Starry-eyed optimism in light of Zimbabwe's new unity government aside, peace in the former Rhodesia remains as elusive as ever. The primary opposition to Robert Mugabe's murderous ZANU-PF, the Movement for Democratic Change, insisted on several key conditions prior to signing on to the much touted power-sharing agreement -- the release of political prisoners topping the list. One of those prisoners, former farmer and MP Roy Bennett, is facing life in prison on over-hyped terrorism and illegal firearms charges. Bennett is the MDC's treasurer and the party's selection for Deputy Minister of Agriculture, a most important post in the former breadbasket nation's political hierarchy.

He also knows the cruelty of the Mugabe regime first hand. Peter Godwin, a Rhodesian soldier turned journalist, chronicled Bennett's entry into politics and subsequent farm seizure by Mugabe's 'war vets' in his superb When a Crocodile Eats the Sun. An excerpt (circa 2002):

Bennett tells me that he has only just moved back onto his farm after war vets invaded it. He was away at the time, he says, and they seized his wife, Heather, who was three months pregnant. They put a panga to her throat and made her dance around the house and chant ZANU-PF slogans until she collapsed from fear and exhaustion before they let her go. As a result she miscarried. They beat up the farm workers and occupied the farmhouse, ransacking it and daubing the walls with their own shit. They emptied the urn of Bennett's father's ashes and cut the paws off the lion-skin rug to use for muti -- traditional medicine.

Ultimately Bennett was forced to flee his homeland, seeking refuge in South Africa. He returned after the power-sharing agreement was signed, but was arrested when he attempted to fly back to the RSA.

Until Roy Bennett and other political prisoners are freed, until Mugabe releases his white-knuckled clutch on power, and until the MDC gains viable power through control of the police forces or army -- Zimbabwe is doomed to continue its plummet into anarchy.

Courtesy of Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe, home of the 231 million percent inflation rate.

Zimbabwe's central bank says it will soon introduce a 100 trillion dollar note as the once prosperous country battles to keep pace with hyperinflation that has caused many to abandon the country's currency.

The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe said the new notes that includes 50 trillion, 20 trillion and 10 trillion would be released for the "convenience of the public," according to statement released Thursday.

Ironic -- one of the poorest nations on earth is filled with billion and trillionaires. Unsurprisingly, the once bountiful African nation has unofficially defaulted to the US dollar as its main currency.

Have you ever wondered what Iraq might have looked like had the United States quit the country Iraq in 2006 after it was on the brink of civil war? Look no further than Somalia, where the Ethiopian Army has completed its withdrawal of Mogadishu and is preparing to pull out from other bases in the countries just two years after ousting the al Qaeda-backed Islamic Courts Union. From CNN:

Islamist militants took almost full control of Mogadishu on Thursday, less than 24 hours after Ethiopian troops withdrew from Somalia's capital, a witness reported.

The Ethiopian forces pulled out their last remaining bases in the city late Wednesday after two years propping up Somalia's transitional government.

Forces from different Islamist groups -- including the hard-line al-Shabaab, which the United States has designated a terror organization -- immediately seized every base the Ethiopians abandoned.

"The city is almost under Islamist rule," said a local journalist who did not want his name revealed. "You can hear different names of the Islamist groups taking control in many parts of the city."

Shabaab and a "moderate" pro-government Islamist group called Ahlu Sunna Waljamaa have been battling for control of central Somalia as Ethiopian forces pull out of the lawless country. The fissures between the hard-line Islamists and "moderate" Islamists, while real, will likely be patched over as the Islamist factions seek to consolidate power in the eastern African state and impose sharia, as they did when they gained power in 2006. The Islamists will likely set their sights on the semi-autonomous states of Puntland and Somaliland in the future.

The fall of Somalia is a major victory for al Qaeda. Unlike Afghanistan, which sits in the backwaters of South Asia, Somalia sits astride one of the most transited sea lanes on the planet, where piracy is already a major problem. Somalia serves as a bridge between African and the Arabian Peninsula. Across the Gulf of Aden sits Yemen, another failed state riddled with al Qaeda operatives. Like it or not, Somalia has moved up the list of problems facing the incoming Obama administration.

PRETORIA, South Africa (AP):

The United States can no longer support a proposed Zimbabwean power-sharing deal that would leave Robert Mugabe, “a man who’s lost it,” as president, the top American envoy for Africa said Sunday.

Jendayi E. Frazer, the assistant secretary of state for African affairs, made the announcement in South Africa after spending the last several days explaining the shift in the American position to regional leaders.

The new stance will put pressure on Zimbabwe’s neighbors, South Africa in particular, to abandon its support for Mr. Mugabe. But South Africa said its position was unchanged.

The United States, Ms. Frazer said, has become convinced that Mr. Mugabe is incapable of sharing power. She cited political moves he has made since September without consulting the opposition, reports that his government has continued to harass and arrest opposition and human rights activists, and the continued deterioration of Zimbabwe’s humanitarian and economic situation.

In the past month, President Bush, Gordon Brown, and Nicolas Sarkozy have all called for dictator Robert Mugabe to step down. However, this is the first time that a major power has admitted that a power-sharing deal between Zimbabwe's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and Mugabe's thuggish ZANU party simply will not work. Mugabe has spent his entire 28 year reign in the former Rhodesia clinging to power through intimidation, vote rigging, calculated starvation of his people, and outright murder. His behavior, like that of all Marxist-Leninist dictators, has been constant and predictable for over three decades, resulting in the most dramatic peacetime collapse of a nation-state in recent history.

Unfortunately for Zimbabweans, it is the Republic of South Africa, not the the United States, that holds the key to Mugabe's downfall. Just as in the days of the Rhodesian Republic, where apartheid South Africa kept their landlocked neighbor to the north breathing, closing the Zimbabwe-South Africa border would result in the rapid collapse of the Mugabe regime. To wit, Zimbabwe's western neighbor Botswana has proposed just that, meeting resistance from the African National Congress and the bulk of South African leadership, all of whom continue to view Mugabe as a post-Colonial hero and freedom fighter.

Until the RSA is ready to commit to serious solutions to Zimbabwe's political crisis and impending implosion, the nation once hailed as the "breadbasket of Africa" will continue its swift descent into a Somali-like vacuum state.

A bizarre development in the story of the pirates operating off the coast of Somalia:

The pirates who captured the Saudi oil tanker Sirius Star have broken off negotiations with the ship’s owners, apparently insisting they want to talk with a wealthy Virginia woman with close ties to the US military and intelligence communities.

Michele Lynn Ballarin, a figure only Washington could offer the world, runs a small Virginia-based company, SelectArmor, that designs and makes body armor and provides executive protection to wealthy individuals. She has a long history of involvement in Somalia, including allegations by a respected publication — Africa Confidential — that she was helping plan military operations there in 2006.

Military.com has the exclusive interview with Ms. Ballarin, definitely worth reading. But the real news here is that the pirates, with their seizure of the Saudi-owned supertanker, seemed to have crossed the Islamist insurgent group Al Shabab, successor to the Islamic Courts Union that was toppled by an American-backed Ethiopian invasion.

[Ballarin] claimed the Islamist group had captured, tortured and killed a young male relative of one of the pirates in the last few days. This came after Al Shabab announced it opposed the taking of ships owned by Muslims and promised to behead those who did.

Al Shabab “made it dead clear that any ransom that is collected they will take it; they will take away their money and kill them,” Ballarin said.

It seems obvious enough that the Saudis have some kind of relationship with this group. That concerns me. Al Shabab has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States State Department. One wonders how much money the Saudis gave these terrorists in exchange for a little help protecting the sea lanes in the Gulf of Aden and further out into the Indian Ocean. And if the terrorists are running some kind of racket here, shaking down the Saudis for help with keeping the pirates under control -- isn't that our racket? What is the United States Navy doing if not protecting sea lanes and insuring the free flow of commerce on the world's oceans?

Interestingly, there is a current on the left that would welcome a return of Islamist rule in Somalia for the measure of stability it would bring -- even if that stability allowed the state to become a safe-haven for al Qaeda affiliated terrorists. There are others who think we should embrace the pirates as the "secular, liberal capitalists of Somalia," who might serve as a bulwark against what now seems to be the inevitable return of Islamist rule.

Must we accept a choice between pirates and terrorists? Shouldn't we be for killing them all?

President Jimmy Carter, the man who insisted that the Zimbabwe-Rhodesian government allow the Soviet backed Zanu paramilitary liberation movement to participate in national elections, has been denied entry into Zimbabwe by.... Zanu-PF leader and dictator Robert Mugabe.

The former United Nations chief and a former U.S. president have canceled a planned humanitarian visit to Zimbabwe after being denied entry into the country by President Robert Mugabe's government.

Kofi Annan and Jimmy Carter, along with human rights campaigner Graca Machel, were scheduled to visit Zimbabwe Saturday for a first-hand look at the emerging cholera crisis.

Double irony: Graca Machel was the wife of former Mozambique President Samora Machel, the man who hosted Mugabe's Zanu while they were launching military raids into apartheid Rhodesia during the 1970s.

The story of Zimbabwe is one of the great tragedies of the 20th century. Once a first world nation, Rhodesia -- and Zimbabwe during the 80s -- exported enough food to feed roughly half of Africa. Though deeply stained by the apartheid policies of the white minority government, Rhodesia still boasted the largest black middle class in Africa, had a top-tier educational system for both blacks and whites that rivaled those in Europe and the United States, a Rhodesian dollar that was nearly equal with its U.S. cousin, and unemployment that was in the low single digits.

Today, after Robert Mugabe's tyrannical 28 year reign, Zimbabwe has become one of the poorest nations in the world. Unemployment is at 80 percent and rising. Inflation is an unbelievable 2000 percent, also rising. Once the breadbasket of Africa, Zimbabwe is now reliant on Western food relief to feed its people. Refugees pour over the South African and Botswanan borders by the thousands, as AIDS (and now cholera) ravage the countryside. Life expectancy for a Rhodesian male was appx. 67 years. That number has collapsed to an unthinkable 37 years.

To this day, Carter is unrepentant for his assistance in Mugabe's rise to power. That he was denied entry into the very state he helped create underscores the dangerous naivete of Carter's foreign policy, and serves as a warning shot to administrations to come: the history and nature of Marxist dictators is both universal and constant. To legitimize them, as Carter did with Mugabe, can create humanitarian crises that span decades.

For more on the Zimbabwe-Rhodesian elections, see James Kirchick's How Tyranny Came to Zimbabwe.

While President Bush's legacy with regards to U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan is uncertain and his approval rating stands at about 28 percent, his administration's Africa policy was celebrated this week in Washington.

At the White House Summit on International Development, the president was lauded by Liberian president Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and Irish rock star Bob Geldof.

Ms. Johnson-Sirleaf, the first female leader to be democratically elected in Africa, has been nicknamed the "Iron Lady" of Liberia. She joked several times about President Bush's February trip to Africa where, she said, he became a "YouTube sensation."

She didn't hold back in her praise of President Bush:

I'm here today to recognize the sick that have been healed, the hungry that have been fed, the livelihoods that have improved, the hopes that have been inspired, and the dreams that have been realized because of President Bush's leadership.

Geldof called Bush's efforts to support international development through the Millenium Challenge Corporation and fight AIDS and malaria "this administration's great legacy."

"Yes, speak truth to power, absolutely. But also speak truth about power," said Geldof.

Justifying their coup against an elected president last month, Mauritania's top generals underscored not only what they claimed was creeping corruption and blatant incompetence but a soft approach to the al Qaeda franchise in North Africa, known as Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb [west]. One hundred percent Muslim, Mauritania is, more so than the other North African countries where AQIM's presence and terrorist activities have been on the rise, an example of why bin-Ladenism and its offshoots represent a threat to Muslim countries as much as to the West, if not more so. After all, Algeria and Morocco, for example, are Mediterranean nations whose economies are intertwined with Europe's (and ours). By contrast Mauritania is still comparatively isolated.

At best, the jihadists can justify war against Mauritania because it has diplomatic relations with Israel and receives U.S. help as part of the Trans-Sahara Counter-terrorism program. The simpler explanation is that the terrorists are seeking to destabilize regimes throughout the region and they think ambushing platoons of young recruits and leaving them on desert roads with their throats slit, as they are reported to have done on two occasions in the past fortnight, will advance this goal.

Now it's John McCain's turn.

In talking to Republican sources close to the campaign, it seems clear that the decision has come down to three people: Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, and Joe Lieberman. The basic dynamic of the McCain selection process has not changed. McCain is most comfortable with Lieberman and would pick his longtime friend if he could be convinced that the political consequences of doing so would not be fatal. Campaign manager Rick Davis has been calling Republican leaders around the country trying to gauge their likely reaction to a Lieberman pick.

Most of McCain's staff favors Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, along with a majority of the RNC types working closely with the campaign. Mitt Romney has some supporters, too, and in many cases he is the second choice of both Lieberman and Pawlenty backers. McCain advisers have been very impressed with Romney's critique of Barack Obama as a McCain surrogate.

What effect will Obama's selection of Joe Biden have on McCain's decision?

On the one hand, Pawlenty supporters will argue that it makes their man more plausible. Pawlenty is a fresh face -- a young, conservative, reform-minded governor -- exactly what McCain needs to run against two sitting senators. If the general election has come down to experience versus change -- with each candidate owning one of those attributes -- Pawlenty could help McCain mitigate Obama's advantage on change. Biden has been in the Senate longer than all but five of his colleagues -- not exactly change you can believe in.

On the other hand, the Biden pick could make Lieberman more doable for a candidate that seems more and more inclined to pick a "comfort" runningmate. Although many Washington insiders see Biden as flakey and unpredictable, he can come across as both likable and knowledgeable. He will do well in a VP debate. Would Pawlenty appear overmatched?

More important, McCain has made national security the central rationale for his candidacy. His main critique of Barack Obama has been that the Democrat is too inexperienced to serve as president during such serious times. Picking Pawlenty undercuts both of these arguments.

The timing of McCain's decision could well be crucial. And the longer he waits, the more likely Lieberman becomes. Democrats have been frustrated at their inability to convince voters that electing McCain will yield the same results as electing George W. Bush for a third term. So they will spend most of the next week linking McCain to "the failed policies of George W. Bush." It's an unpersuasive case for many reasons -- most especially because McCain has publicly challenged Bush on so many issues. But McCain is very sensitive to the comparison with Bush and while he's willing to give Bush credit for keeping us safe, it's no accident that he hasn't yet campaigned with Bush during the general election. If Democrats have success linking McCain and Bush -- or if McCain believes they are having success doing so -- no other choice would so effectively end that argument.

Amy Winehouse

Nelson Mandela is going to have one hell of a 90th b-day party. Thanks to Will Smith, who is hosting the bash, Mandela will not just have one musical performance to entertain him. Rather, he'll play guest of honor to an entire rock concert. Featured stars include Annie Lennox, Leona Lewis, the Soweto Gospel Choir, and Shirley Bassey. Alas, it appears there will be at least one cancellation. The crack-smoking, headbutting Amy Winehouse has been diagnosed, at the ripe ol' age of 24, with emphysema and is not expected to show.

