Kenya should form a special "Mozart" to hunt and execute all sympathizers, financiers and affiliates within our borders. Jini ya maji off-course. F&*$#$ the human rights activists!

Perhaps then, good friends, you can show us when and how such a military position and strategy has ever won in any similar situation.

Beginning from our times, the U.S. and her allies have had very little to show in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Even when the British were governing East Africa they had an army go into Somalia, and had they been successful we wouldn't be having a post colonial army there.

One could even go as far back as the Peloponnesian war where Athens and Sparta were locked in a protracted war that only saw the decline of their civilization and the emergence of a new polity from without.

Let's not be carried away by instinctive solutions. We need to consider our strategy well and know that courage isn't about shedding blood but doing the right thing in whatever situation.

And here the right thing is to confront this matter from it's roots. At the heart of the Somali problem are the effects of global politics and aspirations being at conflict, and the effects of religious psychologies and philosophy. These root causes hardly merit the barrel of a gun.

@Masukuma has also reminded us of the clan factor in Somali politics. Military force and intervention is likely to be harmful in the long run for Kenya and her allies do not have the capacity to even ensure distributive justice through selfish interests like 'protecting our borders'. We may end up being used by different factions for their own selfish intentions instead. The last time I checked such situations had began to emerge in Kismayo. This would open possibilities for the Al Shabaab mutating. Remember the Al Shabaab are a mutation of an earlier and equally dangerous and fundamentalist group.

Finally, a prompt change of policy and pull out of Somalia would greatly boost our domestic policy. While so far the war against the Al Shabaab has unified our country, keeping it up may have negative effects in the mid and long terms. Firstly, we risk stagnation and even decline as a democracy if we let this war define us. Look at the U.S. After 9/11 her institutions and culture has become less Democratic and more militant. Cases of suicide among citizens have risen and global stability driven to the edge. Kenya may find herself in a similar situation.

Again, we should remember that we're facing other challenges like the cases at the ICC and PEV that need a reconciliatory and peaceful approach. The current war may end up denying our leadership the required framework for such healing and reconciliation.

While am not advocating for a hasty and an Al Shabaab instigated withdrawal, I argue for a bolstering of our policy and strategy to be more proactive and futuristic. We bear the task of regional and continental stability, and even global stability, and such responsibilities demand the best from us.

I get sick whenever i hear of people mentioning Afghanistan and Iraq as examples. The US was never threatened the way we are...no. They went to Afghan to control the opium business and to Iraq purely for oil. nothing to do with terror. We here face a real threat. Alshabab has to be eradicated if we want to enjoy the peace we all desire, taking our troops out is giving them a free way to kidnap us when they want money - physical harm, to control the port of kismayu thus killing business in the port of Msa - economic, and pass disease to us and since they will ensure people are not immunized or treated - social. Hell, those dimwits have turned Somalia into a bear land no trees the environmental impact is bound to spread here. Unlike the Iraq Afghan scenario we face a real threat and its time we started thinking.

This thing will not only end by getting rid of them but by cutting the source of money, and supply of ammunition.

And by the way, you support them if you use those forex bureaus in eastleigh, use their shipping companies to import goods.

My friend America doesnt go to "war" where there are no resources...pay back...note they always pass the bill, Kuwait had to pay in oil and the opening of their market - yes you'll get McDonalds in Kuwait, so is Iraq. Libya also got its bill, the assets they had in the US were frozen. If we dont eliminate this shabab we're bound to lose big time...read oil found in NE Kenya and the minerals at the coast.

I agree with Tycho, again! lol. I am getting to like this 'flow'.

I did my civic duty:
1. I was told not to speculate - I didn't.
2. I was told to avoid discussing the event - I didn't.
3. I was told to do etc - I did them.
4. I was told not to do etc - I did not do them.

It then occurred to me we have become 'Americans'.

We behave and live like Americans:
We are evangelical and charismatic - just like them.
We believe our army will deal with threats, unrelentingly - just like them.

Then I read This article and This


I concluded we are worshiping America. That's the unchanging bottom line.