President Yusuf of Somalia sounds a great deal like George W. Bush in the days after 9/11, while the present Bush administration seems fixated on repeating the mistakes of "Peace in Our Time" in Somalia (and elsewhere). "Somalia leader: No role for Islamists," by Shashank Bengali for McClatchy News Service:
NAIROBI, Kenya - In a rebuff to the United States, Somalia's interim president, Abdullahi Yusuf, on Monday rejected U.S. requests to bring moderate Islamists into his weak transitional government.
Negotiations with Islamists ''will not happen,'' he told Al Jazeera television before flying to Mogadishu, Somalia's lawless seaside capital. ``We will crack down on the terrorists in any place around the nation.''
Yusuf had indicated the opposite position in meetings in the Kenyan capital over the weekend with assistant U.S. Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer, U.S. officials said.
There was no immediate reaction from U.S. officials, but Yusuf's remarks underscored the difficulties that Western governments face as they try to shore up Somalia's fragile regime after Ethiopian troops ousted Somalia's popular Islamist rulers last month.
Frazer, the top U.S. diplomat for Africa, had said late Sunday in Nairobi that Yusuf's government, which was formed by an international conference in 2004 and has never controlled Mogadishu, needed to bring moderate Islamists into the regime.
''I support reaching out to the . . . Islamic Courts,'' Frazer said. ``We see a role in the future of Somalia for all who renounce violence and extremism.''
The message signaled a more conciliatory U.S. stance on the Islamic Courts Movement, which had seized Mogadishu in June from U.S.-backed warlords. Initially U.S. officials based in Kenya had some contact with moderates within the movement, including Sheik Sherif Ahmed, a geography teacher who emerged as their leader.
But Ahmed soon was edged out by hard-liners, led by suspected al Qaeda operative Hassan Dahir Aweys, who laid claims to territory in neighboring countries and called for jihad against Ethiopia. Frazer made a series of statements starting in November claiming that al Qaeda terrorists had overrun the courts movement.
U.S. officials think that the militants are sheltering three terrorists who masterminded the 1998 attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The Bush administration is widely thought to have given neighboring, Christian-led Ethiopia the green light to expel the Islamists.
The whereabouts of Sherif, Aweys and other top Islamist leaders remained uncertain Monday as Ethiopian and Kenyan troops continued to pursue remnants of the fleeing Islamist militias in a heavily wooded area of southern Somalia, near the border with Kenya.
Analysts who had been critical of U.S. policy in Somalia said the Bush administration might be focusing on achieving political stability there after years of being preoccupied with preventing al Qaeda cells from taking root.
''If the U.S. is indeed doing more than making a few public statements in support of dialogue with moderates, then it does represent a shift in the public face of its policy,'' said John Prendergast, senior advisor to the International Crisis Group, a research center on global conflict.
First, define "moderate." But expect that many more in the Islamic Courts movement will now claim to be "moderate" than when they were in power in much of the country. Pin them down on their opinions on women's rights, Sharia versus secular law, religious pluralism, and the doctrines of jihad -- no equivocation allowed. Count how many "moderates" you have left.
It's hard enough finding Islamic moderates.
Now we pushing the Somali government to include "Islamist" moderates.
THERE IS NO SUCH THING! Idiots!
Could be some behind-the-scenes lobbying by our new UN Ambassador.
when you find the "unicorn" that is where the "moderate muslim" is hiding out.
Man this is gonna make me sick "moderate" lol. I got a definition for the U.N. to define terrorism, which has been hard for them. I can do it in one simple word. "Ummah" so simple, but so right.
"I support reaching out to the . . . Islamic Courts," Frazer said. "We see a role in the future of Somalia for all who renounce violence and extremism."
So Mr. Frazer ... make up your mind! You can have one or the other. And this is the top U.S. diplomat for Africa?
Looking for some moderate Muslims?
I looks like the Somalis have got it right.
By making all Muslims the enemy, and you don't have to worry about waking up in the night to find a knife in you back.
