HARGEISA, Somaliland — To most Americans, anarchy, intervention, and the Black Hawk Down fiasco define Somalia. By any reasonable metric, the country has not improved much since. Somalia has had the dubious honor to be crowned the world’s most corrupt country by Transparency International for 14 years running. Terrorism is a weekly occurrence, and perhaps even a tool for some Somali politicians.
Somalia largely deserves its reputation. A generation of Somali politicians and clan leaders have siphoned off the billions of dollars which the U.S. government and other outside powers have invested in the country. The national Somali military, built to supplant the country’s patchwork of militias, exists largely on paper. In recent weeks, Somali elders, soldiers, and politicians have lined up to apologize to and swear allegiance to al Shabaab, an extremist group responsible for terrorism both inside and outside Somalia.