A pair of car bombs in the Algerian capital of Algiers has killed at least 47 and wounded an unknown number of people. The death toll is feared to be over 60. The bombings occurred in front of the Constitutional Court and the UN refugee agency and a police station in different neighborhoods in Algiers. Reports indicate the bombs were detonated just ten minutes apart. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which has taken credit for similar attacks in the past, is the culprit.

The blast in front of the U.N. refugee agency and police station is believed to have been a suicide bombing. "The explosion occurred around 9:30 a.m. (3:30 a.m. EST) and blew off the front off the U.N. refugee agency building," UNHCR chief spokesman Ron Redmond told the Associated Press. "It apparently caused even worse damage to the main U.N. building housing the U.N. Development Program and other agencies diagonally across the street."

At least ten UN employees were reported killed. Several school buses were reportedly destroyed on the street outside the attack on the Constitutional Court.

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb most certainly conducted the Algiers bombings. The mode of attack--coordinated bombings against government and international institutions designed to inflict massive casualties and maximum media coverag--is al Qaeda's specialty. The North African branch of al Qaeda has taken credit for similar strikes in the past.

On April 11, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb took credit for a pair of coordinated suicide bombings in the capital. A powerful bomb was detonated outside the headquarters of Prime Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem's headquarters in Algiers, and another blast occurred outside the headquarters of the security forces.

It happens, on rare occasion. When the USS Porter came to the rescue of a hijacked North Korean ship off the coast of Somalia, I speculated that the North Korean public would never hear about the encounter, remaining blissfully ignorant of the fact that the United States fleet includes a single vessel other than the captured USS Pueblo.

Don Surber, took a different view, though, saying "this should help relations with North Korea":

Still, I have to think that there are a few Koreans who think a little more highly of the United States because of this.

Well, apparently it has helped relations:

In an extremely rare public expression, North Korea officially thanked the United States for helping the crew of a North Korean cargo ship hijacked by pirates off the Somali coast late last month, describing the rescue as a symbol of Washington-Pyongyang rapprochement.

"We feel grateful to the United States for its assistance given to our crewmen. This case serves as a symbol of the DPRK [North Korea]-U.S. cooperation in the struggle against terrorism," the North's state-run Korean Central News Agency said.

Best word to describe the North Koreans, other than evil: unpredictable.

Via our buddies at Op-For, the official caption: "A pirate skiff burns after being hit by several rounds from a 25mm gun aboard guided-missile destroyer USS Porter (DDG 78). The skiff belonged to a group of pirates that had taken a cargo ship."

You can read the full story here at Military.com. The long and the short of it is that the United States Navy seems to be increasingly engaged in a campaign to suppress the rampant piracy off the coast of Somalia. Unfortunately, the beneficiaries of this recent success happen to be North Korean, but as CSBA's Bob Work told the Virginia Pilot, "The Navy does this for all mariners." Though he also said that this may not be the best allocation of naval resources:

"Essentially, you don't want to use a billion dollar DDG [guided missile destroyer] to suppress pirates," Work said. "That's a mission for a much smaller ship. But we have a lot of ships in that area because of ongoing operations in the Horn of Africa. These are ships designed for high-end war fighting, not chasing pirates."

Don Surber looks for an upside for U.S.-Nork relations in all this, but I'm not so optimistic. I suspect the only American warship that ever gets a shout-out on North Korean radio is the USS Pueblo.

When my fellow Hoya Dikembe Mutombo joins forces with Alyssa Milano, is there anything they cannot conquer? According to Milano’s debut on the Huffington Post, a crisis even larger than AIDS and malaria combined afflicts the poor: Neglected Tropical Diseases, or NTD’s (as opposed to STD’s). It sounds serious enough:

Diseases like river blindness, that's caused by black flies that bite their victims near the eyes and leave behind parasitic worms to destroy sight. And snail fever, which you get by simply bathing or washing in a stream, and which causes severe liver or kidney damage. And elephantiasis, so named because it leads to unspeakable deformities, like swelling of the legs to elephant-sized proportions, making even walking impossible.

Apparently Poison Ivy is not an NTD.

But she is ultimately upbeat:

“You can control and potentially eliminate the seven most common NTDs for just 50 cents per person, per year—the average cost of parking your car at a meter for one hour, and a fraction of the cost of antiviral treatment for HIV/AIDS and mult-idrug therapy for tuberculosis.”

Which to me is somehow more convincing coming from the star of Embrace of the Vampire than Sally Struthers.

Milano also provides the useful link to the Sabin Vaccine Institutes's STOP NTDs Campaign.

Right about now you are probably wondering when I am going to say “Who will be sexing Dikembe tonight?” But just because I happen to mention Dikembe Mutumbo does not mean I have to automatically ask who will be sexing Dikembe tonight, for “who will be sexing Dikembe tonight” is none of our business. Now aren’t you glad I didn’t mention it?

Bulgarian medics convicted of infecting Libyan children with
HIV arrive at Sofia airport on Tuesday. (Nikolay Doychinovn/Reuters TV)

During his recent presidential campaign, Nicolas Sarkozy promised to be the candidate of change, someone who was committed to breaking up France’s sclerotic political system and over-regulated economy. In foreign policy, too, Sarkozy vowed to make France "a shining city upon a hill," a beacon of hope and a staunch defender of freedom, democracy, and human rights around the world. In this context, it seemed to be both smart politics and good morals when the media savvy Sarkozy (who never seems to miss an opportunity to make a splash) appointed Socialist politician Bernard Kouchner, the internationally respected co-founder of French humanitarian NGO "Doctors Without Borders," as his new foreign minister in May. However, barely two months into his five-year term, it appears that President Sarkozy is personally committed to a foreign policy agenda primarily driven by narrowly-defined French national interests, thus leaving his more idealistic foreign minister in the dust.

On Wednesday last week, Sarkozy visited with Libyan homme fort (even the French employ this euphemistic code-word for dictator) Col. Moammar Gadhafi and signed various, wide-ranging bilateral cooperation agreements in critical areas such as defense, health, the fight against terrorism, and civilian nuclear power. In fact, Sarkozy’s plane landed in Tripoli less than 24 hours after his wife Cecilia had left the Libyan capital together with six Bulgarian medical workers who were released from a Libyan prison in what turned out to be major photo-op for France’s telegenic first lady.

Under the terms of the Franco-Libyan nuclear deal, Sarkozy has agreed to provide Col. Gadhafi with an atomic reactor to be used for powering a desalination plant. In return, Libya will provide France’s nuclear power giant Areva with much-needed uranium. It comes very handy that Col. Gadhafi has about 1,600 tons of uranium left over from his country’s clandestine nuclear weapons program abandoned in 2004. Sarkozy’s nuclear deal with Col. Gadhafi--for many years a key sponsor of international terrorism--was criticized both in France and abroad. France’s anti-nuclear coalition, "Sortir du Nucleaire," accused Sarkozy of handing over nuclear technology to Libya in exchange for the nurses. "Civilian and military nuclear are inseparable," the French NGO said in a statement. "Delivering ‘civilian’ nuclear energy to Libya would amount to helping the country, sooner or later, to acquire nuclear weapons."

On July 15th, after nine days of captivity, Zhang Guohua, an executive with the China Nuclear International Uranium Corporation (Sino-U), was released by the Niger Movement for Justice (MNJ). Within days of the abduction, heeding MNJ’s call for foreign companies to withdraw, the China Nuclear Engineering & Construction Corporation, parent company of Sino-U, suspended its uranium-prospecting operation in Niger’s northern Agadez region.

Chinese President Hu Jintao (C) addresses the round table of the Beijing
Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) at the Great Hall
of the People in Beijing, Nov. 5, 2006. (Xinhua Photo)

The kidnapping in Niger is one of a string of attacks on Chinese nationals in Africa this year. In April, in a pre-dawn attack, guerrillas of the Ogaden National Liberation Front killed nine Chinese workers and 65 Ethiopians while they slept on the campground of a Chinese-owned oil exploration field in eastern Ethiopia.

In January, a Chinese engineer was killed and another injured in a Chinese stone materials plant in Kenya. And in three separate incidents in Nigeria this year, a total of 16 Chinese nationals were kidnapped, though all were subsequently released unharmed.

Motivated initially by political ideology, Chinese involvement in Africa began in the 1960s. More recently, the explosion of Chinese investment on the resource-rich continent is driven by China’s energy needs and Beijing’s "go-out" national strategic policy adopted at the 16th party congress in 2002. From Angolan oil to Zambian copper, African-Chinese trade between 2000 and 2006 grew from $10 billion to $55.5 billion. And by 2009, Chinese aid to Africa is expected to reach $10 billion. In the past 12 months, Chinese president Hu Jintao has visited 17 African countries, more than any other head-of-state.

Unlike Western countries, China typically attaches no conditions to its investment in, and economic aid to, Africa. One recent example of the practical effects of this tactic concerns Zimbabwe. In 2005, ostracized by Western governments and investors over human rights abuses in that country, President Robert Mugabe launched a "Look East" policy. China is now Zimbabwe’s second largest trade partner, behind only South Africa.

China’s economic offensive across Africa carries geopolitical implications as well. Since President Bush announced the creation of a unified military command for Africa this past February, Chinese media have been following the development closely.

After the April killing of nine Chinese oil workers in Ethiopia, Chinese media were quick to conclude that the incident was the result of internal strife in that restive country and that the action was not specifically targeted at China’s presence there. It was also noted that with the creation of the Africa Command, the Pentagon is putting the continent on a par with its Pacific Command and that "the unshakable superpower status of the United States has obtained yet another powerful pillar."
In fact, China’s suspicion of U.S. objectives in Africa pre-dates the Africa Command. A 2006 opinion piece in People’s Daily titled "U.S. steps up military infiltration into Africa" underscores Beijing’s concerns over the U.S. presence on the continent:

[The] U.S. military presence in Africa has two obvious tendencies: one is to deepen military cooperation in North Africa and the Horn of Africa for anti-terrorism purposes; and the other is to cooperate with West Africa for oil security. From strategic [sic] perspective, Washington’s Africa policy has combined anti-terrorism, oil and garrisoning.

Just last month, the surprisingly competitive French presidential candidate Francois Bayrou threatened a boycott of the 2008 Beijing Olympics if China continued to protect the Sudanese government from the international community's attempts to intervene in Darfur. Bayrou said that the Olympics were now "a political issue because China decided to bring its protection to the Khartoum regime."

The Chinese were outraged that Bayrou would make such an accusation. Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said that "the people who put forward those remarks are not very clear on China's position on the Darfur issue."

In what must be an effort to clear up that position for ignorant foreign leaders, the People's Daily now reports that "China and Sudan vowed in Beijing Monday to boost military exchanges and cooperation in various sectors."

"Military relations between China and Sudan have developed smoothly," said Chinese Defense Minister Cao Gangchuan at a meeting with Chief of Joint Staff of Sudanese armed forces Haj Ahmed El Gaili.

China and Sudan have enjoyed profound friendship though the two countries are far apart, said Cao, who is also vice chairman of the Chinese Central Military Commission and state councilor.

China cherished the traditional friendship with Sudan and would like to further promote bilateral cooperation in various fields, said Cao.

Haj Ahmed El Gaili appreciated China's long-term support to Sudan. He said the Sudanese armed forces want to maintain and strengthen cooperation with the Chinese side so as to lift bilateral ties to a new height.

And now that that's been cleared up, I'm sure that we can all watch the Beijing Olympics with a clear conscience.

From the New York Times:

They [experts] say North Africa, with its vast, thinly governed stretches of mountain and desert, could become an Afghanistan-like terrorist hinterland within easy striking distance of Europe. That is all the more alarming because of the deep roots that North African communities have in Europe and the ease of travel between the regions. For the United States, the threat is also real because of visa-free travel to American cities for most European passport holders.

Our own expert, Olivier Guitta, reported in THE DAILY STANDARD this week on the alarming spread of terrorist groups in North Africa. His piece, Terror in the Maghreb, made much the same point as New York Times reporter Craig Smith:

GSPC, which officially merged with al Qaeda over the summer--underlined by al Qaeda's Ayman Al Zawahiri in a September 11, 2006 video--and changed its name a few weeks ago to al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, is clearly the dominant terrorist group in the Maghreb and the countries of the Sahel. The organization's aim is to make the Maghreb a springboard to Europe with the help of the Algerian Islamist Khalid Abou Bassir, believed to be one of al Qaeda leaders in Europe. This was confirmed last year when Belgian police arrested a Moroccan Islamist named Mohamed Reha, who told police that "not only were we preparing jihad operations in Morocco, but we were working to expand our jihadist movement to all the countries of the Maghreb with the help of our Algerian brothers from the GSPC."

Guitta also points to "reports that this new terror group has been recruiting scores of Moroccan, Tunisian, and Algerian volunteers; to join the forces of al Qaeda in Iraq." As worrisome as that may be, it seems Europe has the most to fear from the unchecked spread of these groups. And it will be interesting to see how Europe confronts this problem. Guitta says that the French have a great deal of knowledge about the old-guard GSPC, but the groups is "recruiting every single day in the suburbs of Algiers," with the aim of enlisting young men who have no criminal background and whom the French authorities will be unable to track. The French are supporting the Algerian government, financially and otherwise, in its fight against the GSPC, but Guitta says that the French so fear their own restive Muslim population, that any direct action is out of the question.

A little good news from the war on terror. The AP reports that a relative of Osama bin Laden was killed in Madagascar yesterday in what family members are calling a burglary. The victim, Jamal Khalifa, was wanted in the Philippines "for alleged terror financing," was named by the U.S. government as an "unindicted co-conspirator" in the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, and was married to one of bin Laden's sisters. According to Khalifa's brother, more than 25 armed men broke into the house, killed Khalifa while he was sleeping, and stole everything that wasn't nailed down, including computers.

Sounds suspiciously like a successful counterterror operation, but if not, it's still nice to see bad things happen to bad people. You can read more about Khalifa here.

In what is perhaps the wackiest analysis of the recent war in Somalia, the New Republic's John B. Judis stops just shy of calling Bush a terrorist for his complicity in the Ethiopian invasion:

What exactly are we doing in the Horn of Africa, where we have encouraged the Christian government of Ethiopia to invade Somalia and replace its Islamic government? As far as I can tell, we have violated international law, committed war crimes, helped Al Qaeda recruit new members, and involved ourselves in a guerrilla war that could last decades. It's Iraq writ small.

The United Nations, however, seems to have taken a kinder view to the ousting of Somalia's al Qaeda affiliated ICU. The BBC reports that Francois Fall, the U.N. envoy to Somalia, has warned President Abdullahi Yusuf not to squander what he called "the best opportunity for peace for 16 years." Of course it's not all good news, the ICU has pledged to fight a drawn out insurgency, though it seems unlikely that the decimated group would be capable of any such thing, and there are more credible fears that Yusuf is no Thomas Jefferson. Still, the country is largely at peace, the bad guys have fled, and not a single American life has been lost. That's about as good as anyone could have hoped for 2 months ago.

