Just a short comment on the war in the Horn.
I have posted this comment in the “Have Your Say” section of the BBC News website. The link to this is here. One must forgive the misspellings in my comment. The BBC’s website does not have automatic spellcheck, a system upon which I have become entirely reliant. The spelling errors have been corrected here, and a single editorial change has been made.
My comment was as follows:
It has been a fact throughout history that a sovereign and recognized government can, in a time of crisis, request assistance from a foreign state, military or otherwise. In accepting this premise, the Ethiopian incursion, being at the invitation of the legitimate Somali government in Baidoa must be regarded legal and proper. Therefore, the Ethiopian armed forces may and must, in the interests of preserving the will of the international community, stay as long as they are called upon and welcomed by the Somali government in Baidoa, and leave only at Baidoa's request.
I continue this brief, character-limited statement by saying that the fight against the spread of radicalism of any stripe into the Horn of Africa is, as far as any fight can be good, a good fight. The Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), in calling for Jihad against the legitimate Somali government and its allies, has brought this expanded war down upon itself. Ethiopia is not to blame, nor the Interim Government in Baidoa, nor any other actor. The UIC may have brought “law and order” to the lawless land it occupies, but they have done so at gunpoint - a fact that brings to mind the “Neo-Conservative” agenda of “spreading democracy.”
Had the UIC not called on fellow extremists to destroy the Somali government and its allies; had they remained, or even sat at the bargaining table, there could have been the possibility of a government of national unity in Somalia.
Instead, they chose war - and war is what they got.