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VIDEO: "Allahu akbar!" in the Horn of Africa

Well, that does it! Somalia is off Walt's bucket list! The Liido Restaurant (pictured) in Mogadishu, the shithole's capital, serves excellent mystery-meat burgers, but enjoying one on the beach could cost you your life. Time for the latest news from Liido Beach, followed by a history lesson.

The news today is that at least 32 people were killed in a suicide attack at the popular beach, carried out by al-Shabaab militants. Hassan Ben-Sober [Ed., please check name], a police spokesthingy, told the meeja that "around 63" people were also wounded, some of them critically.

Video footage showed a number of bodies and injured people in Mogadishu's Abdiaziz district. Al-Shabab controls large parts of southern and central Somalia. The group is affiliated to al-Qaeda and for two decades has waged a brutal insurgency against a government backed by the Disunited Nations.

If you (like 99.99% of Americans) have forgotten about Somalia, let me remind you that the government of William Jefferson Clinton (Democrat) sent American troops there to wage peace in the 1990s as part of a UN snafu known as "Operation Gothic Serpent".

Mogadishu was the site of the infamous "Black Hawk Down Incident", of 3-4 October 1993, part of the Battle of Mogadishu, between forces of the US of A against the forces of the so-called Somali National Alliance (SNA) and armed irregulars. The battle was part of the then two-year-old Somali civil war, just one of the Muslim civil wars in which America has foolishly intervened. 

The UN initially sent troops to alleviate the famine of 1992, but then began trying to restore a central government, establish democracy, yada yada yada. In June of 1993, UN peacekeepers suffered their deadliest day in decades when the Pakistani contingent was attacked while inspecting a SNA weapons storage site. That's what happens when you look into the barrel.

UNOSOM II (the UN task force) blamed SNA leader Mohammed Farah Aidid and launched a manhunt. In July, American forces raided the Abdi House in search of Aidid, killing many elders and prominent members of Aidid's clan. Big mistake, Dr Jones! The raid led many Mogadishu residents to join the fight -- not on "our" side -- and in August, Aidid and the SNA deliberately attacked American personnel for the first time. And that's why slick Willy dispatched Task Force Ranger to sort things out.

On 3 October 1993, US forces planned to seize two of Aidid's top lieutenants during a meeting deep in the city. The raid was only intended to last an hour, but morphed into an overnight standoff and rescue operation extending into the daylight hours of the next day. Here's the trailer for the slightly biased movie version of what happened.

What really happened was this. As the battle progressed (or not), Somali forces used RPGs to shoot down three American Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters. Two of them crashed deep in hostile territory (read: anywhere in the city). A desperate defence of the two downed helicopters began and fighting lasted through the night to defend the survivors of the crashes. In the morning, a UNOSOM II armored convoy fought their way to the besieged soldiers and withdrew, incurring further casualties but rescuing the survivors.

No battle since the Vietnam War claimed so many American casualties -- 18 dead and 73 wounded. You won't see much about the other forces in the movie, but Malaysian forces suffered one death and seven wounded, and Pakistani forces had two injured. Somali casualties were far higher -- between 133 and 700 dead.

The part that really wasn't a good look for the Clinton government was that, after the battle, dead American soldiers were dragged through the streets of Mogadishu by enraged Somalis, in full view of a vast [or half-vast. Ed.] TV audience.

The UN gave up on Somalia in 1995, and, as today's news illustrates, the state is now a lawless and dangerous shithole, with no effective government -- a place to be avoided like the plague (which is said to be present there). Fear of another PR disaster kept the US government from increasing its involvement in Somalia and other regions. 

Some students of history (Republicans perhaps) say that what is now called "Somalia Syndrome" influenced the Clinton administration's decision not to intervene in the Rwandan genocide. However, the lesson of Somalia was apparently forgotten when new Muslim civil wars broke out in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan.

Mass shooting in Canada's capital raises disturbing questions

It's a long weekend in the Great No-longer-white North, just as it is in the Excited States of America. The difference is that the Canucks spell the holiday "Labour Day" instead of "Labor Day". Normally nothing happens in Canada on a Labour Day weekend, but not this year.

The Ottawa police -- the heroes of the Freedom Convoy -- and the lickspittle media are trying out the best way to spin the news of a shooting at a wedding reception last night, which left two "Toronto men" (as Arnie would say) dead and injured six others. 

A spokesthingy for the cops police responded to reports of gunfire at about 2221 ["about"? Ed.] in Ottawa's s south end, near the airport outside a club where a wedding reception was being held. Initially the police would provide no information about the victims or suspects, except to say that there were no threats to public safety.

This afternoon, however, to quell certain rumors being spread about the gender preferences of the happy couple, they identified the deceased.

They are... or were... 26-year-old Said Mohamed Ali and 29-year-old Abdishakur Abdi-Dahir, both from Toronto. For some reason, nothing further was said about the ethnicity of the deceased, although we can pretty well figure that out. Same with their Religion of Peace. 

But what about their "gender identity"? Or their status in Canada? Were they, by any chance, homosexuals who were being united in a "gay marriage"? Perhaps they were "refugees" from Syria or Afghanistan or some other Islamic shithole, where homosexuality and the Sin of Fr James Martin are officially unacceptable or downright illegal. Just sayin'....

