Oppenheim Arts & Letters

Being Jewish

This is one of those pieces written for conversation elsewhere, but I feel it worth sharing in this venue where I've expressed interest in conflict and universalism both.

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Here is ther remark that stimulated this post:

". . . it seems that if you were, say, "German" it because you are born there, or your ancestors hail from that region. The Jew do the same thing, but use the religion of Judaism instead of a geographical region as an identifying trait. Tecnically, I guess, an athiest Jew would be an impossible term...but as the world, more or less, treats the Jewish people as a race, AND as a religion, who am I to argue?"

Here is my long response to it, edited and revised a little--

I'm not really singling out this quote but rather just choosing to type up, I guess, at this point.

European Jews are not any more representative of Jewry worldwide than are Chinese or Ethiopian Jews. 

Neither Abraham nor all the sons maintained an exclusively kosher house, so to speak.  Intermarriage and conversions, including significant populations of proselytes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proselytes) have been a part of the culture and religion.

For the curious as opposed to venal, selection of a few strands informing Judaism might include the following: Torah, Talmud, Mishnah, Gemara, Kabbala.  Without minimal cognizance of each, there's nothing through which to view the culture and religion and its interior variants.

For any seeking the history of Judaism, there is, of course, the venerable Jewish Encyclopedia, now in the public domain and online at this address:

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/

For side-by-side ethnography, author and scholar Raphael Patai publshed two authoritative volumes: _The Arab Mind_ and _The Jewish Mind_ (I've read one and left off half way through the other but mean to return to it).

Jewish identity is many things.  To ignorant others, it has been about blood or genetic inheritance, and Jews have been depicted with bigoted enthusiasm as exaggerations of the bigot's own type or as familiar boogies from folkdom.

For Jews (and if you're Jewish and would like to chat about being Jewish, because I sure would, lol, feel welcome to reach me through my main web at http://www.communicating-arts.com), possibly the single most unifying elements would be an inspired universalism first, which needs not a faith in God, and then God and identity with the Jewish people, which are a cloud (all surviving 15 million of us) as well as a "light unto the nations".

For those with affection for the "foundation texts" of any of the three monotheist religions, Jewish thought suggests that if God imparted such work to Moses, then it would have been delivered perfectly and for all time, no course corrections or rewrites necessary.  The books considered divine, I think but shall be corrected if I'm wrong, lol, are just the first five books of the Old Testament or "Pentatuch".  Scholars denote the second section, or the work of the prophets as "Nevi'im", and the remainder as "Ketuvim"--and I have been recently corrected: the Jewish bible (really, this is where I am starting) is the Tanakh, and all of it may be regarded as divinely inspired.

Treating the works as poetic instruction rather than explicit direction, the Jewish way has been to strive to more perfectly understand the perfect and then orient behavior and law to it.  There has been no need to revert to biblical injunctions passed along through stories as the spirit of such takes always precedence over the mechanics imposed by the historical period of composition or inspiration.

That's about as simple and fast as I can type it out, but a little looking into any of the terms I've noted will open a small window into what it means to be Jewish and, for most--no people can deny they have criminals among them--what it means also to be good.

A little research also may help some understand how a process living inside a people may not have to be explicitly taught to nonetheless have itself learned and passed through from one generation to the next.

To enjoy a sense of how far afield Judaism has gone, and here the suggestion of a direct offshoot from the ancient Semitic base, I'm going to venture this reference on Judaism within the Pathan tribes of Afghanistan and Pakistan:

http://www.dangoor.com/74069.html

Again, to reinforce the thought, the Jews, having received the Torah, have long sought to understand it.  The manner of thinking carries through to all humans who would wish to adopt it, but as the community itself is introspective, those who would be Jewish have only to bring themselves to it if they are able to.

Wikipedia Gateways

Tenakh: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanakh

Torah: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torah

Talmud: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talmud

Mishnah: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mishnah

Gemara: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemara
 
Kabbala: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabbalah

Samaritan Pentateuch: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samaritan_Pentateuch

Nevi'im: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevi'im

Ketuvim: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketuvim

Cited Reference

Jewish Encylopedia: http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/index.jsp

Katzir, Issachar.  "The Israeli Source of the Pathan Tribes."  From the book, Lost Tribes from Assyria, by A Avihail and A Brin, 1978.: http://www.dangoor.com/74069.html

Patai, Raphal.  The Arab Mind.  New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973.

