I missed this story when it ran, but it seems that a couple of days ago Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer took a trip to Somalia to try to urge the creation of a truce in Mogadishu. Does this count as a concession that the “let’s help the Ethiopians invade and install a new government!” policy of December didn’t exactly work out? After all, there was a truce in Mogadishu in place before this all started up. How this plays into the mind-boggling decision to undermine the sanctions regime against North Korea that we insisted the UN adopt, I couldn’t quite say.

To make a long story short, nobody cared when it happened and I don’t expect anyone to care now (note how the rightwing cheerleaders for the Ethiopians’ swift victory seem to have completely lost interest in the subject), but I really wish we hadn’t gone down this road.

UPDATE: See this report from Human Rights Watch: “Fighting between Ethiopian armed forces and insurgent groups in Mogadishu escalated between March 29 and April 2 and resulted in deaths and injuries to hundreds of civilians, including from indiscriminate shelling and mortar attacks on heavily populated areas.”

Brian Beutler notes the late former UN Ambassador’s seemingly long record of public support for the war she more recently claims to have opposed. I actually find her account fairly plausible. If you look at her statements, she’s clearly trying to be helpful to the pro-war cause, but isn’t actually saying “and therefore, we should invade Iraq.”

In short, it’s just another tale of corruption and weakness in the foreign policy establishment. Like a lot of Democratic Party-affiliated people, Kirkpatrick may well have thought invading Iraq seemed like a bad idea but decided it made more sense to prove that she can be a good vassals to her political and financial patrons. Since the party line Kirkpatrick was supposed to toe was a pro-war one, she toed it. Democrats in her position tended to simply say nothing.

This is really much more Dennis Ross’ field than mine, so I’d be interested to hear what others have to say about it, but I think the Israel-Palestine agenda he outlined in a column yesterday is a little insane. Check it out:

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