Columnist – John Sammon
We became a terrorist state under the former Bush Administration, and unless Obama can un-do some of what has been accomplished, that’s what we are. The trouble with declining morality and lowering yourself so that you’re little better than the supposed evil enemies you’re fighting is…it’s hard to go back….once you’ve started down that road. Here are the 10.

1. The US abandoned all pretense of due process of law, captured alleged enemy terrorists, locked them up in Cuba and threw away the key, without trial, without conviction. There’s no way you can justify this by saying it’s a dangerous world. We didn’t do this to the top Nazis we captured in World War 2.

2. Approval of torture of prisoners. There’s no way you can argue its justification. Even if we say water-boarding is not torture, it’s only a matter of time before we add another, like hooking a car battery up to someone’s genitals. One leads to another. Torture to extract a confession is torture, an illegal act. It is not due process to make a finding of guilt or a confession through the presentation of evidence. It is the use of pain or fear to extract a confession. A country that abandons the Geneva Conventions is a terrorist state.

3. The US only fights tiny impoverished countries much smaller than itself. If this isn’t terrorism, then it’s certainly a form of imperialism, like the English fighting Zulu warriors in the 19th century. What were the English doing in Zulu-land in the first place? Robbing and exploiting. We do the same. We beat our chest about how tough we are. But a huge country that only fights much smaller countries is a bully.

4. (Related to 3). We have a long history of exploiting Third-World Countries for their natural resources, everything from bananas to oil. This has made us particularly detested in South America, and has strengthened the hand of rogue anti-American regimes there.

5. The government passed laws to eavesdrop and spy (wiretap) on American citizens because once again, the terrorists are out to get us and it’s a dangerous world. Every extremist government from long before Hitler, passed draconian laws eroding the rights of its own citizens, to supposedly protect them.

6. A government that can never admit it was wrong, or even look into the possibility it was wrong, is a government out of control. Nixon was pardoned by Ford because to try Nixon for his crimes would be messy, divisive. Nixon was supposedly doing it (cheating, lying) on our behalf, for us. Likewise, when Bush and Cheney lied to the American people to cook up a war in Iraq, they did it for us (I didn’t ask them to). They will be let off. What’s more, not even an investigation of their conduct will be attempted; because it might make us look bad. It would be divisive. When convenience and alleged patriotism trump morality and doing what’s right under the law, you’ve set a precedent for future misconduct. This represents the arrogance, invulnerability and unaccountability of power.

7. The Iraq conflict is the most under-reported, no-unpleasant-questions-asked war since the Spanish American (also a wrong war). The government stifled the release of pictures of American bodies returning home in caskets, and the former president stage-managed press conferences, with pre-scripted questions, taking questions from pre-selected, friendly reporters, while screening out potential trouble-making reporters, in other words, those who ask unpleasant questions. The former president often appeared only in front of crowds of compliant soldiers. The media’s complicity in Iraq represents a new low in respect for the truth worthy of Joseph Goebbels. How far Obama will reverse this trend remains unclear.

8. The government has a long history of supplying ruthless dictatorships with military equipment and supplies to get them to behave, then acts surprised and angry when they don’t. Our so-called leaders, who don’t understand or study history, learned nothing from the Munich Agreement of 1938. We tried to bribe Saddam Hussein by equipping and encouraging him, and we agreed to provide North Korea with nuclear technology twenty years ago in the hope they would use it for peaceful purpose. A state that supplies and equips countries it later labels “terrorist” with weapons or potential weapons is itself a terrorist state, or at the very least, an accomplice.

9. (Related to 8). We are far and away the world’s largest arms exporter, and have turned much of the world into an armed camp, thus making the likelihood of war much greater. People today in many parts of the world fear us more than they do Osama bin Laden, with good reason.

10. One of the two political parties that have run the country for over 100 years, the Republican Party, the former party of Lincoln, is today led by off-the-deep-end extremists who believe God sides with them. They believe war is a useful instrument of foreign policy, instead of a defense measure as envisioned by The Founders. They call on Divine Providence and punishment, even assassination, for anyone who disagrees with their world view. They are intolerant, close-minded, reactionary, racist, sexist, and have a zealot’s contempt for other people and other religions, other than their own brand of Christian Fundamentalism. They also have a thinly veiled disgust for the kind of basic compromise necessary to make any form of Democracy workable.

Reference: An account of American terrorism in Vietnam — The Secret War Against Hanoi: Kennedy’s and Johnson’s Use of Spies, Saboteurs, and Covert Warriors in North Vietnam, by Richard H. Shultz, Jr., 1999, HarperCollins Books, New York At a time when acts of military aggression perpetrated or planned by the US government are typically justified in the name of fighting “international terrorism,” a book has appeared which documents America’s role as the organizer of the biggest campaign of terrorism and sabotage since World War II. [ READ MORE ]

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By DONALD KIPKORIR

Why Kenya and Ethiopia ought to annex and divide Somalia

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Last month, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch, the world’s foremost investment banks, went bankrupt and we witnessed the financial chaos in the western capitals.