As if the Horn of Africa didn't already have enough problems, now Eritrea, which had relatively friendly relations with the United States when it first gained independence from Ethiopia in 1991, is looking ever more like a state sponsor of terrorism. No state has been officially labeled with that designation since the Sudan--which shares a border with Eritrea--back in 1993, not long after that country sponsored a conference that boasted representatives from Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Saddam's Baath party, and the Islamic Republic of Iran among other distinguished guests (not to imply that Saddam's secular Iraq had any connection with terrorism). But Eritrea has become increasingly hostile to American interests in East Africa and it has done so most recently by supporting Somalia's al Qaeda affiliated Islamic Courts Union.

Eritrea has strained relations with nearly all its neighbors, including Sudan, but a border dispute with Ethiopia led to full-scale war in 1998, with more than 20,000 Eritreans killed over two years. That Eritrea would prefer Somalia's ICU in its struggle against the Ethiopian-backed interim government is hardly surprising then; however, the extent of the cooperation between Eritrea and the ICU is only now coming to light. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross posted a story on Pajamas Media this weekend on the alliance between the two:

Ethiopia’s longtime rival, Eritrea, had troops in the country for about four months prior to [the Ethiopian invasion]. A confidential UN report drafted by the Monitoring Group on Somalia in late 2006 says that “2000 fully equipped combat troops from Eritrea” arrived to the north of Mogadishu in late August, and redeployed to different areas held by the ICU. According to high-level sources in Somalia’s transitional government and U.S. intelligence, these Eritrean troops never left the country--a development unknown to American policymakers until today.

It seems reasonable to conclude then that the ICU's rise can best be explained by Eritrea's support for it, rather than as the result of an indigenous yearning for Islamic order. That the ICU is closely linked to al Qaeda is beyond doubt, but this fact seems not to have concerned the Eritreans in the least. Now, in addition to collaborating with terrorist organizations, Eritrea is making direct threats in an attempt to deter further American involvement in Somalia. According to Reuters:

Eritrea warned the United States yesterday that its involvement in Somalia would “incur dangerous consequences” following a US air strike in the Horn of Africa nation targeting Al Qaeda suspects.

The Eritreans kicked USAID out of the country in the summer of 2005. But we still provide Eritrea with a small amount of aid and military training. If the Bush administration does not want to brand Eritrea as a state sponsor of terrorism, it could at least cut off that funding as a symbolic gesture. The threat of sanctions and increased military support for Ethiopia would have an effect as well. Still, it will be difficult to rally international support for any move against Eritrea--like every other rogue state, Eritrea is forging ever closer ties with China.

Fazul Abdullah Mohammed

The Associated Press is now reporting that a U.S. airstrike on suspected al Qaeda militants early Monday morning was, in fact, a success, resulting in the death of Fazul Abdullah Mohammed. From the AP:

Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, who allegedly planned the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa, was killed in a U.S. airstrike early Monday morning local time, according to an American intelligence report passed on to the Somali authorities.

"I have received a report from the American side chronicling the targets and list of damage," Abdirizak Hassan, the Somali president's chief of staff, told The Associated Press. "One of the items they were claiming was that Fazul Abdullah Mohammed is dead." If confirmed Mohammed's death would be a major victory for the U.S. in its hunt for the 1998 embassy bombers. The strike was part of the first U.S. offensive in the African country since 18 American soldiers were killed there in 1993.

Further reports indicate as many as 10 other terrorists may have been killed in that strike. Following that success, U.S. aircraft have reportedly been engaged in at least 3 separate attacks in Southern Somalia.

What happens when we get the bad guys? From Deutsche Welle:

Europe Critical of US Airstrikes in Somalia

UN spokeswoman Michele Montas said new UN chief Ban Ki-moon was distressed by Washington's move.

"The secretary-general is concerned about the new dimension this kind of action could introduce to the conflict and the possible escalation of hostilities that may result," Montas said.

Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema said Rome opposed "unilateral initiatives that could spark new tensions in an area that is already very destabilized."

Norway, a member of the international contact group on Somalia along with Italy, said it was not satisfied with Washington's explanation of its conduct in Somalia and stressed that terrorism should be fought in a court room and not with military hardware.

The European Commission also slammed US moves to hunt down al Qaeda operatives in Somalia.

"Any incident of this kind is not helpful in the long term," a spokesman for the EU Commission told reporters in Brussels on Tuesday. "Only a political solution can bring any serious prospects of peace and stability in Somalia."

Would the Norwegians have us arrest Fazul? And try him where? Surely not at Gitmo. These comments are absurd, but not so absurd as the caption accompanying one of the photos in the article:

The EU fears that the US airstrikes may destabilize Somalia.

That’s right. The U.S. Air Force is bringing instability to the Horn of Africa by killing terrorists.

Writing at Pajamas Media, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross has broken a major story revealing the extensive cooperation between American military personnel and the Ethiopian armed forces during that country's recent invasion of ICU-controlled areas of Somalia. According to Gartenstein-Ross, "U.S. ground forces have been active in Somalia from the start, a senior military intelligence officer confirmed. 'In fact,' he said, 'they were part of the first group in.”

Many observers were surprised by the rapid advance of Ethiopian troops, and the hasty retreat of the ICU, despite assurances by Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi that the Islamists could be displaced in "one to two weeks." Gartenstein-Ross has now confirmed the involvment of American aircraft, including American-piloted helicopter gunships, in the assault, which largely explains the success of the campaign. From Gartenstein-Ross:

Pajamas Media previously reported that Ethiopia’s use of helicopter gunships capable of targeting the Islamic Courts Union’s ground forces was a decisive factor in the army-to-army fighting against the ICU. A senior military intelligence source says that some of the gunships earlier described as Ethiopian were in fact U.S. aircraft. This has been confirmed by Dahir Jibreel, the transitional government’s permanent secretary in charge of international cooperation, who said that U.S. planes and helicopters with their markings obscured have been striking targets since December 25.

My first impression of the ICU's collapse was to reflect on the advantages of fighting wars by proxy, but it now seems that American air power played an important role in removing the threat of a Taliban-style terrorist regime imposing itself on Africa's most chaotic state--not that the Bush administration will get any credit from the press for taking such bold action. No, instead the New York Times has seemed to lament the exit of Somalia's Islamists: "The Islamists, using Islam as a bridge, did a better job than any recent authority to unite warring clans. But their military was no match for the better-trained, better-equipped Ethiopian-led troops, and now that the Islamists are gone, many fear a return to clan mayhem."

PS--My favorite quote from the above referenced article comes from Abdullahi Jama Ali, who the Times describes as "once part of an underground Islamist group": "The Islamic religion is like an ocean, everyone can swim where he likes." Ah, yes...those Islamists are so progressive.

CBS News reports that a "U.S. Air Force gunship has conducted a strike against suspected members of al Qaeda in Somalia.... The targets included the senior al Qaeda leader in East Africa and an al Qaeda operative wanted for his involvement in the 1998 bombings of two American embassies in Africa.... Those terror attacks killed more than 200 people….The gunship flew from its base in Dijibouti down to the southern tip of Somalia ... where the al Qaeda operatives had fled after being chased out of the capital of Mogadishu by Ethiopian troops backed by the United States.)

The Associated Press reports:

A jungle hideout used by Islamic militants that is believed to be an al-Qaida base was on the verge of falling to Ethiopian and Somali troops, the defense minister said Monday….

Somali officials said the Islamic movement's main force is bottled up at Ras Kamboni, the southernmost tip of the country, cut off from escape at sea by patrolling U.S. warships and across the Kenyan border by the Kenyan military.

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards is a smart politician. He wants to rapidly drawdown U.S. troops in Iraq and escalate our involvement in Darfur. Both positions are extremely popular with Democratic primary voters. On ABC’s This Week, he explained what he’d do to end the atrocities in Darfur:

EDWARDS: Well, it depends on what your definition of a moral cause is and what moral leadership is. The kind of things that I'm talking about, I think there would be universal support for. Doing something about the genocide in Sudan and Darfur.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Even if it takes American troops?

EDWARDS: No. Actually, my own view is that putting American troops on the ground in Darfur would probably be a mistake. It would probably do more damage than good. But there are obvious things we can do in Sudan. The Janjaweed militia have air support from the Sudanese government. We could enforce a no-fly zone. We ought to be much tougher about imposing sanctions on the Sudanese government. But the genocide, global poverty, the spread of HIV-AIDS, the atrocities that occurring in northern Uganda -- there are a whole range of places that America would have basically universal support if we showed some leadership.

And the last thing I would say about this, a lot of people would think, well, this is a quote “feel good” thing. He wants the world to feel good about America. This is much more than that. Without America as the central stabilizing force in the world, there is no stability. There's chaos. There's no one else that can do this. We have to do it.

Edwards is right. American leadership is often crucial in successfully dealing with the world’s problems. He’s also right that a no-fly zone should be enforced and stiff sanctions should be slapped on Khartoum. But he’s wrong about “universal support for doing something about the genocide in Sudan and Darfur.” Moscow and Beijing (and the Arab League for that matter) haven’t been very helpful. Both governments have coddled Khartoum on the Security Council and have extensive business ties with the regime. So to end the brutality in Darfur any time soon what we’re really talking about is a coalition of the willing, one that targets Khartoum’s economy and aircraft operating in support of its proxy forces in Darfur. America would lead such a coalition and no doubt would be accused of acting “unilaterally” by some governments. So be it.

(The Pentagon will establish a new Africa command within two months, reports Reuters.)

Posted on October 16, 2006:

Going back to the early 1990s, Africa has been a target for al Qaeda. Two letters, dated September 30, 1993 and May 24, 1994, captured during US military operations in Afghanistan related directly to al Qaeda “African Corps” operations in Somalia before and after the U.S. withdrawal in early 1994. Sudan provided a safe harbor for bin Laden before he fled to Afghanistan in 1996, and our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed in 1998. Since September 11, the Algerian terrorist group GSPC has formally aligned with al Qaeda. And in Somalia, a burgeoning Taliban has emerged that has engaged in an assassination campaign against moderate Muslim scholars, introduced suicide bombing as weapon against their enemies, and closed the doors on media outlets that don’t follow the fundamentalist line. At the same time, the US military has been engaged throughout the continent, so much so that some in the Pentagon believe a separate command for Africa should be created.

Reuters reports:

The U.S. military is sharpening its focus on counterterrorism in Africa, a top general says, as it faces challenges including a newly announced alliance between a regional militant group and al Qaeda.

General William ’Kip’ Ward also hinted it would make sense to establish a U.S. military command on African soil, instead of running operations on the continent from hundreds or even thousands of km away, as has been the case until now.

"I think ... having the unified command located in the area in which it has responsibility is the preferable solution set," Ward, number two at the U.S. European Command (EUCOM), told Reuters.

The Pentagon said in August it was considering creating a new military command for Africa. Responsibility for the continent is currently split between three separate U.S. centres, including Stuttgart-based EUCOM.

A single command, advocates argue, would help Washington focus better on its goal of denying sanctuary to militants who might otherwise find African havens in the same way that al Qaeda cultivated bases in Sudan and Afghanistan in the 1990s.

The stakes were underlined when al Qaeda announced last month, on the 5th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, that it was forging an alliance with one of the leading Islamist movements in the region: the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, known by its French initials GSPC….

Ward, in an interview, declined to go into detail about the mode of operation of the GSPC and other militant groups.

"It’s a thinking enemy. They are constantly attempting to change their tactics," he said.

"As our (African) partners get better at intervening, interdicting, capturing, they are constantly adapting what they do as well."

Stars and Stripes reports:

U.S. troops delivering aid to Kenyan flood victims

A team of American servicemembers assigned to Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa has begun delivering relief supplies to areas of Kenya hit by severe flooding, the military said Monday.

In all, the team of soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen hopes to deliver about 150 metric tons of supplies through an airlift. Many of the roads around the flood-stricken area have proved impassable.

The U.S. military teams began the aid mission after a request from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees; many of those affected by the floods were living in refugee camps in areas of Kenya. Some 150,000 people have been affected by the flood.

Kofi Annan didn’t get around to any of this in his speech today trashing the U.S.

I'm confident the Iranian regime will act even more responsibly if it manages to acquire nuclear weapons. From today’s New York Times:

A senior American intelligence official said Monday that the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah had been training members of the Mahdi Army, the Iraqi Shiite militia led by Moktada al-Sadr.

The official said that 1,000 to 2,000 fighters from the Mahdi Army and other Shiite militias had been trained by Hezbollah in Lebanon. A small number of Hezbollah operatives have also visited Iraq to help with training, the official said.

Iran has facilitated the link between Hezbollah and the Shiite militias in Iraq, the official said. Syrian officials have also cooperated, though there is debate about whether it has the blessing of the senior leaders in Syria….

General Abizaid also said it was hard to pin down some details of relationships between armed factions in the Middle East, adding: “There are clearly links between Hezbollah training people in Iran to operate in Lebanon and also training people in Iran that are Shia splinter groups that could operate against us in Iraq These linkages exist, but it is very, very hard to pin down with precision.”

From the November 24 Wall Street Journal:

Tensions in Tehran are intensifying, leading Afghan officials to worry about potential spillover into their country. Iran has developed a pervasive economic and intelligence capacity inside the Central Asia state, which it could potentially turn against American forces. “They have a destructive capability,” says Said Jawad, Afghanistan’s ambassador to the U.S.

From the November 16 New York Times:

More than 700 Islamic militants from Somalia traveled to Lebanon in July to fight alongside Hezbollah in its war against Israel, a United Nations report says. The militia in Lebanon returned the favor by providing training and — through its patrons Iran and Syria — weapons to the Islamic alliance struggling for control of Somalia, it adds….

The report also says Iran sought to trade arms for uranium from Somalia to further its nuclear ambitions, though it does not say whether Iran succeeded….

While the sources of the information remain unclear, the report is dense with details about arms shipments to the groups vying for power in Somalia.

It states that in mid-July, Aden Hashi Farah, a leader of the Somali Islamist alliance, personally selected about 720 combat-hardened fighters to travel to Lebanon and fight alongside Hezbollah.

At least 100 Somalis had returned by early September — with five Hezbollah members — while others stayed on in Lebanon for advanced military training, the report says. It is not clear how many may have been killed, though the report says some were wounded and later treated after their return to Somalia.

The fighters were paid a minimum of $2,000 for their service, the report says, and as much as $30,000 was to be given to the families of those killed, with money donated by “a number of supporting countries.”

In addition to training some Somali militants, Hezbollah “arranged for additional support to be given” by Iran and Syria, including weapons, the report found. On July 27, 200 Somali fighters also traveled to Syria to be trained in guerrilla warfare, the report says.

