Robert Duncan
5:00 pm
Ravaged by political corruption and ongoing fighting with Islamist insurgencies, Somalia seems to be at its breaking point. During this past week, UN officials suggested that Somalia triple its peacekeeping forces from 6,000 to a massive 20,000. Current efforts at peacekeeping have obviously not been effective, as Augustine Mahiga declared on Thursday that: “The threat level in Mogadishu and in southern-central Somalia has actually increased.” Obviously, this is a reference to the threat of the al-Shabaab militants that have been carving paths of destruction throughout Somalia. So far the UN has avoided any kind of large troop commitment in the area, but, The African Union has begun the process of requesting that the United Nation’s Security Council provide additional troop support for the defense of what little of Somalia that the currently accepted government still controls.
The truth of the matter is that Somalia has not had a stable government in all but twenty years. The current “government” isn’t any more effective than previous attempts. It doesn’t appear that the government has any real power or control, due to its inability to protect its own personnel from attacks by the al-Shabaab. If the UN doesn’t step in soon, the entire nation will be under the control of al-Shabaab, and forced into a Taliban-esque law system. I believe that it is apparent that major intervention is needed if there is any hope of getting a democratic style government (or one that functions at all) set up there. The al-Shabaab obviously have no concern for the general population of the nation, this can be seen in their August 24th attack on a hotel that is frequented by politicians, where the al-Shabaab killed 26 innocent people, and 6 Somalian government officials. The Somalian people need to realize how little the al-Shabaab care about them as people and fight back. Otherwise, their chances at freedom are completely forsaken.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/09/17/un.somalia.peacekeepers/index.html
http://www.linktv.org/mosaic/blog/post/449/somalia-the-next-afghanistan
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