And the biggest question of all. What if the shooter turns out to be, not some rabid white supremacist, but a devout Muslim, one who is devoutly anti-gay? What would that do to the liberal narrative?

UPDATE ADDED 4/9/23: The Groan & Wail version of this story says the "Somali community" was involved. Lately there have been several "mostly peaceful" clashes between "refugees" from Somalia and Eritrea, and between two factions of the Eritrean community -- those who are opposed to the dictatorship and those who support the evil regime.

Religion of Peace kills >6 dozen in Somalia. "Allahu akbar!"

While (some) Christians were celebrating the birth of our Saviour, life... and death.. went on as usual in the Muslim shitholes of the Middle East and North Africa. An explosion today at a busy checkpoint in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, killed at least 72 people and wounded dozens, including women and children.

Rescuers carried dead bodies past the twisted wreckage of a vehicle and minibus taxis smeared with blood. The director of a private ambulance service told the meeja, "The number of casualties we have confirmed is 76 dead and 70 wounded, it could still be higher." Witness Mohamed "the Inevitable" Abdi said, "I saw many dead bodies lying on the ground. Some of those dead were police officers, but most of them were students."

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast. The al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab often carries out such attacks. The Islamic extremist group was pushed out of Mogadishu several years ago but continues to target high-profile areas such as checkpoints and hotels in the seaside city. Today's blast took place at the Ex-Control checkpoint, a "tax" collection (read: extortion) centre in Mogadishu.

Al-Shabaab was blamed for the truck bombing in Mogadishu in October 2017 that killed more than 500 people. The group never claimed responsibility for the blast that led to widespread public outrage. Another witness told AP, "This explosion is similar like the one...in 2017. This one occurred just a few steps away from where I am and it knocked me on the ground from its force."

Earlier this year a spokesthingy for the Disunited Nations said the jihadis are now able to make their own explosives -- their "weapons of choice. The followers of the Prophet previously relied on military-grade explosives captured during assaults on an African Union peacekeeping force. Today's attack again raises concern about the readiness of Somali forces to take over responsibility for security from the AU force, which is scheduled to withdraw in 2020.

Canuck Muslim journalist among dead in Somalia car bombing

Somalia is a failed state, a place where Muslims have been killing other Muslims for decades, fighting for control of what is essentially a shithole. But, according to the liberals and apologists for the Islamists, things are getting better. Peace could break out at any time!

That was the message Hodan Naleyeh, a Muslim immigrant to Canada and former journalist, wanted to get out to the world. So, back home she went. Sadly, she didn't get to do a lot of reporting, as she was killed after a car bomb exploded today at a hotel in Somalia's port city of Kismyass. [Kismayu! Ed.]

The Somali Journalists Syndicate said in a statement it had confirmed Ms Naleyeh was one of two journalists among the dead. "Mohamed Omar Sahal, SBC TV correspondent based in Kismayu and Hodan Naleyeh, female TV journalist and founder of Integration TV (are) both among (those) killed," said Abdalle Ahmed Mumin, the syndicate's secretary general.

The SJS statement went on to say that Ms Naleyeh had recently returned to Somalia after living in Canada for years "to help showcase Somalia’s peaceful transformation." -30- [= end of story. Ed.]

Toronto Greektown shooter ID'd, Walt's suspicions confirmed!

As reported on WWW this morning, Toronto Mayor John Tory warned the public not to jump to any conclusions regarding the identity or motive of the olive-skinned, bearded man who shot 16 people in the city's Greektown district last night. Walt jumped anyway and, in defiance of M-103, had the temerity to suggest that the perp might be a follower of Mohammed, and the shooting an act of Islamic terrorism.

The politicians, police and (((controlled media))) (Hello, CBC!) knew immediately the identity, ethnicity, religion and citizenship status of the killer, but managed to keep a lid on it until 1730 EDT, when they finally caved in to public pressure and named him as 29-year-old Faisal Hussain (no relation to you-know-who of the Somali-Canadian Minister of Refugees &c), who lived with his parents in the Thorncliffe Park district of Toronto. That area is home to 1000s of "refugees" from Somalia, Pakistan and other shitholes, but nothing has been said yet about how Mr Hussain came to Canuckistan or his status in the alleged country.

Nor has anything been said, as yet, about Mr Hussain's motive. His family came from Pakistan, a hotbed of militant Islamic terror. He was a follower of the Prophet, of course, so don't be suprised if he was acting as a jihadi, a good soldier of ISIS. Don't be surprised, also, when the lamestream media starts making excuses, as portrayed here.

The official line was revealed within minutes of the police identification of the killer, with the release of a statement, in perfect English, from the boy's parents, who said that he had been suffering for a long time with mental health issues. And so on. Nothing to do with Islam or ISIS or anything like that. Everyone knows there's no danger from Islamic terrorists, eh. Not in good old Canada, which welcomes all those fleeing oppression, particularly those who are barred from entering the USA by the evil Trump!

Lifetime pct .991. Stay tuned for more.

