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PROXY WAR FAIL.
Via David Axe, it appears that the Somali government has collapsed following the seizure of its capitol, Baidoa, by Islamist fighters. Ethiopian troops withdrew from Baidoa less than a day before its fall. The collapse of the Somali provisional government represents a foreign policy disaster for both Ethiopia and the United States; the United States supported Ethiopia's invasion in late 2006, in order to depose an Islamist government that the Bush administration believed was sympathetic to Al Qaeda. The proxy war quickly became a rallying point among conservative bloggers and commentators, who celebrated Ethiopia's brutal approach to counter-insurgency while decrying the limits imposed on the United States in Iraq. Caroline Glick denounced European skeptcism about the invasion as part of a wider pattern of anti-semitism and support for jihad:
But the EU's treatment of Ethiopia and the TFG [the secular Transitional Federal Government] indicates that Brussels' hostility towards the Jewish state is part of a much further-reaching policy. Europe's pro-jihad position toward the war in Somalia indicates that its support for jihad is over-arching rather than limited to specific battlegrounds. ...
This author also briefly supported the Ethiopian efforts, a position he now blames on hard living and excessive drink. In fairness, he did renounce his support less than a month into the war, but recognizes that this hardly obviates the lapse in judgment.
--Robert Farley
COMMENTS (7)
The proxy war quickly became a rallying point among conservative bloggers and commentators, who celebrated Ethiopia's brutal approach to counter-insurgency while decrying the limits imposed on the United States in Iraq
Yup.
http://americanfootprints.com/drupal/node/3339
Posted by: Eric Martin | January 27, 2009 5:06 PM
And so, apparently, did Eric Martin "I'm a bit of a fence-sitter".
I'm not satisfied with this drive-by at all. I'd like to see Robert Farley specifically walk through the logic of how every single point he made was wrong and has since been repudiated. Think of the amount of shit we give Thomas Friedman over Iraq - this was *much* more stupid than that. It was not only an order of magnitude more hopeless, but it was four years after the exact *same type of mistake*.
The Ethiopians were self-evidently brutal, incompetent douchebags that made the Halliburton Invasion of 2003 look competent and well-resourced - AND they were the legendary historical enemies of their invaders. It was literally like expecting a good outcome from the Armenian invasion of Azerbaijan.
I didn't know either of you had ever bought this pile of turd, and I'm shocked. Especially Eric Martin, who always seemed to be a clear thinker. Hard to trust your judgement from here out.
Posted by: glasnost | January 27, 2009 7:27 PM
And so, apparently, did Eric Martin "I'm a bit of a fence-sitter".
I'm not satisfied with this drive-by at all. I'd like to see Robert Farley specifically walk through the logic of how every single point he made was wrong and has since been repudiated. Think of the amount of shit we give Thomas Friedman over Iraq - this was *much* more stupid than that. It was not only an order of magnitude more hopeless, but it was four years after the exact *same type of mistake*.
The Ethiopians were self-evidently brutal, incompetent douchebags that made the Halliburton Invasion of 2003 look competent and well-resourced - AND they were the legendary historical enemies of their invaders. It was literally like expecting a good outcome from the Armenian invasion of Azerbaijan.
I didn't know either of you had ever bought this pile of turd, and I'm shocked. Especially Eric Martin, who always seemed to be a clear thinker. Hard to trust your judgement from here out.
Posted by: glasnost | January 27, 2009 7:31 PM
@ glasnost:
Have you actually read much (any?) of Eric's writings on Somalia and the Ethiopian "intervention"? Either at American Footprints or Obsidian Wings - or any of the other blogs he's contributed to in the past two years?
I would check it out: I think you'd find that whatever "support" Eric may have had for the Ethiopians' actions evaporated quite a while back.
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