[Washington trades “honest devils” for “bloody vampires”...]

Just as the Taliban got wrapped up in Pashtun supremecism, the ICU was sympathetic to claims of their “brothers” (by race) in Ethiopia. So besides building up an ICU Somalia, they wanted to “liberated” Somalis in Ethiopia and other states.

This is a typical path for a revolution—attempting to export it again. It’s a good way of keeping up the fervor. If it works.

I don’t think Islamism has that much to do with the tactics the UIC use. This seems like a familiar guerilla warfare strategy – seemingly abandon the territory you’re holding, draw the enemy in and carry out attacks as they become more and more bogged down. Either that, or the troops under UIC command will revert back to clan/militia loyalties and Somalia will be back in anarchy.

Sorry, I don’t really get the issue – surely if theres one thing Islamism can be defined as, it’s conservative. Radical conservative, perhaps, like Evola and his brand of fascism – a sort of mystical “more conservative than the past ever was” ideology built upon an overiding concern for social cohesion over individual rights and the maintenance, or even (false) recreation, of a historical order. I’m afraid that even if you identify yourself as a conservative, your
sharing a semantic category with Islamism, in the same way the most harmless tofu and sandals socialist has to share a category with Mao.

What they’re not, however, is Conservative (note big C, mea culpa in original post) which is a canon of political thought in Anglosphere culture. Hobbes, Burke…(skip a few)...William Lind etc.

Maybe radical-conservative is a better term for islamism (if its not a contradiction in terms) – it covers their methods, which are the former, but also their worldview, which is the latter.

Why do you think that Islamism is a conservative ideology?

Regards,
TDL

Hmm…lets not all slap ourselves on the back to early, eh? All we’ve learned is that piss poor states trying to field amateur militias with no real loyalty to the state itself…are a walkover. Granted, these are exactly the sort of states that Islamist/Conservative groups are most likely to end up in charge of, but let’s not for a second assume that the weakness is due to either the Islamist nature of the state. The day when someone manages to install a truly islamist system on an functioning state you’ll be facing a very tough nut to crack. Iran may demonstrate that, should anyone be dumb enough to try anything with them, though I do have my doubts how well Khomenism did manage to tap into the states organising potentials. Perhaps Hizb’allah will prove more adept, or whoever takes Saudi Arabia when the house of saud finally collapse under the weight of their own debauchery.

Somalia is a godforsaken chaotic hellhole once more. Rejoice! And, lets face it, no one is sticking around there for a second more than they have to.

In the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said the mission was 75 per cent complete and all that remained was to rid the country of all “terrorists.”Â?

Bush said “Mission Accomplished.” Zenawi said “75 percent complete.” The next guy to do this might actually be honest and say “That was just the foreword to a long, long story.”

I think a lesson to be learned from this is that thus far, Islamist (or jihadist tending ones anyway) states are much harder to maintain and defend than they are to create.

I think this is a good point.. it certainly fits into the flimsy nature of both Taliban Afghanistan and ICU Somalia.

It also shows what a dead-end this form of Islamism is. Without being able to harness the nature of States, these Islamists will remain the backwater pests they are.

Actually I remember a previous comment I made about the inability of the Ethiopian army to fight and I was swiftly rebuked, and it appears you were right. I can’t quite find the article on here, but I remember it clearly.

I think a lesson to be learned from this is that thus far, Islamist (or jihadist tending ones anyway) states are much harder to maintain and defend than they are to create. Of course, this is probably conditional on the existence of a global superpower or regional power acting against them.

To many people are already doing the Ethiopian Victory Dance today. If learned anything from the war in Iraq, it should of been to invade is easy, to stabilize, not so much.
‘We are not here to reconstruct Somalia,’ Zenawi said. ‘We …

a) identified a hostile regime
b) identified local opponents of the hostile regime
c) smashed the hostile regime
d) gave power to the local opponents of the hostile regime

America’s strategy in Iraq, meanwhile is

a) identify the hostile regime
b) identify the local opponents of the hostile regime
c) smash the hostile regime
d) attempt to smash the local opponents
e) attempt a trust with the remnants of the hostile regime to smash the local opponents

Ethiopia’s fighting smart. Our plan is dumb beyond belief.

It ain’t over till the fat lady sings, and I doubt there is an overweight woman (tone deaf or not) anywhere in Africa. As such, I’m not popping the cork on Ethopian Victory Champagne.

If they follow the example of Mohammad (Pork Be Upon Him), Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, the leader of the Islamic Courts, will come out and blame the Ethiopian victory on the people of Somalia not being “Islamic Enough”.