It also indicates that Iran appears to have sought help in its quest for uranium in Dusa Mareb, the hometown of Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, the leader of the Islamist alliance in Somalia, which is known as the Council of Islamic Courts.

“At the time of the writing of this report, there were two Iranians in Dusa Mareb engaged on matters linked to the exploration of uranium in exchange for arms” for the Council of Islamic Courts, says the report, which is dated Oct. 16.

Those claims, if proved, could worsen global tensions over Iran’s nuclear program. Iran ignored an Aug. 31 deadline to suspend its uranium enrichment, and the United States has been leading a United Nations effort to impose sanctions….

The report recommends that the Security Council blockade Somalia….

The truth is the UN Security Council could put enormous pressure on Syria and Iran to end all the above, but, regrettably, there’s little chance they’ll do much anytime soon. And so it goes.

Despite the comments of Rep. Pelosi ("The war on terror is the war in Afghanistan”) and DNC chair Howard Dean (Afghanistan “is where the fight on terror is.”), the Global War on Terror is, in fact, global. Today’s New York Times reports:

More than 700 Islamic militants from Somalia traveled to Lebanon in July to fight alongside Hezbollah in its war against Israel, a United Nations report says. The militia in Lebanon returned the favor by providing training and — through its patrons Iran and Syria — weapons to the Islamic alliance struggling for control of Somalia, it adds….

The report also says Iran sought to trade arms for uranium from Somalia to further its nuclear ambitions, though it does not say whether Iran succeeded….

While the sources of the information remain unclear, the report is dense with details about arms shipments to the groups vying for power in Somalia.

It states that in mid-July, Aden Hashi Farah, a leader of the Somali Islamist alliance, personally selected about 720 combat-hardened fighters to travel to Lebanon and fight alongside Hezbollah.

At least 100 Somalis had returned by early September — with five Hezbollah members — while others stayed on in Lebanon for advanced military training, the report says. It is not clear how many may have been killed, though the report says some were wounded and later treated after their return to Somalia.

The fighters were paid a minimum of $2,000 for their service, the report says, and as much as $30,000 was to be given to the families of those killed, with money donated by “a number of supporting countries.”

In addition to training some Somali militants, Hezbollah “arranged for additional support to be given” by Iran and Syria, including weapons, the report found. On July 27, 200 Somali fighters also traveled to Syria to be trained in guerrilla warfare, the report says.

It also indicates that Iran appears to have sought help in its quest for uranium in Dusa Mareb, the hometown of Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, the leader of the Islamist alliance in Somalia, which is known as the Council of Islamic Courts.

“At the time of the writing of this report, there were two Iranians in Dusa Mareb engaged on matters linked to the exploration of uranium in exchange for arms” for the Council of Islamic Courts, says the report, which is dated Oct. 16.

Those claims, if proved, could worsen global tensions over Iran’s nuclear program. Iran ignored an Aug. 31 deadline to suspend its uranium enrichment, and the United States has been leading a United Nations effort to impose sanctions….

Not only has the volume of arms flowing into Somalia grown, according to the authors, but more sophisticated weapons like surface-to-air missiles are being brought in. The conflict could grow into a regional war, with Somalia’s neighbors, Ethiopia and Eritrea, backing opposing sides.

The report also accuses Djibouti, Egypt, Iran, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Syria of supplying the Somali Islamists with arms, advisers and fighters. It says three nations — Ethiopia, Uganda and Yemen — are aligned with the so-called transitional government based in Baidoa, an inland city….

The report recommends that the Security Council blockade Somalia….

I’m confident the UN Security Council will act swiftly against the apparent chief state sponsors of the above – Syria and Iran.

Reuters reports that Beijing is being its usual helpful self on Darfur.

Sudan must first agree before any United Nations peacekeeping force enters its war-wracked Darfur region, China said on Thursday, as its President Hu Jintao met the president of the African state.

Beijing is hosting dozens of African leaders for a summit opening Friday and intended to show China as a benign force for development on the largely poor continent. But among them is Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, accused by critics of abetting a vicious civil conflict in Darfur.

China has lucrative business interests in Sudan, which sells it large amounts of oil, and is a major arms supplier to the country. Beijing has resisted calls to authorise U.N. peacekeepers in Darfur without the nod of the Sudanese government."

Last February, Fortune magazine published a piece, ”China's African Safari,” on Beijing’s “benign” activities on the continent.

...African governments view China as a more cooperative partner than the West. China has refused to back regular Western rebukes of African corruption and human-rights abuses and last year used its permanent seat on the UN Security Council to block genocide charges against Sudan--source of about 7% of China's oil--for the massacres in Darfur. "The U.S. will talk to you about governance, about efficiency, about security, about the environment," says Mustafa Bello, head of the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission, who has visited China seven times. "The Chinese just ask, 'How do we procure this license?'"

China has become the biggest foreign investor in Zimbabwe, where President Robert Mugabe's policies have beggared the country and left millions homeless. Zimbabwe doesn't have oil, but it is the world's second-largest exporter of platinum, a key import for China's auto industry. Chinese radio-jamming devices block Zimbabwe's dissident broadcasts, and Chinese workers built Mugabe's new $9 million home, featuring a blue-tiled roof donated by the Chinese government. While Western politicians railed against Mugabe last year for flattening entire shantytowns, China was supplying him with fighter jets and troop carriers worth about $240 million, in exchange for imports of gold and tobacco.

And so it goes.

The Henry Jackson Society has released an open letter “on the crisis in Darfur, signed by fifty-five politicians, opinion formers, academics and journalists, to both raise awareness of this pressing moral and strategic issue, and call on the international community to end ethnic cleansing in Darfur.”

Here are two pieces on Khartoum's support for the Arab militias that are brutalizing the people of Darfur. A defector tells the BBC that the Janjaweed take orders directly from the Sudanese government.

"The Janjaweed don't make decisions. The orders always come from the government," he said.

"They gave us orders, and they say that after we are trained they will give us guns and ammunition."

"Ali" - who is now seeking asylum in Britain - said the men who had trained them were wearing the uniforms of the Sudanese military, adding that Interior Minister Abdul Rahim Muhammad Hussein was a "regular visitor".

The former fighter said the majority of the victims were civilians, mostly women, and also talked of "many rapes" committed by the Janjaweed.

"Whenever we go into a village and find resistance we kill everyone," he said, but denied that he personally killed or raped civilians.

The International Herald Tribune also reports on Khartoum’s use of the Arab militias to do its dirty work:

The attitudes and general despondency of the Sudanese troops held here underscore why Sudan, despite its large military, well supplied by arms bought from China with Sudan's growing oil wealth, has relied primarily on brutal Arab militias to carry out its grim counterinsurgency campaign against the rebels in Darfur. It was a strategy Sudan perfected in its 20-year civil war in the south, where it used Arab tribal militias as a paramilitary force. The militias terrorized Southern Sudan, razing villages, raping women and kidnapping children. The militias in Darfur, known as the janjaweed, have carried out a similar campaign.

Going back to the early 1990s, Africa has been a target for al Qaeda. Two letters, dated September 30, 1993 and May 24, 1994, captured during US military operations in Afghanistan related directly to al Qaeda “African Corps” operations in Somalia before and after the U.S. withdrawal in early 1994. Sudan provided a safe harbor for bin Laden before he fled to Afghanistan in 1996, and our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed in 1998. Since September 11, the Algerian terrorist group GSPC has formally aligned with al Qaeda. And in Somalia, a burgeoning Taliban has emerged that has engaged in an assassination campaign against moderate Muslim scholars, introduced suicide bombing as weapon against their enemies, and closed the doors on media outlets that don’t follow the fundamentalist line. At the same time, the US military has been engaged throughout the continent, so much so that some in the Pentagon believe a separate command for Africa should be created.

Reuters reports:

The U.S. military is sharpening its focus on counterterrorism in Africa, a top general says, as it faces challenges including a newly announced alliance between a regional militant group and al Qaeda.

General William ’Kip’ Ward also hinted it would make sense to establish a U.S. military command on African soil, instead of running operations on the continent from hundreds or even thousands of km away, as has been the case until now.

"I think ... having the unified command located in the area in which it has responsibility is the preferable solution set," Ward, number two at the U.S. European Command (EUCOM), told Reuters.

The Pentagon said in August it was considering creating a new military command for Africa. Responsibility for the continent is currently split between three separate U.S. centres, including Stuttgart-based EUCOM.

A single command, advocates argue, would help Washington focus better on its goal of denying sanctuary to militants who might otherwise find African havens in the same way that al Qaeda cultivated bases in Sudan and Afghanistan in the 1990s.

The stakes were underlined when al Qaeda announced last month, on the 5th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, that it was forging an alliance with one of the leading Islamist movements in the region: the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, known by its French initials GSPC….

Ward, in an interview, declined to go into detail about the mode of operation of the GSPC and other militant groups.

"It’s a thinking enemy. They are constantly attempting to change their tactics," he said.

"As our (African) partners get better at intervening, interdicting, capturing, they are constantly adapting what they do as well."

Here's more evidence from the AP:

The U.N. said Thursday it has temporarily pulled international staff out of parts of Somalia controlled by Islamic radicals after receiving written threats.

The U.N. said the threats came shortly after the Sept. 17 shooting deaths of an Italian nun and her bodyguard in the capital, Mogadishu, which was seized by an Islamic militia in June. Somalia's president narrowly escaped a suicide car bombing a day later in Baidoa, the seat of the weak U.N.-backed government….

The Islamic movement controls much of Somalia's south. Its strict interpretation of Islam has raised fears of rule like that of Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime.

The United States has accused the group of sheltering suspects in the 1998 al-Qaida bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Bin Laden has said Somalia is a battleground in his war on the West.

(Today's Washington Post has a lengthy piece on the GSPC. A couple of points: The Post suggests that since 2003 the GSPC “has planted deep roots in Europe [and] in the past year, authorities have broken up cells in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland…” But there’s evidence (see below) that the GSPC had its European network up and running by 2000 with the help of al Qaeda-linked Abu Doha. Also, were any GSPC terrorists trained in Iraq prior to the March 2003 invasion? It would be nice to get a conclusive answer one way or the other. The Senate Intelligence Committee doesn’t mention the GSPC in its recent report on Iraq.)

Posted on September 14, 2006:

The BBC reports on Zawahiri's latest claim "that a radical Algerian Islamist group has joined al-Qaeda and is being urged to punish France.” In the video that aired on a website on September 11, Zawahiri stated: "Osama Bin Laden has told me to announce to Muslims that the GSPC [the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat] has joined al-Qaeda." He called on the Algerian-based terror group to become "a bone in the throat of the American and French crusaders.” The GSPC has since released a statement: “We pledge allegiance to Sheikh Osama Bin Laden... Our soldiers are at his call so that he may strike who and where he likes.”

How did the GSPC come about?

In 1997, a splinter group emerged from Algeria’s GIA (Armed Islamic Group) called the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, or GSPC. Stanley Bedlington, who worked counterterrorism for the CIA from 1986 to 1994, told USA Today in December 2001 that "we traced considerable sums of money going from bin Laden to the GIA in Algeria. We believed some of the money came from Iraq." But how close a relationship the GSPC had with al Qaeda before this recent pledge has been difficult to nail down. Some say there wasn’t much of one; others believe the GSPC had close ties to bin Laden. A January 2004 analysis from the Center for Defense Information noted this on the relationship between the GSPC and bin Laden:

The Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC) has emerged in recent years as a major source of recruiting and other support for al Qaeda operations in Europe. A splinter faction of the Algerian-based Armed Islamic Group (GIA), the GSPC is engaged simultaneously in efforts to topple Algeria's secular government and to organize high-profile attacks against Western interests on the continent....

Yet more alarming to U.S. and European observers, by 2000, according to Italian investigators, the GSPC had taken over the GIA's external networks across Europe and North Africa and were moving to establish an 'Islamic International' under the aegis of Osama bin Laden. Haydar Abu Doha, a London-based Algerian known as "the Doctor," was instrumental in this reorganization. Abu Doha moved to the UK in 1999 after serving as a senior official in a Qaeda Afghan terrorist camp.

Doha was one of the first to encourage the GSPC to split from the GIA and he helped recruit new terrorists from the large base of disenfranchised Algerian youth in Europe's cities, especially in France. (Algerians to have been among the most numerous militants at al Qaeda's terrorist training camps in Afghanistan before the war.) Many of these new adherents were involved in petty crimes such as car theft, credit-card fraud, and document forgery; and their earnings were now channeled to finance terrorist operations.

Another Algerian, Mohamed Bensakhria, who was based in Germany, and a Tunisian, Tarek Maaroufi, based in Italy, helped Doha establish and coordinate these cells across Europe. They expanded upon the Algerian base of recruits by incorporating radical militants who had left behind dormant conflicts in Bosnia, Chechnya, and Afghanistan. Bensakhria and Maaroufi also created a vast support network that provided newcomers with false documents, lodgings, and incidental spending money.

In recent years, authorities have foiled an alarming number of terrorist plots across Europe and uncovered cells — many linked in one way or another to the GSPC — in Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Britain. Some of the high profile operations planned included a plot to blow up the U.S. Embassies in Paris and Rome, and attacks on the Christmas market in Strasbourg, France and the G-8 summit in Genoa.

Bensakhria was arrested in Spain in June 2002. Maaroufi is wanted in Italy but remains free because of his Belgian citizenship, which prevents his extradition to Italy. Meanwhile, Abu Doha has been connected to Ahmed Ressam, the Algerian convicted for trying to attack Los Angeles International Airport during the millennium changeover, and is currently in British custody fighting extradition to the United States.

Although European and allied authorities have now begun to unearth the myriad connections between these groups and expose their plots, the struggle continues. Most recently French officials arrested four people, two Algerians and two Moroccans, on Dec. 16, 2002, in possession of chemicals and a military personal-protection suit. French authorities say they appear to have been planning a chemical attack. The four were later linked to the GSPC Frankfurt cell.

The group's possible contact with Saddam’s regime was touched on in the January 2006 Weekly Standard cover piece, "Saddam's Terror Training Camps." Regarding the training of Algerian terrorists, in particular, Stephen Hayes wrote:

The secret training took place primarily at three camps--in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak--and was directed by elite Iraqi military units. Interviews by U.S. government interrogators with Iraqi regime officials and military leaders corroborate the documentary evidence. Many of the fighters were drawn from terrorist groups in northern Africa with close ties to al Qaeda, chief among them Algeria's GSPC and the Sudanese Islamic Army.

Hundreds of thousands of non-Arabs have been killed in Darfur, with more killed and displaced every day, and this is the cheap politics being played by Arab governments. From the Associated Press:

Maamoun Fandy of the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London said the Arab League is unlikely to push Khartoum on Washington's behalf unless the U.S. changes its policy toward Israel.

"Darfur is horrific, but also what is taking place in Palestine ... is horrific, so unless the menu includes movement on the Palestinian issue, the Arabs will not bite on that Darfur issue," said Fandy.

