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Ding Terrorism in the Horn of Africa: American Perceptions of Somalia, Kenya, and Al Qaeda

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Ding Terrorism in the Horn of Africa: American Perceptions of Somalia, Kenya, and Al Qaeda CLAREMONT McKENNA COLLEGE UNDERSTANDING TERRORISM IN THE HORN OF AFRICA: AMERICAN PERCEPTIONS OF SOMALIA, KENYA, AND AL QAEDA SUBMITTED TO PROFESSOR JENNIFER TAW AND DEAN GREGORY HESS BY VICTORIA DIN FOR SENIOR THESIS FALL 2010 – SPRING 2011 APRIL 25, 2011 Contents I. INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................................................................1 The Failed State Narrative: Shaping American Foreign Policy Since 1991................................ 3 The End of the Cold War: New Era, New Security Paradigm ..................................................... 6 False Dichotomies: Old vs. New War........................................................................................... 8 Beyond Theory: the Implications for American Foreign Policy ............................................... 12 Dismantling Post-Cold War Assumptions.................................................................................. 16 II. UNDERSTANDINDG TERRORISM: THE NEW, THE OLD, AND AL QAEDA........................................................ 21 Terrorism: the Action, not the Actor ......................................................................................... 23 Questioning the New Terrorism Paradigm................................................................................ 27 Revolutionary Terrorism: An Alternative to Old versus New Terrorism................................. 29 The Crenshaw Model .......................................................................................................... 31 The Palestine Liberation Organization .............................................................................. 33 Why Internationalize? ................................................................................................................ 35 Applying Theory to Reality: Al Qaeda and International Terrorism ........................................ 40 Al Qaeda: A (Very) Brief History........................................................................................ 40 Al Qaeda in Africa ............................................................................................................... 48 III. SOMALIA ......................................................................................................................................................................................... 54 Challenges for Outsiders ............................................................................................................ 55 Islam in Somalia .......................................................................................................................... 60 The First Wave: al-Ittihaad al-Islami .......................................................................................... 62 AIAI and al Qaeda ............................................................................................................... 63 Al Qaeda’s False Assumptions ........................................................................................... 65 Not in Afghanistan Anymore: the Endogenous Spoilers of Somalia................................ 69 Islam in Retreat: 1992 – 2004 .................................................................................................... 72 The Second Wave: the Islamic Courts Union ............................................................................ 75 Al Shabaab ................................................................................................................................... 79 Birth and Structure of Al Shabaab ..................................................................................... 81 A History of al Shabaab ...................................................................................................... 85 Global Jihad ......................................................................................................................... 86 Ideology: Moving Towards a Global Agenda? .................................................................. 89 Lessons Learned? ........................................................................................................................ 94 IV. KENYA ............................................................................................................................................................................................. 97 U.S. Counterterrorism Efforts in Kenya ..................................................................................... 99 Ties to the West ................................................................................................................ 102 Economic Development .................................................................................................... 104 Governance ....................................................................................................................... 107 Potential Dangers of U.S. Counterterrorism Policy in Kenya................................................. 112 Background ....................................................................................................................... 113 U.S. Counterterrorism Policy as a Radicalizer ................................................................. 116 Summary............................................................................................................................ 120 V. CONCLUSION..................................................................................................................................................................................121 Potential Objections ................................................................................................................. 125 REFERENCES.......................................................................................................................................................................................129 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: To 474 Kent Road, there will never be enough words. Let me just say thank you for a lifetime of love, opportunity, and family. You mean the world to me. To Professor Jenny Taw, thank you for four years of guidance, laughs, great food, patience, and inspiration. Here’s to many more yet to come. And to road trips, roast leg of lamb, late nights in Poppa, freshman year roommates that become senior year soul mates, and really, really good times – thank you to my friends. “Some crises in the world cannot be resolved without American involvement…Only the United States has the global reach to place a large security force on the ground in such a distant place quickly and efficiently and thus save thousands of innocents from death.” 1 - PRESIDENT GEORGE H.W. BUSH, DECEMBER 1992 “If we were to leave [Somalia] today, we know what would happen. Within months, Somali children again would be dying in the streets. Our own credibility with friends and allies would be severely damaged. Our leadership in world affairs would be undermined at the very time when people are looking to America to help promote peace and freedom in the post-cold-war world. And all around the world, aggressors, thugs and terrorists will conclude that the best way to get us to change our policies is to kill our people. It would be open season on Americans.” 2 - PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON, OCTOBER 1993 “America is now threatened less by conquering states than we are by failing ones.” 3 - PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH, SEPTEMBER 2002 “We know where extremists thrive…In weak states that cannot control their borders or territory, or meet the basic needs of their people. From Africa to central Asia to the Pacific Rim– nearly 60 countries stand on the brink of conflict or collapse. The extremists encourage the exploitation of these hopeless places on their hate-filled websites.” 4 - SENATOR BARACK OBAMA, AUGUST 2007 I. INTRODUCTION Shell state. Parasitical state. Predatory, patrimonial, praetorian, failed, or weak state. Since the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the United States has increasingly seen state collapse as a security liability: Clinton understood it as a threat to the emergence of his democratic, free market world order, Bush II portrayed it as a breeding ground for international terrorism, and the current administration recently intervened in Libya to prevent the emergence of a “giant Somalia.”5 Even Bush I, who 1 President George H.W. Bush. “Address on Somalia.” December 4, 1992. http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches/detail/3984. 2 President Bill Clinton. “The Responsibilities of American Leadership: the Somalia Mission.” October 8, 1993. http://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/08/world/somalia-mission-clinton-s-words-somalia- responsibilities-american-leadership.html. 3 President George W. Bush. “The National Security Strategy.” September 2002. http://georgewbush- whitehouse.archives.gov/nsc/nss/2002/. 4 Barack Obama. Speech at the Woodrow Wilson International Center. August 1, 2007. http://www.cfr.org/us-election-2008/obamas-speech-woodrow-wilson-center/p13974. 5 Stewart Patrick. “Why failed states shouldn’t be our biggest national security fear.” The Washington Post. April 15, 2011. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-failed-states-shouldnt-be-our-biggest- national-security-fear/2011/04/11/AFqWmjkD_story.html. Victoria Din Page | 2 spent the majority of his presidency grounded in the realist assumptions of the Cold War paradigm, understood America as a uniquely virtuous country that had the capacity
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