The African Union Did What Nobody Else Could: Cleaned Up Somalia

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cancel2 2022

Canceled
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AFP / Getty​

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Africa is a big place. Assuming that the whole continent is in a constant state of any one bad thing is like assuming that all Americans wear cowboy hats and play for the NBA. Focus in on Somalia, on the other hand, and most of us have a pretty specific picture of life on the ground. Pirates! Warlords! Drought conditions! Anarchy! It's like Mad Max or, well, any Hollywood movie set in Africa.
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AFP / Getty​


Those bullet suspenders are gonna pinch like hell once the kid starts shooting.​

Conditions are so bad in Somalia that both the U.N. and the U.S. have been unable to help ... twice. If only someone would come along to clean up the mess.
Someone has come along -- someone called Africa. Specifically, the peacekeeping arm of the African Union.

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Sia Kambou / Getty​


Otherwise known as "all the flags."
You could fill a library with books, diagrams, and Web comics trying to explain the situation in Somalia, but in a nutshell, the country suffered under the control of warlords, thugs, and ne'er-do-wells for most of the 1990s. Between 1992 and 1993, the U.N. and the U.S. tried to step up to the plate and get bellies fed. You probably remember the results of their efforts in the form of Black Hawk Down and footage of American bodies getting dragged through Mogadishu. It was not a good time. By the mid-2000s, a new group of al-Qaida extremists were in charge of Mogadishu and people were starving again.
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But this time around, the U.N. and U.S. helped through the brand new African Union, a federation of 54 African states created to confront AIDS, malaria, drought, and bad guys running lawless states. Beginning in 2007, troops from Burundi, Nigeria, Malawi, and Uganda pledged to help out, while Tanzania offered to train newly formed Somali troops. It took a while, but within four years, the A.U. kicked the bad guys out of Mogadishu and are now in the process of driving them out of Somalia altogether.
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AFP / Getty
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"License and registration?"

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This wasn't the only success of A.U. forces, either. They staged an Omaha Beach-style invasion of Anjouan Island in 2008, sending rebel leader Mohamed Bacar off the island and fleeing for his life. They were also the only peacekeeping troops in Darfur until 2007, when the U.N. finally got involved. Hell, why can't Bono raise money for these guys?

http://www.cracked.com/article_20301_the-5-most-secretly-badass-countries_p2.html
 
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BAC is against intervention in Africa by imperialist colonialist paper tigers, yet is strangely silent about the cleansing in Somalia of AQ by the African Union.
 
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This is a great sign. I've been wishing for years that Africa could get a functioning union that can operate effectively to solve its problems.
 
Things in WA are about to go to shit. Our traffic system is about to fall completely apart over the next five years. The SR-99 Whyaduck is about to be torn down and replaced with a tunnel that can't support as much traffic, which will force the overflow to divert into the downtown. It will be like Seattle is having a parade everyday. Meanwhile, 99, 520, 167, I-90, and I-405 have or will be getting slapped with tolls. I predict the mass transit will get so bad that the moronic monorail initiative will come back onto the ballot.
 
Threedee said:
Things in WA are about to go to shit. Our traffic system is about to fall completely apart over the next five years. The SR-99 Whyaduck is about to be torn down and replaced with a tunnel that can't support as much traffic, which will force the overflow to divert into the downtown. It will be like Seattle is having a parade everyday. Meanwhile, 99, 520, 167, I-90, and I-405 have or will be getting slapped with tolls. I predict the mass transit will get so bad that the moronic monorail initiative will come back onto the ballot.
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You grew too fast. They allow housing permits without thinking about infrastructure upgrades. It is happens to cities that experience this type of rapid growth.
 
Threedee said:
Things in WA are about to go to shit. Our traffic system is about to fall completely apart over the next five years. The SR-99 Whyaduck is about to be torn down and replaced with a tunnel that can't support as much traffic, which will force the overflow to divert into the downtown. It will be like Seattle is having a parade everyday. Meanwhile, 99, 520, 167, I-90, and I-405 have or will be getting slapped with tolls. I predict the mass transit will get so bad that the moronic monorail initiative will come back onto the ballot.
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Umm, what the fuck does this have to do with Somalia? Go hijack someone elses's thread.
 
Anyways, we'll see if this leads to permanent change in Somalia. Hopefully so but honestly I doubt it. Unless the African union forms a coalition type interim government, its likely to dissolve back into warlordism when they leave.
 
Kel-Tec Sub 2000 said:
Anyways, we'll see if this leads to permanent change in Somalia. Hopefully so but honestly I doubt it. Unless the African union forms a coalition type interim government, its likely to dissolve back into warlordism when they leave.
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It is in the West's interest to help them to stop both piracy and to prevent extreme Islam taking over in the Horn of Africa. I would point you to Somaliland as an example of the way to go. It is shameful that its self-proclaimed independence remains unrecognised by any country or international organisation.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14115069
 
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