Patai, Raphael.  The Jewish Mind.  New York: Jason Aronson, 1977. 

Other Reference

Judaism 101: http://www.jewfaq.org/index.htm

Shalom!

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Madoff - Elie Wiesel Foundation Hit Hard

"We are deeply saddened and distressed that we, along with many others, have been the victims of what may be one of the largest investment frauds in history. We are writing to inform you that the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity had $15.2 million under management with Bernard Madoff Investment Securities. This represented substantially all of the Foundation's assets."

Put that bit of news next to this about Elie Wiesel:

"A devoted supporter of Israel, Elie Wiesel has also defended the cause of Soviet Jews, Nicaragua's Miskito Indians, Argentina's Desaparecidos, Cambodian refugees, the Kurds, victims of famine and genocide in Africa, of apartheid in South Africa, and victims of war in the former Yugoslavia. For more than ten years, Elie and his wife Marion have been especially devoted to the cause of Ethiopian-born Israeli youth through the Foundation's Beit Tzipora Centers for Study and Enrichment."

May the good recognize and respond to good universally.

http://www.eliewieselfoundation.org/homepage.aspx

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Pakistan - Bajaur - Ceasefire a Possible Taliban Pivot

With reference to the earlier post on a Taliban - Pakistan Army ceasefire in Bajaur Agency, Telegraph UK reports, "Sources close to the Taliban leader said the announcement was made following assurances of an amnesty for his fighters and a secret agreement was signed between the commissioner for Malakand district and Faqir Mohammad and his spokesman, Maulvi Omar."

Potentially as fractured as a hot marble dropped in ice water, the Taliban have several motives for requesting a ceasefire, among them, suggests the Telegraph, the refocusing of resources toward NATO rather than toward the Pakistani government. 

Such a move may also mask disloyalty in the Taliban's top ranks. 

According to the Telegraph, a Brigadier Mehmud Shah, ret., has noted resentment in Bajaur that "Waziristan Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud" had not come to the aid of subaltern Faqir Mohammad in Bajaur during the army's most recent offensive.  If true, Mehsud's behavior may bespeak a feudal interest in Waziristan, where he now presides for the Taliban, competing with interest in Jihad throughout the region.

Reference

Nelson, Dean and Emal Khan.  "Taliban calls ceasefire in order to concentrate on attacking Nato."  Telegraph UK, February 25, 2009: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/4799343/Taliban-calls-ceasefire-in-order-to-concentrate-on-attacking-Nato.html

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Islam's Conflict-Driven Disease Vectors for Polio

I've noted resistance to polio vaccination among the Talibanized tribes of Pakistan, and, of course, that policy has not been without peril to the children of Pashtun families affected. [1]

AlertNet now reports the infection of a four-year-old girl in northern Kenya: "The girl is believed to have contracted the virus from neighbouring southern Sudan, which has struggled to improve its health sector since a 2005 peace deal ended a two-decade civil war." [2]

In that polio has been eradicated in most parts of the world, essentially those covered by immunization, the unforgiveable sin of preventing vaccinations in conflict zones would seem to have produced a disease vector.

One case from any conflict zone indicates the potential for many, many more of the same and much sorrow to pay for it.

While Islamic conflict zones and polio may have a special relationship related to resistance to vaccination, disease may certainly attend other conflict-ridden or decayed societies.  Zimbabwe's cholera outbreak reverts to both by way of efforts by the central government to subvert support for opposition politicians by sabotaging local sanitation facilities [3] and then forestalling efforts to cover the outbreak as it spread.  The death toll from cholera in Zimbabwe now numbers in the thousands [4], every single one of them preventable under normal administrative and sanitation protocols.

