Somalia: The Next Afghanistan?
As if on cue, hours after Obama announced his big master plan for Afghanistan, a suicide bombing in Somalia was committed by the violent Islamist group Al Shabaab (which means “the youth” in Arabic), a group affiliated with none other than Al Qaeda. Few countries on this planet share a modicum of the backwardness or political chaos characteristic of Afghanistan, but Somalia is definitely one of those countries. Somalia also has one component eerily reminiscent of Afghanistan: a sickeningly violent, fundamentalist Islamic group seeking to take power over the country and impose strict Islamic rule.
Now, if Al Shabaab are the Taliban of Somalia, and Somalia shares many of the same sociopolitical and economic characteristics of Afghanistan, why should we not invade there, according to the logic of some supporting deepening involvement in Afghanistan? If sending more troops to Afghanistan is necessary to prevent the Taliban from coming back to power, and therefore for Al Qaeda to “gain a foothold,” does this not imply that the US must send troops into Somalia as well? After all, insofar as Al Shabaab has control over some territory in Somalia, does not Al Qaeda have a “foothold” there?
And if we should send troops also to Somalia, where does it end? The Philippines? Indonesia? Yemen? How much more money and manpower will need to be spent in the ceaseless pursuit of Al Qaeda through military means? For that matter, why not invade the kinds of places where September 11th was actually planned, i.e. Germany, the UK, Spain, indeed, the United States? And oh yeah, what about Pakistan or India?
Those who support further escalation of the Afghan campaign cite such things as women’s oppression, the rule of violent Islamists and a “foothold” for Al Qaeda among their worries. News flash: women are being oppressed in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, the UAE, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to name a few. Should the US invade them, too? Another news flash: Al Qaeda doesn’t need one inch of land to plan or execute a terrorist attack on American civilians. All it needs is an internet connection and a hardware store to make a crude bomb, kill a few people, and sow mass panic that will lead to yet another round of wasted money and clumsy, bumbling military action.
It has been over 10 months, and we have yet to hear a clear, unequivocal enunciation of Obama’s philosophy on this so-called “war on terror.” If he is going further into Afghanistan, why not any of these other places where Al Qaeda can easily set up shop? What the hell does this man believe? And is it any different from Bush?
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