January 19, 2009 11:51 AM UTC

Obama - Change - implications for Foreign Policy

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• by: Barron X

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from http://www.garoweonline.com/ar…

“America’s successes since embarking on its self-appointed mission to end global Terror have not been abundant. Somalia can be added to the expanding list of US fiascos when it is confronted with so-called “Islamist” movements: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine, and even Lebanon- situations exacerbated by a myopic focus on the vague objectives of the “War on Terror.” In each of these cases, the US has shown remarkable obdurateness in the consistently narrow range of policy options it has employed, attempting to bludgeon the undesired organizations out of existence without addressing the underlying causes for their continued perseverance. The seemingly bewitched enthusiasm with which US leaders launch missile strikes whenever the fuzzy and imprecise label of “Islamist” is applied to a political organization gives the impression that the term is a kind of voodoo bulls-eye for American bombs. American policymakers have yet to learn that violence should be used not as a club, but as a scalpel.”

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The author Jay Bahadur gives his take on President Bush’s GWOT, from a Somali and Muslim perspective.  One perspective that may not be representative of all Somalis, but informs nonetheless.

(Garowe is the “Provincial Capital” of Puntland Regional State, an autonomous region within Somalia.)

I’d like to suggest that a war is best waged against an identifiable enemy,

and any effort spent trying to pin down who we are at war with would be time well-spent.  

If we find out that we’ve been at war against people who have no designs on our freedoms or our lifestyle choices, maybe we could stop warring.

There are real threats to us, we have real enemies, and they overlap with fundamentalist Islamists, but they are not the same.  

The accuracy of precision fires, which Rumsfeld thought was going to transform warfare, is less significant when we target the wrong people in the first place.  

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