Reference

1. Oppenheim, James S.  "Pakistan - Misery Across Borders - Polio on the Rise."  Oppenheim Arts & Letters, September 30, 2008: http://commart.typepad.com/oppenheim_arts_letters/2008/09/pakistan---misery-across-borders---polio-on-the-rise.html

2. Bevege, Alison and Daniel Wallis (Ed.).  "Polio infects child in Kenya, first case since 2006."  AlertNet, February 25, 2009: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LP623578.htm

3. Oppenheim, James S. "Zimbabwe - Cholera Knows No Politics."  Oppenheim Arts & Letters, January 28, 2009: http://commart.typepad.com/oppenheim_arts_letters/2009/01/zimbabwe---cholera-knows-no-politics.html

4. BBC.  "Zimbabwe cholera deaths top 3,000."  BBC News, January 28, 2009: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7855666.stm

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Pakistan - Bajaur's Uncertain Peace

Bill Roggio published overnight a thorough analysis of the latest arrangements between Pakistan's Frontier Corps, which has been working across valleys to shut down movement across the Durand Line, and Taliban under the leadership of Faqir Mohammad.  Close to the top of Roggio's article and most telling:

"The ceasefire was ordered because it was "in the interest of Pakistan and our region," Faqir said, according to the BBC. "We advise our people not to take action against security forces. Pakistan is our country and the Pakistan army is our army." [1]

Pakistan's Army is not the Taliban's Army.

Inducing doubt in army troops that it may nonetheless be such--that is the language and mind game played by the Taliban, whom one might well suppose would hope to turn the army against Pakistan's own traditional power bases--the officers of the military, the land owners, and the liberal and pro-western intelligentsia--as well as the shaky but democratically elected government.

Oliver Stone many years ago in Natural Born Killers made the point that a rattlesnake may not strike at once but remains always a rattlesnake, venomous, and intent on striking.

Cited Reference

1. Roggio, Bill.  "Taliban, Pakistani Army declare ceasefire in Bajaur."  The Long War Journal, February 25, 2009; lead: "One day after the Bajaur Taliban declared a unilateral ceasefire, the Pakistani Army ordered a four-day halt to operations in the tribal areas." http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/02/taliban_pakistani_ar_3.php

Other Reference

Wikipedia. "Faqir Mohammed": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faqir_Mohammed

Iran - Two Women Flogged for Organizing Labor

"20 February 2009 Two Iranian women labor activists, convicted for participating in May Day celebrations, have been punished by flogging, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran reported today."

http://www.iranhumanrights.org/themes/news/single-news/article/two-women-labor-activists-flogged-their-crime-celebrating-may-day.html

Apparently, the problem with capitalism is not the capitalists but Iranian theologians who seem eager to stand in their stead.

Smile.

The second row seat to history reports old news, however recent it may be.

That bedevils me, so I will have to fix that.  Whoever the reader, the reader deserves better than reformatted information.

Related to the above topic, however, I do have a list of Iranian allegedly murdered by the Islamic Republic of Iran and intend to publish that soon.  Even that, however, derives from Wikipedia and a PEN member web site or two.

The important thing here, whether it's the state-sanctioned murder of intellectuals by an Islamic state or a beating meted out to two very nice women workng on behalf of workers laboring in 20th Century style factories, the continuous publishing of such outrages should help the whole word, which has in but a few years developed a broad media-built illustration of Islam and, in practice, its often Luddite sense of humanity, address the militant spear of the Islamist front as well as work on or with Muslims who, if they are not with the Kalashnikov Sharia program, must necessarily be deeply embarrassed by the transgressions of the representative theocratic states, especially Iran.

For the momma of Islamic apostate sites, I cannot too highly recommend a visit to http://islam-watch.org/index.html.

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Pakistan--Securing Bajaur

"'It means that Charmang is now in our hands,' he said, referring to a valley leading to Afghanistan. He said only two more valleys remained." [1]

One click will take you to the article (http://www.dawn.net/wps/wcm/connect/Dawn%20Content%20Library/dawn/news/pakistan/nwfp/pakistani-forces-close-securing-bajaur--qs)

The speaker of the above quote is Major General Tariq Khan, and his reference is to the work of Pakistan's Frontier Corp shutting down routes across the Durand Line enabling militant ingress to Afghanistan.

One may interpret the piece as part of the mosaic of a story that shifts as militants evade earnest state military operations to make mischief elsewhere.

Reference

1. Dawn / Reuters.  "Pakistani forces close to securing Bajaur: Gen Tariq."  February 24, 2009: http://www.dawn.net/wps/wcm/connect/Dawn%20Content%20Library/dawn/news/pakistan/nwfp/pakistani-forces-close-securing-bajaur--qs

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People of the Books

Where conflict thrives, find ignorance and plenty of it; where evil thrives, look for the rhetoricians.