You simply don't have to worry if the individual Muslim is a good person or not or if he is a "Moderate" or not. I really think the smaller nations that have experienced what an islamic invasion is like this can teach us some lessons.
Islam will not soon undergo any "reformations" so these Somalis are just playing it safe. They will call in the Ethopians and the USAF if they have a lot of trouble.
I'm sure they could find one but if they don't keep him real cold the smell would drive everyone else out for a few months.
"``We will crack down on the terrorists in any place around the nation.''
...Well, he certainly did not do it before, and the terrorists were there for years.....
"Pin them down on their opinions on women's rights, Sharia versus secular law, religious pluralism, and the doctrines of jihad -- no equivocation allowed. Count how many "moderates" you have left."
...I only guessing , but the number could be somewhere between zero and ummmmmm......zero?
A Muslim police who tried to be a moderate by killing an extremist, got killed the the moderates.
That proves that a moderate Muslim is a dead Muslim.
Here:
Indonesian Cop Beaten to Death at Islamic Funeral
http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/
There are moderate Muslims in Somalia but not in the Islamic Courts Council. Does Bush not understand that virtually everyone in Somalia is a Muslim and that the ICC represent one extreme? This is like suggesting that the Allies should have sought accomodation with the moderate wing of the Nazi party.
Commentor Credit Man has the same problem. The Somali government is not, as he suggests, treating all Muslims as enemies. They are Muslims themselves, as are virtually all Somalis. The Somali government is making exactly the distinction that he considers foolish, between moderate Muslims and Islamists.
Why would Frazer, the top diplomat in Africa, make such a statement so close to GWB's "get tough" speech? Does not the right hand know what the left is doing? At any rate it displays an appalling lack of knowledge of "The Religion of Peace, TM)
Boys who wanted to watch the World Cup were beaten. Anyone who neglected to pray 5 times a day faced beheading. Just like to a carpenter, everything looks like a nail, to a State Dept arabist, every mahometan looks like a moderate.
"after Ethiopian troops ousted Somalia's popular Islamist rulers last month"..... typical mahometan media propaganda. They were as well-liked as a turd in the punchbowl.
''I support reaching out to the . . . Islamic Courts,'' Frazer said. ``We see a role in the future of Somalia for all who renounce violence and extremism.''
Am I missing something here?
What kind of realpolitik is this?
Isn't this reaching out to "mederate" muslims like the mujjahedin in Afghanistan and elsewhere that got us into this mess in the first place?
This Abdullahi Yusuf seems like an eminant fellow who knows whats what. Instead of helping him in this troubled time for Somalia, why does the US see it fit to undermine his efforts?
This is crazy!
I must be missing something here!
This is just another sign of how clueless the Bush Administration is regarding Islam. I thought the same thing this morning when Condi was offering to lift the sanctions (that have been in place since 1979) in exchange for Iran's suspension of nuclear ambitions.
Isn't that the same promise made by Bubba to the North Koreans? And won't this get the same result?
I'm just picturing the Iranians announcing the successful test of a nuke after we've given them a few billions in "economic aid" and taken their promise to stop research.
Get a clue GW.
From the article
I remember the heady days when "Islamist" was first used several years ago, to differentiate between the "few extremists" and the "vast majority of moderate" Muslims. By definition, "Islamists" were the "extremists". Now we're pressuring the Somali government to accept the "moderate extremists" into their government.
I agree with billposer above. Somalia is approximately 99% Muslim. The government is Muslim. I'm glad that U.S. troops went in and killed some of the jihadists on their march south, but I hope that we don't get off-track again, and start assuming that the Somali people want freedom (ie. "corruption"), democracy (ie. "kaffirocracy"), and peace (ie. "weakness").
