“Djibouti’s main economic asset is its strategic location.  Read more 

Thousands of people attend anti-war demonstrations in US
New York, Jan 28, IRNA

US-Iraq-Demonstration
Thousands of people on Saturday staged demonstration in several American cities, including the capital, in protest at war-mongering policies of the US President George W Bush.

The demonstrators called for an end to Bush's approach toward the war in Iraq and stressed the need for urgent return of the American troops to their home country.

The demonstrators shouted slogans such as, "We do not want another Vietnam".

In Washington, the crowd heard speeches by more than a dozen veterans, anti-war activists, religious leaders, Hollywood celebrities and political leaders like Jesse Jackson, a longtime African-American civil rights activist …  Read more 

I know it’s scary isn’t it. The Surge Theory.

With the Islamic Courts smashed, the most organized and dedicated fighting force in the country is gone. But not completely, most members of the Islamic courts are still around, and will revive the organization in the next few months. They will be opposed by a stronger Transitional Government.  Read more 

Here is a useful discussion that drives home a couple points I like to make whenever we discuss what “our options” are in Iraq, and in dealing with emerging Islamic powers around the world. Here is a sample, I encourge you to read the whole thing:

It is a familiar situation: News of an exciting military victory for our side against the dangerous Islamists, touted by the readily-available NYT, and a less-exciting account, often not circulated at all in America, having to do with the actual alignment of political forces, which you really have to hunt for. Only if you put the two accounts together can you grasp the way in which the Bush administration is confirming and strengthening the anti-American, pan-Arab view, which is that Somalia is being added as the fifth Arab nation to be attacked in this way, after Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, and Sudan, just for being Arab and Islamic. Ali Muhammed Fakhro, writing on the Al-Quds al-Arabi opinion page yesterday, warned people in other Arab states not to be complacent in 2007: this could happen to your country too.  Read more 

So why control the horn of Africa?  Read more 

Somalia. Now, I know they don’t have oil or anything like that, but let’s face it: this is a classic case of how Bush’s war has sowed the seeds of future conflict, all because our leaders are too trapped in their own mythology about “Islamofascism.” There was a chance for diplomacy and international aid to quell the Islamacist rise to power, and we blew it. Just as we’re failing to properly understand what the actual Islamacist threat really is, around the globe, challenging the old orders of corrupt dictators and Western puppet governments. Think on what it means, as the article points out, how the Islamacists are more popular than the once-powerful warlords, and how similar power shifts are occuring in Muslim nations the globe over. By losing in Iraq, Bush has taught the fundamentalists an important lesson: the West can’t stop them. Thanks, Chimpy.  Read more 

I put this one under “race matters” because our fine, fine SCLM treats anything that happens in Africa as too boring for notice. You know, they’re a darker shade of brown, and thus beneath the attention of your average Amurkin news consumer. Still, Africa is just chock full of “Islamicists,” and not all of them are very happy with Bush’s war on their coreligionists.

 Read more 

It’s just a bunch of Africans, so no one really cares, but I found this passage interesting:

The Islamists are making rapid gains - yesterday they took Baladwayne, 20 miles from the Ethiopian border. The Ethiopians have moved troops to the frontier backed up by armour and Hind helicopter gunships. Somalis remember only too well that the Ethiopian invasion of the 1990s began with attacks by such gunships.  Read more