(CBS News) – Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama is entering the third and final presidential debate Wednesday with a wide lead over Republican rival John McCain nationally, a new CBS News/New York Times poll shows.
The Obama-Biden ticket now leads the McCain-Palin ticket 53 percent to 39 percent among likely voters, a 14-point margin. One week ago, prior to the Town Hall debate that uncommitted voters saw as a win for Obama, that margin was just three points.
Among independents who are likely voters – a group that has swung back and forth between McCain and Obama over the course of the campaign – the Democratic ticket now leads by 18 points. McCain led among independents last week.
McCain’s campaign strategy may be hurting hurt him: Twenty-one percent of voters say their opinion of the Republican has changed for the worse in the last few weeks. The top two reasons cited for the change of heart are McCain’s attacks on Obama and his choice of Sarah Palin as running mate.
Obama is widely seen as running the more positive campaign: Sixty-one percent of those surveyed say McCain is spending more time attacking his opponent than explaining what he would do as president. Just 27 percent say the same of Obama.
McCain’s favorable rating has fallen four points from last week, to 36 percent, and is now lower than his 41 percent unfavorable rating. Obama, by contrast, is now viewed favorably by half of registered voters and unfavorably by just 32 percent.
Obama holds a considerable edge over his rival on having the right “personality and temperament” to be president, with 69 percent saying Obama does and 53 percent saying McCain does. The Democratic nominee is also widely seen as more likely to make the right decision on the economy, far and away the top issue for voters, in a survey taken in the immediate aftermath of last week’s historic Wall Street losses.
Opinions of the candidates could still change, and potential trouble spots remain for Obama, among them the fact that small percentages of voters cite Obama’s past associations with Bill Ayers (9 percent) and Reverend Jeremiah Wright (11 percent) as issues that bother them.
But with more than four out of five of each candidate’s supporters now saying their minds are made up, the poll suggests that McCain faces serious challenges as he looks to close the gap on his Democratic rival in the final three weeks of the campaign.
Views Of The Candidates
Obama’s lead over McCain when it comes to the economy has grown since last week, and a majority of registered voters now say they are not confident in McCain to make the right decisions on economic issues. Thirty-nine percent are not confident in Obama.
There is, however, an opening for the candidates in this area: Fewer than one quarter are presently very confident in either Obama or McCain to make the right decisions on the economic crisis.
On raising taxes – an area where a Republican nominee might be expected to have an edge – Obama also leads. Despite the McCain campaign’s efforts to cast Obama as a tax-raiser, more registered voters say McCain is likely to raise their taxes (51 percent) than say Obama will raise their taxes (46 percent).
Voters are almost three times more likely to be very confident in Obama when it comes to health care (28 percent) than McCain (10 percent). A majority of voters, 54 percent, are not confident in McCain to handle health care, while 33 percent are not confident in Obama.
McCain continues to be hurt by his perceived ties to the unpopular Republican president, George W. Bush, whose approval rating is 24 percent. More than half of registered voters surveyed say they expect McCain to continue Mr. Bush’s economic policies if he is elected.
Obama holds a more than 20-point edge when it comes to understanding voters’ needs and problems, with 64 percent saying Obama does and 43 percent saying McCain does.
The Republican nominee does hold a clear advantage on being seen as prepared to be president, as he has throughout the campaign. That measure does not appear to be boosting his support, however, perhaps because while 64 percent say McCain is prepared for the job, more than half say Obama is as well.
Just 7 percent of registered voters say their opinion of McCain has improved recently, while 21 percent say it has gotten worse. The numbers are nearly reversed for Obama: Seventeen percent say their opinion of Obama has improved in recent weeks, while 7 percent say it has declined.
Obama now enjoys leads over McCain with both men (53 percent to 41 percent) and women (52 percent to 37 percent). Eighty-two percent of voters who backed Hillary Clinton in the primaries now say they will back Obama – up from 67 percent last week and the highest number to date.
McCain still leads among Republicans, conservatives and white evangelicals, but the race is now roughly even among whites, a group McCain led 54 percent to 39 percent last week.
With voter registration up in many key states this year, 63 percent of those casting a ballot for first time in 2008 are backing Obama.
The Debates And The Candidates’ Past Associations
Seven in 10 registered voters said they watched last week’s presidential debate, and, looking back, 57 percent of debate watchers said Obama won the contest. Just 18 percent saw the debate as a McCain victory.
