Sordid. Dismal. Horrible.

Editor,

Al-Shabab is yet another instance of blowback created by idiotic American military policies as detailed in the most heart-wrenching narrative in Jeremy Scahill's "Dirty Wars" published earlier this year.

Every American should know this story by heart so that maybe, just maybe, funding for and alliances with brutal, criminal war lords -- which are standard operating procedure for the USA -- will be eliminated from the American foreign policy playbook.

Al-Shabab never would have achieved the size or lethality it has if the USA had not destroyed the ICU (Islamic Courts United) that: grew from the grass roots in Somalia to battle the lawlessness of U.S.-backed war lords, had nothing to do with Islamist extremists even though it had the word Islamic in its name, and brought a measure of stability to Somalia.

To bring down the popular ICU, which posed no threat to the USA, the Bush Administration backed an invasion by Ethiopia, Somalia's hated historical enemy. Hence the rise of al-Shabab to drive Ethiopian raping, plundering, occupiers out of Somalia.

What bothers me most about this sordid, dismal, horrible tale is that virtually no Americans know this story and virtually all understand violence in the Horn of Africa and elsewhere around the world in superficial, irrelevant, and meaningless terms provided by the American government and the MSM.

Read Jeremy Scahill's book.

Re: "Upscale Mall Becomes War Zone in Kenya Terror Attack" (9/22/2013)