For A Brutal World

Anything They Say blog has a great post on CIA covert involvement in Somalia - using mercenary companies as proxies.

If there is one thing the Bush administration is good at it is destabilisation. And while the CIA appears not be conducting operations directly in such operations (do they ever?), they certainly appear to know of the employment of private US companies, like Virginia-based Select Armor, in this foreign engagement. It's like the Reagan days, all over again, though one might be inclined to wonder if they ever went away. There appear to be some differences this time, however. Instead of thwarting the scourge of communism, now it is the evil that is Sharia law. And we used to just train and fund the death squads, now, it seems, we will be the death squads. Privately, of course.

Just like Blackwater, Select Armor employs former British and US special forces and joining the US military is, more and more, appearing to be just a stepping stone to riches once your tour is done and you can move into the world of private, covert and higly-paid illegal military ops in some of the world's most dangerous places. Amusingly, Select Armor's tag line is "for a brutal world," apparently unaware of the irony conveyed.

The larger issue is, once again, that the US is in breach of international law by tacitly engaging in such acitivities, specifically the UN arms embargo on the region. John Bolton is right, the UN is ineffective in such cases. It is made that way by the United States, a country that insists everyone else obey international law but her.

Definitely worth a read.