Why no-one wants to take in Somali "refugees"

When President Trump issued his latest proclamation, "Enhancing Vetting Capabilities and Processes for Detecting Attempted Entry into the United States by Terrorists or other Public-Safety Threats" last month, the usual gang of do-gooders, SJWs and bleeding hearts denounced it as "racist", "Islamophobic", yada yada yada, since all but one of the countries named are Muslim majority states. One of those is Somalia, a failed state which has been exporting "refugees", including Islamic terrorists, to Europe and America for decades.

Use the search feature at the right to get a complete list of the many times Walt has written about "Somalis", and you will soon see why people from that wretched shithole of a "nation" should be at the top of the list of prohibited visitors or immigrants. Here are links to some of the more recent posts.

"Had enough Muslim immigrants yet?", WWW 20/9/16
"The Muslim invasion of Canada has begun (but not where you think)", WWW 6/1/17 - Most of the asylum-seekers mentioned in this piece wound up in Toronto, in the "Dixon" neighbourhood, which will be mentioned in a moment.
"Somali tribesmen of MN (!) fall for anti-vaxxers' BS, get sick and die", WWW 8/5/17
"Edmonton Muslim terrorist attack: Walt told ya so!", WWW 2/10/17
"Somali-Canadian Muslim convicted of planning terror attack on NYC", WWW 7/10/17.

Apparently no-one made the connection between the Islamic terrorist wannabe mentioned in the first post on my list, and the one mentioned in the last post. They are both Somali Muslims. So is the guy charged with attempted murder in the Edmonton "incident". He was first described by Canadian "authorities" and the lamestream media as a "refugee". Turns out his refugee claim was actually made in the USA, where he lived for some time until he was ordered deported. One step ahead of ICE, he then fled to the Great No-longer-white North, where he was welcomed by the gullible Canucks. The Mounties probably helped him with his luggage, as they have with the 1000s of illegals who have crossed the border at Emerson MB and Lacolle QC.

Speaking of those who crossed at Emerson -- see second story on the above list -- Torontonians may be dismayed, but will not be surprised to learn that almost all of them took the welfare and resettlement money given to them by the soft-hearted and soft-headed Canadians and made their way to Toronto, where they were welcomed into the ghetto known as "Dixon", in northern Etobicoke. That area is largely inhabited by Somali refugees, countrymen and perhaps kinsmen of Canada's Minister of Immigration and Refugees (sic), Ahmed Hussen.

Walt has e-mailed the Honourable Mr Husssen for comment on a spate of recent shootings in his community. Last week The Economist released a new index ranking Toronto as the safest city in North America. This comes as news to the residents of Dixon, who held a protest meeting last week (attended only by women and children -- the Somali men were elsewhere) to call for government help (= money) to deal with the seemingly relentless violence that cut short the lives of two young Somali "refugees" last this week alone.

Abdulkadir Bihi, 29, of Toronto was fatally shot last Thursday afternoon when police located him in a vehicle in front of an apartment building on Dixon Road. Police have since charged two suspects with first-degree murder in connection to the homicide. Four days later, a 16-year-old boy died of his injuries in hospital following a triple shooting in the parking lot of Kingsview Village School on Dixon Road and Islington Avenue.
The two other victims suffered non-life-threatening injuries. The deceased was identified as Zakariye Ali of Toronto. All involved -- victims and shooters -- are Somalis.

Now we come to this weekend's bloody atrocity in the place those people came from -- Somalia, first and foremost among the world's failed states. It is hard to argue with the proposition that Somalia is a dangerous place, even for natives. Not only political conflict, but tribal and clan warfare have raged there since early 2009 -- and that's just the current phase of yet another Muslim civil war into which the West got sucked in the name of peace-keeping. Remember Black Hawk Down? That was about the Battle of Mogadishu, way back in 1993, in which American forces took on Somali militia fighters, with predictable results. (I wrote earlier today about the latest phase of the war in Iraq. See the pattern?)

Mogadishu this weekend was the scene of two massive truck bombings. The death toll is now (Monday morning) over 300, with a like number wounded and injured. Somalia's alleged government -- whose writ does not run even in the country's capital city -- is blaming the al-Shabaab, an affiliate of al-Qaeda. The Islamic terror attack was one of the worst in the world in recent years, and the worst in Somalia ever. Al-Shabaab, Africa's deadliest Islamic extremist group, often targets high-profile areas of Mogadishu. Earlier this year, it vowed to step up attacks after both the Trump administration and Somalia's recently elected president announced new military efforts against the group.

In the wake of the massacre, the one-worlders, bleeding hearts and chattering classes will be calling on President Trump to "temporarily" except Somalia from the list of countries whose nationals aren't allowed to enter the USA. "Be human!", they will clamour, pissing and moaning about those poor people whose lives are in danger, who want to come to America (and maybe onward to Canada, or the other way around) to find peace and security.

At the risk of appearing hard-hearted, Walt would suggest that the only threats to the lives and well-being of most Somalis are threats posed by other Somalis! If you don't believe me, look at Dixon. They bring their political and religious strife with them, as part of their psychological baggage. Better, for us at least, that they stay at home.

