Does not compute, this NYT article is interesting but it starts like this-
Does the international community have it all wrong on Somalia? After 17 years, 14 transitional governments and more than $8 billion in foreign aid, the country is as violent, lawless – and, many say, as hopeless – as ever.
Oh noes, what can we do? Yes it is a genuine conundrum, but this is the odd thing, the article does tell the truth about what led to the latest catastrophe, except it’s buried in the second half-
By the early 2000s, several of those local courts began to gain strength, and in 2006 they united under an Islamist banner to fight warlords being paid by the Central Intelligence Agency. The Islamic courts won and disarmed and pacified much of south-central Somalia, following their own version of the building block approach. But the United States and Ethiopia considered the Islamic courts a terrorist threat, so the United States helped Ethiopia invade Somalia.
Now I don’t know about you, but surely this context -that so many people have no awareness of (and Meles Zenawi in Ethiopia is a client leader so let’s not pretend America and Ethiopia *considering* is like two completely independent conclusions)- is sort of relevant in like… the first few lines when discussing the situation in Somalia, especially when people are looking for solutions. One of course presents itself- whatever else you do, stop the US Empire from rampaging around the place, it’s not helping! Thankfully for Team USA the NYT editors protects it’s cursory readers from such conclusions. Like a treasure hunt that works only for the dedicated sifter of copy.
18 August, 2008 at 5:06 pm
And yet the Bush administration says that the days of proxy empires are over.
19 August, 2008 at 3:52 pm
I’m beginning to suspect they might be a bit on the fibby side…
19 August, 2008 at 4:54 pm
I talked to a Somali the other day. He said the warlords just had to say, “hey CIA, we’re fighting Al Quaeda” and they got support. The mujaheddin,Chalabi, the Georgian leader Mikheil Saakashvili — all have had their “story.” In S.Vietnam it was “democratic” leader Diệm. Graham Green thought of the Americans as children wandering around in the dark. They still are! They talk themselves into these wacky narratives, and then wonder why things don’t turn out better. These people don’t learn! That’s the truly remarkable thing about them.
19 August, 2008 at 5:48 pm
Hey Jotman, ah yes, ‘The Quiet American’ (and the Caine film -not bad- in 02, got shelved for a year because after 911 introspection was demonised by the pro-war crowd). There is a good blog by Shafi, a Somali writer/journalist here
http://shafisaid.wordpress.com/
It’s the same Manichean thinking of the cold war, just two sides and you’re with us or against us, and allies are forgiven all and opponents damned for everything they do. I think also the CIA are a specific problem (within the greater problem of the military/industrial/political matrix), they are effectively a mixed military and intelligence service yet have far less oversight than the overt branches of the military. Throw in the corporate media and it’s no wonder large numbers of the domestic audience are kept in the dark about what their nation is doing overseas.
The game now of the right and establishment is to victimise those Americans who are aware and see things globally not through nationalist filters. People who have a post-imperial mindset when the mainstream culture won’t even admit the reality of Empire. So I think there are Quiet (as in wilfully ignorant manifest destiny supremacists) and Unquiet Americans (who are raising a voice against the corruption of their republic & constitution). Sadly it’s an uphill battle and Somalia didn’t escape another disastrous military intervention, still AFRICOM couldn’t find a home base on the continent so there is some hope.
20 August, 2008 at 2:21 pm
[...] eyed how sad it is those Uribe related death squad murders won’t be resolved. Much like the NYT pondering the situation in Somalia- Why oh why is the world like this?..It’s a mystery, or at least it is to our readers if they [...]
20 August, 2008 at 3:41 pm
“a bit on the fibby side”
tsk. ‘dya think ? I’d say Bu$hCo employ the Doctrine of Opposites codespeak.
20 August, 2008 at 3:51 pm
A bit fibby, like water is a bit wet!
Yes, as is said- I know it’s true when the govt. denies it-
although they are slippery, they often wrap a lie with some truth to put you off the scent. And with Rove’s permanent campaign model of governance they never actually just do anything it’s always a political act.
20 August, 2008 at 7:00 pm
Hey Rick,
Thanks for pointing out Shafi.
That’s my favorite book by Greene. The basic problem he identified still haunts us. Thought the movie wasn’t nearly as good as the book. (Actually, I think it was Greene who once said that many bad books have been made into great movies, but no great book has ever been made into a great movie).
I had not realized they delayed releasing it! It looks as if there’s a pattern here. It’s like burying the lede in this case. At the very moment in history –post 9/11 or this Russia/Georgia spat — when they most need to reflect on these themes, that’s precisely when they dig their heads down into the sand the deepest.
The moments of greatest danger are moments of deepest ignorance.
20 August, 2008 at 8:44 pm
No probs, Yes cinema and literature have a difficult relationship, it’s rare a good book meets a good filmmaking team. Sometimes you find a book you love makes a film you love but love for different things, one compliments the other rather than reproduces it. But mostly why adapt? Let new artworks flourish in both forms that play to their respective strengths. It’s mostly commercial branding that makes the pressure, bestseller = built in audience for movie version.
I find le Carré reminds me of Greene a bit and sometimes he deliberately invokes it and has a kind of literary conversation with Greene’s legacy.
I think Obama offers a less inward turned perception of the world, although the reported ‘close race’ does show the tenacity of so many people to remain wilfully ignorant. And even then he would be a figurehead of a huge complex that knows only one way to operate and believes it’s the ‘good guy’ whatever it does.
22 August, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Perhaps perceiving the book isn’t so great frees the artist filmmaker to do his own thing. Much reverence for a work’s perceived excellence gets in the way I suppose. A variation of the idea that the “perfect is the enemy of the good”?
22 August, 2008 at 9:08 pm
Yes I think that might be very true and I very much understand “perfect is the enemy of the good” (just stop already it’s done!) I think most of my favourite books and movies are separate, although I also have books that I haven’t seen the film of and while it almost always tempts me to watch it’s usually a bad idea, and also most films I love are original cinema works, although I love ‘Stalker’ but I’ve never read the book (Roadside Picnic).