Northman's Fury

The Bush administration likes to go on about how they keep finding Iranian weapons in Iraq, and how this proves malicious intent on the part of the Iranians. Of course, if the fact that military equipment from a certain country finds its way to the Iraqi insurgents is proof of intent, the US has a problem:

Thefts and illegal exports of advanced military night-vision gear are rising sharply, and U.S. officials say some of the devices have reached enemies in Afghanistan and Iraq, where they could erode the edge U.S. troops have in after-dark combat.

The government has prosecuted more than two dozen businesses and individuals over the past 18 months for stealing night-vision gear or skirting prohibitions on foreign sales, according to a USA TODAY review of federal documents and public records.

In at least five cases, prosecutors linked shipments to terrorist groups, such as al-Qaeda and Hezbollah. A few others were headed to Iran and Taliban forces in Afghanistan, court records show; several were destined for China and Japan.

. . .

"If you look at cases where groups like the Taliban are trying to get this stuff, that's how they want to use it, for night operations to kill our troops," Pelak says.

Lower-grade night-vision devices are sold commercially, but military versions are far more sensitive and can include features that identify U.S. troops by infrared tabs on their uniforms. Sales and exports of that equipment are restricted by law.

As Cernig has noted repeatedly, weapons travel, and there is a large and lucrative black market in all sorts of military technology. Something to keep in mind the next time the warfloggers cite the finding of Iranian weapons as proof of their meddling.

Up until an hour or so ago, the biggest news of the day was Hillary's blow-out win in West Virginia, which makes Edwards' endorsement of Obama quite a timely one. Edwards is one of the last truly big names in the Democratic party with a large support base to endorse, and this now becomes the dominant story for the news cycle, which blunts the West Virginia results.

As to Hillary herself, kudos for this:

Hillary Clinton on Wednesday reiterated her vow to stay in the Democratic presidential race, but she said it would be a "terrible mistake" for her supporters to vote for John McCain over Barack Obama.

"Anybody who has ever voted for me or voted for Barack has much more in common in terms of what we want to see happen in our country and in the world with the other than they do with John McCain," Clinton said on CNN's "The Situation Room."

"I'm going to work my heart out for whoever our nominee is. Obviously, I'm still hoping to be that nominee, but I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that anyone who supported me ... understands what a grave error it would be not to vote for Sen. Obama."

Reading the comments here, or pretty much anything here, (this post as example), Hillary's going to have to say that over and over again so that it sinks in.

All and all, a good day for Obama, with the exception that he deserves a good slap upside the head for this dumb-ass comment. Seriously, outside of Michelle, never use the term "sweetie" to refer to any grown woman, ever.

A couple of stories today got me thinking about when it would actually be the ethical choice to intervene by force for humanitarian reasons. The idea has most recently gained attention again due to the situation in Burma, but the story that got me thinking is a forced intervention of a far smaller scale.

A young boy suffering from a return of cancer that was once beaten into remission by chemotherapy. When it returned, he and his family refused treatment, but the courts intervened and are forcing him to take the treatments.

"If a doctor says [therapy] is in your best interest and you say you don't want it, within our laws, ethically and legally, that's fully acceptable," said Kerry Bowman of the University of Toronto's Joint Centre for Bioethics.

"And in this case that's kind of turned upside down. Best interests have taken over as opposed to what the family believes, and I think there's a lot of ethical tension here, and I think it's pretty worrisome."

As a child, his views are basically being dismissed as uninformed, and there is more than a little precedent for overruling a families choice in such matters. Having said that, intervening in the “best interests” of the children can be a slippery slope, either here or in a case like that of the polygamous compound raided in Texas last month. When do you overrule the parent’s right to raise their own children? And who do you empower to do so? The same rationale was used to justify things like residential schooling for aboriginals, which hardly worked out as beneficial.

The above chemo case seems simple, but what if the only result of the chemo is to make the kid’s last few months an even more painful ordeal than it would have been otherwise?

The reason I find that story important for a decision on a forced intervention in someplace like Burma, (or Darfur, or Somalia, or Zimbabwe, or New Orleans), is because the rationale and purpose are much the same, to do what’s best for those who can’t help themselves, and where those who are nominally responsible for them are refusing to do what is required.

It seems simple, and we so like simple narratives. I tend to oppose such interventions because the situation is never as simple as it is usually portrayed, and because of those we're forced to trust with the responsibility should an intervention go forward. I trust the child's doctors above understand his medical condition as well as it can be understood. I have significantly less trust in world leaders' understanding of Burma.

