Analysis of Washington’s statements following the July 11 World Cup bombings in Kampala leads to the conclusion that the United States is determined to persist in its interminable procrastination over what to do about Somalia.
Washington’s inability to form a coherent policy towards Somalia has undermined its interests in the Horn of Africa, allowing a civil war to deepen in Somalia to the point at which Washington’s adversary, the revolutionary Islamist Harakat al-Shabaab Mujahideen (H.S.M.), calculated that it was in its interest to strike directly at Uganda, one of the contributors to the African Union peacekeeping mission in Mogadishu (AMISOM). For Washington, the Kampala bombings were an embarrassment, not the crisis and shock that they were in East Africa. The bombings simply showed more slippage in Somalia; Washington had no intentions of getting decisively involved in Somalia – it faced a public relations problem of how to appear to be playing while remaining on the sidelines conducting its permanent policy review that never seems to end.
The Development of Washington’s Response
Washington’s first response to the bombings came from Under-Secretary of State for Africa Johnnie Carson, who is the point man for Somalia policy. Carson denounced H.S.M., which he likened to a “localized cancer” that had “metastasized into a regional crisis … that has bled across borders and is now infecting the international community.” Let us note that Carson is demonizing H.S.M. here and depersonalizing them by calling them a disease. This is not the language of the diplomat but of the rabble rouser. It was simply politically necessary for Washington to express outrage.Read More
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