Interesting debate on the AU peacekeeping mission to Somalia from the perspective of my Uganda-centric friends:

http://inanafricanminute.blogspot.com/2007/02/debating-sending-ugandan-troops-to.html

Care to weigh in?

It is viewable online at: http://www.irinnews.org/film/

Given the fragile situation in Somalia and the importance of the issues, we are also interested in finding new ways to distribute it online in a higher-resolution format.

We are experimenting and are offering a Bit Torrent download of the film at 640×480 size in MPG format. The file is about 450 MB. Please contact irinfilms@irinnews.org if you are interested and could help us seed the file too.

Now, about the UIC, so far the main problem we have with them is the Islamic. For God sake Somalia is Moslem country! Somalias is also a Nomadic country, which means our culture comes before religion.

So, let’s accept UIC and forget the CIA polemics. We need our culture, our religion and we will form Somali style government in our own time.

Ethiopia please get out. You have 30 million Oromas and 10 million Somalis in your country – the last people you want to fight with is a Somali. Within days you will have All FIVE SOMALiS plus Afars, Oromos and Eritrean fighting with you. I did not mention Yemen and the greater Arabs. YET!

Thanks.

As for the Islamic Courts (UIC), they are to be commended for their efforts, for they have brought about change, positive ones, and have stood up to the warlords, unlike the TNG who embraced them. There was great change, change that the government was reluctant and unable to bring about. There were no more spot checks, pirating, murders etc.
Are they perfect? NO, but they were on the right track. THey accomplished what the Americans and The UN were unable to in 1993: Control. And not just small parts of the country but a good majority.
External intervention is coming at a time it is not needed. Plus, they should have supported the TNG government, when they were pleading for help in the past several years, before the movement of the UIC. In the past, America refused to assiste them, and they were reluctant to assist them due to their ties with warlords and for making them minister (corruption and lack of accountability too). Now it is still that same government. What has changed? It is fear of the influence the UIC will have domestically and internatially, especailly in Africa and the Middle East.
Also, besides the ‘lesser evil’ policy, there is oil in the country. Is that not what the ‘war on terror’ is about? Another option for energy. Read this globe and mail article: JACQUIE McNISH
Wednesday, May 10, 2006 . THey say that Somalia “may be sitting on some of the greatest oil and gas treasures” in the world. Here’s the link: https://secure.workopolis.com/servlet/Content/fasttrack/20060510/LAW10?section=Legal
Until next time……Let the Somalis handle their own destiny. Long live the people of Somalia. I leave you with these quotes:

Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you’re a man, you take it.
Malcolm X
You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.
Malcolm X
“Of all the races of Africa there cannot be one better to live among than the most difficult, the proudest, the bravest, vainest, the most merciless, the friendliest; the Somalis” Gerald Hanley, Warriors

The security resolution is useless, at least for the coming few months. Only IGAD members were suppose to contribute, excluding the immediate neighbors Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya. You’re the left only with Eritrea, Uganda and Sudan; only Uganda pledged to send troops. Other details, like who is going to pay for the mission wasn’t discussed either. Kofi Annan urged African countries willing to send troops to Somalia to convince UIC first that they will not be an invading army.

UIC have done some great things in Mogadishu and much of the area they control, but they’re far from a uniting force within Somalia. They existed for years as courts without any army to fill the gap left by the collapse of the government, and now they’re only in the areas where the warlords they’ve defeated had previously controlled, no more no less.

UIC isn’t like the Taliban at all in their origins or goals and they’re much more limited in their reach, remember the Taliban’s goal was to take over the whole of Afghanistan, UIC can’t do it.

I’ve found a source — an op-ed in the Guardian, but it doesn’t cover everything I remember. I have a feeling that Juan Cole might have said something about it in Informed Comment, but I can’t find anything in his archives.

Apparently it’s impossible for Western governments not to read the “I” in “UIC” as standing for “terrorist”.

(in my original comment, I forgot the word “not”. d’oh)