Blind Spots on Somalia
By Douglas Farah
One of the most astonishing statements in today's Washington Post look at Somalia comes from John D. Negroponte, the director of national intelligence.
Negroponte said that "I don't think there are hard and fast views," on al Qaeda in Somalia, noting that Somalia "has come back on the radar screen only fairly recently," and the question is whether the Islamist government "is the next Taliban," he said. "I don't think I've seen a good answer."
It is hard to know what "only recently" means as far as being on the intelligence communty radar screen, but it has been clear for well over a year that Islamist groups were making a move to take over. It is clear for almost eight months that they have, in fact, defeated U.S.-backed forces, imposed _sharia_ law on much of the country and moved to spread the Islamist revolution.
I know that, in the field, intelligence was being reported extensively. But, like much of this type of activitiy in the world's black holes, in the absence of a long-term threat assessment, war gaming and over-the-horizon planning, it may simply never have made it up the food chain. My full blog is here.
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