President Clinton also claimed on Fox News yesterday that “all the right-wingers” believed he was “too obsessed” with bin Laden, that he “did too much” in going after the al Qaeda head. The reality is a bit different. Many conservatives applauded Clinton’s decision to strike in Sudan and Afghanistan following the 1998 embassy bombings in Africa. In November 1998, for example, Andrew McCarthy wrote a lengthy piece in the Weekly Standard in support of the strikes, but he also explained why the Clinton administration’s overall approach to combating the terror threat was woefully inadequate. Similar to what Reuel Marc Gerecht would argue in the wake of the USS Cole bombing, McCarthy pushed the administration to treat international terrorism as “a military problem, not a criminal-justice issue.” He wrote:

Does the administration actually grasp the nature of the threat we face? Following the August 20 retaliatory strikes, secretary of state Madeleine Albright and national security adviser Samuel Berger rejected the predictable "wag the dog" accusations with solemn admonitions that, in terrorism, the United States has suddenly been confronted with a "new war" -- one we would now have to be prepared to fight, alone if necessary. This was exceedingly curious. There is nothing at all "new" about radical Islam's terrorist war against the United States. It has been going on since the late 1980s. It has been openly declared since the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center in Manhattan, which killed six, injured over a thousand, and caused nearly $ 1 billion in damage. Its leaders, moreover, have been promising for more than five years that in pursuing this war, they would kill American civilians and bomb American military installations and embassies overseas….

Such an adversary will not be defeated by the techniques the president recommended at the U.N. -- increased international cooperation in the prosecution and extradition of terrorists. These are necessary steps, but breathtakingly inadequate. A military threat calls for a military response….

In the main, international terrorism is a military problem, not a criminal-justice issue. There is a severe limit to the circumstances in which it is either possible or prudent to apprehend terrorists overseas only to swaddle them in the rights of American defendants -- including education them, through the extensive discovery our system mandates, as to what we know about them and the precious and regrettably scarce sources of that information. Terrorists, furthermore, see the world in gimlet-eyed simplicity. They are not swayed by our breathless pursuit of international conventions that are broken with impunity, weapons-inspection regimes that we lack the stomach to police, or "peace processes" that become hideous euphemisms for body counts. These convey weakness. What impresses them is the certainty that force will swiftly and surely be met with exponentially superior force. That alone is a meaningful deterrent.

(I noted in an earlier post that I’d checked to see if any of the material below is discussed and evaluated in the latest Senate Intelligence Committee report. It isn’t. In fact, there’s not a single mention of either group in the report. )

Posted on September 14, 2006:

The BBC reports on Zawahiri's latest claim "that a radical Algerian Islamist group has joined al-Qaeda and is being urged to punish France.” In the video that aired on a website on September 11, Zawahiri stated: "Osama Bin Laden has told me to announce to Muslims that the GSPC [the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat] has joined al-Qaeda." He called on the Algerian-based terror group to become "a bone in the throat of the American and French crusaders.” The GSPC has since released a statement: “We pledge allegiance to Sheikh Osama Bin Laden... Our soldiers are at his call so that he may strike who and where he likes.”

How did the GSPC come about?

In 1997, a splinter group emerged from Algeria’s GIA (Armed Islamic Group) called the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, or GSPC. Stanley Bedlington, who worked counterterrorism for the CIA from 1986 to 1994, told USA Today in December 2001 that "we traced considerable sums of money going from bin Laden to the GIA in Algeria. We believed some of the money came from Iraq." But how close a relationship the GSPC had with al Qaeda before this recent pledge has been difficult to nail down. Some say there wasn’t much of one; others believe the GSPC had close ties to bin Laden. A January 2004 analysis from the Center for Defense Information noted this on the relationship between the GSPC and bin Laden:

The Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC) has emerged in recent years as a major source of recruiting and other support for al Qaeda operations in Europe. A splinter faction of the Algerian-based Armed Islamic Group (GIA), the GSPC is engaged simultaneously in efforts to topple Algeria's secular government and to organize high-profile attacks against Western interests on the continent....

Yet more alarming to U.S. and European observers, by 2000, according to Italian investigators, the GSPC had taken over the GIA's external networks across Europe and North Africa and were moving to establish an 'Islamic International' under the aegis of Osama bin Laden. Haydar Abu Doha, a London-based Algerian known as "the Doctor," was instrumental in this reorganization. Abu Doha moved to the UK in 1999 after serving as a senior official in a Qaeda Afghan terrorist camp.

Doha was one of the first to encourage the GSPC to split from the GIA and he helped recruit new terrorists from the large base of disenfranchised Algerian youth in Europe's cities, especially in France. (Algerians to have been among the most numerous militants at al Qaeda's terrorist training camps in Afghanistan before the war.) Many of these new adherents were involved in petty crimes such as car theft, credit-card fraud, and document forgery; and their earnings were now channeled to finance terrorist operations.

Another Algerian, Mohamed Bensakhria, who was based in Germany, and a Tunisian, Tarek Maaroufi, based in Italy, helped Doha establish and coordinate these cells across Europe. They expanded upon the Algerian base of recruits by incorporating radical militants who had left behind dormant conflicts in Bosnia, Chechnya, and Afghanistan. Bensakhria and Maaroufi also created a vast support network that provided newcomers with false documents, lodgings, and incidental spending money.

In recent years, authorities have foiled an alarming number of terrorist plots across Europe and uncovered cells — many linked in one way or another to the GSPC — in Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Britain. Some of the high profile operations planned included a plot to blow up the U.S. Embassies in Paris and Rome, and attacks on the Christmas market in Strasbourg, France and the G-8 summit in Genoa.

Bensakhria was arrested in Spain in June 2002. Maaroufi is wanted in Italy but remains free because of his Belgian citizenship, which prevents his extradition to Italy. Meanwhile, Abu Doha has been connected to Ahmed Ressam, the Algerian convicted for trying to attack Los Angeles International Airport during the millennium changeover, and is currently in British custody fighting extradition to the United States.

Although European and allied authorities have now begun to unearth the myriad connections between these groups and expose their plots, the struggle continues. Most recently French officials arrested four people, two Algerians and two Moroccans, on Dec. 16, 2002, in possession of chemicals and a military personal-protection suit. French authorities say they appear to have been planning a chemical attack. The four were later linked to the GSPC Frankfurt cell.

The group's possible contact with Saddam’s regime was touched on in the January 2006 Weekly Standard cover piece, "Saddam's Terror Training Camps." Regarding the training of Algerian terrorists, in particular, Stephen Hayes wrote:

The secret training took place primarily at three camps--in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak--and was directed by elite Iraqi military units. Interviews by U.S. government interrogators with Iraqi regime officials and military leaders corroborate the documentary evidence. Many of the fighters were drawn from terrorist groups in northern Africa with close ties to al Qaeda, chief among them Algeria's GSPC and the Sudanese Islamic Army.

I haven’t checked the recent Senate Intelligence report to see if any of the above is discussed and evaluated, but I will.

The AP reports:

The president of Somalia's interim government narrowly escaped a suicide bomber yesterday — a new tactic in a troubled land where an Islamic militia is vying for power. The leader's brother and 10 others died in the blast and a subsequent gun battle.

The foreign minister said the attack, along with the slaying of an Italian nun in the capital Sunday, had "the hallmarks of Al Qaeda."

…An increasingly powerful hardline Islamic movement — accused by the U.S. of having links with Al Qaeda — seized the capital, Mogadishu, in June and now controls much of the south.

"This is the first suicide bomber in Somalia," Foreign Minister Ismail Mohamed Hurre told the Associated Press in neighbouring Kenya. "This has the fingerprints of Al Qaeda all over it."

From Reuters:

Gunmen killed an Italian nun at a children's hospital in Mogadishu on Sunday in an attack that drew immediate speculation of links to Muslim anger over the Pope's recent remarks on Islam.

The Catholic nun's guard also died from pistol shots in the latest attack on foreign personnel in volatile Somalia.

The assassinations were a blow to Mogadishu's new Islamist rulers' attempt to prove they have pacified one of the world's most lawless cities since chasing out warlords in June.

The bodyguard died instantly, but the nun, from the Missionaries of the Consolation order based in Nepi near Rome, was rushed into an operating theatre after being hit by three or four bullets in the chest, stomach and back.

Nuns aren’t the only targets. Today, as in other regions of the world, weapons have been increasingly aimed at moderate Muslims. From the BBC:

The fighting pits a new group, the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism, against the Islamic Courts' militia....

Our correspondent says at least five warlords-cum-ministers in the transitional government are behind the new alliance, which is battling the Islamic Courts.

The courts have set up Mogadishu's only judicial system in parts of the capital but have been accused of links to al-Qaeda.

Their critics accuse the courts of being behind the killing of moderate Muslim scholars.

The BBC reports on Zawahiri's latest claim "that a radical Algerian Islamist group has joined al-Qaeda and is being urged to punish France.” In the video that aired on a website on September 11, Zawahiri stated: "Osama Bin Laden has told me to announce to Muslims that the GSPC [the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat] has joined al-Qaeda." He called on the Algerian-based terror group to become "a bone in the throat of the American and French crusaders.” The GSPC has since released a statement: “We pledge allegiance to Sheikh Osama Bin Laden... Our soldiers are at his call so that he may strike who and where he likes.”

How did the GSPC come about?

In 1997, a splinter group emerged from Algeria’s GIA (Armed Islamic Group) called the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, or GSPC. Stanley Bedlington, who worked counterterrorism for the CIA from 1986 to 1994, told USA Today in December 2001 that "we traced considerable sums of money going from bin Laden to the GIA in Algeria. We believed some of the money came from Iraq." But how close a relationship the GSPC had with al Qaeda before this recent pledge has been difficult to nail down. Some say there wasn’t much of one; others believe the GSPC had close ties to bin Laden. A January 2004 analysis from the Center for Defense Information noted this on the relationship between the GSPC and bin Laden:

The Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC) has emerged in recent years as a major source of recruiting and other support for al Qaeda operations in Europe. A splinter faction of the Algerian-based Armed Islamic Group (GIA), the GSPC is engaged simultaneously in efforts to topple Algeria's secular government and to organize high-profile attacks against Western interests on the continent....

Yet more alarming to U.S. and European observers, by 2000, according to Italian investigators, the GSPC had taken over the GIA's external networks across Europe and North Africa and were moving to establish an 'Islamic International' under the aegis of Osama bin Laden. Haydar Abu Doha, a London-based Algerian known as "the Doctor," was instrumental in this reorganization. Abu Doha moved to the UK in 1999 after serving as a senior official in a Qaeda Afghan terrorist camp.

Doha was one of the first to encourage the GSPC to split from the GIA and he helped recruit new terrorists from the large base of disenfranchised Algerian youth in Europe's cities, especially in France. (Algerians to have been among the most numerous militants at al Qaeda's terrorist training camps in Afghanistan before the war.) Many of these new adherents were involved in petty crimes such as car theft, credit-card fraud, and document forgery; and their earnings were now channeled to finance terrorist operations.

Another Algerian, Mohamed Bensakhria, who was based in Germany, and a Tunisian, Tarek Maaroufi, based in Italy, helped Doha establish and coordinate these cells across Europe. They expanded upon the Algerian base of recruits by incorporating radical militants who had left behind dormant conflicts in Bosnia, Chechnya, and Afghanistan. Bensakhria and Maaroufi also created a vast support network that provided newcomers with false documents, lodgings, and incidental spending money.

In recent years, authorities have foiled an alarming number of terrorist plots across Europe and uncovered cells — many linked in one way or another to the GSPC — in Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Britain. Some of the high profile operations planned included a plot to blow up the U.S. Embassies in Paris and Rome, and attacks on the Christmas market in Strasbourg, France and the G-8 summit in Genoa.

Bensakhria was arrested in Spain in June 2002. Maaroufi is wanted in Italy but remains free because of his Belgian citizenship, which prevents his extradition to Italy. Meanwhile, Abu Doha has been connected to Ahmed Ressam, the Algerian convicted for trying to attack Los Angeles International Airport during the millennium changeover, and is currently in British custody fighting extradition to the United States.

Although European and allied authorities have now begun to unearth the myriad connections between these groups and expose their plots, the struggle continues. Most recently French officials arrested four people, two Algerians and two Moroccans, on Dec. 16, 2002, in possession of chemicals and a military personal-protection suit. French authorities say they appear to have been planning a chemical attack. The four were later linked to the GSPC Frankfurt cell.

The group's possible contact with Saddam’s regime was touched on in the January 2006 Weekly Standard cover piece, "Saddam's Terror Training Camps." Regarding the training of Algerian terrorists, in particular, Stephen Hayes wrote:

The secret training took place primarily at three camps--in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak--and was directed by elite Iraqi military units. Interviews by U.S. government interrogators with Iraqi regime officials and military leaders corroborate the documentary evidence. Many of the fighters were drawn from terrorist groups in northern Africa with close ties to al Qaeda, chief among them Algeria's GSPC and the Sudanese Islamic Army.

I haven’t checked the recent Senate Intelligence report to see if any of the above is discussed and evaluated, but I will.

(A reader from our good friend Australia writes:

I saw your post 'Fighting Corruption as an Anti-Poverty Program' and how "too little attention is given to one of the biggest barriers to lifting nations out of chronic poverty -- rampant government and business corruption."

Our Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, is taking a tough line on this issue in relation to a developing dispute in the Solomon Islands. He's doing a great job on this.

Check out some of these links: one is from PM Howard's interview on the matter (last few paragraphs) and news reports here, here and here.

Clearly, Howard is continuing his record as a world leader who thinks and acts clearly and decisively on these issues - whether it is in Afghanistan, Iraq, Solomon Islands or elsewhere.)

George Soros, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation have generously pledged at least $150 million to alleviate hunger and poverty in Africa. Soros will donate his money to the UN Millennium Villages project, which operates in 10 African nations. The other two foundations will fund a “scaling up” of agricultural programs designed to increase crop yields. “Gates speculated that once the projects to help farmers got off the ground,” AP reports, “the farmers and their governments would reinvest in the infrastructure needed to make a lasting impact.” But a major key to securing a “lasting impact” will be to hold those governments that engage in illicit practices accountable. As I have noted in an earlier post, too little attention is given to one of the biggest barriers to lifting nations out of chronic poverty -- rampant government and business corruption – and to those trying to shine the spotlight on such activity.

The BBC reports:

A Somali radio station has resumed broadcasting after it was closed down by Islamist leaders for playing local love songs.

However, Radio Jowhar is no longer playing any music, even jingles.

The Union of Islamic Courts, which controls much of the south, is split between hardliners, who want Taleban-style rule, and moderates….

"It is useless to air music and love songs for the people," said Jowhar Islamic official Sheik Mohamed Mohamoud Abdirahman.

Some residents were upset by the radio ban.

"This directive is like the Taliban," Ali Musse told the AP news agency.

"It is censorship against independent media and freedom of expression."

