingly turned to their faith for some sort of stability.

One visible sign is that before the civil war began in the 1980s, very few women wore headscarves in Mogadishu.

Now, almost every woman wears a headscarf and an increasing number are wearing veils covering their faces, with just narrow slits for the eyes.

Even those Mogadishu residents who are wary of Islamic extremism may welcome a single group being in control of the capital for the first time in 15 years, saying there will at least be some authority.

And most will prefer Islamic preachers to the warlords who have repeatedly fought over and in many cases systematically looted the city since 1991.

BBC Somali analyst Yusuf Garaad Omar says the warlords were hated - even more so because of the widespread belief that they were being backed by the US.

The US has not been well thought of in Somalia since its humanitarian intervention went disastrously wrong - leading to the death of maybe 1,000 Somalis and 18 US troops in 1993.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/5051588.stm

I don't like the courts or the warlords. But I'm not exactly sure how these islamic courts could possibly be worse than the warlords. At worst it will be a draw.

Here's an article that goes into more details on the complexity of the situation:

Somalia's current crisis has been anything but simple to explain, involving layers of competing interests between rival clans, ideologies, factions, and business groups. In late May, Menkhaus made a short trip into Somalia and Kenya to interview members of Somalia's new transitional government, international diplomats, aid workers, and others to gain a clearer understanding of the dramatic developments in the country. He caught a United Nations flight from Kenya to Baidoa, Somalia, the country's provisional capital and seat of the struggling Transitional Federal Government (TFG). He spent 48 hours there, conducting interviews and briefly observing a session of the 275-member parliament meeting in a hastily converted World Food Programme warehouse.

?????? His primary mission in Baidoa and Nairobi was to assess the conflict dynamics in Mogadishu, and conduct an inventory of specific steps the TFG is taking toward establishing a functional central government in a country which has been without one for fifteen years. Menkhaus reviewed essential legislation, critical bottlenecks in revising the government, and specific donor programs that support the TFG. "I'm trying to create a precise portrait of the TFG -- where it stands and what it needs," he said.

?????? His reports on Somalia are commissioned by a wide range of entities, including the United Nations, policy think-tanks, the U.S. and other governments, and non-profit groups engaged in relief and development efforts in the country. Menkhaus values the role of practitioner-academic. "Periodically stepping in and out of the policy world has been a great learning experience," he observed. "I know it has made me a more precise and careful writer and analyst, and I hope it has enriched my teaching of politics."

?????? Menkhaus said the fact that Somalia's TFG has begun meeting again after a year of inactivity provides a glimmer of hope for the country. However, he conceded that few analysts are optimistic that the TFG will succeed in the face of its enormous hurdles. One of the first crises facing the TFG is insecurity. Menkhaus observed, "There's no law and order even in Baidoa, the temporary capital. The town was swarming with militias and battlewagons when I was there. One freelance militia set up a roadblock outside of parliament to extort money from parliamentarians trying to get to work, and no one could do anything about it."

?????? The session that Menkhaus attended was mostly devoted to animated discussion of the growing fighting in Mogadishu, which this week resulted in Islamists gaining control of the city from various U.S.-backed militia leaders calling themselves a counter-terrorism alliance. The Parliament successfully pressured the Prime Minister to sack four of the members of the alliance who had positions in the cabinet.

?????? "The victory of the Islamists was very unexpected and is a seismic shift in Somali affairs," Menkhaus said. "No one foresaw that they would be able to take over all of Mogadishu."

?????? However, the group has been operating in the city for some time. In fact its Sharia court system has been the city's only source of law and order, and its schools and hospitals have been valued by citizens as the city's only social services.

?????? The problem, said Menkhaus, is a hard line faction within the Islamists who have a political agenda that may include cooperation with international terrorists. "One of the things we'll be watching closely is the power struggle between Islamist moderates and hard liners," he said. "The moderates have been approachable and open to collaboration."

