Hotspots

The Horn of Africa (Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan) is about as fucked up a place as you can find right now and it is about to get even worse. The Islamic militia currently occupying Mogadishu has called for a holy war against Ethiopian troops brought in to protect the barely functioning Somali government. Sidebar: How wrecked a nation do you have to be to need help from Ethiopia? For its part, the Ethiopian government is denying that their troops have crossed the border even though there is ample evidence otherwise. The militia is obviously nervous about the Ethiopian troops and bald-faced lies by the government about their presence have not helped.

There is a lot of history between these two countries and little of it is good. Somalia is poor, unstable, and Muslim. Ethiopia is poor, only slightly more stable, and largely Christian. Somalia invaded Ethiopia in 1977 and got their asses handed to them. Ethiopia has invaded Somalia a couple of times in the past 15 years to crush Islamic revolutions and the Somalis didn’t like it one bit. Add to that the Somali tendency to talk a lot of shit and take offense at even the slightest provocation. Stir in the fact that since the ouster of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, there has been no functioning Somali government. Fifteen years of anarchy and infighting tends to make one paranoid and quick to the trigger. Fold into this mix the ongoing sectarian violence tearing up Sudan. Combine these ingredients with the absolute saturation of weapons in the region and you have a recipe for one king mother of a humanitarian disaster soufflé.