(no subject)

[theweaselking]

Americans achieve "peace through massive incompetence" in Somalia.

As tyrell puts it:

Somalia has had constant warfare for about 15 years now. Clans and warlords have kept the violence going, rape is on a scale rarely seen anywhere and everybody has guns, except the innocent. This last part actually made the solution possible: the shopkeepers were so tired of having their goods stolen at gunpoint that they set up local Islamic courts to attempt to police things. This worked, but meant the people who were saving them were... the Taliban.

Well, we can't have that - Muslims are the enemy! So the US ('Black Hawk Down' in 1991 being the last time they'd dared go near the place) decided to do something. In this case, they decided to give hundreds of thousands of dollars (and some shiny new guns) to three of the biggest warlords in the area so they would go clear out the nasty Islamists.

There was just one problem with this otherwise brilliant plan. Everyone knew about the money. Within two months, every young man who could grab a gun descended on the Warlords' bases and chased them out of the country.

Somalians are, apparently, united by two things. They're Muslim, and they really hate meddling foreigners. A lot.

So, with the warlords gone and a system of Islamic courts in place, peace reigns for the first time since the early Nineties. Does this mean Somalia has been handed over to the Taliban? Well, no. They tried to stop people watching the World Cup last week, and that ended VERY quickly. Apparently, "No-one tells the Somalians what they can watch on tv."