Footnote: Oh... Forgot to identify the three Somali "refugees" in the pix above. Check out "Minneapolis: Somali 'refugees' terrorize neighborhood", a story completely ignored by the Star-Tribune since it happened in July of 2016, during the election campaign. Briefly, a group of 20-30 Somali "refugees" terrorized a small neighbourhood filled with million dollar homes, screaming about "jihad" while waving Somali flags, shooting off fireworks and driving their cars onto sidewalks and lawns. They also threatened to kidnap women and rape them because "Sharia law says it's legal."

Canuck government "reviewing" refugee processing after terror attack

This is a relatively minor story compared with the Mandalay Bay massacre, but I think it's worth a follow-up for Canadian readers, since it highlights everything that's wrong with the liberal (and Liberal) approach to dealing with the hundreds of thousands of bogus "refugees" and asylum-seekers who enter Western countries every year.

"Welcome them with open arms," says Justin "Junior" Trudeau, for diversity is what makes Canada strong. See "Welcome to Canada, Syrian refugees!", WWW 8/2/17. 1000s of Canadians are hollering BULLSHIT, but never mind, it's Liberal government policy and there's no way it's going to be changed before the federal election of 2019... if then.

But you can see that M Trudeau and his oh-so-diverse cabinet are being made nervous by incidents such as the Islamic terrorist attack in Edmonton AB last week. That's because, just as Walt predicted (see "Edmonton Muslim terrorist attack: Walt told ya so!", WWW 2/10/17), the perp turned out to be a Muslim Somali "refugee", waved through the porous Canadian border in 2012. But wait (as Vince Offer used to say), there's more!

The information released by the Edmonton police and the Mounties at the time left the impression that Abdulahi Hasan Sharif, now charged with five counts of attempted murder, four counts of criminal flight causing bodily harm, and one count each of dangerous driving and possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose, came to Canada as a refugee from Somalia, or maybe Syria. Exactly how and where he entered Canada was not disclosed, and with good reason. Turns out he entered Canada from... wait for it... the USA!

In July of 2011, US Customs and Border Protection transferred Mr Sharif into the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego CA. Two months later, an immigration judge ordered him removed to his native Somalia. He waived his right to appeal that decision. Two months after that, he was released on an ICE order of supervision "due to a lack of likelihood of his removal in the reasonably foreseeable future," according to Jennifer D. Elzea, acting press secretary for the ICE Office of Public Affairs.

This was in the Obama years, remember, and American authorities just kind of, errr, stopped deporting illegal aliens. But ICE did tell Mr Sharif to come back next year. He was scheduled to be removed on 24 January 2012. ICE was shocked, shocked when he failed to turn up at their enforcement and removal operations center on his scheduled date. Next thing you know he presented himself at the Canadian border.

The Honourable Ahmed Hussen, the Canuck Minister of Immigration and Refugees -- that really is his title -- confirmed today that Mr Sharif entered at an official port of entry, went through the 'regular process' and was granted refugee status later that year. He declined to provide any more details, citing an "active, ongoing investigation."

Oh yes, there's an investigation going on -- a classic case of locking the barn door after the horse has bolted. At a scrum outside the House of Commons today, Junior told the meeja "We are looking into exactly what happened in this situation. We're certain that we have asylum processes that needed to be followed when someone presents themselves at our border, we have rules to follow and we make sure those rules are followed. We're looking into the whole system and will reflect on whether we need to do things differently certainly in the future than the way they were done in 2012. But the priority is always making sure that we're defending the values and rights of Canadians while keeping our communities safe." Yeah... right...

M Trudeau had to answer reporters' questions because his Somali-born (aha!) Minister for Refugees etc. was out of town, speaking at an event in the ghetto which is Brampton. Mr Hussen stressed that decisions on whether to grant asylum are not made by the government but by the arms' length, independent Immigration and Refugee Board. "That board is the one that is responsible for determining the merits of each and every case when it comes to asylum claims," he said. What he didn't say is that the members of the IRB -- each and every one of them -- are appointed by the Liberal government. "Arms' length", indeed... NOT.

"Kaffirs!" Muslim extremists ARE out to get you!

Those who know (or think they know) something of the history and culture of South Africa may think that "kaffir" was an Afrikaans derogatory term for blacks -- like the N-word in the USA. In fact, it's a much older Arabic word for a non-believer, someone who is not a follower of the Prophet Muhammad. That's what the Muslim terrorists call the rest of us.

The politically correct apologists for al-Shabaab, the armed Somali Islamic extremist group that attacked a shopping mall in Kenya, are up in arms [Bad rib! Ed.] over portrayals of the terrorists as, errr, Islamic extremists out to murder non-believers. Some lamestream pundits are saying that, oh noooo, they're just Somali patriots fighting against the evil Kenyans who've invaded their homeland.

Well, that's not what the Islamic extremists themselves are saying. In an e-mail exchange with Associated Press, reported today in HuffPost, a spokesthingy for al-Shabaab said that foreigners were a "legitimate target" and confirmed witness accounts that gunmen tried to let Muslims go free while killing or taking the others captive.

AP quotes the terrorists as saying "The Mujahideen carried out a meticulous vetting process at the mall and have taken every possible precaution to separate the Muslims from the kaffirs before carrying out their attack."

