... that there was no interest in sending a "peacekping" force to Somalia when the Warlords were in charge of Mogadishu, killing, raping and extorting whomever they wanted and the UN backed "government" was off in a backwater town completely irrelevant.

But when the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) managed to oust the warlords, despite the fact that the US was supplying the warlords (including the specific warlord involved in "Blackhawk Down") with weapons, suddenly the US and the UN are supporting the "government" call for "peacekeeping" troops.

Now whatever you think of the ICU, they seem to be doing a pretty good job of keeping the peace (albeit a medieval Islamic sort of peace.) And the African nations seem kinda reluctant to send in troops unless Uncle Sam provides them with weapons as well.

So - what we have is - it was ok for Somalia to be in anarchy, with warlords killing, raping and extorting at will. But now that it looks like an indiginous Islamic militia might actually bring law and order back to the country, the government nobody paid any attention to is a useful catspaw against the militia.

And while the current line is that the troops from other African nations aren't there to "disarm" the militia, it's hard to see exactly what they are there to do, if it isn't to check the ICU.

So the cynic notes that this is just another move to make sure that Somalia stays in anarchy and doesn't wind up with a government that the US feels is hostile to the US and might be friendly to al-Q'aeda. And if that means thousands of deaths, and thousands of rapes, and extortion and anarchy and bringing foreign troops into the country... well, that's worth it.

Because we sure wouldn't ever want to try "diplomacy", would we? We wouldn't want to think "they may be somewhat al-Q'aeda friendly, but we can offer much more than al-Q'aeda, can't we".

Guess not.