The military junta in Burma is evil, and therefore we're likely to say that those who oppose it must be on the side of good. For an idea of why that’s a really bad way of looking at things, remember that bin Laden and his buddies in the Taliban were “freedom fighters” per Reagan back when the US was funding them to fight the “Evil Empire”. The fact that some nasty pieces of work are lording it over their opponents unfortunately doesn’t mean their opponents are on the side of angels. More often they’re almost interchangeable, and occasionally, the reason the current nasties are in charge is because the folks they’re fighting were even worse and lost the population's support.

The situation in Burma is anything but simple, something that Eric Margolis was kind enough to explain last October when the junta was crushing the massive demonstrations occurring at the time.

But extreme caution is advised in dealing with Myanmar. If things go wrong there, it could turn into an Southeast Asian version of Iraq, Yugoslavia or Afghanistan.

Myanmar’s central government has been at war for 50 years with 17 ethnic rebel groups seeking secession from the former 14-state Union of Burma created by Imperial Britain, godfather of many of the world’s worst current problems.

Burmans, of Tibetan ethnic origin, form 68% of the population of 57 million. But there are other important, distinct ethnic groups: Shan, the largely Christian Karen, Kachin, Chin, Mon, Wa, and Rakhine, Anglo-Burmese, Indians and Chinese. The largest, Shan, with their Shan State Army, are ethnically close to neighboring Thailand, and in cahoots with the Thai military. Each major ethnic group has its own army and finances itself through smuggling timber, jewels, arms, and drugs.

The military juntas in Rangoon, and its 500,000-man armed forces, know as `Tatmadaw,’ battled these secessionists for decades until the current junta managed to establish uneasy ceasefires with all the major rebel groups.

If the junta were to be replaced by a democratic civilian government led by the gentle Suu Kyi, and military repression ended, it is highly likely Myanmar’s ethnic rebellions would quickly re-ignite. The only force holding Myanmar together is the military and secret police.

Shan, Karen, Kachin, and Mon still demand their own independent nations. Burma’s powerful neighbors – India, China and Thailand – have their eye on this potentially resource-rich nation. They, and neighboring Bangladesh, also fear Burma’s troubles will spill across their borders, as occurred in 2002 when the military junta expelled thousands of Muslims to Bangladesh from the Arakan region.

Now who would you trust to intervene forcefully into that situation?

The decisions are tough ones, as they should be. It's very hard to see people suffer and die when there is way to save them, but how do you ensure that your intervention doesn't end up causing more harm than the situation you intervened to stop would have caused on it's own?

Joe Gandelman at The Moderate Voice did a round-up on the weekend of the continuing reaction to Clinton’s remarks about her hardworking, white supporters. The word that seemed to come up in several of them was “tragedy”. It is, I think, the most accurate way to describe what has happened.

I once described my reaction to the continuing Clinton campaign as starting out worried about the strong feelings of hatred she inspired in the Republicans, to coming to respect her as a candidate, to understanding why so many of her opponents hated her. Her desire to change the rules mid-stream with regards to Michigan and Florida, her implications that she was going to go after Obama’s pledged delegates, and particularly her repeated assertions of only she and McCain being worthy of the presidency was, and still is, enough to get the anger broiling, and the campaign tactics haven’t exactly improved since.

The anger though, has faded, to be replaced by a sort of pity. Hillary has gone so far over the top in her pandering and “Southern Strategy” that her campaign has turned into a caricature of itself. Given how skilled and talented she actually is, and the respect and support she earned in the early parts of the campaign and throughout her career, to see her piddle that away in an increasingly desperate gamble for votes can only be described as tragic.

She still has the chance to repair the damage, of course, but the longer she stays on the current path, the harder it will be to heal the divisions the campaign has opened up. Here's hoping she finds a way, and soon.

That's gotta hurt!

That has long been the view of many who consider themselves pro-Israeli, but I thought it was important to note that the Bush administration has now made it official US policy.

The Bush administration has taken the ground-breaking step of identifying some virulent criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism, as it warns that anti-Jewish attitudes and incidents are on the rise worldwide.

. . .

“Anti-Semitism has proven to be an adaptive phenomenon,” the report said. “New forms of anti-Semitism have evolved. They often incorporate elements of traditional anti-Semitism. However, the distinguishing feature of the new anti-Semitism is criticism of Zionism or Israeli policy that – whether intentionally or unintentionally – has the effect of promoting prejudice against all Jews by demonizing Israel and Israelis and attributing Israel’s perceived faults to its Jewish character.”

