a couple of early thoughts about the ethiopia-somalia war:
(1) it's going to be very very bloody.
(2) we'll never know the full extent of how bloody it is.
(3) the early gains by ethiopia are meaningless unless the country figures out how to get out
(4) the odds of somalia emerging from anarchy anytime soon are now a lot smaller.
(5) i expect there will be a barrage of cartoonish portrayals of this war as a struggle of light against darkness by certain people on the american right.
(6) to some extent this is an american proxy war. earlier in the year, it came out that the u.s. was secretly funding the somali warlords who were battling the somali islamists. the remnants of those warlards are now the "transitional government" that is now being backed by the ethiopians. everyone involved is going to see an american hand it this, and they are almost certainly right to. we really dismiss this conflict as something unrelated to american foreign policy
