In Somalia, Too Many Get Caught in Crossfire of U.S. Policy

Recently the U.S. defended its falling short of promised funding for humanitarian emergencies in Somalia on the grounds that too much of the aid was falling into the hands of the radical insurgent group, Al Shabab. Well, here's news for you, Foggy Bottom: there is no way to starve Al Shabab, particularly if you're starving non-aligned civilians in the crossfire.

The al Qaeda inspired organization is just too nebulous, too conceptual, and too spread out to isolate economically. There is no way to aid Somalia without them getting a hold of some of that assistance. And if the U.S. penalizes communities who suffer the Al Shabab presence, they will only drive those communities deeper into the arms of Al Shabab. Besides, why would the U.S. reward or buy-out radical insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan through civil-military strategy then starve them and the communities that host them in Somalia?

Too often the U.S. and other Western nations are so caught up with today's violent troubles that they fail to act to prevent tomorrow's violent troubles. For twenty years, Somalia has always been at the top of humanitarian aid agency agendas, but in the middle of humanitarian donor and political mediators' agendas. Only when body counts rise from rocket attacks or famine do the donors and mediators really get involved.

But the complex political dilemmas in Somalia cannot be solved by rushing in inconsistently. They will only be solved by long, careful consolidation of community positives, peacebuilding and enhancement of rule of law, region-by-region clockwise from Awdal, Somaliland, around the Horn until the troubles are isolated in Mogadishu and Kismayo. The UN has had this plan for some time, but funding from donors like the U.S. has been inconsistent.

To clarify, Al Shabab is, like al Qaeda and the Taliban, more of a state of mind than a well-defined organization. When Al Shabab began in Somaliland in the early 1990s, many people supported them as a conservative, moral, Islamic guidance party through which to oppose both the Soviet-then-American-client dictatorship of Siad Barre as well as the hardline Isaaq clan councils of Hargeisa. At that time, Al Shabab was extreme but portrayed themselves as patriots with widespread appeal, if not support.

Soon enough they tried to link up or run parallel to distinct but similar movements inspired by the Egyptian Brotherhood, Al Ikhuan, like the Al Ittihad militia in Puntland. But the northern clan authorities chased them out into Ethiopia where, bitter at their losses, they became more extreme. During this period of the late-1990s, Somalis felt that they had to choose between "clanism" (aka warlordism) or Islamic unity, so many Somalis shifted back and forth between support for their clan leaders if that helped them, then perhaps shifting to support the Islamic radicals, if that helped.

During the 2000s, Al Shabab ventured into southern Somalia, volunteering to rally in support of conservative Islamic judges who represented thousands of Somalis who were tired of clanism and warlordism. At that time, Al Shabab merely had to declare their cause "anti-colonial," claiming that the warlords were clients of the U.S. and they rallied millions of Somalis. Meanwhile, the group allegedly applied for grants from al Qaeda, proposing a much more extreme agenda.

Today, Al Shabab is yet another incarnation, including yet a different variety of followers. Its leadership adapts, using Western foreign policy and the local government as spite fodder. If the U.S. tries to isolate Al Shabab by starving communities that host it, then Al Shabab will claim to be a movement against American hypocrisy. If the U.S. cooperates more consistently with the UN, Al Shabab will find another rally point. To truly isolate and weaken a highly nebulous movement like Al Shabab, Western donors, mediators, and the UN must reduce the reasons undecided community members tolerate them, not add to the reasons they might support them.

[Thanks to Jeff Rigsby in Kabul for pointing me toward this!]

Photo credit: Daniel J Gerstle