Eye-witnesses have said the gunmen rounded up people, asked questions about Islam that only a Muslim would know how to answer, and told the Muslims to leave the mall. Out of 72 dead counted so far, at least 18 were foreigners, including six Brits, and nationals of France, Canada, Trinidad, the Netherlands, Australia, Peru, India, Ghana, South Africa and China. The current death toll is 67 and is likely to climb with uncounted bodies remaining in the rubble of the Nairobi mall.

Walt's advice to fellow kaffirs: don't go to Kenya or Egypt or Syria or [Ed., please insert another dozen or so north African and Middle Eastern countries]. Stay somewhere safe, where there are no Muslim terrorists. Like, say, Boston. [Ed., maybe that wasn't a good choice. Please insert name of a country or city where there's no threat from the jihadists.]

Toronto "systems" FAIL

Sorry to delay this update on the Christopher Husbands story. There has been a lot of backing and filling on the part of the City of Toronto, its Keystone cops, Ontario judiciary and Canadian immigration. Sorting out the truth of what happened...or didn't happen...has taken time. Here's what we know now.

Christopher Husbands is an immigrant from Guyana, who is accused of murdering a Somali immigrant in a hail of bullets at Toronto's Eaton Centre mall on Saturday afternoon. Half a dozen bystanders -- notice I didn't say innocent -- were wounded.

Both the shooter and shootee are black, hardly a surprise to anyone who knows Toronto. Both belonged to the same gang, which has been terrorizing Regent Park -- one of Toronto's "at-risk neighbourhoods" -- for some time, in spite of the diligence of the Toronto cops' "guns 'n' gangs" squad. Yet the boys in blue keep insisting the shooting was "not gang-related". Maybe Husbands and the victim were off duty.

Husbands wasn't supposed to be at the Eaton Centre, or anywhere else except work. He was under house arrest, you see, on bail on a charge of sexual assault dating from 2010. Bail was granted in spite of at least one drug conviction dating from 2008, because a couple of members of the black community said they'd keep an eye on him, make sure he didn't run away to Guyana or Jamaica -- as if -- and so on.

Did the sureties (for that's what they were) put up any money? Did they supervise Husbands as promised? Errr, apparently not. Will they be required to forfeit or pay any bond money? Will they be held to account in any way? Don't hold your breath.

But there's more. Turns out Mr. Husbands actually had a job! For more than six months he'd been working as a "counsellor" at the Stan Wadlow Clubhouse, an after-school children's centre in another "at-risk neighbourhood" -- the PC term for what Americans would call a "project".

The Stan Wadlow Clubhouse is run by, errr, the City of Toronto, which of course has a policy of requiring police background checks on all prospective employees who will be working with children. Did Husbands pass the check? Errr, no. Did he even apply for a police clearance? Well... errr... he did apply but somehow his application "fell through the cracks", and he was allowed to start work and continue working well beyond the three-month "grace period" normally allowed because, errr, doing background checks is not a high priority for Metro's finest.

Walt wonders if allowing Husbands to take the job in spite of his previous record, in spite of being on bail, in spite of not having had the background check, had anything to do with political correctness or affirmative action. Suppose the City had told Husbands he wasn't eligible? Wouldn't that have been a classic example of the "systemic racism" that all the liberal hug-a-hoodie types whine about?

The whole affair seems to be a terrible embarrassment to all concerned. The Rosedale liberals, the police, city councillors, His Largeness the Mayor, and the Toronto media are all wringing their hands over the revelation that guns and gangs are a problem in Toronto. But they steadfastly refuse to talk about the elephant in the room -- the African elephant.

Warning to Somali pirates: Don't mess with Russians!

Agent 17 alerts us to this video, showing Russian Navy commandos on a Somalian pirate ship shortly after the pirates had captured a Russian oil tanker. Western European navies patrolling these waters would not interfere because -- apparently -- they feared there could be casualties or other unpleasantness.

The dialogue, such as it is, is in Russian. However, you can hear the wounded pirate trying to tell a commando it's a fishing boat, and the Russian says "This is not a fishing boat." Perhaps his vocabulary doesn't include the word "bullshit". Anyway, the pictures speak for themselves.

The Russians freed their compatriots and the tanker. Then they moved the pirates back to their own (pirate) ship, and searched it for weapons and explosives, of which more than a few were found. Finally they handcuffed the pirates to their own vessel and set it alight. Isn't is a pretty sight, against the night sky?

Amnesty International, the ACLU and other forces for progress and political correctness should note that the commandos rid the world of a bunch of pirates, their arms and their ship, without any lawyers, inquiries, court proceedings, or appeals for clemency.

In other words, the Russian Navy used the anti-piracy laws of the 18th and 19th centuries, according to which the captain of the rescuing ship has the right to decide what to do with the pirates. Usually, they were hanged. In this instance they were blowed up...blowed up real good!

Pirates and other terrorists should note that this is what happens if you mess with people who don't handcuff themselves with political correctness and more concern for the aggressors than the victims.

Have you given yet to help Somalia? Don't!

Have you been moved by the pictures of the starving children in famine-stricken Somalia? Have you sent your widow's mite to World Vision or Oxfam? Do you think your contribution is going to improve the lives of those poor (but somehow attractive) kids you see on TV? Before you reach for your credit card, think again.

