Failed States in the News

So, now that the Dems are in charge of Congress, will they demand military action on Darfur? Or Somalia? Or are they going to ignore those human rights debacles just as quickly as they can? I fear they're going to ignore the problems as so much heavy baggage that needed unloading the moment they got back into power.

The Democrats don't care one whit about human rights, let alone in places where there was and is genocide ongoing. Or failed states that have turned into al Qaeda safe havens yet again. That's why the Democrats public statements have all be related to Iraq, and getting out of there as quickly as possible. The consequences of such a withdrawal are dire, but one only has to look elsewhere in the region to see what a hasty retreat can and will do.

The Horn of Africa is a very dangerous place, and it is all the more so because the US is ignoring the problems in Somalia because they don't want to deal with a problem that needed to be dealt with in the 1990s but one military engagement back then soured us on dealing with the problem (Black Hawk Down) through the inability to follow through on our stated policy at the time (to go after the Somali warlord Aidid after taking casualties).

We're still paying for that lack of resolve. Al Qaeda was emboldened by our withdrawal from Somalia without achieving our goals, and yet again al Qaeda will take advantage of our inability to deal with failed states. Failed states are the safe haven of choice for al Qaeda. With no government to go after them, they can operate openly and freely, recruiting from the militias and unemployed to be foot soldiers in their jihad.

Refusing to talk about these problems does not make them go away. The Democrats have said that they want to devote more intel to emerging threats in Africa, but the threats have been there all along, and they've done nothing to address them. The GOP hasn't done much better, choosing to let the undermanned African Union try to handle the issue in Darfur and hope that supplying the opponents of the Islamists in Somalia would be sufficient to deter their advances. That effort has been a failure, and Somalia is in the hands of Islamists who are likely to allow al Qaeda safe haven. That situation is intolerable and despite whatever misgivings Democrats and Republicans might have in reengaging the question, Somalia must be dealt with.

UPDATE:
Speaking of Sudan and Darfur, it looks like the situation has actually gotten worse. The violence has spilled over into neighboring Chad in a big way.

What has happened is that there is this firestorm of ethnic cleansing, which started as an effort to seize territory, that has spiraled out of control. The violence is widely blamed on the ambitions of the Arab government of Sudan to seize territory and squash a rebel movement. There has been a systematic burning of people’s homes, and now some 200,000 Darfurians are living in these squalid refugee camps in Chad and their lives are completely changed.

We focused on the children, and I asked them to draw pictures of their lives in Darfur, as well as pictures of what happened in the attacks. The pictures of their lives in Darfur are so full of colors, flowers, animals and happy smiles. And then the pictures of the day of the attacks are full of men with guns, fire and people dying. You can see that even though much of this was almost two years ago, they are still haunted.

This violence has now escalated. In the last ten days more than 20 villages in Chad have been burned in the same way as the attacks in the Darfur region of Sudan. The perpetrators have come from Sudan, wearing Sudanese military uniforms, and have joined forces with Arabs here in Chad. Now this Arab-on-African violence is moving deep into Chad.

Hundreds of people have been killed in the last ten days and thousands are fleeing. We are hearing every day about villages being lit on fire by these Arab militias, who locals believe have been uniformed and armed by the Sudanese government. The militants are shouting racial epithets, gang-raping women and killing the men.

And arms deals are a big problem in Somalia as all sides in the conflict are being supplied arms from neighboring countries, particularly Ethiopia and Eritrea (which themselves engaged in a long and bloody war). Iran makes its presence felt as well:

An advance copy of the report to the U.N. Security Council, obtained by Reuters on Monday, paints the most comprehensive picture yet of disparate foreign interests hardening into alliances with Somalia's interim government and its powerful Islamist rivals.

It also says Iran may have sought to trade arms for uranium from Somalia or elsewhere in Africa to fuel its nuclear ambitions.

Both groups vying for control of the Horn of Africa nation since Islamists took the capital Mogadishu from U.S.-backed warlords in June have extensive foreign state backing.

Ethiopia and Eritrea, backing the government and Islamists respectively, are the biggest violators of a 1992 U.N. arms embargo on Somalia, the report says, adding they have sent in vast quantities of weapons and equipment and provided training.

The consequences are dire for not dealing with failed states.

Technorati: darfur, dafur, UN, sudan, chad, somalia, ethiopia, eritrea, african union, janjaweed, and Kofi Annan