The danger here is that if you broaden the definition of anti-Semitism too far, to the point where even legitimate criticism is tarred with that brush, people will simply start ignoring the charge completely as just a meaningless partisan-style attack. That then allows real anti-Semites the cover they need to spread their hatred. And there are clearly some anti-Semites out there, as we can see in this example from Canada.

Egypt's ambassador says he is concerned that the growing number of Jewish Canadians might cause a shift in this country's Middle East policy.

. . .

He said Jewish communities have had an impact on the foreign policies of such countries as France, and he is concerned Canada might follow.

"The question is, how do you treat the results of this fact? Do you expect from these greater numbers that they will absorb themselves into Canadian society as Canadians or that they'll try to push Canadians to adopt their own values and principles? And this is the gist of the problem," he said in an interview.

. . .

"First of all, there's a Jewish member of Parliament, who's elected to one of the Toronto ridings ..., who has been outspoken in his hostility toward Muslim nations," Mr. Baker said.

"I've got nothing against the fact that Jews are members of the Canadian Parliament. But it worries me that the type of political influence that we're seeing in Britain, in France, might ultimately reach the Canadian political system."

My apologies to Egypt. That was actually Israel's ambassador talking about Muslim Canadians. He's apparently worried that Canada may move back towards it's more even-handed approach of the past. It's not many countries whose ambassadors can get away with insulting a good number of Canadian citizens and elected members of Parliament without offering any proof whatsoever of their attitudes, and in direct contradiction of the facts.

The number of Muslim Canadians more than doubled between 1991 and 2001, to about 579,600, according to Statistics Canada; the proportion of people who identified themselves as Jewish remained relatively static, at about 330,000.

However, Canada's foreign-policy stand has become more pro-Israel since 2004, when Paul Martin's Liberal government began shifting the country's voting pattern at the United Nations.

Mr. Harper's Conservatives moved further toward Israel, and Canada now votes consistently with a group of about a half-dozen countries, including the United States, Australia and Israel itself, that tend to buck the overwhelming majority.

"This was a major shift, in my opinion, in Canadian policy," Mr. Baker said.

"My aim is to ensure that any Canadian government will continue to maintain this position of realizing the true commonality of interests, and not going back to a non-committal attitude," he said.

And I think it's safe to say that Mr. Harper won't be changing course on his Israel policy or jumping to defend the Muslim citizens so recently smeared.

Some of the criticism brewing in Canada against the state of Israel, including from some members of Parliament, is similar to the attitude of Nazi Germany in the Second World War, Prime Minister Stephen Harper warned yesterday.

You know, when Tony Blair was doing his poodle impression for the Bush administration, he at least had enough sense to try and reign in some of their excesses. Harper on the other hand, in his eagerness to please, goes beyond what even the Bushites would probably dare. What an embarrassment.

Whatever it's dubious benefits are as a prison camp, Guantanamo Bay is a stain on the America's reputation internationally, and it appears that the stain is also now affecting it's commanders.

When the Pentagon announced in March that Maj. Gen. Jay W. Hood would become the senior American officer based in Pakistan, it reflected the military’s aim to put a crisis-tested veteran in a critical job at a pivotal time in the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

But nearly two months later, the military has quietly canceled the assignment of General Hood, a 33-year Army veteran who was excoriated in the Pakistani news media for one of his previous jobs: commander of the United States prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

. . .

The decision to withdraw General Hood’s assignment has not been announced, but it appears to reflect the widening shadow that the military prison at Guantánamo is casting over American foreign policy. While the United States considers Pakistan a close ally in its counterterrorism efforts, the accounts by Pakistanis who have returned to Pakistan after being held at Guantánamo Bay have added to anti-American sentiment in the country.

Several leading Pakistani military and foreign affairs commentators denounced General Hood’s selection in recent weeks, calling on their new government to block his appointment. In interviews this week, American military officials said they had reluctantly concluded that General Hood’s effectiveness could be seriously hindered, and that his personal safety might even be at risk if he were to take up the post.

The article states that General Hood is credited with improving overall conditions for the prisoners being held there, but it is clear that the reputation of Guantanamo is past the point where it can be repaired. The only real solution is to shut the prison down. Otherwise you can watch as it continues to drag America's reputation, and the reputation of those who serve her, on an ever downward spiral.

Obama's message to Israel on it's 60th anniversary includes this snippet:

. . . there is no greater gift America can give to Israel--no better way we can salute our Israeli friends on this important anniversary -- than to redouble our commitment to help Israel achieve its goal of true security through lasting peace with its neighbors. The United States does Israel no favors when it neglects opportunities for progress in Arab-Israeli peacemaking.

