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Shooting from the hip, I want to start off right at the get-go to convey my sorrow for the soldier souls we lost in Somalia last Saturday. Those young comrades are the tragic example of dying for one’s country.
And then there are the Wannabes! One Gordon Opiyo, a former colleague, wrote a Facebook post “we should all be like Israelites where 90% of the population are reserve soldiers. I am ready to leave the comforts of my home and I’d gladly go to Somalia to join the combat.”
Maybe Opiyo meant the Israelis? Or maybe he was going all Old Testament on us – and if you read ‘Joshua’ and all about their slaughter of the Hittites, Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Amorites, Perizzites, Amalekites and Jebusites, you will know you were dealing with wannabe ‘Interahamwes’ in the name of killing for God – just like al Shaabab.
But back to Gordon’s post, the wannabe patriots poured out in full war-and-cry mode.
Ren ole Furka: I will follow you (to Somalia).
E. Mwangi: All Form Fours to join NYS and get combat skills. Compulsory!
Ras Nick: I am ready to go! No looking back.
Gichimu wa Njeri: Patriotism calls for such a move.
And I thought, wow, look at all these wonderful wannabe 254 patriots, ready to drop work, friends, family, everything, and drag their cumbersome pot bellies across the border to Muqdisho.
Of course they would have to cross the Kenyan border either at El Wak or Mandera, go by truck to Bardera or Lugh Ganana, then make their way to Baidoa, Bur Acaba, Madamarodi, Uanle Uen before being briefed in Uarsciek.
I can bet my last Somali shilling the likes of Gichimu wa Njeri have never even heard of one of these towns, yet are ready to go to ‘combat.’
Even as tears of the sacrifice these Facebook warriors were ready to make welled up in my eyeballs, the wannabe patriotism screeched up a note higher.
Murithii Nyaguto: I want to be enlisted NOW!
Ibrah Murrey: Me TOO, Comrades in Arms!
Jeffrey Mburu: PRESENT and ready to secure My Motherland!
Usilale Baba Sean: I will enlist for FREE.
Mteshi Godfrey: I will SHOW Somali terrorist we are not coward or chickens...
(that one briefly made me recall that cartoon program, ‘Cow and Chicken.’).
Titus Kimeu: What a great idea, Gordon. Let’s mobilize.
(and a woman called Wairimu Maina also popped up to say ‘I will join and do warreva!’).
All these wannabes, getting carried away by ‘patriotism’, silly war fantasies and the sort of testosterone a ten year old boy gets after watching a war movie or some kick flick by the likes of Bruce Lee.
Some scientist should study how some people who hide under the table the second a bottle is flung in a bar-room brawl get brass balls once screened behind a keyboard and ‘grow cojones’ to talk Godfather.
Half-mast #hashtags and all sorts of other things followed – everything but the hard questions.
CS Nkaisserry was right that nobody should circulate pictures of the supposed dead soldiers; but to instruct the security organs to crack down on such misusers of the social media (whom at worst we can accuse of very bad taste) takes away from the true gravitas of tracking and cracking down on real terrorists.
Madame Raychelle Omamo spoke in accentuated terms of ‘retaliatory attacks.’ Well and good. But does this mean at other times we are at ‘pax’ with these ASSes of al Shaabab and only after their outrageous ‘How Dare They?’ attacks do we go hammer-and-tongs after their ‘camps’?
Our own Commander-In-Chief looked spanking in his cool military gear a year or two ago that created a buzz on social media, and I am sure I was one among many loyal citizens (and victim relatives who said it) who looked forward to the CiC receiving survivors at the Wilson airport. But bosses also delegate duties, especially when they are not in the vicinity...
So we’ll just take the Big Brass’s words at face value – that they will follow the ASS ‘to the end.’
I look at that Somali coastal strip, starting from El Adde where KDF died.
As some pop song says, ‘this is just the beginning, it’s not the end, things will never be the same again.’
