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The Obama administration is violating international law and United Nations resolutions in conducting its largely secret war in Somalia.<\/p>\n
At Foreign Policy<\/a>, Colum Lynch writes that, “the Obama administration earlier this year expanded its secret war in Somalia, stepping up assistance for federal and regional Somali intelligence agencies that are allied against the country’s Islamist insurgency” in “a move that’s not only violating the terms of an international arms embargo,” but may also be emboldening al-Shabab.<\/p>\n This is not exactly news. In a number of articles<\/a> in 2011, The Nation<\/em>‘s Jeremy Scahill uncovered<\/a> Obama’s secret war, which included secret prisons run by CIA proxies, harsh interrogations, and directing funding and training of unscrupulous militants, many of whom were former (and current?) warlords. The “counter-terrorism” effort in Somalia also included “targeted strikes by U.S. Special Operations forces, drone attacks and expanded surveillance operations.<\/p>\n Scahill noted “U.S. policy on Somalia [since “Black Hawk Down”]\u00a0has been marked by neglect, miscalculation and failed attempts to use warlords to build indigenous counterterrorism capacity, many of which have backfired dramatically.”<\/p>\n At times, largely because of abuses committed by Somali militias the CIA has supported, U.S. policy has strengthened the hand of the very groups it purports to oppose and inadvertently aided the rise of militant groups, including the Shabab<\/strong>. Many Somalis viewed the Islamic movement known as the Islamic Courts Union, which defeated the CIA\u2019s warlords in Mogadishu in 2006, as a stabilizing, albeit ruthless, force. The ICU was dismantled in a US-backed Ethiopian invasion in 2007. Over the years, a series of weak Somali administrations have been recognized by the United States and other powers as Somalia\u2019s legitimate government. Ironically, its current president is a former leader of the ICU.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Emphasis mine. The fact that U.S. policy in the past has demonstrably strengthened the supposed militant threat is incredibly important, especially in today’s scenario where we are repeating those same mistakes.<\/p>\n Al-Shabab “poses no direct threat to the security of the United States,\u201d\u00a0Malou Innocent, Foreign Policy Analyst at the Cato Institute wrote<\/a> last year. \u201cHowever,\u00a0exaggerated claims about the specter of al Qaeda could produce\u00a0policy decisions that\u00a0exacerbate\u00a0a localized, regional problem into a global one.\u201d<\/p>\n Even the Obama administration has\u00a0quietly acknowledged the fact<\/a>\u00a0that military involvement in Somalia may\u00a0create more problems than it solves<\/a>, with one administration official\u00a0telling the\u00a0Washington Post<\/em><\/a>\u00a0back in 2011 there is a \u201cconcern that a broader campaign could turn al-Shabab from a regional menace into an adversary determined to carry out attacks on U.S. soil.\u201d<\/p>\n