The New York Times has a fascinating-but-disturbing item today on problems with the administration’s policy of funding Somali warlords.
A covert effort by the Central Intelligence Agency to finance Somali warlords has drawn sharp criticism from American government officials who say the campaign has thwarted counterterrorism efforts inside Somalia and empowered the same Islamic groups it was intended to marginalize.
The criticism was expressed privately by United States government officials with direct knowledge of the debate. And the comments flared even before the apparent victory this week by Islamist militias in the country dealt a sharp setback to American policy in the region and broke the warlords’ hold on the capital, Mogadishu.
As the Times explained, the administration funded secular warlords inside Somalia and used them as proxies, as an alternative to sending U.S. troops and intelligence officials. Unfortunately, the policy has backfired.
Of course, geo-political strategies in eastern Africa can be exceedingly difficult. The truly disappointing part, however, is that the administration was warned that the policy wouldn’t work, but true to form, punished dissent.
[T]he State Department’s political officer for Somalia, Michael Zorick, who had been based in Nairobi, was reassigned to Chad after he sent a cable to Washington criticizing Washington’s policy of paying Somali warlords.
In other words, the guy who was right was punished for telling the administration what it needed to hear. Where have we heard that before?