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In 2006 the brutal war-lord regimes in Somalia found themselves facing a popular uprising. The people of Somalia, enough of them anyway, organized the Islamic Justice Courts and started putting the war lords out of business. You and I may not like a government with a religious base, but it was the best of the real choices that Somalis could come up with. It could have led to peace and democracy.
Instead the CIA, the United States of America's overseas intelligence and terrorism arm, decided that an Islamic state was undesirable. Even though they support certain dictatorial Islamic states like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The problem with the Islamic Justice Courts was not just that they were Islamic; it was the Justice part that really bugged President Bush, the Democratic Party leadership, corporate interests, and the Pentagon. Justice is really scary to these people. So they made friends with their former enemies the Somali war lords (including the ones responsible for the "Black Hawk Down" incident) and created a "provisional government." They got the United Nations, a brutal international organization that somehow thinks it has the right to give countries with powerful armies the right to commit war crimes, to also back their puppet government. The fact that the puppet government was not elected and never plans to have open elections was seen as an advantage.
But even with CIA support the government was confined by Somali patriots to the town of Baidoa. So the CIA and Pentagon went to the government of Ethiopia and encouraged it to invade Somalia, which is a war crime. Against the armored vehicles and war planes of the Ethiopians the Somali patriot army was nearly helpless. Now, to continue to oppress the Somalis and promote US interests in the region, some African states are earning brownie points with their former white imperialist masters by sending troops to defend the CIA's government there.
What about Ethiopia? I did not know much about Ethiopia's present day governance until I read "On a Dilemma in the Horn," in the February 24, 2007 Economist. Ethiopia has the kind of government the CIA and corporate America have always loved. Meles Zenawi's government is not exactly popular. Opposing him in any way is a dangerous business. Just belonging to an opposition party is dangerous. Independent and opposition newspapers and web sites have been closed. Journalists are in jail; dissidents have "disappeared." School teachers and even students have been arrested, brutally beaten, and even tortured. Meanwhile the economy is failing. But fear not, the British poodle is sending more aid while the Pentagon is beefing up their military equipment.
When will the American people reject the war crimes parties (Democrats and Republicans) and start acting like a peaceful, civilized nation? I don't know. Maybe never. The American people, most of them, most of the time, have always been more interested in Greed than in Justice, from the days they landed at Plymouth Rock and Jamestown right up until the present.