Israelis can always count on the United States to stand with them against any threat, from as close as Gaza or as far as Tehran, and to ensure that Israel has the means to defend itself. Israel has real enemies, and we will face them together. But standing with Israel also requires America to do everything it can to reduce and ease the conflict with the Arab neighbors. To do any less would be to prevent Israel from achieving its full, extraordinary potential.

Most of the article has a more hawkish tone, but it is nice to see a US presidential candidate who actually realizes that true security for Israel will come through long-term peaceful relations with it's neighbours.

I wonder if this means that unlike the previous two US presidents, Obama won't wait until the last year of his second term to start using real diplomacy on the issue.

In a heated phone call with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi late last month, Hillary Clinton supporter Harvey Weinstein threatened to cut off campaign money to congressional Democrats unless Pelosi embraced a new plan by the movie mogul to finance a revote of the Democratic presidential primaries in Florida and Michigan

Unless I miss my count, that's at least the third time I've heard of Clinton campaign donors threatening the Democratic Party with funding cut-offs if they refused to their bidding.

Nice to know that politics isn't all about money, eh?

A few folks over at the Slate law blog have been having an interesting discussion over whether or not the airstrikes carried out by the US in Somalia are legal under international law. One of them asks:

Does Anyone Care Whether the Bombing in Somalia Was Legal?

I’m thinking the obvious answer is, “No, not really”. I mean, I understand why it should be important, but even though I wrote a long post on the overall situation in Somalia after the latest US strike, the question of the strike’s legality never even occurred to me. It has just been so long apparent that the US isn’t terribly respectful of others territorial sovereignty that it’s no longer a question.

And this is not about just the Bush administration, whose penchant for flaunting international law has spread to multiple other areas to a far greater degree, but about pretty much every US administration since WWII when the UN Charter became the law that the US was ignoring. Seriously, name me one administration that didn’t in some way, somewhere, go well beyond what is ordinarily considered international law by arranging coups, training and supplying militants and insurgents, bombing and sending in strike teams, all the way up to outright invasions, of some various number of poor, and occasionally not-so-poor, countries?

And then there are the actions of America's main allies in the country,

A leading human rights group on Tuesday accused Ethiopian troops in Somalia of killing civilians and committing atrocities, including slitting people's throats, gouging out eyes and gang-raping women.

Under the circumstances, worrying about whether or not the odd US bombing run is technically legal or not just doesn't seem that important.

For some reason most of the networks don't want to call Indiana for Clinton yet, but with 84% reporting, I can't see there being enough votes left for Obama to overcome his deficit.

Ultimately, I doubt it matters. Clinton isn't going to quit at this point, regardless what she said about NC on Friday. The numbers that are worrisome are these.

Forget the horse race numbers for a moment: if the surveys are accurate, the polarization within the Democratic Party has reached critical levels. Nearly six in ten Obama supporters in Indiana say they would be dissatisfied if Clinton were the nominee -- that's (I believe) the high percentage of Obama supporters who have ever said that.

In both IN and NC, two thirds of Clinton supporters say they'd be dissatisfied if Obama were the nominee -- I believe that's the highest number recorded for that question, too.

The percentage of Clinton voters who say they'd choose McCain over Obama in a general election is approaching 40% in Indiana. Put it another way: in North Carolina, less than HALF of folks who voted today for Hillary Clinton are ready to say today that they'd definitely vote for Obama in a general election.

Some, (and hopefully a lot), of that is likely hyperbole, but the longer this goes on, the likelier it is that at least some of those uber-partisans do as they're threatening to do.

I had meant to get to this earlier, because it bears repeating. [Via]

A Canadian captured in Afghanistan at age 15 can be tried for murder in the Guantanamo war crimes court, a U.S. military judge ruled in rejecting claims that he was a child soldier who should be rehabilitated rather than prosecuted.

Canadian prisoner Omar Khadr, now 21, is charged in the Guantanamo court with throwing a grenade that killed a U.S. soldier during a firefight at a suspected al Qaeda compound in Afghanistan in 2002.

The Kadr case was already shown to be a mockery of due process back in February when the military accidently released documents showing Kadr wasn't the only person alive when US soldiers entered the compound, but this ruling is more historic in it's own way.

His military lawyer, Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler, had argued in February hearings at the Guantanamo naval base that Khadr was a child soldier illegally conscripted by his father, an al Qaeda financier. He urged the judge to drop the charges, which carry a maximum penalty of life in prison.

The judge, Army Col. Peter Brownback, issued a ruling on Wednesday agreeing with prosecutors' position that the law authorizing the Guantanamo trials contained no minimum age.

