A Knight in Dragonland

There are some very interesting remarks in this article in the New York Times about mounting tensions in the Horn of Africa. Ethiopian troops are preparing to confront the Islamist forces that have taken control of much of the southern portion of Somalia. The only internationally recognized government in Somalia sits besieged by the Islamists in Baidoa, controlling little outside the borders of that one city – largely because the majority of Somalis see them as the illegitimate proxies of foreign powers.

Ethiopian forces intend to intervene to aid the interim government, and the U.S. is supporting their efforts. Ethiopia has a large minority of Somali ethnicity in the southeastern part of their country. Fear of spreading Islamist influence in this region is likely the underlying reason for Ethiopian interference.

These quotes from Somalis in response to the looming Ethiopian threat relate to the specific matter at hand, but I think they have much broader implications. Here is the first quote that I find interesting (emphasis mine):

“I’ll be honest,� said Sheik Muktar Robow Abu Monsur, the deputy security chief for the Islamists. “America is the best friend of Islam. It wakes up the sleeping Muslim.�

America’s efforts to support hated warlords in Somalia simply because they opposed Islamist forces actually worked AGAINST us by encouraging more Somalis to support the Islamists.

Americans don’t like it when foreigners tell them what to do. Well, guess what? People in other countries don’t like it either! It pisses them off and encourages the exact OPPOSITE of what we want them to do.

These next quotes are telling as well. First this (emphasis mine):

Three months ago, Ibrahim Hassan Addou, the foreign minister for the Islamists and an American citizen of Somali descent, talked of sharing power and holding elections.

Now, like the others, he is talking war, in terms nearly indistinguishable from the most militant Islamic leaders. Moderates, he said, were backed into a corner by an American-led campaign to discredit and isolate the Islamic administration.

“Everybody was against us from the beginning, and now we have no choice but to fight,� he said. “What I don’t understand is why the whole world is trying to throw its weight behind a government that has been totally rejected by its own people.�

And then this (emphasis mine):

Not long ago Somalia was a place where women wore skirts and men drank beer, and even today a large chunk of the population is quietly concerned about the absolutist direction the Islamists are heading in.

But the prospects of war with Ethiopia seem to have pushed many of these people solidly into the Islamic camp.

“I’m not into thought control,� said Dahir Abdullahi Hirsi, a pharmacist in Mogadishu. “But I hate Ethiopians even more.�

So … a foreign invader moving into the home territory of radical Islamic forces actually spurs moderate opponents of that ideology to support the Islamists as a matter of tribal pride. Insert “Iraqi” in place of “Somali” and “American” in place of “Ethiopian” and you have the situation in Iraq. Foreign intervention provides radical groups with great PR and motivation for recruitment. Americans killing Islamist radicals in Iraq is like cutting a head off of the Lernaean hydra without applying a torch – two more venomous heads grow in its place!

Perhaps the “bestâ€? example of this phenomenon is the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, where the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) CREATED HEZBOLLAH. You heard me right … Hezbollah is the illegitimate hate-child of the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. The Israelis turned a small, marginalized Islamic radical group into the “saviors of Lebanon.” They turned them into FREEDOM FIGHTERS in the eyes of the Lebanese people. Not only Shiite but Sunni, Druze and even the majority of Christian Lebanese supported Hezbollah’s recent defiance of Israel. Why? Not because of their radical Islamist ideology, but because they were fighting a “foreign oppressor.”

At one point, we might have had a chance in Iraq. Saddam was a hated dictator, and the majority of Iraqis truly did celebrate his fall. However, due to the colossal incompetence of the Bush administration in general and “Mr. Minimalist” Donald Rumsfeld in particular, we failed to provide safety and security in the aftermath of Saddam’s fall. If we ever had a chance (and that’s certainly debatable), we’ve undeniably lost it. Now, to the majority of Iraqis, we’re the hated occupiers.

What do we do? We keep going in Afghanistan – in fact we redouble our efforts there. The Taliban were also truly hated, and the current problems in southeastern Afghanistan are still seen by many Afghanis as Pakistani meddling. We still have a chance to make things right there, although we need to remember that the warlords who came before the Taliban were just as hated as the Talibs.  They’re drug-running thugs, and they should not be tolerated (although supporting an Afghan effort to dislodge them would be much wiser than trying to do it ourselves).

What else? What about Al Qaeda and the rest?  We fortify the homeland and MAKE THEM COME TO US. Make them fight on OUR TERMS. It’s one of the most basic military strategies in the book.

Let these Islamic radicals try to rule in their own lands, and watch them make a bungle of it like they have in Iran, where the Ayatollahs are now hated and ridiculed by a large portion of their population. Only the imminent threat of a unilaterally interventionist America at their eastern AND western borders turned the Iranian people away from the path of reform, just like Israel’s recent muck up in Lebanon likely destroyed chances for democracy there.

If you want to wrap your mind around the idea behind this post in blogospheric terms, think about this phrase:

Don’t feed the troll!

Like blog trolls, terrorists THRIVE on being attacked.  Lets fortify our defenses to keep them at bay as best we can, and then let them rot in their own bile.