Back in November 2009, in "Foreign aid: hurts us, hurts them", Walt talked about the bureaucratic mess that is USAID and its Canadian counterpart, CIDA. I've forgotten which impoverished hellhole was the "victim of the month" at that time. That was before Haiti, wasn't it? So perhaps it was Rwanda or Somalia, or some other African hellhole.

The same countries keep appearing in the Top Ten Aid Recipients. The droughts and famines recur again and again. And guilt-ridden white westerners -- the Volvo liberals, I call them -- keep raising money to throw at the problems of the Third World, money which is for the most part wasted, misappropriated or stolen by the corrupt and venal dictators and warlords who rule the world's poorest places.

Today's case in point is Somalia, where famine is officially widespread. The United Nations implores the rich countries to forget about their own problems and send billions of dollars to feed the hungry in the Horn of Africa. Just as we did about 20 years ago, the last time Somalia was the biggest basket case.

Michael Maren writes of his experiences in Somalia (and other sandpits) in The Road to Hell (The Free Press, 1997). The subtitle says it all: The ravaging effects of foreign aid and international charity. Here are a couple of pertinent paragraphs.

Aid distribution is just another big, private business that relies on government contracts. [Aid organizations] are paid by the U.S. government to give away surprlus food produced by subsidized U.S. farmers. The more food [they] give away, the more money they receive from the government to administer the handouts.

Food aid attracts people to refugee camps, where they die from dysentery or measles or other diseases they wouldn't have contracted in the bush. Is there really a food shortage when anyone with money can find all the food he wants, when the aid workers themselves enjoy meals that the locals could never get even in the best of times? And why does it always seem that a group of local elites finds a way to get rich from the disaster? Are we contributing to the problem by dealing with the businessmen-politicians who lease Land Cruisers and homes to the aid agencies and who provide trucks to transport food?

Maren goes on to make the connection between famine and dictatorship.

No country was ever transformed from being famine-prone to food self-sufficiency by international charity. As Harvard economist Amartya Sen has shown, famines always occur in authoritarian states, when the government mismanages the economy. Famines disappear when those countries become market-sufficient. India, for example -- the epitome of the famine-afflicted land when I was a child -- no longer suffers famines despite its huge populations.

And some targets of charity get worse. Today, after huge infusions of international aid, Somalia and all its formerly self-sufficient neighbors are chronically hungry and dependent on foreign food. It becomes increasingly difficult for aid workers to ignore the compelling correlation between massive international food aid and increasing vulnerability to famine. "Our charity does not overcome famine, and may help to prolong it", someone will always lament. Those who spend the time to study the local economies see that the people have now geared their own activities not to returning to their old lives but to getting their hands on aid.

The emphasis above is mine. Please keep in mind, dear reader, that Maren wrote those words in the mid-90s. Has anything changed in Somalia as the result of the billions of dollars of our money -- yours and mine -- poured down that rathole in the 15-20 years since the last "crisis"? Evidently not.

The compleat failures

Fans of Bob and Ray will remember the story of the Compleat Failure, a hapless man who started his career as bank teller and "progressed downward" until he was reduced to scraping gum off the sidewalk outside the bank, and managed even to get fired from that position.

There are countries like that too, states that start off well enough, then spiral downward in search of rock bottom. Zimbabwe would be a prime example.

This week the Economist features a thoughtful essay on failed states, "Where life is cheap and talk is loose". "States that cannot control their territories, protect their citizens, enter or execute agreements with outsiders, or administer justice," it says, "are a common and worsening phenomenon".

The article has a list of the worst of the worst -- the states with the highest scores on the Failed States Index. Here, with a further comment by yours truly, are the dirtiest dozen black spots.

Country (FSI score*) -- PC problems** -- Non-PC problems***
12. Côte d'Ivoire (101.2) -- post-election deadlock, civil war starting -- African, Muslims vs Christians
11. Haiti (101.6) -- deforestation, destitution, crime -- only African country in the west
10. Pakistan (102.5) -- coups, drugs, illiteracy, terrorism -- Muslim
9. Guinea (105.0) -- destitution, drugs, kleptocracy -- African
8. Central African Republic (106.4) -- desertification, destitution, disease, terrorism -- African
7. Iraq (107.3) -- ruined infrastructure, terrorism -- Muslims vs other Muslims
6. Afghanistan (109.3) -- civil war, drugs, no infrastructure, terrorism -- Muslims vs other Muslims
5. Congo (109.9) -- civil war, massacres, mass rape, looting -- African
4. Zimbabwe (110.2) -- post-election deadlock, economic collapse, kleptocracy, oppression -- African
3. Sudan (111.8) -- illiteracy, tyranny, destitution -- African, Muslims vs Christians
2. Chad (113.3) -- desertification, destitution, next door to Libya -- African, more Muslims
and now... the envelope please...
1. Somalia (114.3) -- anarchy, civil war, piracy -- African, Muslim

I was going to add corruption and incompetence to the list of problems, where applicable, but it applied to every single country on the list and I grew tired of typing the words over and over.

Surely I don't need to point out the commonalities, but just in case... 8 of the failed states (including the worst 5) are in Africa. And we must count Haiti as an African state because almost 100% of its people are of African origin.

