War in Somalia/Ethiopia

The Iraq War has become the Spanish Civil War for this century. The Spanish Civil War was a testing ground for both Communists and Fascists for the upcoming Second World War. Picasso's Guernica is a protest against the bombing by the Fascists of a small strategically unimportant town as target practice for the Nazi's eventual blitzkreig across the Continent.

[And just so we don't think only Nazis did that, the United States firebombed Dresden, Germany another strategically unimportant city near the end of the European phase of WWII, as practice for techniques the Americans would be using against the Japanese. Most people remember that the US dropped two atomic weapons on Japan (Hiroshima and Nagasaki); what is less remembered is that the US firebombed (on firebombing here) Tokyo, Kobe, just about every large and even not so large Japanese city.]

The techniques learned by the insugents in Iraq fighting the Americans has become the Spanish Civil War--a showcase, a preview--of what is to come in the next iteration of warfare (some call 5th Generation).

The practice of suicide bombing, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), de-centralization, open-source warfare, and attack systems and infrastructure is the new name of the game.

The large uptick in violence in Afghanistan occurred only after the Taliban adopted techniuqes from the Iraqi insurgents, most notably the dreaded suicide attack. This is a new phase of guerilla insurgency, which is why when President launches a troop surge under the recommendations of former Gen. Keane--who called for classical counterinsurgency methods--it will fail to achieve the goals setout.

Not only have these techniques spread to Afghanistan, but terrorism against foreign oil is on the rise in Nigeria, and now the Somalia and Ethiopian war predicted has begun.

Story from NYTimes (Sun) here. Islamists in Somalia control most of the country, but Ethiopia (with backing from US) support the government essentially in exile.

Ethiopia is a historically Christian nation; Somalia Muslim. This war could be a preview of the damage to come on the sub-Saharan continent from the de-centralization of violence and warfare to come.

The Global War on Terror is heading to sub-Saharan Africa, which gets little play in the press because of the focus on Iraq, Iran, Israel-Palestine, etc. But peace in the Middle East is only the freeing up of fighting the war in Africa. In a nod to this realization, the US has split Africa off from Middle East in terms of Command posts.