All know the privilege of reading whatever one may wish does not extend to Islamic regimes, much less the divine permit to write as one may feel compelled on behalf of freedom, humanity, justice, and security.

Along the Islamist Front, militants collect and burn books and call the love of such open reading idolatry; beyond that front, we write books and harbor them and may call what we do the intimate sharing of cultural and personal memory.

Here are three companions, each prophetic, that will not sting one's eyes but rather illuminate the relationship between the peaceful and wise and their capacious libraries and spirits.

The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel

"A library is not only a place of both order and chaos; it is also the realm of chance.  Books, even after they have been given a shelf and a number, retain a mobility of their own.  Left to their own devices, they assemble in unexpected formations; they follow secret rules of similarity, unchronicled genealogies, common interests and themes.  Left in unattended corners or on piles by our bedside, in cartons or on shelves, waiting to be sorted and catalogued on some future day many times postponed, the stories held by books cluster around what Henry James called a "general intention" that often escapes readers: "the string the pearls were strung on, the buried treasure, the figure in the carpet."

My interest when I ordered Manguel's book from Amazon: how to organize the more than 2,000 books in my collection.

Manguel's implied answer: don't worry about it--organizing books in the personal library may be an organic process, a function of the pull of affinity, memory, superficial interests, and deep themes.

Readers will find The Library at Night, a combined history, observation, and philosophy of collection, a breathtaking work of art, comprehensive in its historical touchstones and  expansive in its grasp of humanity through its identification with books and its reverence for illumination from many sources.

Here's another inviting bone for the still wary bibliophile (p. 237):

"After the Nazis began their looting and destruction of the Jewish libraries, the librarian in charge of the Sholem Aleichem Library in Biala Podlaska decided to save the books by carting away, day after day, as many as he and a colleague could manage, even though he believed that very soon "there would be no readers left."  After two weeks the holdings had been moved to a secret attic, where they were discovered by the historian Tuvia Borzykowski long after the war ended.  Writing about the librarian's action, Borzykowski remarked that it was carried out "without any consideration as to whether anyone would ever need the saved books": it was an act of rescuing memory per se.  The universe, the ancient cabbalists believed, is not contingent on our reading it; only on the possibility of our reading it."

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

Anne, the Lutheran minister's daughter ever interested in Judaism, which may have some to do with interest in me, loaned me this gem of a novel written around the imagined history of the Sarajevo Haggadah, a real museum treasure.  On the book's subject, here is the nonfiction wrapper:

"The Sarajevo Haggadah is an illuminated manuscript that contains the traditional text of the Passover Haggadah which accompanies the Passover Seder. It is the oldest Sephardic Haggadah in the world, originating in Barcelona around 1350. The Haggadah is presently owned by the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo, where it is on permanent display.

The Sarajevo Haggadah is handwritten on bleached calfskin and illuminated in copper and gold. It opens with 34 pages of illustrations of key scenes in the Bible from creation through the death of Moses. Its pages are stained with wine, evidence that it was used at many Passover Seders. It is considered to be the most beautiful illuminated Jewish manuscript in existence and one of the most valuable books in the world. In 1991 it was appraised at US$700 million" [1].

Most compelling in both the real history of the book and the illustration of that history through Brooks' lively fiction are the strands weaving together Christian, Jewish, and Muslim intellectuals (my lists are almost always alphabetical, seldom political) and officials in the development and securing of the Haggadah as well the emperiling of it and its owners.

Setting out clues as keys to the past, Brooks looks through the windows provided by an odd binding, a splash of blood and wine, and a single white strand of hair to bring to mind the fully plausible story of the life of the book and its artists, sponsors, censors, and heroic saviors.

Things I've Been Silent About by Azar Nafisi

A history of books, a novel about a single book, and here . . . a memoir by a book lover, and what a figure history has in a de facto way made of Azar Nafisi, the daughter of the former mayor of Tehran, Ahmad Nafisi.  Most telling about the historical and personal terrain covered by this book are parts of its prologue (p. xix-xx):

"My grandmother was born when Iran was ruled by a destabilized absolutist monarchy and was under rigid laws that sanctioned stoning, polygamy, and the marriage of girls as young as nine . . . My grandmother witnessed the Constitutional Revolution of 1905-11, the first of its kind in the Middle East, which helped usher in modern Iran, galvanizing different strata of society, including the progressive clerics, minorities, intellectuals, some members of the nobility and women, some of whom had started to support the revolutionaries, setting up underground groups and demanding access to education.  By 1912 Morgan Shuster, an American financial advisor to Iran, marveled at the leaps Iranian women had made in such a short period of time, embracing new freedoms that had taken years, even centuries for Western women to achieve . . . .