7 of 12 are totally or partially Muslim. In Côte d'Ivoire and Sudan, the Muslims fight to dominate the Christians. In places like Iraq, where there are almost no Christians left to persecute, the Muslims fight with each other.

One final point. Almost all of these failed states would also appear on a list of top recipients of western foreign aid. That's how smart our governments are -- not enough sense to stop pouring sand down black, Muslim ratholes.

* Failed states score, out of 120
** Politically correct problems, as listed by the Economist
*** Non-PC problems which everyone knows about but no-one talks about, as listed by Walt.

Christianophobia strikes again

It's getting so massacres of Christians in Muslim countries (Iraq, Pakistan, and now Egypt) or Hindu countries (India) barely make the front page.

If you didn't see it in your local birdcage-liner, 21 Coptic Orthodox Christians were killed in Egypt a couple of days ago as they left mass. Meanwhile, in Iraq, where hundreds of Catholics were murdered by Islamic fundamentalists, celebrations of the Christmas season feasts were held in private homes, rather than risk having another church desecrated and more martyrs sent to Heaven.

Pope Benedict XVI has spoken out against this obviously rising "Christianophobia", but the reaction of the lamestream media has been a big ho-hum. "Well," you can hear them saying, "he would say that, wouldn't he?"

So let's give credit to USA Today -- not usually known for incisive or in-depth coverage of hard news -- for an item in its "Faith & Reason" blog entitled "Does Egypt bomb blast signal rising 'Christianophobia?'"

Hello, blogger! The answer is YES! Isn't it obvious? While you're at it, why not ask if the Pope is Catholic?

But at least USA Today is asking the question. Other lamestream media outlets still haven't noticed!

Footnote: Walt followed a link in the blog to the map below. Here you can see for yourself where the state forbids or restricts the practice of Christianity (red) and those where violence against Christians is endemic (orange). Includes a lot of the world, doesn't it?

Muslim desecrates altar in Florence

A young Muslim man sparked outrage in Florence, Italy, last week when he climbed onto the altar of the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore (the city’s most famous church) and "danced".

The young man, who has been identified by police as a refugee from Somalia [no surprises there. Ed.] made no effort to resist when he was arrested after his brief display in the Duomo. Police report that he is emotionally unbalanced.

This being the 21st century, the whole disgraceful thing was captured on video and is on YouTube. Click here to see it.

Walt would be interested to know what happens to the crazy Muslim. Will he be jailed? Will he be put in a mental institution? Will he be deported? Will he be executed? Or will he just be forgiven, as an example of the tolerance of diversity which we westerners are encouraged to promote?

And just one more question... Suppose a Christian profaned a mosque in, say, Riyadh; what do you think would happen to him?

"This goddamn guy...is an ape!"

The following -- no kidding -- is a transcript of a telephone conversation between President Richard Nixon and his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger. It is quoted in The Teeth May Smile but the Heart Does not Forget: Murder and Memory in Uganda, a thoroughly worthwhile book by Andrew Rice (2009, Metropolitan Books, New York).

Nixon: I'm getting tired of this business of letting these Africans eat a hundred thousand people and do[ing] nothing about it.
Kissinger: And...all these bleeding hearts in this country who say we like to kill yellow people.
N: That's right.... Isn't it awful what these--that t his goddamn guy at the head of Uganda, Henry, is an ape. [Nixon refers to Idi Amin.]
K: He's an ape without an education.
N: That's probably no disadvantage. I mean, you figure that asshole that was the head of Ghana [Kwame Nkrumah] had a brilliant education in the United States.
K: That's right.
N: I mean, so, let's face it.... He's a prehistoric monster.
K: Yeah.
N: Let the British know we're going to help. The idea that we're going to stand still on the ground that any African government that...overthrew a colonial power thereby becomes lily white by our...standards and thereby beyond criticism is ridiciulous. The damn double standard is just unbelievable."

But the USA didn't help. It didn't send troops. It didn't do anything! Three months after this conversation, Kissinger presented President Nixon with a policy memorandum recommending that, with no vital American interests at stake, "no decisions need to be taken concerning Uganda, particularly aid levels." [My emphasis. Walt.]

According to Rice, Nixon scrawled his initials next to the word "approve".

There was no American action in Uganda. The Americans did send an expeditionary force into Somalia but withdrew PDQ. Click on the "Somalia" tab for references. There has been no meaningful American action against Comrade Bob Mugabe, the despot ruining Zimbabwe, in spite of the heartfelt pleas of the Zimbabwean diaspora.

What do the three countries -- Uganda, Somalia and Zimbabwe -- have in common? Why is the USA not much interested in doing anything to relieve them of rule by warlords, dictators and despots? Answer: they have no oil. And anyway, they're African. Let them go on eating each other.

Afghanistan, the new Somalia

This past Wednesday, November 18th, I recommended Michael Maren's book, The Road to Hell. A large part of the book details the author's experiences as an "agent of virtue" in Somalia, and the US military debacle there. The shameful Canadian intervention also gets a mention.

Fast forward 15 years or so to the NATO occupation of Afghanistan. Canadian soldiers have suffered many casualties, but inflicted many as well, and taken many prisoners besides.