Brownback's ruling clears the way for Khadr to be tried in the special tribunals created by the Bush administration to try non-U.S. captives it considers "unlawful enemy combatants" outside the regular civilian and military courts.

Kuebler called the ruling "an embarrassment to the United States" and said Canada would share in the embarrassment if it allows its citizen to be tried at Guantanamo. He said Khadr would be the first child soldier tried for war crimes in modern history.

Canada, of course, won't be doing anything about Kadr so long as we're led by folks who worship Bush and the neocons, something which embarrasses a great number of us all on it's own. This will add a considerable stain.

Aren't we all proud to live in countries willing to allow this historic first?

Jack Cafferty has the following to say about the importance of tomorrow's contests:

If Obama can deliver a pair of wins, it would be a huge psychological boost for his campaign and could bring him one step closer to winning the nomination. If Clinton wins both, she'll still be behind but will think she's won the nomination.

Of course, the most likely scenario is that Obama wins North Carolina and Clinton wins Indiana, not just because that's what the polls generally indicate, but because that's the result most likely to result in the campaign continuing to be portrayed as a close horse-race with neither candidate having enough momentum to break away, and guaranteeing that the seemingly endless Democratic primary campaign continues on it's downward, fratricidal slide for at least several more weeks.

We're just lucky that way.

The US recently launched one of what has been a series of airstrikes in Somalia.  This time, unlike most, they seem to have actually hit their intended target, killing a UIC military leader.  The US has accused the Islamists in Somalia of being linked to al Qaeda and harbouring some of those responsible for the 1998 embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya, though as with most of their accusations, haven’t actually offered any proof of those claims.  Given the Bush administration’s record on these matters, it is probably enough that they’re Muslims who don’t agree with the US.

In any case, since it has at least briefly brought the fighting in Somalia back into the consciousness of the mainstream, I thought it would be worthwhile to review how the US created and nurtured this mostly ignored front in the “War on Terror”.

Somalia has been in a state of near-anarchy since the overthrow of the dictator Siad Barre in 1991 by a group of warlords who, having overthrown the government, fell to fighting each other for control.  (It was into this mess that the US and others sent troops, which led to the events made famous by “Black Hawk Down”)

The warlords were thugs, criminals, and worse.  Their men ravaged the residents of Mogadishu, robbing, raping, and killing as they pleased.  However, in the post-9/11 world, they had the advantage in the US’s eyes, of not being Islamist.  In January of 2006, that point made them US allies, which didn’t work out at all as planned.

The land was little more than a patch of scrub outside the city. But this being Somalia -- lawless, fractured and armed to the teeth -- it was a patch of scrub that two of the country's most powerful families were prepared to fight over.

The fighting, which began Jan. 13, quickly took on wider significance because of the presence, at an airstrip just three miles away, of a small team of U.S. intelligence officials, according to Somalis knowledgeable about the events of that day.

The Americans were in Somalia because of concerns about terrorism, not land. But when the gunfire rang out, the sources said, the U.S. officials wrongly concluded that they were under attack by Islamic terrorists and abruptly fled. It was a provocation, U.S. officials later told Somalis, that demanded a muscular response.

In the weeks that followed this little-known incident, which U.S. officials have refused to confirm or deny, the United States expanded its role in Somalia to levels not seen since it abandoned the country in 1994. The Americans helped organize a group of secular warlords into an "anti-terror coalition" and provided them with a large, steady diet of cash.

The warlords, feared and hated by many Somalis, bragged about the money as they armed themselves as never before.

. . .

American analysts, though not knowledgeable about the incident at the airstrip, said that by giving cash to the warlords the United States triggered events that quickly moved beyond its control, producing a setback likely to hurt not only Somalis but also the U.S. war on terrorism.

. . .

Back in Mogadishu, the fight was seen differently -- as a sign of growing belligerence by the United States and the warlords it backed.

In the months leading up to the battle, Somalis say, officials of the Islamic courts had grown increasingly nervous as they watched Raghe and other suddenly flush warlords add men, guns and trucks to their arsenal. Surging demand caused the price of AK-47 assault rifles at Mogadishu's main market to more than quadruple, from $120 to $580. The price of gunmen went from $70 a month to $300, Somalis say.

"All of a sudden they were buying weapons," said Khadija O. Ali, founder of a Mogadishu women's group and a graduate student at George Mason University, speaking in Nairobi. "All of the sudden there were planes coming and the Americans were meeting only with" the warlords.

Anti-Americanism, stoked by the war in Iraq, intensified as supporters of the Islamic courts spread word that the United States was backing the warlords, whom many residents of Mogadishu say operated with impunity as their gunmen terrorized the lawless city, raping, robbing and killing as they pleased.