"By the time I was growing up in the 1950s and '60s, we took our education and our books and parties and movies for granted.  We witnessed women becoming active in all walks of life, governing in Parliament--among them, briefly, my own mother--and becoming ministers.  But then, by 1984, my own daughter, born five years after the Islamic Revolution, would witness the return of the same laws that had been repealed during my grandmother's and my mother's lifetimes.  My daughter would be forced to wear a veil in first grade and would be punished for showing her hair in public . . .

"In this book my interest is not in a general recitation of historical times but rather in those fragile intersections--the places where moments in an individual's private life and personality resonate with and reflect a larger, more universal story."

As with others on fronts countervailing to the Islamist one, Azar Nafisi has found work in the Washington area: she is a Visiting Fellow of the Foreign Policy Institue at Johns Hopkins University (JHU) and as Director of the Dialogue Project withing the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, JHU.

In ways similar to those mentioned by American Enterprise Institute Fellow Ayaan Hirsi Ali in Infidel, Nafisi's encounter with western literature seem to have more energized and focused the author than the vicissitudes of having grown up in a politically active household in the interesting times that paved the way for what has become one of the world's more volatile and belicose states.

Nafisi herself seems to have played an admitted unwitting role in facilitating the Islamic Revolution in Iran, for in earlier days she had opted into the left-wing internationlists organization and endorsed actions critical of the Shah of Iran's autocratic and disconnected regime.

"Gradually I found myself drawn into the Confederation of Iranian Students, one of the most active campus movements in the United States.  There I was not treated as a young divorcee, but was invited to participate in reading groups on Engels's The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State . . . .

"The Confederation was an umbrella organization, composed of groups with different ideological viewpoints, but with time, especially in the U.S., the most militant and radical ideologies became dominant."

Eventually flanked by militant socialists on one side and Islamic extremists on the other, the Shah fled Iran.  The first order of business for Ayatollah Khomeini's returned-from-Paris regime, so it would seem, was to off the worldly opposition:

"At first the revolutionary committees were unarmed groups whose role was to help suppress the chaos and protect communities, while at the same time arresting counterrevolutionaries, which at first meant supporters of the old regime but soon extended to liberal and radical forces.  It wasn't long before the committees became the guardians of our morality and began arresting citizens for a whole range of crimes, from blasphemy to possession of alcoholic beverages and Western music" (p. 221).

I hope I haven't exceded "fair use" on this note, but there's plenty left for reading, and if you are of like mind, you will find all of it entertaining, informative, and quotable, for Brooks, Manguel,and Nafisi write like angels, and reading them makes for much good company in the library whether day or night.

Reference

Brooks, Geraldine.  People of the Book.  New York: Viking, 2008.

Manguel, Alberto.  The Library at Night.  New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2006.

Nafisi, Azar.  Things I've Been Silent About.  New York: Random House, 2008.

1. Wikipedia. "Sarajevo Haggadah": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarajevo_Haggadah

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Pakistan and the Caliphate of Waziristan

I'm feeling a bit alarmist today.

“We have signed the agreement and we would stand by it despite all the pressures. I have to look after my land and protect my people, it does not bother me what are the reservations of NATO and other forces, we have rendered uncountable sacrifices for peace,” Asfandyar Wali Khan told media after condoling the death of ANP’s MPA Alamzeb Khan at his residence. [1]

Asfandyar Wali Khan, President of Pakistan's National Awami Party, a liberal and secular force on the frontier landscape, has signaled continuance of a treating process in which militant forces, today, possibly, the newly forged "Council of United Mujahideen" [2] agree to ceasefire in exchange for acceptance of their conditions--and, if the history of such treaties proves consistent, continued fighting after all.

