Why Raila trip to Washington did not yield much for alliance

National Super Alliance (NASA) leader Raila Odinga went to Washington DC in the hopes of making a case that Kenya was in a political crisis that deserved the intervention of the world’s most powerful democracy. But there was no one in town to hear him. Washington has its own worries and the artificial crisis that is the NASA “resistance wing” is not one of them. America’s sabre rattling with North Korea could escalate.

The fight against ISIS is drawing to a successful close, but this victory, like many other American military victories, will likely be succeeded by extensive political crises. Russia continues to press its information warfare against American democracy.

In this matter, at least, DC could learn a thing or two from Raila and NASA, who have deployed misinformation and the grotesque deformation of language in their fanatical following. There may be congressmen and women who want to hear from Raila how to become good at ‘weaponising’ information. Raila, in response, would simply point at Babu Owino and say, “This is our advanced prototype 2017; it can curse, threaten and use obscenity as an advanced political weapon. We plan to produce copies, and can share.”

The America Raila visited is heavily divided. It still has not moved on from the December elections: resentment and deafening quarrels at the highest political levels are the norm. The Democrats mostly refuse to accept they lost, and spend most of their time rallying their own “resistance”. In the unlikely event that President Donald Trump heard that Raila was in town, he needed to hear only two facts to tweet a terrifying dismissal: that Raila wants to abolish the principle of private property with his “rationalization” of land and that he is at war with healthy corporations for political gain.

Unfortunately, Trump may not have heard about Raila’s visit to Washington. Kenyans will hear a lot about it though. The awesome, and perfectly awful, NASA propaganda machine will make sure of it. For some years, especially around 2013, Raila was seen as a possible ally of the United States and the West. They gave up on him. Now the West just wants to manage him.