Public opinion gradually coalesced in favor of the Islamic courts and their militias, Somalis say. Prominent businessmen contributed men, trucks and guns to the cause of driving out the warlords. And so on Feb. 18, when Raghe and several other warlords announced the formation of an "anti-terrorism coalition" -- featuring the backing of even more American money -- the reaction was swift. Battles broke out the same day in a struggle now seen as being between homegrown Islamic militias and a hated U.S. proxy force.

The result was the routing of the warlords by the UIC, which by the summer of 2006 had extended it’s control over most of southern Somalia and brought the first period of relative stability to the country since the warlords has taken over.

The Bush administration, however, was unwilling to take the defeat of their thuggish proxies lying down.  With the warlords broken and discredited, the US turned to Ethiopia and the weak Somali interim government it was propping up.  The CIA began taking over whole blocks of hotel rooms in Addis Ababa as they begin to push the Ethiopians into ousting the Islamists for them.

In December of 2006, the Ethiopians seemed to do just that, leading to a fair bit of premature celebrating from the same crowd that figured Iraq would be a cakewalk.

Within a couple of months, it was clear that the Ethiopians were facing a growing insurgency, despite all of their “advantages”.  Eric Martin said it best:

Interestingly enough, despite Ethiopia's penchant for unrestrained brutality and disregard for international norms, as well as relatively inattentive media coverage, it appears that an insurgency is taking root and thriving regardless.  To such a degree that Ethiopian forces are heading for the exits and the current Somali government can barely take up residence in the nation's capital.

Why, it's almost as if insurgencies can get by without the aid and comfort of American leftists, humanitarian groups, the UN and the treasonous Western media.  One might even conclude that, at times, insurgents have goals and motivations that provide their own animating impetus - not derived solely from the domestic political situation in the occupier's home country.  Imagine the implications.

. . .

To be fair, the conservatives cited above were right to point out that we can learn from Ethiopia's experiences in Somalia.  They just happened to have misfired on the thrust of the curriculum.  We'll give them partial credit though.

The problem for the Ethiopians and their puppet Somalis is the same as the one the US faced with the warlords, and that they face in Iraq and Afghanistan.  A government that is imposed by a foreign power and that has to rely on foreign military power for its very survival is never going to be seen as legitimate in the eyes of those it purportedly rules.

By the end of last year, the Ethiopian government was forced to admit that it had gotten “bogged down” in Somalia.  They had planned for a quick ousting of the UIC, a handover to the interim government that they had supported and sheltered for years, which would allow them to quickly draw down their forces, leaving whatever pacification duties may be needed to an international force that has failed to materialize.  Any of that sound familiar?

Needless to say, things didn’t go quite as planned.

Ethiopia and Somalia fought a couple of post-colonial wars and the Ethiopians are understandably less than popular in Somalia as a result.  Having your government propped up by a hated rival is hardly the way to make it well-liked.  The tactics the Ethiopians have been using to fight the insurgents hasn’t made them many friends either.

Ethiopian commanders flouted international humanitarian law by firing "inherently indiscriminate" Katyusha rockets into civilian neighborhoods, the report found, and by "routinely and repeatedly" firing rockets, mortars and artillery in a manner that failed to distinguish between civilians and military targets.

The report found "strong evidence" that the indiscriminate bombardment was intentional, carried on day after day even after it was clear that scores of civilians were being killed.

In some areas, witnesses told the group, rockets and heavy artillery shells fell in a systematic pattern, as if the Ethiopians were attempting to level entire neighborhoods.

The US has been heavily involved in this mess from the get-go, providing intelligence, air strikes, and a naval blockade during the initial Ethiopian invasion, to the continued bombings and missile strikes at “suspected militants” that have sparked riots and demonstrations due to their very low success rate, unless you count blowing up a bunch of unnamed, innocent black people a success.  Add to that at least half a billion dollars in aid to the Ethiopian government.

Despite all the American aid and international cover, the Somalia invasion and occupation has turned into a strategic sinkhole for Ethiopia, and is racheting up instability in the entire region.

The Ethiopian decision to invade Somalia in December 2006 altered the balance of power in the Horn of Africa.

. . .

Ethiopian forces, which had been facing Eritrea along their 1,000km border, but were otherwise confronting few security threats, are now engaged on three fronts.

The forces in Somalia are now bogged down and cannot withdraw, as Prime Minister Meles Zenawi recently acknowledged.

In addition to the conflict in Somalia they now also confront a growing rebellion in the Somali region of Ethiopia from the Ogaden National Liberation Front.