Here's another and even less delightful perspective:

"The government has adopted a strategy to flush out terrorists from Swat, and peace will be restored there within two weeks, the Daily Times quoted Malik, as saying." [3]

Pakistan Interior Advisor Rehman Malik uttered the above nonsense more than a month ago (January 22) and in the same report "also blamed poor infrastructure and lack of education and jobs in the region for turning people towards extremism."

Poppycock.

The plain hard truth for Pakistan as well as Somalia, Gaza, and other hot zones in the Islamic Small Wars: the Islamist Front has enlarged and matastized. 

Whatever the details of its organization, from the triumverate organized by Hafiz Gul Bahadar, Mullah Nazir, and Baitullah Mehsud for the push against Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the United States in the tribal regions of Pakistan to leadership in Somalia associated with Abu Mansoor (Mukhtar Robow Ali), AQ-minded spokesman for al-Shabaab, the movement has created its own denied territory.  Armies my come and go across it, but the front remains and resists destruction.

The number of young women recently deprived of schooling in Swat Valley in relation to the expansion of the front: more than 40,000 [4]

The number of Taliban training camps in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province indicating the security with which the front facilitates its lethal entrepreneurship: more than 150. [5]

Every elected public official in Pakistan must live with that scorecard or change it.

Reference

1. Awami National Party.  "ANP will go to any length for Swat deal: Asfandyar Wali Khan."  February 21, 2009: http://awaminationalparty.org/news/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=205&Itemid=1

2. Roggio, Bill.  "Waziristan Taliban alliance declares support for Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar."  The Long War Journal, February 23, 2009: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/02/waziristan_taliban_a.php

3. ANI.  "Foreign hands behind Swat, FATA insurgency, says Malik.  Thaindian News, January 22, 2009: http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/south-asia/foreign-hands-behind-swat-fata-insurgency-says-malik_100145708.html

4. AP.  "Taliban ban 'un-Islamic' female education in Pakistan region."  Dallas News, January 18, 2009: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/world/stories/DN-pakistan_18int.ART.State.Edition1.4ec1ee1.html

5. Roggio, Bill.  "Cross-border strike targets one of the Taliban's 157 training camps in Pakistan's northwest."  The Long War Journal, August 13, 2008: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/08/crossborder_strike_t.php

Other Reference

Roggio, Bill.  "US Predator strike in South Waziristan kills 25."  The Long War Journal, February 14, 2009: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/02/us_predator_strike_i.php

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Somalia - Little Resistance to Al-Shabaab Attacks

"A mother and her baby died after a shell landed on their house," resident Abdirizak Mohamed told Reuters. "Their flesh was so mangled we did not know what to carry." [1]

Thank Somali insurgent-launched mortar for that morsel of second-hand news.

In Waziristan, Pakistani officials have elected to feed the crocodile (more on that in a moment); in Somalia, the crocodile ignores the conciliatory offers and tears up the track without resistance, attacking police and African Union peacekeepers at will.

Targets: 3,400 African Union Peacekeepers from Burundi and Uganda; the recently elected administration of President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed (former President Abdulahi Yusuf Ahmed quit mid-term this winter); any hapless innocents whom fate has placed before mortar fire.

Undermanned, underfunded, and unprepared for vigorous assaults by the irregular al-Shabaab force, those opposed to their mission find themselves defending fewer and fewer critical assets, so many from Kismayu to Mogadishu have become the administrative province of the Islamic Courts.

Without a backdraft program to hunt al-Shabaab fighters and erode the movement's energy, the government of Islamist cleric Ahmed may expect to cede additional assets to its enemies.

One may find the familiar cant attending the Somali disaster disheartening.  From the same article, two statements [2]:

"The peacekeepers are not invading forces but they come to the country with permission" of the government, said Ahmed, who is an Islamist cleric.

and

"The Shebab, which had carried out relentless attacks against the Ethiopians, recently called on its fighters to intensify their holy war against the AU peacekeepers whom they describe as invaders and crusaders."

Reuters reports the death toll over two years of fighting at 16,000 and related internal displacement at more than one million.

Reference

1. Reuters.  "Fighting kills at least 13 in Somali capital."  AlertNet, February 24, 2009: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LO003840.htm

2. AFP.  "Somali president urges end to attacks on peacekeepers."  February 23, 2009: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090223/wl_africa_afp/somaliaunrestafricanunion

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