With its antique military equipment, Kenya cannot sustain war in Somalia

By Kenneth Kwama

Black Hawk Down, which was the chic film to watch around 1993, was not a pleasant view.

The movie lasted close to one and half hours - the vast majority of which was taken up by bombs, bullets, grenades and body parts.

It supposedly portrayed the American fiasco in Somalia, which left 18 US soldiers and thousands of Somalis dead. If a film has ever-glorified murder, this was it.

Yet, several other accounts have vindicated the movie as a true account of what really happened. It showed US soldiers leaving Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, dejected, having entered with a noble mission — the same that our broke Government is now mulling over — to help stop the war there.

It’s true war in Somalia is bad for Kenya because of the incessant insecurity and negative effects of the spillovers. Neither staying neutral nor Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula’s hint of military intervention offer a semblance of success. Both approaches will only bring nightmares. All logic could prove illusory if Somalia’s neighbours plunge the region into war. That is why the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development should avoid sending troops into Somalia as this might only escalate fighting in the country.

But while those fears have a real hold on me, I can’t help transporting myself back to the early 1990s when the US invaded Iraq, hoping to vanquish Saddam Hussein and set Iraqis free from his reign of terror.

However, the single most troubling aspect of the war in Iraq is that when it was launched by the US, it was against the wicked Saddam Hussein, yet majority of the so-called "insurgents" against whom US forces are now fighting hated Saddam more than the US did.

Al Qaeda

Kenya should be ready for a similar situation if it enters the fray in Somalia.

It could be true some elements of the dreaded Al Qaeda movement, which claimed responsibility for the 1998 bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi, could be regrouping in Mogadishu.

But before we lunge into a war that is rightfully more for the US than us, we need to take stock of our might as a nation and ask whether Kenya can succeed where the superpower, with all its military might, has failed.

For us, the consequences can be hard to imagine. The terrorists in Somalia are likely to forget the US and turn their fury on Kenyans — a situation that will be more difficult to handle.

Billions have been misspent on old and antiquated military equipment. Our military planes are falling off the skies and the military trucks, which the Government bought from China, can barely manage our relatively smoother terrain. I don’t think we can manage this war on our own and it is good that desperately needed equipment to fight the growing insurgency is on its way to Somalia from the US.

There is also need to look at the other wars Al Qaeda or its other allies like the Taliban have been fighting in places like Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq before we decide whether it’s prudent to join the war or not.

—Kwama is a Senior writer with The Standard.

kenkwama@standardmedia.co.ke