ON SEPT. 20, 2001 President Bush declared, "Afghanistan's people have been brutalized -- many are starving and many have fled. Women are not allowed to attend school. You can be jailed for owning a television. Religion can be practiced only as their leaders dictate. A man can be in jailed in Afghanistan if his beard is not long enough." Bush then went on to demand that Afghanistan sever all terrorist ties or face the consequences -- the famous Bush Doctrine. Today, Somalia is the new Afghanistan. The civil unrest and rise of the ruling Conservative Council of Islamic Courts (formerly the Islamic Courts Union) parallels the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan in the early 1990s almost perfectly. In its shift from idealism and democratization to realism and caution in its foreign policy, the Bush Administration is missing the opportunity to nip a terrorist regime in the bud and make the world a safer place.
After the Soviet-installed regime in Afghanistan was overthrown in 1992, civil war raged. Various factions and warlords vied for control in the power vacuum, but a grouping of Mujahideen (religious fighters) proved victorious by 1996. The war-weary Afghan people were grateful that one side had prevailed. Unfortunately, the victors were a band of firebrand Islamic radicals bent on strictly enforcing Sunni Islamic law with no dissidence tolerated. The Taliban regime was known to be harboring terrorists -- most notably Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda. Throughout this whole ordeal, the Clinton Administration looked the other way, blissfully ignorant. The results were the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole (which drew a token response of a few Cruise missiles) and the horrific events of Sept. 11. One would think that America has learned that radical Islamic groups with terrorist ties cannot be trusted to govern. Unfortunately, that does not seem to be the case.
The autocratic government of Somalia collapsed in 1991 in the wake of a bloody coup d'etât led by warlords and the succession of Somaliland (northern Somalia). In keeping with Clinton's internationalism, U.N. forces with U.S. troops tried to restore order from 1993-1995. By 1995, the United States and the United Nations decided to cut and run like frightened rabbits because of mounting casualties. (Remember the movie Black Hawk Down?) As a result, civil war continued to rage with a loose coalition of Islamic courts eventually becoming a significant military and political force by 1999. The secular warlords formed the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT) which, according to former U.S. intelligence officials, received U.S. funding (although this was never officially confirmed or denied). The Islamic Courts stuck their first decisive victory a few weeks ago capturing Mogadishu; they now have effective control over the surrounding area. According to BBC News, the Islamic Courts have been associated with "al-Qaeda-linked attacks in East Africa
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