In the fog of international headlines on finding a financial bail-out in Washington, a rag-tag army of 50 semi-naked men on rickety boats captured a ship carrying 33 T-72 tanks, rocket-propelled grenades and anti-aircraft guns off the coast of Somalia.

The capture of mv Faina and the stalemated talks amid the surrounding American and Russian warships made me think that maybe this is the time to find a final solution to the Somali problem.

Since 1960, the country has been a lawless state that is a haven for terrorists and pirates. The pirates have told us the destination of the captured weaponry causing tension and panic in Washington, Nairobi and Khartoum.

If it is true that the final consignee was the government of Southern Sudan, as they allege, I will be on the same page with the Kibaki government for the first time.

I am a fervent supporter of a strategic foreign policy even if it attracts us enemies of such malevolent and despotic regimes as that of Khartoum.

Supporting the Southern Sudan government is in our long-term strategic interest and we should not shy from it. The truth of the matter is that as a Western ally, Kenya is an existential enemy of Arab countries, Sudan included.

Annexing Somalia is thus in our strategic interest and we must do it now as the financial meltdown continues to take away the attention of the world.

Somalia as a state exists only in world maps. It is a classic case of a failed state. It is a state dismembered into as many independent units as there are sub-clans. Its 90-strong cabinet is emblematic of the actual number of units.

The Horn of Africa country has no functioning government. The so-called transitional federal government, led by Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, is confined to a shell-shocked presidential compound.

There is no standing or even sitting army or judicial systems. By all accounts, Somalia is a black hole in international law. Together with Afghanistan and Pakistan they are known as the training grounds and refuge for international terrorism.

Kenya has been a victim of such terrorism, leading to near-destruction of its tourism industry. We cannot afford another such attack. We have the potential to develop our tourism to compete with, if not outpace, Egypt and South Africa. But we cannot do so if Somalia continues to be a non-state.

Somalia neighbours Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti. Of these, it is only Ethiopia and Kenya that have strategic interest in Somalia. Djibouti is a primitive entrepot that can’t even supply water to its 600,000 people, who are forced to drink that imported from France or Coca Cola. Therefore, Djibouti is out in the quest for the final solution to the Somali puzzle.

Kenya and Ethiopia must and ought to dismember Somalia and divide it between themselves along the 4 degrees latitude, each taking all the land below and above the line.

The division will make both countries extend their territories by roughly 300,000sq km and additional populations of about five million.

Once Kenya and Ethiopia have sent their combined army to Somalia and declared the annexation, we will present to the world a fait accompli.

In 1845, America annexed Texas from Mexico and forced the Texan legislature to pass a specific legislation stating that it accepted the annexation. The annexation has stood to date and, for good measure, President George W. Bush is a proud American Texan.

For Kenya and Ethiopia, having the Somali legislature to endorse the annexation will be cake-walk. At any given time, most, if not all, Somali legislators are in Nairobi.

We will have them convene in one of our hotels and to pass the appropriate statutes dividing their country.

When the allied forces liberated Germany from Fuhrer Adolf Hitler, they sent the bill to Berlin.

Our cost of annexing Somalia will be settled by Mogadishu. Somalia is known to have huge deposits of oil, natural gas, uranium and iron ore. Immediately after the annexation, we will invite our strategic foreign friends (not China please) to come and exploit the resources for us.

Kenyans ought to know that although Somalia is a failed state, its positive statistics are impressive. Without a structured economy, its gross national income per capita is US$600 (Sh40,000), when ours is $550 (Sh36,800). Of its universities that operate without budgets and with armed militia guarding them, three are in Africa’s top 100.

International law forbids the use of force by states against the territorial integrity and political independence of others. Somalia doesn’t have either.

But the law also recognises irreversible processes like the extinction of states such as in the USSR, emergence of new states from former USSR and Yugoslavia, and annexations like that of Texas. International order hates reversing completed processes, more so if the world is a better place.

If we do not annex Somalia and now, we will be a victim of its failed status and pulled down by it. We will not be able to achieve our strategic foreign policy in the region, or attain the Vision 2030 goal.

The time to annex and dismember Somalia is now; Washington and Moscow will be grateful.

[Enlarge] About The Author: Donald Kipkorir — Mr. Kipkorir is a lawyer and partner at the law firm of Kipkorir, Titoo & Kiara, based in Nairobi, Kenya. Kipkorir, Titoo & Kiara was established in 1996 and currently has 8 lawyers and 2 consultants as well as a capable team of paralegal and support staff. | More Articles By Daniel Kipkorir |