Role of warlords in anti-terror war reconsidered

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

By David R. Sands
The Washington Times
Published June 3, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Warlords may be getting a bad rap.

Amid a furor over suspected U.S. payments to local militia leaders battling Islamists in Somalia, some policy analysts are arguing that not all warlords are created equal, and some may even be vital in advancing U.S. foreign policy goals.

John C. Hulsman, a researcher at the Heritage Foundation, and Alexis Y. Debat, a senior fellow at the George Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute, go even farther, saying some of America's most glaring recent policy reverses can be blamed in part on the failure to work with local warlords.

"When looked at in the glare of reality, America's state-building record in the post-Cold War era is dreadful because of our reflexive antipathy for warlords and our unwillingness to co-opt them," they write in an essay for the journal "The National Interest," to be published next week.

In Haiti, they say, support for U.S.-backed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, installed in 2001, quickly crumbled because of the regime's failure to draw in the leaders of the island's other powerful factions. In Iraq, the pre-war U.S. tilt toward exiles such as Ahmed Chalabi over Shi'ite Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani -- described by the authors as a "spiritual warlord" in Iraq -- crippled early efforts to build a legitimate post-Saddam government.

more: http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20060603-124515-4103r

[pooja]

1. Support the regime that best works for bush

and when it doesn't distance yourself by playing dumb

[Vidar]

2. Just like we didn't co-opt Saddam, the Shah, Noriega or Marcos.

[Selatius]

3. Bullshit

The reason so many people hate the US is precisely because the US supported at one time or another dictators and warlords over the heads of many people from Central America to Southeast Asia to advance "U.S. foreign policy goals."

[bemildred]

4. Second that. People hate tyrants.

No other explanation is required.