Josh Trevino;
The Ethiopian invasion of Somalia proceeds apace, and from all reports, it proceeds at a much faster clip than anyone — including me — expected. Western journalism is struggling, and failing, to keep up.
[…]
[D]etails are sparse: journalism fails where journalists fear to tread, and so we are reduced to reading propaganda releases from the opposing sides — see, for example, and in an indication of the rather different values in this part of the world, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi bragging about the fatality rates amongst Islamist casualties — and the reports of the few Westerners on the ground. In Somalia’s case, the latter are mostly European aid workers and the odd United Nations official. Naturally, their reportage focuses upon things that affect them, and the wishes of the men with guns closest to them. Thus media from Islamist-controlled Mogadishu cites as its only two sources the Islamists — and the International Committee of the Red Cross. And so we see in the Washington Post unsourced passages telling us: “Aid workers said … thousands of civilians battered by drought, floods and now by rockets and mortars continued to flee villages in droves.” Worse: “United Nations officials warned of a dire humanitarian crisis inside Somalia, while fears remained high that Ethiopia’s campaign could have disastrous consequences across the Horn of Africa.”
This is absurd on several levels, beginning with the implicit contention that Somali suffering is only now beginning, and that the conquering advance of the Islamists there did not itself bring some measure of woe. Somalia is a wretched country, plagued with war, disease, anarchy and famine, and has been since the disintegration of the Siad Barre dictatorship fifteen years ago. (Even under Siad Barre, it was mired in decades of war and cruel repression.) The standard aid-worker/UN narrative — that this or that military action will result, or is resulting, in a “dire humanitarian crisis” or “disastrous consequences” — is therefore even more ridiculous than usual. (Recall, if you will, the predictions from the same quarters of a massive refugee/humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan prior to America’s invasion of that Islamist-ruled land.) In the spirit of fairness, we should allow that worrying about these things is their job; but one wishes they had evidenced similar concern over the Islamist ascendency prior to the Ethiopian intervention. That they did not is doubtless motivated by two factors: first, that the Islamists would kill those who complained overmuch; second, that the Ethiopians, being nominally Christian and supposedly American-backed (this last now based upon State Department statements), are more intellectually and socially acceptable targets to that particular set. (For vignettes of the average aid worker’s mindset on the United States in particular, see here.) As if on cue, erstwhile UN functionary Salim Lone arises in the pages of the International Herald Tribune to blame the whole mess on America — and to declare that the cure for Somalia’s woes was the salutary embrace of a vicious Islam.
Go read the whole thing – if only to understand just how much disregard you should hold for the so-called “reporting” of this conflict.
Dec 28 Update on the progress against the Islamist Courts, including information on the US support, at Strategypage.
The U.S. was apparently providing the Ethiopians with satellite and aircraft photos of Islamic Courts positions. The U.S. has a large counter-terror force to the north, in Djibouti. The U.S. may be supplying Ethiopia with cash (to pay for all the gas the Ethiopians are burning in their operations). For years, the U.S. has been training Ethiopian troops for operations like this.
Helps explain why they seem so good at it.
