Ethiopia-Somalia Update

The latest Ethiopian-Somali War increases in intensity as the Baidoa-based Somali government forces and their Ethiopian allies push towards Mogadishu. The latest reports claim that up to a thousand Islamist fighters died, and nearly 3,000 more were wounded in this past week’s fighting.

3 Groups Prepare for Battle in Somalia—Associated Press, Dec. 26, 2006

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Monday, December 25, 2006

Ethiopia Crosses the Line

Just in time for Christmas, the low-grade warfare in Somalia between the Islamic forces and the intervening Ethiopian military escalated in a significant way. Ethiopian forces bombed Mogadishu airport and Baledogle Airport, about 35 miles outside Mogadishu, while troops seized Belet Weyne, an important border town. Ethiopian troops also took over the towns of Bandiradley, Adadow and Galinsor. The Ethiopian government reported on television that the goal of the offensive was Jowhar, a town not far from Mogadishu.

Foreign Islamist fighters are also joining the fray, seeing this as another front in their jihad against the Christian West (Ethiopia is a largely Christian nation, and is allied with the U.S.)

Several questions come to mind: Is this part of a full-scale attack intended to drive the Islamists out of Mogadishu? How far are Ethiopia and its backers (the U.S.), willing to go? What will Eritrea, ally of the Islamists, and blood foe of Ethiopia, going to do? And, if the Ethiopians do take Mogadishu, will their support of the Baidoa government condemn that government in the eyes of average Somalis? And, as the U.S. discovered in Iraq, conquering a country is a lot easier than controlling it! How many casualties is Ethiopia willing to endure, and who will pay for this war? Ethiopia is NOT a rich country.

Stay tuned for more information as this war expands in a big way…

Ethiopian jets bomb airports in Somalia — By Salad Duhul, Associated Press, December 25, 2006

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War in Somalia: Ethiopia aids Baidoa and Puntland

The war in Somalia heats up as Ethiopia helps the Baidoa government and the separatist government of Puntland (a largely unrecognized and very much ignored would-be nation in the northern third of Somalia) beat back the Islamist forces of the Union of Islamic Courts.

It should be noted, that when Puntland first formed in the early 1990s, it fought a brief war against Islamic forces and won.

Clashes Continue in Southern Somalia–The Washington Post

Saturday, December 9, 2006; 9:29 PM

Islamists and Somali Troops Exchange Fire– By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Published: December 10, 2006

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A Look at Africa and its Wars: 12.04.06

Africa is home to several long-standing wars and conflicts, some of which have smoldered on for years, and now threaten to erupt into larger regional conflicts. Of particular concern is the arc of countries from Chad and the Central African Republic (CAR) in north-central Africa through Sudan to the Horn of Africa nations of Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia .As with many of the world’s conflicts in the early years of the 21^st Century, the long shadow of the Global War on Terror reaches into this bloody corner of this lost continent.

Sudan:

In the Sudan, warfare returned to the largely Black, Christian south for the first time since a peace agreement was implemented in 2005.  The fighting took place between the former rebels, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), and a northern (meaning Arab Muslim) militia led by Major Gen Gabriel Tang.  After the SPLA trounced the militia, Tang’s men took refuge in a Sudanese Army base at the Nile River port of Malakal.The following day, the Sudanese Army returned with heavy weapons (tanks and artillery), and retook the town, inflicting severe damage.  Several hundred soldiers and civilians perished in the fighting.

With the ongoing war in Darfur, Sudan does not need a resurgence of the southern war.

‘Hundreds killed’ in Sudan battle—BBC, Nov. 30, 2006

And speaking of Darfur, the fighting there continues, as the Darfurian rebels attack the Sudanese Army and launch raids on the country’s oil supply.  This war has already taken an estimated 400,000 lives. The UN seems helpless to act with any resolve; meanwhile Chad is increasing its aid to the Darfurians, even as Sudan aids Chadian rebels while setting the murderous Janjaweed militia upon refugee camps and towns on the Chad side of the desert border.

Sudan army suffers Darfur defeats—BBC, Oct. 17, 2006

On the positive side, the Sudan government and the Eastern Front rebel group (made up of rebels from the Beja and Rashidiya Arab groups) work to implement a new peace agreement signed in October.This agreement ended 12 years of rebellion in the Red Sea states near the border with Eritrea .Sudan accused Eritrea of aiding these rebel groups.

Sudan’s Interlocking Wars—BBC, May 10, 2006

Army, former rebels review eastern Sudan peace process—Sudan Tribune, Sunday Dec. 3 2006

Central African Republic:

The war in the Central African Republic (CAR), which began in 2003, grew to new levels this month, with increased rebel attacks and victories, which in turn prompted overt French military intervention.  The CAR and Chad both blame Sudan for aiding rebels against their governments.

French planes attack CAR rebels: French fighter planes have fired at rebels in northern Central African Republic (CAR) where thousands have fled fighting in recent weeks.—BBC, Nov. 30, 2006

Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia:

Muslim Eritrea and mostly Christian Ethiopia are still facing off over their disputed border, over which they fought a very bloody and not very conclusive war (1998-2000).  Rumors and preparations for renewed war deflect both nations from addressing their real issues of poverty and economic problems.  They also appear to be waging a proxy war in Somalia, where Eritrea is believed to aid the United Islamic Courts (UIC) against the Baidoa government, which is supported by Ethiopia.  The situation in Somalia remains tense and quite anarchic, as the Ethiopian government engages in direct talks with the UIC. 