Expectations are high for Obama in Wednesday’s third and final debate, which 65 percent of registered voters say they are very likely to watch. Nearly half of all registered voters expect Obama will win the debate, while just 19 percent expect McCain to win.
Recently, the McCain campaign has gone after Obama about his relationship with former Weather Underground member Bill Ayers, and McCain has signaled that he will mention Ayers in the debate.
One in three voters say they have heard “a lot” about Ayers, and 31 percent say they have heard something about him, though far fewer – 9 percent – say the association bothers them.
Four percent of voters say that it bothers them that Obama is a Muslim, which he is not. Fifty-six percent say nothing about Obama’s past bothers them.
As for the Republican candidate, seven in ten voters say nothing about McCain’s past bothers them. Four percent mention the Keating Five scandal that McCain was involved in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
A majority of registered voters believe the tone of the 2008 campaign has been about the same as in past years. Thirty percent say it has been more negative, while 15 percent say it has been more positive.
Democrats, Republicans, And The 2008 House Vote
Americans have a much higher opinion of the Democratic Party than the Republican Party. A majority – 52 percent – have a favorable opinion of the Democrats, while far less – 37 percent – have a favorable opinion of Republicans.
The Democratic Party is seen as more likely than the Republican Party to make the right decision on health care (55 percent to 18 percent), the economy (47 percent to 29 percent), and the war in Iraq (44 percent to 37 percent).
And when it comes to the House Of Representatives, 48 percent of likely voters say they will be choosing the Democratic candidate in November, compared to 34 percent who plan to vote for the Republican candidate.
This poll was conducted among a random sample of 1070 adults nationwide, including 972 registered voters, interviewed by telephone October 10-13, 2008. Phone numbers were dialed from RDD samples of both standard land-lines and cell phones. The error due to sampling for results based on the entire sample and the sample of registered voters could be plus or minus three percentage points. The error for subgroups is higher.
EDITOR’S NOTE: In the case of Ethiopia, the Woyanne dictatorship is purposely impeding Information Technology development in the country by outlawing private sector ownership of Internet services. The state-run Ethiopian Telecommunication Corporation (ETC) that is the sole provider of Internet services in Ethiopia is led by an illiterate Woyanne cadre named DebreTsion GebreMikael who knows nothing about technology. His main assignment as head of the ETC is to hire Chinese engineers to jam short wave radio programs such as the VOA and block access to web sites such as EthiopianReview.com. As long as Africa continues to be ruled by World Bank-financed thugs like Woyannes, there will be no progress.
NAIROBI, KENYA – Africa’s lack of appreciation of the internet and web technology is a key impediment to the realization of e-commerce, delegates attending an e-commerce conference here said Monday. This is second to poor ICT infrastructure, blamed for the poor connectivity in the continent, currently standing at a mere 5.3 per cent for the 955 million Africans.
This has in turn worsened the ever widening digital divide even as countries suffer from the lack of proper online inventories of products for key sectors like a griculture and tourism.
E-commerce is also still illegal in most African countries that do not have proper legislation with the exception a handful of countries like South Africa, Rwanda and Egypt, the participants said.
The conference is the second in a series of four e-tourism conferences and train ing seminars organized by e-tourism Africa.
It drew students, tour operators and government players from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Seychelles and Ethiopia and follows a similar one held in Johannesburg in September 2008.
Kenya Tourism Minister Najib Balala, while opening the two-day event, lamented that it was a shame that Kenya’s legislative framework on e-commerce was not yet in place.
This is despite the fact that e-commerce was now the key economic driver of tourism sectors globally attracting more than Sh 110 billion (72 Kenya Shillings = US $ 1) in online revenues from the potential over 1 billion internet users.
“Online shopping is the world’s main activity with travel and destinations being the best selling commodity on the internet,” Said Damian Cook, Managing Directo re-tourism Africa.
“He revealed that up to 70 percent of all travellers admit to using the internet as their primary source of information, making the management of such information more important than just its provision.
The e-commerce framework is among issues addressed in the pending Kenya ICT Bill, which is awaiting second reading in Parliament.
The bill is needed to, among others, provide laws to regulate online transactions and electronic banking services critical to growth of key sectors like tourism .
“If all fails, we will consider petitioning the president to decree the law in order to hasten the passing of the bill and fast track the adoption of e-commerce in the country,” said the minister.
