It's hard to win a war if you quit fighting in the middle of it. That's the lesson
we should learn from Ethiopia's New Year's message to us.
Six months ago, when the militia of the Islamic Courts Union seized the Somali
capital of Mogadishu, it appeared that the al Qaida-affiliated radicals were on the
verge of a major triumph. The redoubtable StrategyPage declared them "unstoppable,"
and the usual hand wringers were urging us to negotiate with them.
All Islamic extremists are unlovely, but the Islamic Courts Union are a particularly
nasty bunch. They modeled themselves on the (now deposed) Taliban in Afghanistan,
and imposed their harsh version of Sharia (Islamic law) on the territory they
controlled. Movies and the playing of music were banned. So were smoking tobacco
and chewing khat, a mild hallucinogen. Women were barred from beaches. People who
didn't pray five times a day were threatened with beheading.
More than 20,000 Somalis fled in small boats across the Gulf of Aden to seek
sanctuary in Yemen, said the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Thousands more clogged refugee camps in neighboring countries.
In November, the Islamic Courts Union began an offensive against the provincial
capital of Baidoa, where the UN-recognized government of Somalia had taken refuge,
and announced plans to extend its "jihad" to Ethiopia, Somalia's neighbor to the
west, and Kenya, its neighbor to the south.
But all that changed in the last week of 2006. A Reuters dispatch Dec. 28 indicates
why: "The bloated corpses of Islamist fighters and an unbroken line of tank tracks
along the Baidoa-Mogadishu highway tell the story of a swift advance for the Somali
government and its Ethiopian allies."
That dispatch was in some ways more politically correct than accurate. Such Somali
government forces as there were followed well behind the Ethiopian tanks. And
considering how rapidly they fled, to describe the Islamists as "fighters" was
excessively kind.
The Islamists swiftly abandoned Mogadishu, but declared they would make a stand at
the southeastern port city of Kismayo, but as Ethiopian troops approached on New
Years eve, the Islamists fled once again without giving battle.
The Islamists hoped to flee into Kenya, but Kenyan troops barred the way. The bulk
of the Islamist forces who haven't gone home are thought to be hiding in the forests
west of Kismayo, doing their best to avoid the attention of Ethiopian tanks.
Ethiopia won in short order because it unapologetically used force against vicious
people who understand only force. They killed the people they needed to kill
without worrying overmuch about collateral damage, and not at all about world
opinion. And though the Ethiopian soldiers are Christians, they were hailed as
liberators in this overwhelmingly Muslim country.
When, during the march on Baghdad, we unapologetically used force in Iraq, we also
had rapid success with minimal casualties. But since the statue of Saddam fell in
Firdous Square in April of 2003, we've acted as if the war were over. Our focus
shifted to peacekeeping and nation-building, though it's hard to be a peacekeeper
when there is no peace to keep, and it's hard to rebuild a nation when the bad guys
are still out there blowing things up.
We've become a Gulliver bound by our own politically correct strictures. The first
battle of Fallujah was called off in April of 2004 because Sunni politicians in
Iraq's parliament objected. The result was a major propaganda victory for al
Qaida, and a bloodier battle in November of 2004.
When the Moqtada al Sadr, an Iranian puppet, staged an uprising to coincide with the
first battle of Fallujah, he was allowed to remain free, even though he was wanted
for the murder of the moderate Shia cleric Majid al Khoie, because the leading Shia
cleric, the Ayatollah Ali al Sistani, reportedly insisted upon it. Today, Sadr's
death squads are responsible for most of the sectarian killings in Iraq, and Sadr is
considered the most powerful figure in the country.
President Bush is expected to announce soon a temporary "surge" in U.S. troop levels
in Iraq. Troop strength is important. But more important to success is what our
troops — who currently must operate under very restrictive rules of engagement —
are permitted to do.
Half measures in war typically produce half-***ed results. If the military measures
we take in Iraq must first be approved by Iraqi politicians and the editorial board
of the New York Times, we will not succeed even if we double the number of troops.
But if we remember — as Ethiopia did — that the surest way to win in war is to
kill the enemy, we could yet emulate Ethiopia's success.
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