Why should we pressure their government to become more full of hatred towards us? Do we just enjoy shooting ourselves in the foot for the fun of it? If the current government has the support of the Somali people with its anti-sharia stance (and it doesn't, and it won't), great. The time for propping up strong-men dictators to hold back the tide of swelling popular support for the global Caliphate is over. We're only kidding ourselves, it is time to face that tide head on. We'll do fine when we finally do. Until then, we're foundering and imperiled.
"Moderate Islamists"
-- quoting an American diplomat with Africa as his portfolio
Do a little backdating:
"Moderate Nazis..."
"Moderate members of the Comintern..."
Was it Mikoyan who was the "moderate" and Suslov the "hard-liner"? Or was it fat Georgi Malenkov? Or Bulganin? I can't remember. Hard-liners, and the "moderates." The way in which vivid Western, and especialy American, imaginations, conjure up these soap-opera rivals:
The "moderates."
The "hard-liners."
"Somali leader rejects U.S. requests to bring 'moderate Islamists' into gov't"
This guy is no fool!
The fools are all over here.
Disappointment from new UN chief Ban Ki-Moon, (who earlier showed some hope by denouncing Iran for its bellicose statements on Israel):
Wasn't Claus von Stauffenberg a moderate Nazi, since he tried to assassinate Hitler?? And wasn't Krushchyov a moderate Communist, since he purged Stalin's supporters?
Was von Stauffenberg ever a Nazi Party member? As for Khrushchev, he was "moderate" compared to Stalin -- the man who used to humiliate Khrushchev by making him dance, on command, for visiting foreigners, the gopak. But was that enough? President Kennedy apparently didn't think so, at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
I did not deny that there are gradations of belief, or of wickedness. But too often this business of labelling people as "moderate" obscures a larger reality. Mahmoud Abbas is routinely described as a "moderate." Is he? Or is he simply someone who shares the ultimate goal of the people in Hamas, but understands that they are being, for now, unrealistic, and that they have to go a little slower, say a few things they really don't mean, and work to undermine Israel ove a slightly longer time period.
Does that make him a "moderate"?
It is so easy for people in the government to turn every enemy into a soap opera, where this one is labelled "hard-line" and that one a "moderate" without further thought as to what these words might or should mean, if they are to be useful and accurate.
That was my point.
I smell a payoff comming!!!
There are no "moderate islamists" than there are moderate poisonous snakes.
Thank you billposer for the clairification. I am in your debt. (Well so to speak)
I didn't take a very close look at the discrimination that the prime minister used. My mistake. I just made the assumption that Somalia wasn't a muslim country.
I do believe that this Mahmoud Abbas is a dressier version of Arafat. I can certainaly believe that he speaks out of both sides of his mouth. I do not know why our leaders take this double speak. I remember one of my older relative telling me about the presidential campaign of Wendle Wilkie. He said that he would speak one way in front of one group and another in front of the next. The press commented on this and the electorate became disenchanted with him.
Do we make ourselves safer to just paint all Muslims with a broad brush if they don't renounce violence?
I know that there is this never ending search for the "moderate" muslim. What is he? One of the posters has suggested that a "moderate" muslim is one that may use force/violence later rather than immediately.
Innately I believe that there is some value in the belief of Islamophobia.
Yusuf's no fool. He knows that the only moderate Muslims are found only in graveyards. Too bad Western "leaders" don't realize that and keep hoping some genuine, live moderate Muslims show up to save the day. They remind me of Iran's supreme simian in his search of his precious Mahdi.
"when you find the "unicorn" that is where the "moderate muslim" is hiding out."
"Yusuf's no fool. He knows that the only moderate Muslims are found only in graveyards."
So what does that make President Yusuf (and his supporters)? Grand Master of Taqqiyah?
you do know he's a muslim right?
I shudder to think of the tens of thousands of Somali barbarians living in the United States, thanks to the idiotic naivete of our State Department and its fondess for all things islamic.