If need be, he added, the two ministries would push for a separate e-Transactions bill to hasten the process.
“Tourists can at the moment check our products and choose destinations online but we need to take this a step further by allowing price negotiations and booking right away,” he said.
The Tourism ministry, he said, was fast integrating new markets into the country’s promotion strategies to attract more arrivals.
“We are investing heavily in internet dynamics such as having our website available in a number of languages and making it linkable to local and international operators’ sites,” said Balala.
The country, he revealed, was now marketing to new source markets in Russia, the Middle East, India and China in a bid to beat competition from Asia and the Caribbean.
“We are also keen to increase our domestic potential such as South Africa where regional and domestic tourists number 7 million out of the 9 million arrivals annually.”
With a marketing budget of Sh 1.5 billion, Balala said the ministry had earmarked Sh 400 million in shoring up its traditional source markets in Europe such as United Kingdom, Germany and Switzerland.
“Some 500 million will also go to developing new markets in Russia, the Middle East, India and China with a similar amount being spent on France, Spain and Italy,” he said, adding that the ministr y was also in the process of re-classifying hotels in the country to address the waning standards in the sector, while seeking to create a tourist data pool with the ministry of immigration.
“We intend to install data collection IT tools at entry points to provide up to date information for future planning.”
Among other projects, he said, the government had purchased a two-acre plot of land at sh 45 million to relocate beach traders at the coast, alongside seeking investors to develop viable public beach market.
UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 13 (Xinhua) — UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has transmitted to the Security Council the last report issued by the independent commission on Ethiopia and Eritrea’s common boundary, said the United Nations in a statement Monday.
The report noted that the commission’s mandate has been fulfilled and that all administrative issues connected to its termination have wrapped up.
In 2002, the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission handed down a final and binding decision awarding Badme, the town that triggered fierce fighting between the neighboring Horn of Africa nations, to Eritrea. But the two countries have since been at an impasse on that demarcation.
In this July, the Security Council voted unanimously to terminate the UN peacekeeping mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea, known as UNMEE, after restrictions placed on the peacekeeping operation by the latter country undermined its ability to carry out its mandate.
Eritrea is angry that the United Nations has not enforced a ruling by the independent boundary commission awarding the town of Badme to Eritrea.
As such, Ban said in his recent letter to the 15-member body that he will no longer provide regular reports on the situation between the two nations.
SODO, Ethiopia (AFP) — Okume Ochubo’s tiny plot of land in southern Ethiopia is lush with waist-high maize sprouts and other crops, but she and her seven young children are struggling to feed themselves.
“We cannot survive without food aid, we collect assistance whenever it is available,” she said, as two of her children jostled under the shadows of giant eucalyptus trees.
“We are praying to God for a better situation,” the 40-year-old farmer added, her voice barely audible under the breeze of swaying maize leaves.
Okume is one of millions of people in the Horn of Africa nation — a country with a long history of extreme food shortages — who are at renewed threat of hunger as a result of failed and delayed rains.
The British charity group Oxfam announced last week that the number of Ethiopians in need of emergency food aid had risen from 4.6 to 6.4 million since June, as rising food prices and drought continued to compound the crisis.
But in Wolaytta district, some 330 kilometres (200 miles) south of Addis Ababa, and most surrounding areas, it is a crisis of a different kind.
The region is known for its diverse crop varieties, and a recent downpour of rain since August has turned the valley into a sea of green.
But the area’s apparent fertility is deceptive. Rains fell at the wrong time, reserves are dwindling and 50 percent of the area’s two million inhabitants are facing what aid workers have labelled a “green famine”.
Prior to that, not a single rain drop fell for eight months, leaving farmers with dwindling food reserves, while plunging the entire region into one of the worst droughts it has ever seen.
“It certainly is one of the worst in Wolaytta’s history, probably third to 1984 after 2003,” Abraham Asha, representative of the US-based charity group Concern, told AFP.
“Had it not been for the quick response of the government and NGOs, the disaster would not have been averted,” he added.
At least a million people died in the 1984 famine, with the then dictator Haile Marian Mengistu accused of concentrating scarce resources on the lengthy conflict along the border with what is now Eritrea, and the 2003 crisis left 14 million Ethiopians in need of food assistance.
The current Ethiopian government under Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has been criticised for spending too much of its budget on the military and not enough on guaranteeing the basic needs of the population.