What happened to the Afghans who were taken prisoner? According to Richard Colvin, Canada's top dip in Afghanistan until recently, the prisoners were routinely handed over to the Afghan authorities [an oxymoron? ed.]. Many, perhaps the majority, were tortured. Some were killed.

So what? Canada has lost 132 good young men and women to the barbarities of roadside bombs, ambushes, etc. Other NATO countries have lost hundreds more. So some Afghans were tortured or murdered? An eye for an eye!

Just one thing. Torturing and executing prisoners of war is against the rules. It's contrary to the Geneva Convention. So is handing prisoners over to others who you know will deal with them in such a way. If our troops did what Mr. Colvin says they did, they are guilty of or complicit in warm crimes.

Mr. Colvin says he reported this to his superiors, notably David Mulroney who is now the Canadian ambassador to China. Predictably, no-one wanted to know anything about any breach of the rules of engagement. They told him to be like the three wise monkeys -- see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. According to Mr. Colvin, orders to shut up came from the office of the Prime Minister...another Harpoon from Steve Harper.

James Travers, writing in today's Toronto Star, comments thus:
If the allegations are true, those accountable for the mission put self-interest ahead of national interest. In protecting themselves they exposed Canadian troops to war crimes risk and local retribution, smeared this country's human rights reputation and made nonsense of the argument that Canada's guiding Afghanistan purpose is to seed values, rights and justice.

Just so. Just as happened in Somalia. Mr. Travers sees the parallel between our missions in Somalia and Afghanistan, and lays the blame for any misdeeds not at the feet of our troops, but on the military and political leaders in Ottawa. Quite right he is.

Also on my recommended reading list today is "Advice for the PM", Norman Spector's blog in today's Globe and Mail. Mr. Spector castigates Defence Minister Peter Mackay and the Harper government's resident pit bull, John Baird, for their ad hominem attacks on Mr. Colvin. When you don't like the message, shoot the messenger, eh, boys?

Mr. Spector joins the Liberals and NDP in calling for a public enquiry, not into the conduct of our troops but into the sins of omission or commission of Conservative government. Mr. Travers agrees, and also has something to say about our commander-in-chief at the time, Gen. Rick Hillier.

When questioned about what happened in Afghanistan on his watch, Gen. Hillier responded (I'm paraphrasing here) that whatever we did, it wasn't as bad as what we did in Somalia, where Canadian troops exacted their own retribution on some Somali kids who were unlucky enough to get caught.

Gen. Hillier is proud that in Afghanistan our soldiers behaved in a more professional manner, by turning the prisoners over to their own people. But Travers argues that what should disturb us is the way the situation was handled -- or not handled -- by the military brass and mandarins in Ottawa.

"What's unfolding now is the same old story," Travers writes. "Distant events spiral out of control, secrecy silences truth and the messenger is humiliated, then shot." Shame!

The worst country on Earth

That's what the Economist Intelligence Unit calls Somalia in The World in 2010, the Economist magazine's annual world survey and forecast for the coming year. Somalia takes the prize, they say, for "piracy, poverty and perdition".

Somalia is the world's most corrupt state, according to the World Bank. It has no effective government, no rule of law and virtually no infrastructure. Most of the country is controlled by one or the other of two radical Islamist factions, both of which demand the imposition of sharia law.

The Economist calls this "the Talibanisation of Somalia". Indeed the parallels with Afghanistan and Iraq are striking. You have radical and less-radical Muslims killing each other. You have the extreme xenophobia (and they don't like foreigners very much either). You have the corruption. You have the corrupt and incompetent "governments" whose writ does not run outside the capital city. And you have foreign armies of occupation trying to bring some order and "restore democracy".

But Somalia is different in that this "state" failed decades ago. The situation in Somalia today persists in spite of -- perhaps because of -- decades of foreign aid backed up by the armed intervention of the USA, Canada and other nations in the 80s and 90s.

Has the UN (really the US) debacle in Somalia been forgotten? Apparently so. As Patrick O'Bama [please check correct name, ed.] ponders the next move in Afghanistan, he would do well to read The Road to Hell, by Michael Maren (The Free Press, New York, 1997).

The book purports to be an examination of the ravaging effects of foreign aid and international charity. But the case study Maren uses is Somalia. He tells how CARE unwittingling assisted a Somali dictator in building a political and economic power base. He explains how the UN and Save the Children (and other NGOs) provided raw materials for the warring factions.

Above all, Maren exposes the political side of foreign aid and "humanitarian intervention". The money that you and I give to relieve the poverty and misery of Somalis, Sudanese, Senegalese or whatever is stolen by their own people and by the well-paid "administrators" of the charities themselves -- the "agents of virtue" (Paul Theroux's phrase) who do well out of doing good.

If you think your charitable giving is making the Third World a better place, think again! If you think our governments are trying to do good, think again!

If you think our interventions in Somalia, Iraq or Afghanistan were for humanitarian reasons, think again! If you think those interventions are doing any good for the people of those countries, think again!

But if sticking our noses and the muzzles of our guns into the affairs of failed states like Afghanistan is not the answer, what is the answer? I'm still thinking about that. More later.