Back to the Horn?

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Via the NY Times:

NAIROBI, Kenya — Somalia is once again a raging battle zone, with jihadists pouring in from overseas, preparing for a final push to topple the transitional government.

The government is begging for help, saying that more peacekeepers, more money and more guns could turn the tide against the Islamist radicals.

But the reality may be uglier than either side is willing to admit: Somalia has become the war that nobody can win, at least not right now.

Wait a minute...now it's the war that nobody can win? That "news" is secondary though to the moneyshot of the article:

Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the top United Nations envoy for Somalia, said that there were now several hundred foreign jihadists fighting for the Shabab. He noted that they were “more motivated, better organized and better trained” than typical Somali street fighters, who tend to be teenagers paid a few dollars a day to charge blindly into battle with rusty Kalashnikov rifles. These young combatants know as much about military tactics as they do about school, which is not a lot. Class has essentially been out for the past 18 years, since Somalia’s central government collapsed.

Is a U.S. presence back on the Horn of Africa almost preordained at this point? If it has to do with another disastrous U.N. orchestrated "peacekeeping" expedition, let's hope not. As these Muslim-on-Muslim powergrab conflicts become more and more prevalent across the globe, the real question will be if the current administation is capable of dealing with the expansion of the Long War, since apparently they don't even want to call it that.

Muslim-on-Muslim conflict is going to increase, and we're going to have to deal with it or risk having another half dozen Afghanistans and Pakistans popping up in different parts of the world over the next decade or so as the radical Islamists consolidate their positions.

Comment (1)

Hey, it went so good when Clinton tried it! Let's do it again!