Bronwyn Bruton joins the show to discuss the United States’ continued and unreported war in Somalia, which has created a regional crisis that otherwise wouldn’t exist. Despite constant support and funding from the United States, the Somalian government has no legitimacy or functionality. While the U.S. has been happy to spend taxpayer money, it has relied on African countries neighboring Somalia to do the dirty work fighting Islamic extremists. Bruton then touches on the neighboring countries in the Horn of Africa and why some countries get a pass for their human rights abuses, like in Ethiopia, while others, particularly Eritrea, are demonized. Finally, United States intervention in Northeast Africa has the potential to spiral out of control with a possible ethnic civil war brewing in Ethiopia.

Bruton is the deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center. She can be followed on Twitter @BronwynBruton.

Discussed on the show:

• “Trump Declares Somalia a War Zone” (Daily Beast)
• Al-Shabaab
• “WikiLeaks Reveals U.S. Twisted Ethiopia’s Arm to Invade Somalia” (FPIF.com)
• Islamic Courts Union
• “Ethiopia: Peaceful Protest to Armed Uprising” (Counterpunch.com)
• “How an American Bureaucrat Became President of Somalia” (Politico)
• “Somalia famine ‘killed 260,000 people‘” (BBC)
• Bab-el-Mandeb Strait
• Battle of Mogadishu (1993)
• Eritrea-Ethiopia war (1998)
• Oromo People
• The Derg (Communist Party of Ethiopia)

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