Overview: 

The Horn of Africa (Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia) and the North-Central region of Africa (Central African Republic, Chad, Sudan), are locked in bloody, interconnected wars which could easily escalate into a regional war to rival that Great Lakes War (Centered on the Congo, this war involved Chad, the CAR, Rwanda, Burundi, Angola, Namibia, and Zimbabwe, and claimed several million lives).  If Sudan is indeed aiding the rebels in Chad and the CAR, France may be drawn further into the looming Sudan-Chad/CAR conflict.  If the Sudanese government continues to suffer major losses in Darfur, and/or its oil industry, (which provides the money for the military as well as money to help implement the peace deals in the South and East), the SPLA and the Eastern Front rebels may be encouraged to take up arms in a major rebellion.  Add to this scenario the possibility that Ethiopia could be dragged further into the Somalia Civil War.  This could tempt Eritrea to more aggressively aid the United Islamic Courts (UIC), prompting an Ethiopian military response along the Eritrea-Ethiopia border.  Given the strong belief in Washington and other Western capitals that al-Qaida has found new bases and new support in the parts of Somalia controlled by the UIC, and the implied American support for Ethiopia’s involvement, things could become very interesting, very soon.

Vietnam, Somalia, and Iraq: A Comparison of Perceptions

New York Times columnists Dominic Johnson and Dominic Tierney examine the power of perception in recent American military history, and present a very strong case that those perceptions and opinions formed by the media and hence by the public as a whole are not always well-informed or correct. With the War in Iraq as a backdrop, Johnson and Tierney look at the American experiences in Vietnam and Somalia, basically warning against looking at the shallow reporting coming out of Iraq which is skewing public perception.

Johnson and Tierney explain that the Vietnam War’s infamous Tet Offensive of 1968, while an almost total military defeat for the Communist Viet Cong, found itself perceived in the U.S. media and in public opinion as a total American failure. Tet was considered a Communist victory despite the fact that the Viet Cong failed to hold onto a single one of their military objectives, and despite the fact that the Americans and the South Vietnamese destroyed at least half of the Viet Cong forces in this offensive. The power of the media to shape public opinion is well-known, and Tet is a classic example. Images of the Viet Cong attack on the American Embassy in Saigon, though a military failure, were flashed across the world and into the living rooms of millions of American voters in the early months of an American Presidential election year. The misperceptions were also partly the result of the pollyanna “we are wining the war” mantra of the Johnson Administration, making the shock of the sudden Communist attacks all the more mind-blowing for most American civilians. Shortly after Tet, President Johnson declared his non-candidacy in the election, paving the way for Richard Nixon to win and his eventual pullout of American forces from Vietnam, dooming the South Vietnamese, and by extension, the people of Cambodia and Laos to the pain of Communist rule.

Just as in Vietnam, the U.S. and U.N. intervention in the early 1990s was seen by the media and the public as a failure due to the highly-publicized Battle of Mogadishu in 1993. Even though untold thousands of Somali lives were saved from the drought and famine by the intervention, that one single battle in which 18 Americans died, (to the loss of hundreds of Somali fighters), paved the way for American withdrawal. Again, the media flashed pictures around the world and into the living rooms of America, turning a relatively minor battle into a policy-changing media event. Somalia today is a warren of warlord-controlled militias and violent anarchy, amid a growing unease that these conditions are fostering an al-Qaida aligned Islamic militancy which could lead to a larger regional war involving Ethiopia and Eritrea.

The lessons of these two failures of American foreign policy, though not necessarily military failures, leads now to the debate over what to do with the Iraqi question. Whenever American forces meet the insurgents in open battle, as at Turki recently, or in Fallujah earlier on, the insurgents cannot stand, fight, and win. We do win those battles, but the media focuses on the day-by-day statistics of IED explosives, car bombs, and the political problems of the Iraqi government. The frequent picture of burned out car-bombs in Baghdad markets and streets impacts public opinion far more than the much more infrequent television reports out of Kurdistan, which show a functioning society enjoying relative stability, or the many neighborhoods in smaller Iraqi cities that do not suffer the attentions of terrorism or Sunni-Shiite warfare. This is not to say that things are going well in Iraq; quite the contrary. The Sunni-Shiite civil war and the possible breakaway of Kurdistan are very serious problems that must be addressed.

One would hope, that in this modern era so highly touted as the “Information Age,” that the American public, (along with the British and other citizens of the world), can look past the often biased or incorrect perceptions of the media, whether it is from CNN, ABC, Fox, or even al-Jazeera, use the internet as the informative tool that it should be, and gain better knowledge of our problems in Iraq. One image broadcast by the media, such as we saw in Saigon and in Mogadishu, should not set the course of American public opinion, or American government policy.

Check out: The Wars of Perception –By Dominic Johnson and Dominic Tierney of the New York Times: November 28, 2006

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