The authorities also expelled several aid groups operating in the Ogaden region, where government troops have since last year cracked down on a rebellion, further deepening an alarming humanitarian situation there.
At the height of the drought in April, Abraham said hundreds of children in several districts suffered from stunted growth and weight deficit.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said up to 12 percent were diagnosed with acute malnutrition in the area at that time.
Experts blame numerous factors for the chronic food insecurity behind the facade of green fields in Wolaytta and the rest of southern Ethiopia.
High population density of up to 800 people per square kilometre and a system of smallholdings have always exerted huge pressure on the land.
“Resources are being exhausted and population is increasing. The region has to take drastic measures such as voluntary resettlement to curb the burden,” Abraham said.
Government officials on the other hand, are banking on high yields as a cure for the problem.
“In this district, productivity is far from satisfactory. Farmers here produce only 20 quintals of yield per hectare when other nearby zones produce up to 80,” district administrator Hailebirhan Zena told participants in a recent meeting.
“We are focusing on increasing yields through irrigation. It is no secret that Wolaytta lies in proximity to several rivers,” he said.
Despite the number of hungry Ethiopians doubling since April and aid agencies reporting a funding shortfall of 260 million dollars (190 million euros), chronic malnutrition has stabilised in the region.
Yet local residents remained pessimistic. The September harvest is thought to be enough to stave off starvation until December but unless reserves last until February, millions will be on the brink again.
“It will happen again as not enough stocks will last until then. It is even expected to be worse next year,” Abraham said.
Aid organisations have warned that Ethiopia — one of Africa’s poorest countries and its second most populous — on the brink of a major famine to that which killed millions in the 1980s.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a glorious moment for the people of Somalia. A job well done for kicking Woyanne invaders out of your country. Ethiopian Review sends heartfelt congratulations to Somali freedom fights who stood up and fought the Woyanne fascist forces. The same fates await Woyannes in Ethiopia. They will be kicked out of our country too soon by EPPF, OLF, ONLF and other Ethiopian freedom fighters.
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA — SOMALIA’S FRAGILE government appears to be on the brink of collapse. Islamist insurgents now controls large parts of southern and central Somalia – and are continuing to launch attacks inside the capital, Mogadishu.
Ethiopia Woyanne, which launched a US-backed military intervention in Somalia in December 2006 in an effort to drive out an Islamist authority in Mogadishu, is now pulling out its troops.
Diplomats and analysts in neighbouring Nairobi believe the government will fall once Ethiopia Woyanne completes its withdrawal, and secret plans have been made to evacuate government ministers to neighbouring Kenya.
That may happen sooner rather than later. A shipment of Ethiopian Woyanne weapons, including tanks, left Mogadishu port last month as part of the withdrawal. Bringing the equipment back to Ethiopia by land would have been impossible – analysts believe Ethiopian Woyanne troops and their Somali government allies control just three small areas in Mogadishu and a few streets in Baidoa, the seat of parliament. There are now estimated to be just 2500 Ethiopian Woyanne soldiers left inside Somalia, down from 15,000-18,000 at the height of the war.
Somalia’s overlapping conflicts go back, at the very least, to 1991, the year the country’s last recognised government was overthrown. Men and women who were children then have since given birth to a second generation of Somalis who have known only war.
But analysts believe Somalia is now in the midst of its worst ever crisis. The ongoing conflict, which has claimed the lives of at least 9000 civilians and forced more than 1.1 million to flee their homes, has combined with devastating droughts and rocketing food prices to create one of the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophes.
Almost half the population – 3.2m people – are in need of emergency aid (the figure has almost doubled in the last 12 months). One in six children is thought to be malnourished.
“This crisis is broadening as well as deepening,” said Mark Bowden, the head of the UN’s humanitarian effort. “It is now the world’s most complicated crisis.”
Violence and insecurity have made it almost impossible for aid to get through, and 24 aid workers have been killed in Somalia so far this year. A recent shipment of food aid needed a military escort to navigate Somalia’s pirate-infested waters. But within hours of the food being unloaded in Mogadishu’s port most of it was stolen by gun-toting gangs.
Oxfam, Save The Children and 50 other aid agencies working in Somalia last week said the international community had “completely failed Somali civilians”.
As the crisis worsens thousands are trying to leave the country every week. Around 6000 people are now crossing the border into Kenya every month – despite the Kenyan government’s decision to close the border. Some are arriving at the overcrowded Dadaab refugee camp in eastern Kenya, which is now one of the largest refugee camps in the world with nearly 250,000 people.
