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By the time Kenya decided to invade Somalia in October of 2011, the country had experienced spates of local terrorism in its northern region for decades. The terrorists were commonly referred to as “Shiftaâ€, and the northern region they inhabited was largely considered a hostile zone.
The difference between Shifta and Al-Shabaab is the substance and scope of the threat. Shiftas morphed out of groups that had been economically, socially and politically marginalized since independence. Al-Shabaab comes with connections to other global networks of terror. Its access to funds, weapons and a larger pool of recruits makes them a threat that Africa cannot ignore.
Following the marching of 3000 Kenya Defense Forces into Somalia, President Kibaki declared that Kenya was not at war with its neighbor. “Our mission in Somalia is based on a legitimate right to protect Kenya’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,†he said in a visit to Australia. He said that Kenya was in it for the long haul.
In international relations lingo, he was correct; it was a war against non-state actors without recognized sovereignty, and not against the legitimate government of Somalia. But it needs to be understood that Somalia’s government barely holds on to legitimacy after years of anarchy. The non-state players within Somalia are still formidable players in the Somali nation.
The number of casualties, both from KDF and the civilians in Somalia, remains unknown. More tragic, Kenyans seem to have little interest in tallying the losses of their sons in battle. No one asks. No one seems to care except the mothers, spouses and children who quietly receive the remains of their loved ones. Kenya’s former Premier, Raila Odinga, was unsuccessful in his demands to get the government to release the numbers of Kenya’s dead soldiers.
We haven’t learnt to call them “heroes†yet. Legitimate war and all its patriotic strappings of valor, honor and virtue, is still a new concept for Kenyans as the country has never gone to war before. Legitimate war refers to a military solution chosen by a sovereign state whose authority is recognized in the realm of global politics. This recognition is powerful as it leads to securing powerful allies and the attraction of necessary resources.
Legitimate war, however misguided a solution, carries with it political right on its side. There are no ethics in war and politics; only rational interests. When a military option doesn’t meet its intended national interest goals, a process of optimization where other solutions are prioritized is necessary. The government as the instrument that chooses the options must weigh if the military solution and all its known and hidden costs, both in human lives and national resources, has helped meet the intended goal of keeping Kenya safe.
Kenya’s incursion into Somalia is a political experiment, a testing of its unused military tool and its efficacy in establishing regional power. Fighting Al-Shabaab in Somalia presented a convenient reason for this experiment in power consolidation. The government knew that Al-Shabaab’s recruits who cause havoc in Kenya are mostly Kenyan, and the group’s major supply networks are facilitated through Kenya. The logical place to fight Al-Shabaab was in Kenya, including securing the eastern borders.
The cost of the war is far beyond the militia’s retaliatory killings of Kenyans. The massacre of innocent Kenyan students in college, ordinary people in a shopping mall, worshippers in churches, and commuters in matatus, is what we see, what we feel, and what we react to. These acts of terror that hit us directly are our best known truth about this war.
The ordinary mwananchi should seek to know the other uncomfortable facts of war. We don’t see the bitter tears of the Somali mother whose child’s bowels have just been blown up by KDF bullets. The killing of Somali civilians by Kenya’s military provides an opportunity for the oppressive Al-Shabaab militants to become the protectors their people. In war, it’s the civilians who suffer the most.
It’s important that the Commander in Chief owns the war publicly. President Kibaki did a poor job of owning the war he started, preferring to stay in the background and say little about it, perhaps an indication of his lack of conviction. He had greater passion in empowering Kenya through primary education and infrastructure. The war was Kibaki’s problem child, neglecting to mention it in any significant way even when leaving office.
Generally, President Uhuru has done a better job of owning the war he inherited. He has stood by its political legitimacy; rationalized it in Washington DC; appeared in fatigues for good measure, a first for a Kenyan President; cast it as an AMISOM partnership; and promised to continue fighting on. With this ownership comes the taking of responsibility for the outcomes of the war. War presidents have to calculate the cost of lives lost against real outcomes. Is the rising pile of Kenya’s dead achieving the anticipated outcome of national security?
Options of ending the war in a way that promises better security, have to be on the table. Many governments that prolong war and its painful toll on innocent citizens do so out of fear of losing face and tipping the power balance against themselves. Kenya has the world watching, and there’s a burden of expectation to triumph in a complex war against powerful non-state players far beyond the country’s porous eastern border. After the Garissa massacre, the Commander in Chief’s priority has to be an option that promises maximum protection, not maximum casualties, for the people of Kenya.