I will never forgive the clueless bureaucrats in the U.S. government for their ineptitude and ignorance. I do hope they are the first to suffer the consequences of their pathetic incompetence and misguided, politically correct policies. And I hope they are so miserable that they will curse the day they sympathized with a treacherous muslim. I don't usually wish pain and suffering on others but everyone who has been complicit in abetting muslim immigration to this country is guilty of stupidity and/or ignorance. Ignorance is no excuse. May they all wallow in remorse and shame and suffer the cacophony of the call to prayer five times a day for the rest of their lives.
special_guest, the truth in what you are saying applies much more to arabs than to non-arabs.
Most Somalis are not arab.
Black Africans have always been second-class citizens at best compared to their arab masters.
Yes, those Africans who are periously close to arabia are nominally muslims, if for no other reason that to survive. But most of them do not share an arab mindset nor wish to be enslaved by arab racism.
Yes, there are exceptions, and many black Africans have become radicalized by Islam and arab domination. But many have not, and do not wish to live under arab domination which they rightly recognize as a form of enslavement. Those are the kind of muslims who are islamic in name only such as the black Africans in Darfur Sudan who are now under relentless jihadist assault for: 1) not being pure enough muslims, 2) for being black and not obeying their arab masters, and 3) so that arabs can seize and have the best lands for themselves.
I think a subtler version of those same issues is at work in other black, nominally islamic, countries in Africa too, like Somalia.
Don't underestimate the resentment that arab/islamic colonization, racism, and supremacy, can kindle in subjugated people such as Black Africans, and South Asians. And don't forget that those fault lines can help break the bonds that tie them to their arab/islamic masters. It's a clear path from there to breaking free from arabs and islam once and for all if they so wish.
So yes, that is a key question: Do they wish to be free from arab/islamic domination or not? Undoubtedly some do and some don't. Some have internalized the arab master domination mindset and some are resisting it. We need to help those who are resisting, but help smartly as in the recent butt-kicking given to the Islamists in Somalia, not stupidly as Bush did in Iraq.
In theory all muslims are equal, but in reality some are much more equal than others, to paraphrase George Orwell. Smart Step One is to recognize that all Muslims are NOT equals, especially in the eyes of would-be arab masters, and proceed gainfully there with the non-equals in Africa and Asia. There is fertile ground to till.
US political leadershit continues to operate under flawed assumptions despite all contrary proof. A list:
a) All things calling themselves religions are good.
b) Islam has been hijacked by extremists.
c) All people want the same things out of life.
d) Everyone would love to live in a western-style representative republic with guaranteed protection for minority and individual rights if they just had the chance.
e) Wealthy western nations 'owe' something to third world tyrannies and theocracies because they've pulled so far ahead by every measurable standard.
f) More material aid and talks with the likes of Kim Il Jong, Hizbullah and the Iranian theocracy will change things for the better.
The United States and other G7-type nations will continue to make the same mistakes in judgment until these assumptions are no longer underlying government policy.
The time for propping up strong-men dictators to hold back the tide of swelling popular support for the global Caliphate is over. We're only kidding ourselves, it is time to face that tide head on. We'll do fine when we finally do. Until then, we're foundering and imperiled.
Posted by: special_guest
True indeed.. it's politically a lot more palatable for the peoples of the Free West to stand against openly hostile nations although so far Europe in particular keeps insisting on appeasing Iran.
If all the rest of the ME countries started to act like Iran *IN AN OPEN WAY* then Europe would no longer have the luxury of burying its head in the sand.
Those who oppose jihadist ambitions are best served by the true heads leading the snakes' bodies. As long as their governments are nominally 'moderate'and their true leaders are speaking from the pulpits of mosk and madrassa it seems to have a paralyzing effect on the leaders of the Free West. Leaders who focus on who is in political office while ignoring the fact that it's the muftis and imams who are really running the show. See also Al-Sadr in Iraq.
I think let's let the head assume control of the body *for all to see*. So that it *can no longer be ignored and swept under the rug*. Their 'moderate' leaders are merely the fig leaf that enables our political and media establishment ignore the necessity for - **le gasp!** - war.