Magus wrote:why don't you give me a better solution to Ethiopia's problems, lateralus, the correct solution? Because it certainly IS NOT the United States backing Ethiopia and warlords who are more muderous than the ICU ever would have been?
I thought we were talking about Somalia not Ethiopia?
I get so easily confused.
Let's just lump it all together as the Horn of Africa for arguments sake.
For one thing it would be hard to tell just how far the ICU would have gone had they not been removed from power. One day it's soccer, the next day kids can't fly kites, and the next day hands are being chopped off starving people for grabbing a few grains of UN rice. Look to Pakistan/ Afghanistan for glimpses of what 'might of been'. Better yet cast an eye to the left on any world map and take a good long hard look at the Sudan.
As to solving the regions problems I hardly think that I have the solution. If I did then that Nobel Prize would look great hanging over my toilet.
The correct solution would have to involve the population problem of the region. The Horn is arid and receives very little rain during the monsoon, with the exception of parts of Ethiopia, because the wind blows in from the west and loses moisture. So the area really can't sustain a very large population to begin with. It is no laughing matter, actually, that the population of this part of the world needs to come to terms with its surroundings.
Education is always a good place to start and I'm not talking about Pakistani style madrassahs here, but real centres of learning where religion is not the mainstay of the cirriculum. It's hard to have a functioning government when you have no basic education system that produces quality leadership. The only leaders these days are the ones who demonstrate good marksmanship with an AK-47.
War is a mainstay of the region because ethnic groups compete for resources and living space, which goes back to the population problem. By 2050, at the current pace, the population of Ethiopia will overtake Nigera's. Scary if you think about it.
Cure the population problem, like most people in this thread mentioned. That's your solution. You can do it with education, the gun, starvation, or an act of God, but if they don't solve this particular problem in this particular part of the world then good luck in ever seeing peace in the Horn.