By Mkawasi Mcharo Hall
Washington, DC
m.hall@kenyansabroad.org
Comments
As luck would have it, Facebook highlighted this article since I shared it there last year, and this is the first time I'm seeing this response. Right on the mark I completely agree with it. I may have a different take on the US's decision to end the WWII with a nuclear option. Accounts of history will and have provided different analysis as to why this option was used. I tend to lean towards the analysis that the US had nothing to lose and could have ended the war without bombing Japan, a country that was already quite beaten, in spite of their plan to continue with their extreme tactics. The moment provided an opportunity to test out new weapons of war. As is the case with military power. Somalia also provided Kenya with the opportunity to flex its military muscles, discover new frontiers in "mature militarism", of course with the manipulation of the US pushing the frontiers of GWOT. I was kind of hopping you'd go the diplomatic solution way, as it seemed that was your argument at first. But then you ended with suggesting a nuclear-type solution for Kenya against Somalia. There's no winning there, especially with Kenya being such a rudimentary economy. Thanks for your response. I enjoyed reading it.
Its not Uhuru's burden,its Uhuru's war too.How many kdf soldiers have died in Somali and how many are injured ;permanent injuries and how is the govt assisting them.That what I would like to know.
Mkawasi, the main reason for going into Somalia was, as you have rightly put it here, to eradicate the then escalating incidents of terrorism and kidnapping by al Shabab kaffirs / murderers. But there was another reason: the attempt to help a neighbor whose house had been on fire for far too long. For Kenya, a peaceful and progressive neighbor is an asset in many ways, just like it is in the village. This has been Kenya's wish for Somalia for a long time as the many diplomatic efforts by Nairobi show. You'll remember that the Somali Transitional Government was first hosted in Nairobi until circumstances improved and it relocated to Moqdishu.
I closely watched the US invasion of Afghanistan way back in 2001 and I have followed the war with a keen interest for the last almost 13 years and there are a few things I have observed that may help our cause in Somalia
US has, by far, the mightiest military on planet earth but it has been unable to wipe out the Taliban all these years in spite of former President's Bush bravado. These murderers continue to cause untold mayhem in the country and if things continue the way they are going they may end up taking over the reins of government once again. Apparently, the US is yet to understand and appreciate that it's using conventional means to engage in what has now come to be known as assymetric warfare and what you loosely refer here as fighting "non-state" actors. From my observation over these many years, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Syria and elsewhere, it is almost impossible for a conventional military force to win an assymetric war using conventional war strategies. Such "non-state" actors as you call them often use extremely unconventional means to fight and can easily bog down any kind of conventional military effort. I think the faster we realize and acknowledge this fact the better it will be for all of us because we shall then be in a position to reorient our counter-terrorism efforts in a more effective manner. Kenya went to Somalia US style without critically looking at the US experience in that country, not to mention the Russian's adventure in the same country more than 30 years ago. We don't need to stay in Somalia to save face. After all, assymetric warfare is a relatively new phenomenon and many countries are simply learning the ropes the hard way. We simply need to swallow our pride and acknowledge that our strategy is not working and we quickly develop a Plan B. For instance, instead of our troops engaging al Shabab in Somalia, we can have them (and many more) deployed basically everywhere in North Eastern to counter the murderous raids and probably help enforce curfews whenever necessary. But for a more effective strategy, we need to seriously go back to the people, the families and communities from which these radicals hail from. This is not the work of the military; it's an administrative challenge. We need to put in a lot of effort building trust with these communities and if this doesn't help, we should consider taking very drastic measures in these areas BECAUSE KENYA HAS TO SURVIVE THIS OUT. WE CANNOT AND SHOULD NOT ACCEPT KAFFIR MURDERERS TO DICTATE OUR FATE AS A NATION WHATSOEVER EVEN IF IT MEANS GOING AGAINST INTERNATIONALLY RECOGNIZED NORMS OF CONDUCT.
To give you some frame of reference, go back to the final months of WWII. A desperate and defiant Japan, on the verge of defeat, had resorted to the use of these unconventional fighting strategies. I am talking about the kamikaze suicide pilots. US President Harry Truman and his Generals logically weighed the situation and realized that, despite certainity that Japan would be defeated, a conventional military approach would entail the deaths of more than a million American soldiers. Truman and his men were not ready for this and very fortunately for them, the Manhattan Project had just successfully developed the first atomic bomb. A decision was made to, once and for all, silence the Japanese. Two Japanese cities - Hiroshima and Nagasaki - were annihilated. In about four months, we shall be commemorating the 70th anniversary of these events. But what is noteworthy is what emerged from the horrific scars of these two cities: a pacific Japan which has been a pillar of peace and progress both for Japan and for the world. Try as I may, I cannot understand why the US could not employ a similar strategy in Afghanistan - massively bomb the country into smitherreens, taking out all it's infrastructure and effectively putting it back in the 15th century, a feat that could have taken the US military a month or so and with far less casualties. Kenya should be thinking and acting along these lines.