SOMALIA—THE GIFT THAT KEEPS GIVING

by Jake Bowyer

Earlier this month, 38-year-old Navy SEAL Senior Chief Petty Officer Kyle Milliken was killed during a combat operation some forty miles west of Mogadishu. Milliken, a battle-hardened member of the same elite SEAL Team 6 that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011, fought alongside, not behind, his compatriots in the Somali army. Milliken’s death marked a very unfortunate milestone. He became the first U.S. service member to die in combat in Somalia since Operation Gothic Serpent in 1993.

THE GREATEST WAR BETWEEN AFRICAN STATES

War, contrary to expectations, is a semi-civilized business, requiring, as it does, qualities of organization, discipline, and application that only civilized states are capable of. While most Sub-Saharan countries are capable of low-grade guerrilla anarchy, they are usually not able to carry out proper prolonged conflicts. For this reason, most African conflicts have little interest for the student of war or the military historian.

But African states do occasionally fight wars beyond the level of simple savagery. The most substantial war between two Sub-Saharan African states was probably that which started 39 years ago today between Somalia and Ethiopia, usually referred to as the Ogaden War.

ANOTHER NON-RACIST TRAUMA THAT WON'T BE REMEMBERED FOR CENTURIES

by Colin Liddell

You're all familiar with the usual Liberal gumph about the problems of Blacks in modern Western societies being entirely down to the racist traumas they suffered under slavery and segregation centuries ago.

A hundred years from now, future Black dysfunction might well be put down to the nightmares their forbears suffered under the horrors of "White privilege" and the occasional "unkind word." But when it comes to the much greater traumas they suffer day-in-day-out at the hands of other Blacks that is irrelevant and quickly forgotten.