Others try to leave by sea, travelling to the northern town of Bosasso and paying $100 to people smugglers who ram more than 100 people onto a small fishing boat and set sail for Yemen.
Many do not make it. Smugglers last week forced 150 people off the boat three miles off the Yemeni coast. Only 47 made it to shore.
Attempts to find a political solution have stalled. The UN claims progress has been made, citing an agreement signed in neighbouring Djibouti by the Somali government and the opposition Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia (ARS).
But the deal has been signed only by the moderates on each side: Prime Minister Nur Adde and the ARS’s Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.
President Abdullahi Yusuf, a former warlord who controls the government’s security forces, has refused to get involved. Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, the hardline Islamic leader of another faction of the ARS, has denounced the deal, as have the leaders of the insurgents, a group called Al Shabaab.
Since the deal was struck in June, the level of violence has increased.
Few Somalis will weep if the government falls. In most respects it is a government in name only. Few ministries have offices, let alone civil servants to fill them. There are no real policies – and no real way to implement any.
Worst of all, this government, which is backed by the United Nations and funded by Western donors including Britain and the EU, has been accused of committing a litany of war crimes. Its police force, many of whom were trained under a UN programme part-funded by Britain, has carried out extrajudicial killings, raped women and fired indiscriminately on crowds at markets. Militias aligned to the government have killed journalists and attacked aid workers.
The government’s fall would mark the end of a disastrous US-backed intervention. For six months in 2006, Somalia was relatively calm. A semblance of peace and security had returned to Mogadishu. The reason was the rise of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), a loose coalition of Islamist leaders who had driven out Mogadishu’s warlords.
Hardline elements within the UIC vowed to launch a jihad against Somalia’s traditional enemy, Ethiopia. The US viewed the UIC has an “al-Qaeda cell” – a belief not shared by the majority of analysts and diplomats.
Ethiopia Woyanne, with the support of the US, sent thousands of troops across the border to drive out the UIC. It took just a few days to defeat them. Their leaders fled towards the border with Kenya, while many of the fighters took off their uniforms and melted into Mogadishu.
Within weeks, an Iraq-style insurgency had begun, targeting Somali government and Ethiopian troops. Al Shabaab began laying roadside bombs and firing at Ethiopian troops from inside civilian areas.
The Ethiopians Woyanne responded by bombarding residential areas. Hundreds were killed and hundreds of thousands fled Mogadishu. Human rights groups accused Ethiopia Woyanne of committing war crimes.
The US must now be wondering whether it was all worth it. Western backing for the unpopular Somali government and US support for the Ethiopian Woyanne intervention has created a groundswell of anti-West sentiment in Somalia.
The Islamist leaders they were so keen to oust are the same ones they are now engaged in negotiations with. US officials have met both Sheikh Sharif and the more hardline Sheikh Aweys in an effort to find a peace deal.
Meanwhile, in Somalia, the Islamists taking control of towns and villages across the country are considered far more extremist than Aweys. “They are real international jihadis,” said one Nairobi-based diplomat. “The Americans’ fear of al-Qaeda in Somalia is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
SOMALIA’S FRAGILE government appears to be on the brink of collapse. Islamist insurgents now controls large parts of southern and central Somalia – and are continuing to launch attacks inside the capital, Mogadishu.
Ethiopia Woyanne, which launched a US-backed military intervention in Somalia in December 2006 in an effort to drive out an Islamist authority in Mogadishu, is now pulling out its troops.
Diplomats and analysts in neighbouring Nairobi believe the government will fall once Ethiopia Woyanne completes its withdrawal, and secret plans have been made to evacuate government ministers to neighbouring Kenya.
That may happen sooner rather than later. A shipment of Ethiopian Woyanne weapons, including tanks, left Mogadishu port last month as part of the withdrawal. Bringing the equipment back to Ethiopia by land would have been impossible – analysts believe Ethiopian Woyanne troops and their Somali government allies control just three small areas in Mogadishu and a few streets in Baidoa, the seat of parliament. There are now estimated to be just 2500 Ethiopian Woyanne soldiers left inside Somalia, down from 15,000-18,000 at the height of the war.
Somalia’s overlapping conflicts go back, at the very least, to 1991, the year the country’s last recognised government was overthrown. Men and women who were children then have since given birth to a second generation of Somalis who have known only war.