The third front is a possible reopening of the hostilities between Ethiopia and Eritrea, something the US also has played an unhelpful hand in.

Add to all that the fact that all of the refugees streaming south into Kenya probably played a large part in straining tensions there past the breaking point recently.

All of this has of course placed considerable strain on the Ethiopian military.  Regardless of how big and well-equipped an army might be, there are only a finite number of folks who will willingly put their lives on the line.  Ethiopia not being nearly as wedded to human rights as any civilized nation, has went far beyond stop-loss to fill out the ranks of cannon-fodder.

Ethiopian soldiers have forcibly drafted hundreds of civilians to fight separatist rebels in the desolate, predominantly Muslim Ogaden region in a shadowy military campaign supported by the Bush administration, according to more than a dozen refugees and former recruits who've fled to neighboring Kenya.

The untrained and ill-equipped draftees — including students, camel herders and tribal leaders who've never fired weapons in combat — are being thrown into pitched battles with ethnic Somali guerrillas and often suffer heavy casualties, the refugees and ex-recruits said.

Men who resist joining these civilian militias — known as "dabaqodhi," or "puppets" of the government — are beaten, locked up in military prisons or killed, the refugees said in interviews. When recruits perform poorly in combat, as they often do, they're abused and accused of aiding the rebels, refugees said.

And that is really only the tip of the iceberg.  The humanitarian disaster that is Somalia and the neighbouring Ogaden region is one of the most under-reported parts of this whole sad mess.

. . . Human Rights Watch says it has documented dozens of cases of severe abuse by Ethiopian troops in the Ogaden, including gang rapes, burned villages and what it calls “demonstration killings,” like hangings and beheadings, meant to terrorize the population.

. . .

Recent refugees said the military was trying to starve them out and the blockade had been like a noose on some parts of the region, cutting off food supplies.

In October, Save the Children U.K. surveyed more than 600 Ogadeni children and found that 21 percent were acutely malnourished, compared with United Nations surveys that found malnutrition rates of 19 percent in an area of Somalia and 13 percent in Darfur, Sudan. The United Nations considers 15 percent the emergency threshold.

Read over that last paragraph again.  The food situation for children in the Ogaden region and parts of Somalia is worse than it is in Darfur.  How is it we don’t hear more about this?

The Bush administration considers Ethiopia its No. 1 ally in combating terrorism in the Horn of Africa, and the American government provides it with roughly $500 million in annual aid.

Right.  Silly me.  Human rights only matter if you happen to be an enemy of the Bush administration.  When you’re an ally, particularly a Christian-led ally fighting Muslims, you can safely ignore them.

It also means you can call for international aid without being laughed at, but the international community is, not too surprisingly, reluctant to send much in the way of aid or soldiers to bail out the beleaguered interim government and the Ethiopians.  The result is the interim government taking actions that will likely hasten its fall.

The trouble started when government soldiers went to the market and, at gunpoint, began to help themselves to sacks of grain last week.

Islamist insurgents poured into the streets to defend the merchants. The government troops took heavy casualties and retreated all the way back to the presidential palace, supposedly the most secure place in the city. It, too, came under fire.

. . .

To get clan support and — just as crucially — more militiamen, transitional leaders have cut deals with warlords like Mohammed Dheere, now Mogadishu’s mayor, and Abdi Qeybdid, now the police chief. These are the same men whom the C.I.A. paid in 2006 to fight the Islamists, a strategy that backfired because the population turned against them, mostly because of their legacy of terrorizing civilians.

A legacy they seem intent on continuing, and one the Islamists are exploiting.

In the rat-tat-tat of nightly machine-gun fire, people are beginning to hear the government’s death knell. Many residents have mixed feelings about this. They contend that the government has enabled warlords. They say, almost without exception, that things were better under the Islamists. But they fear what lies ahead.

“We’re getting addicted to anarchy,” said Dahabo Abdulleh, a fuel seller.

. . .

Hassan, the government soldier, said he had been in one of these warlord militias since he was 8. He cannot read or write. He has thin wrists, a delicate face, empty eyes and a wife and two children to feed, which is why he said he routinely robs people.

“We are losing,” he said.

He said many of his friends were defecting to the Islamists because that was the only way to survive.

The Islamists have briefly captured several towns in recent weeks, freeing prisoners, snatching weapons and then melting back into the bush. Gone are the beards and the checkered scarves they used to wear. Many, like a young man named Elmi, are clean-shaven and favor crisply pressed suits.

Elmi, who like Hassan said he could not reveal his last name, said business owners sold gold, real estate and sheep to raise money for the Islamists. Elmi said that he was part of the battle at the market on March 20 that began with the looting, and that the government lost three trucks, which was corroborated by government soldiers.

