In Somalia, a failure in 1992 has led to a famine today

Washington Post by Nuruddin Farah | Aug. 3, 2011 (Opinion)

After the United States left Somalia, the rest of the world stood by, leaving the warlords to profit from their criminality. Al-Qaeda strengthened its presence in the country. Foreign vessels entered Somali waters and engaged in illegal fishing, which caused piracy to balloon into an ugly reality. Somalia lived on mortgaged time, leased out to criminals of one sort or another, an ideal world for terrorists to flourish. Full Story »

Posted by Katie Boswell

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Subjects: World, U.S., Politics, Sci/Tech, Living, Community
Topics: Poverty, United Nations, War, U.S. Military, Foreign Policy, Food, Somalia, Refugees, Water, Climate Change
Member Tags: famine
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# Tweets: 64 (as of 2011-08-03)
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Posted by: Posted by Katie Boswell - Aug 3, 2011 - 2:09 PM PDT
Reviewed by: Katie Boswell (review), Dwight Rousu (review)
Content Type: Article
Edit Lock: This story can be edited
Edited by: Dwight Rousu - Aug 5, 2011 - 1:47 PM PDT
Related Comments: Climate Change (9)

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Katie Boswell
3.9
 by Katie Boswell - Aug. 5, 2011

Insightful piece which explains the man-made aspects of the current tragic famine in Somalia. If you are watching the crisis unfold and feeling like we humans are powerless in the face of the environment, you need to read this article. It is human factors that have caused (natural) drought to escalate into (man-made) famine. As the author suggests, the world needs to be thinking now about how to prevent this happening again in 20 years time.

The Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen has said that famines are easy to prevent and that they often disappear with the establishment of a multiparty democracy, a free press ... More »

Katie posted this story.
See Full Review » (19 answers)
Dwight Rousu
3.6
 by Dwight Rousu - Aug. 5, 2011

Farah identifies his view of the genesis of the disaster, suggesting a need for a more effective and steadfast international intervention originally. The discussion, to be more complete, would have to encompass the decades long striving of the right wing and military to neuter the effectiveness of the United Nations unless they can convert it into an arm of the US military for asserting military control of resources.

By withdrawing, the Americans played into the hands of the disrupters of peace, ultimately privileging the terrorists. The United Nations rewarded the warlords with ... More »

See Full Review » (12 answers)

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