Somalia the Latest in String of Failed American Adventures

Any casual observer of global developments understands that the United States seeks to take full control of the world in the guise of promoting democracy and peace or fighting terrorists.

Such an observer will also note that the U.S. has not only failed over the past several decades to resolve international disputes, but with its unreasonable foreign policies have created new ones.

Its war against North Korea about half a century ago turned out to be a colossal blunder. Worse still, North Korea later emerged as a major arms producer, including of nuclear warheads.

The war that America launched in Vietnam was the most catastrophic and shortsighted – causing untold misery to the people of the region as well as in the United States.

The U.S. strategy in Lebanon and East Timor also proved to be complete failures. The American administration coerced Indonesia to cede the Christian-dominated Far Eastern island as though this was the only solution to the issues plaguing the region. Now the region is in the midst of deep internal strife.

The United States has also been encouraging Christians in southern Sudan to break away from Sudan, in addition to attempting to blow the Darfur issue out of all proportion. There are two objectives behind this strategy: First, to pave the way for external intervention and second, to separate the region from Sudan.

Previously in Somalia, the U.S. had intervened both militarily and politically, later fleeing the country after plunging the country into a state of utter lawlessness.

In Afghanistan, the U.S. intervention has only made matters worse.

Iraq is the latest in the line of failed U.S. adventures. Despite the elimination of Al-Zarqawi, a symbol of international terror, the U.S. has begun to realize the truth that it has failed in Iraq. The hurried installation of a new government will provide the excuse for the U.S. to leave, if that indeed is what it really wants.

The failure of American policy in Somalia has been sealed with the victory of the Union of Islamic Courts in Mogadishu and the defeat of the U.S.-supported warlords. The warlords were never been in a position to form a government, even if the U.S. wanted them to.

Reacting to recent developments in Mogadishu, President George Bush spoke as though the events were taking place in Washington. Expressing his fear about the Islamic initiative, the President said he would devise plans to confront the Islamists and pre-empt any possibility of the Somalia becoming a “haven for al-Qaeda.”

By throwing all international conventions to the wind by supporting the warlords in Somalia, Washington has been playing an extremely dangerous game and foiling attempts to restore peace. While managing to keep its own troops clear of the quicksand of Somali politics, the U.S. has made it virtually impossible for any group to form a strong central government.

Warlords have no code of conduct and behave as if all they want is the disintegration of the Muslim nation – something that the U.S. devoutly wishes. President Denis Sassou Nguesso of the Congo Republic, the current head of the African Union, has criticized the United States for its support of the warlords, which only prolongs the miseries of that nation’s people. The AU chief expressed the hope that Washington would support the Somali people and not the warlords.

Since President Siad Barre was forced to step down in 1991, Somalia has been in a state of chaos.

Many wonder why the United Nations, particularly the Security Council, isn’t making an effort to stabilize the country. Because the world body has been behaving like America’s lackey, the situation has been permitted to deteriorate.

Though the initial objective of the Union of Islamic Courts, founded by Shareef Sheikh Ahmad in 2004, was to provide essential services such as education, health etc. to the people, it has had to enter politics with the intention of saving the country from total collapse.

Washington has rejected the Union of Islamic Courts government because the Union derives its strength from Islamic ideology. Washington justifies its hostile stand by saying that the Union of Islamic Courts government would threaten Somalia’s Christian neighbors, Ethiopia and Kenya. While most of Washington’s strategies to ostensibly establish peace and promote democracy were bound to fail, all of its plans to attack Muslim nations have, unfortunately, been quite successful.

But this isn’t due to the brilliance of U.S. policy, but the inept and shortsighted policies of the Arab and Muslim leadership.