“We were there because we are everywhere,” Elmi said.

The Islamists now effectively control large swaths of territory where they can strike at will, and the government’s legitimacy continues to fade, along with the increasingly small area it controls.

Somehow I doubt that a single airstrike is going to have much of an effect on this dynamic.

Three from Illinois, one from Texas, and another Judas,

A leader of the Democratic Party under Bill Clinton switched his allegiance to Barack Obama on Thursday and urged fellow Democrats to end the bruising nomination fight.

This has got to come to an end," former Democratic National Committee Chairman Joe Andrew told reporters in his hometown of Indianapolis just days before Tuesday's crucial state primary. He said he planned to call all the other superdelegates he knows and encourage them to back Obama.

Bill Clinton appointed Andrew chairman of the DNC in 1999, and he led the party through the disputed 2000 presidential race before stepping down in 2001. Andrew endorsed Hillary Rodham Clinton last year on the day she declared her candidacy for the White House.

In a lengthy letter explaining his decision, Andrew said he is switching his support because "a vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote to continue this process, and a vote to continue this process is a vote that assists (Republican) John McCain."

"The ship is taking on water right now," Andrew said at the news conference. "We need to patch those holes, heal the rift and go forward to beat John McCain."

This sets up a weird dynamic; Obama may soon end up with the lead in superdelegates that Clinton as enjoyed since long before the race really started just as polls show that he may lose several of the last few primaries. The proportional system means that he'll still maintain his lead in pledged delegates, and probably means that Obama will clinch the nomination just as Hillary finally succeeds in making him unelectable with an assist from Reverend Wright, ensuring that we all get to see President McCain sworn in.

Speaking of Rev. Wright, Mike Huckabee has an interesting theory as to why he seems determined to undermine Obama:

"His (Obama's) campaign is not being derailed by his race, it's being derailed by a person who doesn't want him to prove that we have made great advances in this country," Huckabee told reporters.

. . .

"Jeremiah Wright needs for Obama to lose so he can justify his anger, his hostile bitterness against the United States of America," Huckabee said.

That makes a tragic sort of sense. When your entire worldview is based on the belief that there can be no reconciliation between black and white, the last thing you want to see is someone prove that such reconciliation is possible.

though whether or not it will be reported is another matter. While much of the news this morning is focused on the fact that causalities and attacks are rising again in Iraq, the story that piqued my interest is this one from USA Today:

Drone attacks hit high in Iraq

U.S. commanders in Iraq have ordered an unprecedented number of airstrikes by unmanned airplanes in April to kill insurgents in urban combat and to limit their ability to launch rockets at U.S. forces, military records show.

. . .

Commanders are expected to rely more on unmanned systems as they begin to withdraw 30,000 U.S. troops sent last year. The military has dozens of Predators in Iraq and Afghanistan. In all, it operates 5,000 drones, 25 times more than it had in 2001.

Use of such drones and other air-launched attacks in dense urban environments cause a great deal of civilian causalities, but since the US doesn't count those, they probably don't care. The only causalities that count are those of US soldiers, and if the soldier is sitting thousands of miles away piloting a drone, the odds of him being a causality are pretty much non-existant. In Afghanistan, where there are far fewer troops and correspondingly far more airstrikes, the US and it's allies were directly responsible for more civilian deaths last year than the insurgents. I expect a similar scenario to play out in Iraq as the troops are drawn down.

So as US troops leave, air attacks will increase, and Iraqi suffering will increase with them. Whether or not anyone bothers reporting it is another matter.

. . . according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, the bigger problem appears to be John McCain's ties to President Bush.

In the survey, 43 percent of registered voters say they have major concerns that McCain is too closely aligned with the current administration.

In other news, water is wet. If the Democrats ever get over their mutual slaughter, they should be able to pound this meme over and over again. And while everybody is speaking about outspoken pastors, how about this tidbit from McCain-backer Hagee.

"As a nation, America is under the curse of God, even now." That ominous slam at America came from Pastor John Hagee, whose endorsement Republican presidential candidate John McCain sought, secured, and recently affirmed to ABC News that he is "glad to have." Hagee claims God's "curse" and "doom" is upon America because of two key issues: reproductive freedom and broad support for the teaching of the theory of evolution.

Although Senator McCain recently told George Stephanopoulos in an interview that his seeking of Hagee's endorsement was "probably" a mistake, he then doubled back to affirm his approval of Hagee's endorsement, stating, "I'm glad to have it."

Of course, Hagee isn't black, so there probably won't be too much focus on him or those like him.