To Somalia’s west, freedom of expression has led to the beheading of a newspaper editor in Khartoum. From Aljazeera:

A Sudanese newspaper editor who was kidnapped by armed men has been found beheaded.

Mohamed Taha was snatched from outside his home in the capital Khartoum on Tuesday.

A photograph showed his body bound at the feet and hands with his severed head next to his body, a Reuters witness said on Wednesday.

He was found on a dirt street in a middle-class residential district of southern Khartoum.

Dozens of Sudanese journalists gathered at the Khartoum mortuary, guarded by heavily armed police.

Aziza Abdel Rahman, a journalist working for the country's armed forces magazine, said: "The Sudanese press will not be intimidated. We will write our views even more. This will not stop us."

Taha was arrested last year and his al-Wifaq paper closed for three months after it published a series of articles questioning the roots of the Prophet Muhammad, which were condemned by Sudan's powerful Islamists.

Local papers quoted his family as saying a group of men bundled Taha into a car outside his home and sped off towards central Khartoum.

Securitywatchertower.com has more here.

Slate's Christopher Hitchens has some interesting material on the Iraqi-Niger yellowcake story.

After capturing Kabul in 1996, it wasn't long before the Taliban imposed a harsh brand of Islam. The capitol’s soccer stadium became a killing field where pre-game festivities included executions and the chopping off of limbs. Today, in southern Somalia, a new Taliban may be emerging. From the BBC:

Two people are reported dead after Islamist gunmen in central Somalia opened fire in a cinema where people were watching a banned World Cup match.

The cinema owner and a young girl were reportedly killed by militia loyal to the Union of Islamic Courts, who seized control of parts of Somalia last month.

The courts have introduced Sharia law in areas under their authority, including a World Cup broadcast ban.

Beijing's been no help on North Korea, coddles Iran and showers the dictatorship in Khartoum with arms that end up in the hands of the killers in Darfur. No doubt China has been a good place to do business but, so far, there’s little evidence that it has changed the character of the regime for the better. The long-term bet is that it will. Let’s hope.

(Today's Wall Street Journal editorial weighs in on the latest peace initiative. The editors doubt it will hold given the track record of the criminal regime that resides in Khartoum. They also have a message for many of those demanding action to stop the brutality. "There's a lesson here for all of those liberal internationalists who now demand the Administration 'do something' in Darfur: If you want to stop genocide, don't shackle the world's only policeman.")

Posted on April 28, 2006:

Nearly two years ago I attended a lecture by Samantha Power, author of "A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide" (a book I highly recommend), at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. She spoke on the same day the government of Sudan got a seat on the UN Human Rights Commission. On the negotiations to end the killing in Darfur, Power warned that peace talks are sometimes just cover so nations can look the other way at atrocious behavior. But how do you stop such behavior before it becomes a full-blown genocide and once it does how do you end it before eveyone is murdered or displaced? She answered that what is missing in Darfur, as it was in the Balkans and Rwanda, is the "political will" of the international community to act. Though, citing Iraq, she rejected a "militant unilateralist" approach in favor of a reformed UN armed with a robust force ready to intervene to prevent more Rwandas. This brings me to the superb piece, Crisis Intervention: Iraq, Darfur, and American Power, by The New Republic's Lawrence Kaplan. He writes:

Springtime has arrived on the nation's college campuses, but this year the students out marching in the streets are demanding a foreign intervention rather than protesting one. For months now they've been in full cry, and rightly so, over the international community's disinclination to halt the genocide in the Darfur region of western Sudan. Next Sunday, they and like-minded people around the United States will convene for a massive rally in the nation's capital.

But the marchers will have to contend with an unwelcome guest: the specter of Iraq....

Then again, the use of unilateral U.S. military power isn't the solution most Darfur activists have in mind. Even as western Sudan burns, Darfur advocates such as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi argue that the United States must employ its military power only on behalf of--and, more important, in concert with--international organizations such as the United Nations. The Save Darfur Coalition, a leading umbrella group for organizations bent on action, intends to save Darfur not by urging the Bush administration to launch air strikes against Sudan's murderous militias but by petitioning the White House to bolster funding for African Union peacekeepers and to lobby the United Nations.

But will the African Union put a halt to the killings in Darfur? Absolutely not. Its Arab members have stymied the force at every turn. Will the United Nations solve the crisis? That seems extremely unlikely as well. The organization amounts first and foremost to a collection of sovereign states, many of them adamantly opposed to violating Sudan's own sovereignty. Can NATO save the day? Not really, given the fears of entanglement expressed by its European members. As in Bosnia before it, the victims of Darfur can be saved by one thing and one thing alone: American power.

Unfortunately for the victims of Darfur, too many of their advocates have come to view that power as tainted, marred by self-interest and by its misapplication in Iraq. Hence, the contradiction at the heart of the Darfur debate, which pits the imperative to halt the persecution of innocents (Darfur activists have enshrined as their motto the biblical admonition not to "stand idly by the blood of thy neighbor") against a reflexive opposition to the only power that can actually do so.

With the latter sentiment in vogue as a result of the Iraq war, it is as if nothing has been learned and nothing remembered from the decade that went before. Never mind Bosnia. Never mind Kosovo. And, as long as Darfur activists like number two Senate Democrat Dick Durbin of Illinois cling to the mantra that the United States must be what he calls a "defensive nation," well, never mind Darfur either.

Interestingly, former Clinton official Richard Holbrooke has separated himself from Democrats like Durbin, who have adopted the language of foreign policy "realists." Too bad Durbin and company aren't listening.

Valerie Plame Wilson, the NY Times reports, "is shopping a book proposal among a small group of publishers, according to two people familiar with the project." It will be interesting to read the book's acknowledgements.

"A new atmosphere of increased religious tolerance has spurred a resurgence of Sufism and brought the once-underground Sufis and their rituals out in the open," today's Washington Post reports. Where has this happened? Of all places: Saudi Arabia. Over a year ago, Stephen Schwartz wrote an interesting piece in the Weekly Standard on an underreported sect of Islam known as Sufism. Schwartz described the stark difference between Wahhabism, the dominant religious force in the Saudi kingdom, and Sufism this way:

The Muslim world comprises a spectrum of religious interpretations. If, at one end of the continuum, we find the fanatical creed of Wahhabism, cruel and arbitrary, more an Arab-supremacist state ideology than a religious sect, at the other end we find the enlightened traditions of Sufism. These stress not only intra-Islamic dialogue, separation of spiritual from clerical authority, and teaching in the vernacular, but also respect for all believers, whether Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, or other. Sufis emphasize, above all, their commitment to mutual civility, interaction, and cooperation among believers, regardless of sect.

Schwartz continued:

At the same time, on human rights grounds, the United States must speak up for Sufis against those who repress them, often violently, especially in Saudi Arabia. To repeat, in the Wahhabi-dominated kingdom, an independent, spiritual Sufi oppositional culture is emerging, with special attraction for young people. Against the backdrop of Saudi fanaticism, including the open support for radical Islam coming from some of Riyadh's richest and most powerful personalities, Sufism exemplifies the Islamic pluralism that, if restored to Saudi Arabia, could shut off the money flow to al Qaeda and its allies worldwide. These are opportunities in the war against terror that the United States would be foolish to miss.

But is the "new atmosphere of increased religious tolerance" real or, as one Middle East scholar told me, just "window dressing" by the Saudi Wahhabi establishment to keep the Americans quiet? Regardless, the resurgence of Sufism in other nations is something to watch closely and encourage in the face of Islamic radicalism.

Nearly two years ago I attended a lecture by Samantha Power, author of "A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide" (a book I highly recommend), at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. She spoke on the same day the government of Sudan got a seat on the UN Human Rights Commission. On the negotiations to end the killing in Darfur, Power warned that peace talks are sometimes just cover so nations can look the other way at atrocious behavior. But how do you stop such behavior before it becomes a full-blown genocide and once it does how do you end it before eveyone is murdered or displaced? She answered that what is missing in Darfur, as it was in the Balkans and Rwanda, is the "political will" of the international community to act. Though, citing Iraq, she rejected a "militant unilateralist" approach in favor of a reformed UN armed with a robust force ready to intervene to prevent more Rwandas. This brings me to the superb piece, Crisis Intervention: Iraq, Darfur, and American Power, by The New Republic's Lawrence Kaplan. He writes:

Springtime has arrived on the nation's college campuses, but this year the students out marching in the streets are demanding a foreign intervention rather than protesting one. For months now they've been in full cry, and rightly so, over the international community's disinclination to halt the genocide in the Darfur region of western Sudan. Next Sunday, they and like-minded people around the United States will convene for a massive rally in the nation's capital.

But the marchers will have to contend with an unwelcome guest: the specter of Iraq....

Then again, the use of unilateral U.S. military power isn't the solution most Darfur activists have in mind. Even as western Sudan burns, Darfur advocates such as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi argue that the United States must employ its military power only on behalf of--and, more important, in concert with--international organizations such as the United Nations. The Save Darfur Coalition, a leading umbrella group for organizations bent on action, intends to save Darfur not by urging the Bush administration to launch air strikes against Sudan's murderous militias but by petitioning the White House to bolster funding for African Union peacekeepers and to lobby the United Nations.

But will the African Union put a halt to the killings in Darfur? Absolutely not. Its Arab members have stymied the force at every turn. Will the United Nations solve the crisis? That seems extremely unlikely as well. The organization amounts first and foremost to a collection of sovereign states, many of them adamantly opposed to violating Sudan's own sovereignty. Can NATO save the day? Not really, given the fears of entanglement expressed by its European members. As in Bosnia before it, the victims of Darfur can be saved by one thing and one thing alone: American power.

Unfortunately for the victims of Darfur, too many of their advocates have come to view that power as tainted, marred by self-interest and by its misapplication in Iraq. Hence, the contradiction at the heart of the Darfur debate, which pits the imperative to halt the persecution of innocents (Darfur activists have enshrined as their motto the biblical admonition not to "stand idly by the blood of thy neighbor") against a reflexive opposition to the only power that can actually do so.

With the latter sentiment in vogue as a result of the Iraq war, it is as if nothing has been learned and nothing remembered from the decade that went before. Never mind Bosnia. Never mind Kosovo. And, as long as Darfur activists like number two Senate Democrat Dick Durbin of Illinois cling to the mantra that the United States must be what he calls a "defensive nation," well, never mind Darfur either.

Interestingly, former Clinton official Richard Holbrooke has separated himself from Democrats like Durbin, who have adopted the language of foreign policy "realists." Too bad Durbin and company aren't listening.

(Agence France Presse has the latest,"Mogadishu tensions soar as Islamists declare jihad on warlords," from Somalia.)

Posted on February 20, 2006:

Since the early 1990s, al Qaeda has targeted Somalia. Back then, American forces and U.N peacekeepers were the target. Today, as in other regions of the world, they are also increasingly aiming their gun sights on moderate Muslims. From the BBC:

The fighting pits a new group, the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism, against the Islamic Courts' militia....

Our correspondent says at least five warlords-cum-ministers in the transitional government are behind the new alliance, which is battling the Islamic Courts.

The courts have set up Mogadishu's only judicial system in parts of the capital but have been accused of links to al-Qaeda.

Their critics accuse the courts of being behind the killing of moderate Muslim scholars.

See here and here.

(Though Somalia gets little media attention these days, it remains a battleground for radical Islamists. From Reuters:

MOGADISHU - Heavy fighting between rival Somali militia linked to Islamic courts and a new "anti-terror" alliance has killed about 90 people in the last three days in the capital, Mogadishu, residents and local radio said on Friday.

The United States is also concerned that a small number of Somalis may be providing a safe-haven for these foreign terrorists inside Somalia, which undermines the efforts of those seeking to establish peace in Somalia and threatens the stability of the Horn of Africa," the statement added.)

Posted on February 20, 2006:

Since the early 1990s, al Qaeda has targeted Somalia. Back then, American forces and U.N peacekeepers were the target. Today, as in other regions of the world, they are also increasingly aiming their gun sights on moderate Muslims. From the BBC:

The fighting pits a new group, the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism, against the Islamic Courts' militia....

Our correspondent says at least five warlords-cum-ministers in the transitional government are behind the new alliance, which is battling the Islamic Courts.

The courts have set up Mogadishu's only judicial system in parts of the capital but have been accused of links to al-Qaeda.

Their critics accuse the courts of being behind the killing of moderate Muslim scholars.

Kosovar Albanians don't think much of the UN but they sure like the U.S. and NATO. This was abundantly clear when I was over there last August. They resented the fact that the UN Security Council sat on its hands while Milosevic's forces rampaged throughout the province. They were also well aware that it was American leadership that moved other nations to ignore the Security Council and act against the Serb forces. Of course, back then Russia and China blocked UN action. The Russians had a soft spot for Milosevic, while the folks who brought us Tiananmen Square believed the killings, torched villages and mass exodus of Kosovar Albanians were an "internal" matter. Today, as this Wall Street Journal editorial points out, it's more of the same:

Today's leading authority on Darfur is the political philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who prophesied a world "nasty, brutish and short." At least 200,000 civilians have been killed in the past three years and two million more have become refugees. The source of the problem is the Arab rulers in Khartoum, who have pursued an ethnic cleansing campaign against black Muslims in western Sudan. They've equipped the Janjaweed Arab tribesmen to do the dirty work, and that militia is now attacking civilians across the border in Chad, creating 20,000 more refugees.

To his credit, Kofi Annan started shouting about the problem two years ago, and former Secretary of State Colin Powell labeled it "genocide" not long after that. The U.N.'s mighty peace-making machinery then started to roll and . . . nothing. The Chinese (who have close commercial ties to Khartoum) and Russians have blocked any serious intervention. Arab members of the Security Council have also opposed any attempt to single out Khartoum.

And ABC News reported:

The U.N. Security Council remained divided Monday on imposing punitive measures over the conflict in Darfur despite calls for sanctions against Sudanese allegedly blocking peace in the region.

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton, on the next to last day of the U.S. presidency of the council, scheduled a closed-door meeting to discuss a report by a U.N.-appointed panel that recommended sanctions against key figures from all groups.

Most of the 15-member council were in favor of sanctions, led by the United States, Britain, France and Denmark but Qatar, China, and Russia were strongly opposed, council diplomats said. Qatar is the only Arab member of the council, China is a major buyer of Sudanese oil, and Russia traditionally opposes sanctions.

Perhaps we should create a new position in our diplomatic corps: Ambassador to Nations that Give a Damn about Atrocities.

The Beltway Blitz explains it all here.

From a Fortune magazine piece on Beijing's activities in Africa:

...African governments view China as a more cooperative partner than the West. China has refused to back regular Western rebukes of African corruption and human-rights abuses and last year used its permanent seat on the UN Security Council to block genocide charges against Sudan--source of about 7% of China's oil--for the massacres in Darfur. "The U.S. will talk to you about governance, about efficiency, about security, about the environment," says Mustafa Bello, head of the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission, who has visited China seven times. "The Chinese just ask, 'How do we procure this license?'"

