However, believing that requires a direct ignorance of (quite recent) history of just such warlord support:
For several years Somalia's three major anti-Islamist warlords have received U.S. cash and some equipment to help with intelligence operations, according to several unofficial sources, including John Prendergast of the International Crisis Group. .....much of the money is funneled through the 1,800-man Joint Combined Task Force, based in Djibouti on the Horn of Africa. Other reports point to the CIA. .... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13008291/site/newsweek/page/2/
The CIA was found in April to have paid despised Mogadishu warlords to help fight the Islamists on counter-terrorism grounds, only for them to lose the city to disciplined Islamist fighters in June. http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L092788.htm
Although ,still unconfirmed but nonetheless substantiated enough to require a firm planting of the head in the sand not to take serious (and certainly we are told to believe much less substaintial claims , for example of Al-Quaida presence in Somalia), is the presence of U.S signed aid and support to the warlords that has kept Somalia in a state of violent anarchy. Although several warlords were U.S friendly - that is, willing to allow for U.S interest to be incorporated into their own agenda - some were less so. One warlord - Muhammed Farrah Aydiid - was named as directly involved in the aggression that led to attacks on U.S Marines that led to the disaster of U.S deaths and humiliation broadcasted in media and later captured in the movie Black Hawk Down.
However, there is a "funny" twist to this story of U.S aid "blowback"- "allies" turn against the hand that feeds them and others get pissed off at the U.S involvement and both use the former "support" as weapons.
The eighteen American troops that were killed 1994 -and Americans were shocked by the image of the body of one American soldier being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu- were killed when trying to capture the warlord Mohammed Farrah Aydiid .
Aydiid had in 1976 sent his wife and children to USA. One of his sons - Hussein - remained in the United States for 16 years.
He attended Covina High School, near Los Angeles, graduating in 1981. Six years later, in April 1987, he joined the Marines, and was trained as an artilleryman.
"I always wanted to be a Marine," he told The Associated Press. "You know how it is watching Marine soldiers. I'm proud of my background and military discipline. Once a Marine, always a Marine."
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