?????? The U.S. Government has a particular bone to pick with the Islamists. The U.S. believes that three non-Somalis involved in the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi in 1998 are being provided safe haven by the Islamists in Mogadishu. That concern, said Menkhaus, led the U.S. to forge partnerships with a number of Somali leaders and groups in hopes of capturing the suspects, including the eight militia leaders who announced the formation of the counter-terrorism alliance in February. That move precipitated the war with the Union of Islamic Courts.

?????? Menkhaus said Somalia currently is at a critical juncture. Depending on key decisions made in days and weeks to come by the Islamists, the TFG, the U.S. government, and neighboring Ethiopia, Somalia will be pushed into one of several very different scenarios. If the Islamists produce a regional administration with moderate leadership, there is a chance for dialogue with the TFG. If hard liners emerge as the top leaders, renewed war is a real possibility.

?????? Outside of his immediate engagement in Somalia matters, Menkhaus has focused his sabbatical on research about protracted conflicts and informal systems of governance in the Horn of Africa, completing research he began several years ago with support from a U.S. Institute of Peace grant. During the past year, while serving as a visiting scholar at Uppsala University's Department of Peace and Conflict Studies in Sweden, he has conducted fieldwork in Kenya, Somalia, Somaliland, Ethiopia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and plans to travel to south Sudan later this summer.


http://newswire.ascribe.org/cgi-bin/behold.pl?ascribeid=20060608.072853&time=07%2037%20PDT&year=2006&public=0

[penmyst]

Africa is a mess and it ain't ever going to be fixed by outsiders.

This is just another example of that concept, as well as more reinforcement of just how inept Bill Clinton was in foreign policy particularly his misuse of the military.

Most normal folks already knew that.

The rest of them are rabid leftists that aren't willing to see the truth about Clinton and continue to live in their fantasy lands where Clinton was a great president.

[rastaman]

Penmyst and PAD:

If Clinton mis-used our military in Mogodishu then you must also agree that Bush has mis-used our military in Iraq.??Anyone with common sense knows you can't declare war on an idealogy nor can you use a conventional military to effectively fight terrorism. The terrorism should be fought and prosecuted by law enforcement and special forces; not with a conventional army trained to fight the armies of another nation.

After all Rabid Conservatives can't have it both ways.??Bush has been in office long enough to clean up the (proposed) messes from Clinton.??The only problem is -- Bush is creating more problems especially with his imperialistic warmongering foreign policy.??

Clinton fore warned Bush during a one-on-one out brief that Osama would be his biggest threat.??However, Bush chose to ignore Clinton's advice.??During the months leading up to 911, Bush had access to classified daily bulletins on Osama's plans to attack the U.S., yet bush went on a 5 week vacation during that time frame.??

Bush never called an emergency meeting with his National Security team---not once!!!? In fact from Jan 01 to Sep 10th 2001, Bush had taken more vacations during that period than any sitting President in recent memory.??Now how does a Presid. stay on vacation when his security advisors were trying to get meetings with Bush to inform him about the grave threat from OSAMA!!!!!?

But I know you will find a away to rationalize Bush's non-action during that time frame.??After all rabid conservatives and repub. will always try to use Clinton(s) as their SCAPE GOAT, thus never taking responsibility nor accountability for absolutely nothing.

Clinton went into Mogodishu by choice just like Bush decided to go into Iraq by choice.??Clinton had enough common sense to leave Mogodishu when he realized we were not wanted there!!??Unlike your fearless leader GWB.??In the end Iraq will be a lost cause.??Who will the RABID Conservatives blame then!!??Will you guys pull out the Clinton blame card or will Rabid Conservatives just blame liberals; when you truely need to do is look in the mirror at yourself and your GOP.

Rabid conservatives own the House and Senate, the W.H. and the Supreme court, yet incomptetent rapid GOP can't even defeat and bring under control a country of 25 million Iraqi's.??Gee Whez, FDR won WWII in a shorter time period.

It's a shame Bush has sacariced the lives of our service men and women all in the name of personal hate and war profiteering.

When will Rabid Conservatives wake up and see the truth about Bush.

[PittsburghAfterDark]

For those of you counting or not counting that's 5 "Rabid Conservatives" in one reply.