China has become the biggest foreign investor in Zimbabwe, where President Robert Mugabe's policies have beggared the country and left millions homeless. Zimbabwe doesn't have oil, but it is the world's second-largest exporter of platinum, a key import for China's auto industry. Chinese radio-jamming devices block Zimbabwe's dissident broadcasts, and Chinese workers built Mugabe's new $9 million home, featuring a blue-tiled roof donated by the Chinese government. While Western politicians railed against Mugabe last year for flattening entire shantytowns, China was supplying him with fighter jets and troop carriers worth about $240 million, in exchange for imports of gold and tobacco.

I'm sure Beijing will be more helpful on the other pressing issues facing the Security Council.

(From Reuters:

But after a government-led media campaign against U.N. intervention, nationalist sentiment in Sudan is running high. The pro-government al-Intibaha newspaper has announced the formation of two new Islamist movements threatening to target foreign interests in Darfur, called the Darfur Jihad Organization and the Blood Brigades. The protestors handed a statement to U.N. offices demanding the immediate eviction of the top U.N. envoy in Sudan, Jan Pronk. Sudanese women bearing kalashnikovs joined the march, declaring their readiness to fight foreign troops.

The defense minister also rallied troops against intervention at a military demonstration in Khartoum. "Jihad, victory, martyrdom," the soldiers chanted. "Our martyrs are in heaven, and we are ready," said Defense Minister Abdel Rahim Mohamed Hussein.)

The atrocities in Darfur continue. But thanks to Moscow and Beijing the government in Khartoum doesn't have to worry about UN-imposed sanctions.

From ABC News:

The U.N. Security Council remained divided Monday on imposing punitive measures over the conflict in Darfur despite calls for sanctions against Sudanese allegedly blocking peace in the region.

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton, on the next to last day of the U.S. presidency of the council, scheduled a closed-door meeting to discuss a report by a U.N.-appointed panel that recommended sanctions against key figures from all groups.

Most of the 15-member council were in favor of sanctions, led by the United States, Britain, France and Denmark but Qatar, China, and Russia were strongly opposed, council diplomats said. Qatar is the only Arab member of the council, China is a major buyer of Sudanese oil, and Russia traditionally opposes sanctions.

With sanctions off the table, Khartoum is now more brazen in its threats against the deployment of an effective peacekeeping force in Darfur. And, al Qaeda has reportedly made its own threats against such a force.

From the Los Angeles Times:

Envoy to Sudan Reports Threats U.N.'s Jan Pronk says Al Qaeda has warned him and non-African troops who might go to Darfur.

UNITED NATIONS — The world body's top envoy to Sudan said Tuesday that Al Qaeda has threatened him and any peacekeeping troops deployed there from outside Africa, following the Sudanese government's rejection of a proposed U.N. force meant to protect civilians in the nation's Darfur region....

The U.N. is drawing up plans to transform a 7,000-strong African Union force into a U.N.-led operation as the regional troops run out of funding and logistical support. But Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir on Saturday denounced the U.N.'s plan to field a force of as many as 20,000 troops, some from outside Africa, to quell continuing violence in Darfur.

On Feb. 17, President Bush said the number of peacekeepers on the ground in Darfur should be doubled, perhaps with the support of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Bashir responded Saturday that such international troops would be at risk.

"We are strongly opposed to any foreign intervention in Sudan, and Darfur will be a graveyard for any foreign troops venturing to enter," he said in Khartoum. Bashir summoned Pronk on Monday to underline his government's insistence on African troops....

The heated political climate in Khartoum has made negotiations over the next step difficult, Pronk said, describing intelligence that suggested that Al Qaeda terrorists were present in the Sudanese capital and had made death threats against him and any U.N. troops that might be deployed to the country.

Sudan's deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Omar Manis, reiterated his government's objections to the mission but questioned Pronk's reports of Al Qaeda threats.

"I don't know from where Mr. Pronk got this idea. Sudan is not Al Qaeda. We don't speak for Al Qaeda," he said.

Manis added that Khartoum prefers African troops to international soldiers, even if the existing force is absorbed by a U.N. mission.

"The Sudanese government has already said no," Manis said. "If there are problems with the African Union, let us solve those problems. If there are financial constraints, give them more money. If there are logistical constraints, help them. But nobody seems to be interested in going that path."

Pronk said the political stalemate must be broken because attacks against villagers in the Darfur region were again growing frequent. He described attacks in which thousands of Arab militiamen on camels and horses, followed by government army trucks, plundered Darfur. He also reported new attacks on refugee camps in Chad.

The militias, often backed by the government, have been razing villages in the region of western Sudan since rebel groups took up arms against the government in 2003. Hundreds of thousands of non-Arab villagers have been killed in the government-orchestrated campaign to oust the ethnic groups that supported the rebels, according to the U.N., and more than 2 million people have been displaced.

The attacks have continued despite a peace agreement in a separate Sudanese conflict reached last year, and the African Union forces are spread thin, Pronk said.

"Nothing rips more at the common fabric of humanity than genocide -- and the only way to assert our own humanity is to stand up to it," wrote New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, who won't let the world forget about the suffering in Darfur. He continued:

President Bush is doing more about Darfur than most other leaders, but that's not saying much. The French are being particularly unhelpful, while other Europeans (including, alas, Tony Blair) seem to wonder whether it's really worth the expense to save people from genocide. Muslim countries are silent about the slaughter of Darfur's Muslims, while China disgraces itself by protecting Sudan in the United Nations and underwriting the genocide with trade. Still, even Mr. Bush is taking only baby steps.

Here are some grown-up steps Mr. Bush could take: He could enforce a no-fly zone to stop air attacks on civilians in Darfur, lobby Arab leaders to become involved, call President Hu Jintao and ask China to stop protecting Sudan, invite Darfur refugees to a photo op at the White House, attend a coming donor conference for Darfur, visit Darfur or the refugee camps next door in Chad, push France and other allies for a NATO bridging force to provide protection until United Nations troops arrive, offer to support the United Nations force with American military airlift and logistical support (though not ground troops, which would help Sudan's hard-liners by allowing them to claim that the United States.

As with Rwanda and the Balkans for many years, we have, thus far, failed "to assert our own humanity" in Darfur.

(The corrupt strike back. From yesterday's Christian Science Monitor:

Masked, armed police Thursday stormed the offices of a leading Kenyan media company in a raid seen as punishment for reports criticizing the government's dismal record on corruption.

Dozens of officers carrying AK-47 assault rifles ransacked the Nairobi editorial headquarters of Kenya Television Network (KTN) and the downtown printing press of The Standard, Kenya's oldest newspaper....

Mr. Kibaki's administration has been under fire since an explosive report written by the country's former anticorruption chief John Githongo, who fled to Britain afraid for his life a year ago, was leaked to national and international media in January.

In the report, Mr. Githongo claims several serving and former ministers in Kibaki's Cabinet were extensively involved in a series of shady deals designed to loot $262 million of state funds, in a country where more than half the 31 million population lives on less than $2 a day.)

It was odd that one of the biggest barriers to lifting nations out of chronic poverty -- rampant government and business corruption -- didn't appear on the radar screen at the World Economic Forum at Davos a few weeks back. There wasn't a single panel discussion on a problem that some say costs poorer nations up to twenty-five percent of their national income. Nonetheless, instigated by people tired of empty promises, horrible living conditions, and out-right thievery an anti-corruption wave, has gathered some momentum. The BBC reported on this campaign over the weekend. While today's Washington Post reports on anti-corruption efforts in Kenya --

"'We're a thirsty land of empty promises. Other countries have droughts and you never see their people dying,' Ciira said in this town 50 miles northwest of Nairobi. As she spoke, people gathered around her, some waving copies of one of Kenya's daily newspapers, the Nation, with a three-page spread detailing the largest scandals."

Last week, dramatic details of two of the largest scandals have implicated high-level officials, some of whom allegedly pocketed a total of $1.3 billion in public funds, money that critics say should have gone to irrigation and road projects to help protect farmers from the devastating effects of recurring droughts.

As the country's worst drought in 20 years wears on, many Kenyans are blaming government corruption, not Mother Nature, for their dire situation. The crisis highlights how government fraud and mismanagement can worsen, and in some cases create, food shortages.

-- and at the World Bank under the leadership of Paul Wolfowitz.

The bank has frozen lending to Chad, whose government had reneged on a promise to spend its oil revenue on poverty reduction. Although Chad is a small country, the frozen loans were high-profile: They were an attempt to defy the "curse of oil" and make petrodollars serve development. It took some courage to admit that the curse of oil remained unbroken.

The bank has canceled 14 road contracts in Bangladesh because of corrupt bidding. Two government officials have since been fired, and Wolfowitz plans to ban the private firms involved from future World Bank contracts.

The bank has frozen five loans to Kenya because of corruption, though it did go ahead with a project to improve Kenya's financial management. On a recent stopover in London, Wolfowitz made a point of having dinner with John Githongo, a senior Kenyan official who left the country after issuing a report exposing cabinet ministers' corruption.

The bank has interrupted a project in Argentina that topped up the wages of poor workers. Some of the money seems to have greased the ruling Peronist Party's electoral machine before elections in 2003, and the government has brought charges against one senior official and fired 10 others. The bank's Argentina team responded by building in a few corruption safeguards and pressing to resume lending. But Wolfowitz has demanded that the safeguards be expanded further still. The project has yet to be reauthorized.

Finally, the bank has postponed debt relief for Congo. A team from the International Monetary Fund had certified that the country deserved relief, and the bank was supposed to fall in line last Thursday. But a newspaper report about the Congolese president's extravagant hotel bills was passed around by Wolfowitz's top staff, who noted that KPMG, the firm that audits Congo's state oil company, had refused for three years running to sign off on its financial statements. On Tuesday Wolfowitz called the IMF's boss and asked whether Congo really merited debt relief. On Thursday he refused to go ahead with it.

The atrocities in Darfur continue. But thanks to Moscow and Beijing the government in Khartoum doesn't have to worry about UN-imposed sanctions.

From ABC News:

The U.N. Security Council remained divided Monday on imposing punitive measures over the conflict in Darfur despite calls for sanctions against Sudanese allegedly blocking peace in the region.

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton, on the next to last day of the U.S. presidency of the council, scheduled a closed-door meeting to discuss a report by a U.N.-appointed panel that recommended sanctions against key figures from all groups.

Most of the 15-member council were in favor of sanctions, led by the United States, Britain, France and Denmark but Qatar, China, and Russia were strongly opposed, council diplomats said. Qatar is the only Arab member of the council, China is a major buyer of Sudanese oil, and Russia traditionally opposes sanctions.

With sanctions off the table, Khartoum is now more brazen in its threats against the deployment of an effective peacekeeping force in Darfur. And, al Qaeda reportedly makes its own threats against such a force.

From the Los Angeles Times:

Envoy to Sudan Reports Threats U.N.'s Jan Pronk says Al Qaeda has warned him and non-African troops who might go to Darfur.

UNITED NATIONS — The world body's top envoy to Sudan said Tuesday that Al Qaeda has threatened him and any peacekeeping troops deployed there from outside Africa, following the Sudanese government's rejection of a proposed U.N. force meant to protect civilians in the nation's Darfur region....

The U.N. is drawing up plans to transform a 7,000-strong African Union force into a U.N.-led operation as the regional troops run out of funding and logistical support. But Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir on Saturday denounced the U.N.'s plan to field a force of as many as 20,000 troops, some from outside Africa, to quell continuing violence in Darfur.

On Feb. 17, President Bush said the number of peacekeepers on the ground in Darfur should be doubled, perhaps with the support of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Bashir responded Saturday that such international troops would be at risk.

"We are strongly opposed to any foreign intervention in Sudan, and Darfur will be a graveyard for any foreign troops venturing to enter," he said in Khartoum. Bashir summoned Pronk on Monday to underline his government's insistence on African troops....

The heated political climate in Khartoum has made negotiations over the next step difficult, Pronk said, describing intelligence that suggested that Al Qaeda terrorists were present in the Sudanese capital and had made death threats against him and any U.N. troops that might be deployed to the country.

Sudan's deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Omar Manis, reiterated his government's objections to the mission but questioned Pronk's reports of Al Qaeda threats.

"I don't know from where Mr. Pronk got this idea. Sudan is not Al Qaeda. We don't speak for Al Qaeda," he said.

Manis added that Khartoum prefers African troops to international soldiers, even if the existing force is absorbed by a U.N. mission.

"The Sudanese government has already said no," Manis said. "If there are problems with the African Union, let us solve those problems. If there are financial constraints, give them more money. If there are logistical constraints, help them. But nobody seems to be interested in going that path."

Pronk said the political stalemate must be broken because attacks against villagers in the Darfur region were again growing frequent. He described attacks in which thousands of Arab militiamen on camels and horses, followed by government army trucks, plundered Darfur. He also reported new attacks on refugee camps in Chad.

The militias, often backed by the government, have been razing villages in the region of western Sudan since rebel groups took up arms against the government in 2003. Hundreds of thousands of non-Arab villagers have been killed in the government-orchestrated campaign to oust the ethnic groups that supported the rebels, according to the U.N., and more than 2 million people have been displaced.

The attacks have continued despite a peace agreement in a separate Sudanese conflict reached last year, and the African Union forces are spread thin, Pronk said.

"Nothing rips more at the common fabric of humanity than genocide -- and the only way to assert our own humanity is to stand up to it," wrote New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, who won't let the world forget about the suffering in Darfur. He continued:

President Bush is doing more about Darfur than most other leaders, but that's not saying much. The French are being particularly unhelpful, while other Europeans (including, alas, Tony Blair) seem to wonder whether it's really worth the expense to save people from genocide. Muslim countries are silent about the slaughter of Darfur's Muslims, while China disgraces itself by protecting Sudan in the United Nations and underwriting the genocide with trade. Still, even Mr. Bush is taking only baby steps.

Here are some grown-up steps Mr. Bush could take: He could enforce a no-fly zone to stop air attacks on civilians in Darfur, lobby Arab leaders to become involved, call President Hu Jintao and ask China to stop protecting Sudan, invite Darfur refugees to a photo op at the White House, attend a coming donor conference for Darfur, visit Darfur or the refugee camps next door in Chad, push France and other allies for a NATO bridging force to provide protection until United Nations troops arrive, offer to support the United Nations force with American military airlift and logistical support (though not ground troops, which would help Sudan's hard-liners by allowing them to claim that the United States.

As with Rwanda and the Balkans for many years, we have, thus far, failed "to assert our own humanity" in Darfur.

If Iran strikes a nuclear agreement with Russia, it won't be a shock to learn that Moscow also agreed (perhaps in a Gore-like secret side deal) to block any substantial Security Council action against Tehran. Beijing may also be in on the deal given China's huge energy interests in Iran. Such a deal would help Iran guard against the possibility that the West rejects the nuclear agreement and goes for UN sanctions against Tehran. To see the Moscow-Beijing alliance in action, look no further than Sudan.