But analysts believe Somalia is now in the midst of its worst ever crisis. The ongoing conflict, which has claimed the lives of at least 9000 civilians and forced more than 1.1 million to flee their homes, has combined with devastating droughts and rocketing food prices to create one of the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophes.
Almost half the population – 3.2m people – are in need of emergency aid (the figure has almost doubled in the last 12 months). One in six children is thought to be malnourished.
“This crisis is broadening as well as deepening,” said Mark Bowden, the head of the UN’s humanitarian effort. “It is now the world’s most complicated crisis.”
Violence and insecurity have made it almost impossible for aid to get through, and 24 aid workers have been killed in Somalia so far this year. A recent shipment of food aid needed a military escort to navigate Somalia’s pirate-infested waters. But within hours of the food being unloaded in Mogadishu’s port most of it was stolen by gun-toting gangs.
Oxfam, Save The Children and 50 other aid agencies working in Somalia last week said the international community had “completely failed Somali civilians”.
As the crisis worsens thousands are trying to leave the country every week. Around 6000 people are now crossing the border into Kenya every month – despite the Kenyan government’s decision to close the border. Some are arriving at the overcrowded Dadaab refugee camp in eastern Kenya, which is now one of the largest refugee camps in the world with nearly 250,000 people.
Others try to leave by sea, travelling to the northern town of Bosasso and paying $100 to people smugglers who ram more than 100 people onto a small fishing boat and set sail for Yemen.
Many do not make it. Smugglers last week forced 150 people off the boat three miles off the Yemeni coast. Only 47 made it to shore.
Attempts to find a political solution have stalled. The UN claims progress has been made, citing an agreement signed in neighbouring Djibouti by the Somali government and the opposition Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia (ARS).
But the deal has been signed only by the moderates on each side: Prime Minister Nur Adde and the ARS’s Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.
President Abdullahi Yusuf, a former warlord who controls the government’s security forces, has refused to get involved. Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, the hardline Islamic leader of another faction of the ARS, has denounced the deal, as have the leaders of the insurgents, a group called Al Shabaab.
Since the deal was struck in June, the level of violence has increased.
Few Somalis will weep if the government falls. In most respects it is a government in name only. Few ministries have offices, let alone civil servants to fill them. There are no real policies – and no real way to implement any.
Worst of all, this government, which is backed by the United Nations and funded by Western donors including Britain and the EU, has been accused of committing a litany of war crimes. Its police force, many of whom were trained under a UN programme part-funded by Britain, has carried out extrajudicial killings, raped women and fired indiscriminately on crowds at markets. Militias aligned to the government have killed journalists and attacked aid workers.
The government’s fall would mark the end of a disastrous US-backed intervention. For six months in 2006, Somalia was relatively calm. A semblance of peace and security had returned to Mogadishu. The reason was the rise of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), a loose coalition of Islamist leaders who had driven out Mogadishu’s warlords.
Hardline elements within the UIC vowed to launch a jihad against Somalia’s traditional enemy, Ethiopia. The US viewed the UIC has an “al-Qaeda cell” – a belief not shared by the majority of analysts and diplomats.
Ethiopia Woyanne, with the support of the US, sent thousands of troops across the border to drive out the UIC. It took just a few days to defeat them. Their leaders fled towards the border with Kenya, while many of the fighters took off their uniforms and melted into Mogadishu.
Within weeks, an Iraq-style insurgency had begun, targeting Somali government and Ethiopian troops. Al Shabaab began laying roadside bombs and firing at Ethiopian troops from inside civilian areas.
The Ethiopians Woyanne responded by bombarding residential areas. Hundreds were killed and hundreds of thousands fled Mogadishu. Human rights groups accused Ethiopia Woyanne of committing war crimes.
The US must now be wondering whether it was all worth it. Western backing for the unpopular Somali government and US support for the Ethiopian Woyanne intervention has created a groundswell of anti-West sentiment in Somalia.
The Islamist leaders they were so keen to oust are the same ones they are now engaged in negotiations with. US officials have met both Sheikh Sharif and the more hardline Sheikh Aweys in an effort to find a peace deal.
Meanwhile, in Somalia, the Islamists taking control of towns and villages across the country are considered far more extremist than Aweys. “They are real international jihadis,” said one Nairobi-based diplomat. “The Americans’ fear of al-Qaeda in Somalia is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