From ABC News:

The U.N. Security Council remained divided Monday on imposing punitive measures over the conflict in Darfur despite calls for sanctions against Sudanese allegedly blocking peace in the region.

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton, on the next to last day of the U.S. presidency of the council, scheduled a closed-door meeting to discuss a report by a U.N.-appointed panel that recommended sanctions against key figures from all groups.

Most of the 15-member council were in favor of sanctions, led by the United States, Britain, France and Denmark but Qatar, China, and Russia were strongly opposed, council diplomats said. Qatar is the only Arab member of the council, China is a major buyer of Sudanese oil, and Russia traditionally opposes sanctions.

Perhaps Bolton haters can lighten up a bit and support him on this one.

From the BBC:

A curfew has been imposed in Bauchi in northern Nigerian after at least 13 people were killed in a sectarian riot. It began as an argument between a teacher and a pupil over the confiscation of a Koran in school.

But rumours swept the city that the book had been desecrated and that was the cue for youths, some armed with machetes, to rampage in the streets.

From the caption accompanying a photo in a Washington Post piece on rioters in Afghanistan:

"Ataullah Najafi, ... in Herat, in West Afghanistan, shows the remains of hundreds of Korans burned by Sunni rioters who descended on the mosque on Feb. 9.

Since the early 1990s, radical Islamists have targeted Somalia. Back then, American forces and U.N peacekeepers were the target. Today, as in other regions of the world, they are also increasingly aiming their gun sights on moderate Muslims. From the BBC:

The fighting pits a new group, the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism, against the Islamic Courts' militia....

Our correspondent says at least five warlords-cum-ministers in the transitional government are behind the new alliance, which is battling the Islamic Courts.

The courts have set up Mogadishu's only judicial system in parts of the capital but have been accused of links to al-Qaeda.

Their critics accuse the courts of being behind the killing of moderate Muslim scholars.

The BBC reports on the anti-corruption campaigns being launched by many African nations.

Corruption costs African countries an estimated 25% of its combined national income, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo said - some $148bn a year.

The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point has posted on its web site several al Qaeda-related documents that have been "captured in the course of operations supporting the GWOT." Two letters, dated September 30, 1993 and May 24, 1994, relate directly to al Qaeda operations in Somalia. The letters are from "Hassan al-Tajiki" to the "African Corps." Assuming their authenticity, the letters are consistent with the propaganda of bin Laden in the 1990s that Mogadishu and other events showed that America was "a paper tiger" and "a weak horse." He and his followers would use such imagery as a recruiting tool for al Qaeda, "the strong horse" in bin Laden's words, throughout the 1990s. In fact, though little reported in the media, al Qaeda had recruited and trained thousands before September 11, 2001. Indeed, Richard Clarke told PBS' Frontline that by the end of 2000 al Qaeda had a presence "in probably between 50-60 countries [and] that they had trained thousands, perhaps over 10,000 terrorists at the camps in Afghanistan."

The September 30, 1993 letter called for attacks "to expel" US forces "from Somalia." (Later, a U.S. government indictment charged that bin Laden and other al Qaeda members had trained those who attacked the U.S. Rangers.)

Therefore, the most important need is to expel them from Somalia, even were a semi-Islamic, semi-democratic, semi-etc. government subsequently to assume power....

When you entered Somalia, the Somali arena was barren and futile. The situation changed, however, after the intervention by America and the Knights of the Cross. You most resembled a hunter aiming his rifle at the dead branch of a tree, with no leaves or birds on it. Suddenly, a bald eagle lands on the branch of the tree, directly in line with the rifle. Shouldn’t the hunter pull the trigger to kill the eagle or at least bloody it? The American bald eagle has landed within range of our rifles. You can kill it or leave it permanently disfigured....

The May 24, 1994 letter congratulates the Africa Corps for the "great victory" in the American withdrawal. It notes that the "victory in Somalia over the Americans has profound implications ideologically, politically, and psychologically..." and that the U.S. "fled in panic before their true capabilities could be exposed." Furthermore, "the Somali experience confirmed the spurious nature of American power and that it has not recovered from the Vietnam complex. It fears getting bogged down in a real war that would reveal its psychological collapse at the level of personnel and leadership. Since Vietnam America has been seeking easy battles that are completely guaranteed."

We congratulate you, ourselves, and all Muslims for that great victory in the land of Islamic Somalia....

I would have liked to write on this subject unemotionally and somewhat objectively, were in not for my overwhelming desire to kiss the heads and hands of all those who took part in this action....

General observations on the operation:
1. The Africa Corps did not enter the Somali arena with a clear vision, specifically a strategic vision, either militarily or politically.

2. Likewise, Americans did not enter the Somali arena with a clear vision of the objectives of its presence. Moreover, its vision of East Africa and the Horn of Africa failed to crystallize. I believe that the buffoon Clinton was motivated by election considerations and a personal inclination toward flamboyance, as if for a fleeting moment he believed the falsehood that he was the leader of the most powerful country in the world.

These are not just my words. Rather, this is the considered opinion of many inside America and abroad. What was the result? The result was that our amazing Corps was equal to America for the first time, but in a limited area —the area of darkness regarding a strategic vision. So how were our amazing Corps and its starving African Muslim allies able to be victorious over the greatest power in the world today?

... The Muslim victory in Somalia over the America has profound implications ideologically, politically, and psychologically that will require lengthy studies. You have the duty to record notes about these implications and keep them until it is time to study them in depth. Just the same, there is an important observation that we must not ignore, which is that the Americans were not defeated militarily in Somalia. Effective human and economic losses were not inflicted on them. All that happened was that the Somali battle revealed many of their psychological, political, and perhaps military weaknesses.

5. The Somali experience confirmed the spurious nature of American power and that it has not recovered from the Vietnam complex. It fears getting bogged down in a real war that would reveal its psychological collapse at the level of personnel and leadership. Since Vietnam America has been seeking easy battles that are completely guaranteed. It entered into a shameful series of adventures on the island of Grenada, then Panama, then bombing Libya, and then the Gulf War farce, which was the greatest military, political, and ideological swindle in history.

The outcomes were 100 percent guaranteed. Even so, the Americans brought with them forces from 30 countries to take the blows on their behalf, should events not turn out the way they were supposed to. In the end, the Arabs, the Europeans, and Japan paid the costs of the war, plus fees!

America wanted to continue this series of farces. It assumed that Somalia was an appropriate space for another ridiculous act. But the Muslims were there—so the great disaster occurred. They fled in panic before their true capabilities could be exposed.

6. In Mogadishu and Beirut, urban deterrence operations caused the American forces to flee in a shameful and humiliating manner. Doesn’t this demonstrate the importance of this type of warfare and the need to develop our warfare capabilities in terms of personnel, training syllabi, equipment being used, its level of technological advancement, development of security syllabi, development of security procedures, and training of competent elements for the security field.

What's clear is that the supposed "stability" of the 1990s was illusory.

Tom Joscelyn has the story here. More information on the GSPC may be found here.

From a December 3, 2001 USA Today piece>:

Saddam, under intense international scrutiny after the Gulf War, also had strong ties to Khartoum, and Iraqi intelligence was well represented in the stew of Islamic radicals, insurrectionists and foreign agents pouring through the city.

"We were convinced that money from Iraq was going to bin Laden, who was then sending it to places that Iraq wanted it to go," says Stanley Bedlington, a senior analyst in the CIA's counterterrorism center from 1986 until his retirement in 1994.

"There certainly is no doubt that Saddam Hussein had pretty strong ties to bin Laden while he was in Sudan, whether it was directly or through (Sudanese) intermediaries. We traced considerable sums of money going from bin Laden to the GIA in Algeria. We believed some of the money came from Iraq."

Fast forward to the current Weekly Standard cover piece, "Saddam's Terror Training Camps." Regarding the training of Algerian terrorists, in particular, Stephen Hayes has uncovered the following:

THE FORMER IRAQI REGIME OF Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion, according to documents and photographs recovered by the U.S. military in postwar Iraq. The existence and character of these documents has been confirmed to THE WEEKLY STANDARD by eleven U.S. government officials.

The secret training took place primarily at three camps--in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak--and was directed by elite Iraqi military units. Interviews by U.S. government interrogators with Iraqi regime officials and military leaders corroborate the documentary evidence. Many of the fighters were drawn from terrorist groups in northern Africa with close ties to al Qaeda, chief among them Algeria's GSPC and the Sudanese Islamic Army. Some 2,000 terrorists were trained at these Iraqi camps each year from 1999 to 2002, putting the total number at or above 8,000. Intelligence officials believe that some of these terrorists returned to Iraq and are responsible for attacks against Americans and Iraqis. According to three officials with knowledge of the intelligence on Iraqi training camps, White House and National Security Council officials were briefed on these findings in May 2005; senior Defense Department officials subsequently received the same briefing.

By 1997, a splinter group emerged from the GIA (Armed Islamic Group) called the Salafi Group for Call and Combat, or GSPC. But exactly what was the relationship between the GSPC and al Qaeda? Some say not much; others say the GSPC had very close ties to bin Laden. Well, consider what the Center for Defense Information, a liberal think tank in Washington, DC, had to say on the issue of a connection between the GSPC and bin Laden:

The Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC) has emerged in recent years as a major source of recruiting and other support for al Qaeda operations in Europe. A splinter faction of the Algerian-based Armed Islamic Group (GIA), the GSPC is engaged simultaneously in efforts to topple Algeria's secular government and to organize high-profile attacks against Western interests on the continent....

Yet more alarming to U.S. and European observers, by 2000, according to Italian investigators, the GSPC had taken over the GIA's external networks across Europe and North Africa and were moving to establish an 'Islamic International' under the aegis of Osama bin Laden. Haydar Abu Doha, a London-based Algerian known as "the Doctor," was instrumental in this reorganization. Abu Doha moved to the UK in 1999 after serving as a senior official in a Qaeda Afghan terrorist camp.

Doha was one of the first to encourage the GSPC to split from the GIA and he helped recruit new terrorists from the large base of disenfranchised Algerian youth in Europe's cities, especially in France. (Algerians to have been among the most numerous militants at al Qaeda's terrorist training camps in Afghanistan before the war.) Many of these new adherents were involved in petty crimes such as car theft, credit-card fraud, and document forgery; and their earnings were now channeled to finance terrorist operations.

Another Algerian, Mohamed Bensakhria, who was based in Germany, and a Tunisian, Tarek Maaroufi, based in Italy, helped Doha establish and coordinate these cells across Europe. They expanded upon the Algerian base of recruits by incorporating radical militants who had left behind dormant conflicts in Bosnia, Chechnya, and Afghanistan. Bensakhria and Maaroufi also created a vast support network that provided newcomers with false documents, lodgings, and incidental spending money.

In recent years, authorities have foiled an alarming number of terrorist plots across Europe and uncovered cells — many linked in one way or another to the GSPC — in Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Britain. Some of the high profile operations planned included a plot to blow up the U.S. Embassies in Paris and Rome, and attacks on the Christmas market in Strasbourg, France and the G-8 summit in Genoa.

Bensakhria was arrested in Spain in June 2002. Maaroufi is wanted in Italy but remains free because of his Belgian citizenship, which prevents his extradition to Italy. Meanwhile, Abu Doha has been connected to Ahmed Ressam, the Algerian convicted for trying to attack Los Angeles International Airport during the millennium changeover, and is currently in British custody fighting extradition to the United States.

Although European and allied authorities have now begun to unearth the myriad connections between these groups and expose their plots, the struggle continues. Most recently French officials arrested four people, two Algerians and two Moroccans, on Dec. 16, 2002, in possession of chemicals and a military personal-protection suit. French authorities say they appear to have been planning a chemical attack. The four were later linked to the GSPC Frankfurt cell.

To be continued...

If you ever get the chance, go visit this outstanding tribute to America's World War II generation.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero hosted a European-Mediterranean summit that ends "with a murmur." From the Los Angeles Times:

The desperation of the summit hosts to achieve agreement, any agreement, was revealed during a break in deliberations. A microphone had been left on near Zapatero, and a top aide complained to him that the Israelis were intractable and that the other members were "ready to throw in the towel."

Zapatero responded: "We must close this! Any way possible!"

Most Americans haven't heard of the International Republican Institute but for over 20 years IRI has helped advance democracy in the world. IRI has monitored elections in over 160 nations with little or no history in democracy -- and supports democracy efforts in many others. IRI recently sent a delegation to observe Liberia's election and issued its preliminary report here.

Gee, it must have been pure hell for Joe Wilson doing that glamorous photo spread in Vanity Fair

The media distortions and outright falsehoods just keep on coming. For example, the New York Daily News claims that Joe Wilson

debunked a key claim in a speech by President Bush that Iraq sought nuclear materials in Africa…. When Wilson was sent by his wife to Africa to research the claims, he showed the documents claiming Saddam tried to buy the uranium were forgeries.

Actually, Wilson had no role in identifying the forgeries. As Stephen Hayes points out,

Wilson's trip to Niger took place in February 2002, some eight months before the U.S. government received the phony Iraq-Niger documents in October 2002. So it is not possible, as he told the Washington Post, that he advised the CIA that "the dates were wrong and the names were wrong." And it is not possible, as Wilson claimed to the New York Times, that he debunked the documents as forgeries.

And the Senate's 2004 bipartisan Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq concluded:

Page 45

The former ambassador also told Committee staff that he was the source of a Washington Post article…which said, "among the Envoy's conclusions was that the documents may have been forged because 'the dates were wrong and the names were wrong.'" Committee staff asked how the former ambassador could have come to the conclusion that the "dates were wrong and the names were wrong" when he had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports.

The Daily News' assertion that Wilson "debunked a key claim in a speech by President Bush" is just plain old bunk. Most intelligence analysts believed his trip "lent more credibility" to reports that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger, and the CIA continued to approve the use of the Iraq-Niger-Uranium language "in Administration publications and speeches, including the State of the Union." The same Senate report states:

Conclusion 13 (page 73)

The report on the former ambassador's trip to Niger, disseminated in March 2002, did not change any analysts' assessments of the Iraq-Niger uranium deal. For most analysts, the information in the report lent more credibility to the original Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reports on the uranium deal, but State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) analysts believed that the report supported their assessment that Niger was unlikely to be wiling or able to sell uranium to Iraq.

Conclusion 12 (page 72)

Until October 2002 when the Intelligence Community obtained the forged foreign language documents on the Iraq-Niger uranium deal, it was reasonable for analysts to assess that Iraq may have been seeking uranium from Africa based on Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reporting and other available intelligence.

Conclusion 19 (page 77)

Even after obtaining the forged documents and being alerted by a State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) analyst about problems with them, analysts at both the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) did not examine them carefully enough to see the obvious problems with the documents. Both agencies continued to publish assessments that Iraq may have been seeking uranium from Africa. In addition, CIA continued to approve the use of similar language in Administration publications and speeches, including the State of the Union.