Eritrea: catch all

[Ken White]

Nuance and stupidity countered by nuance and stupidity are the name of the game -- and that's what, generally, it is...

[Beelzebubalicious]

Nuance? I think it's plain stupidity. This is the nation to nation equivalent of 2toddlers in a sandbox.

In fact, on Sunday I was at the park and my toddler, let's call him US and another toddler, let's call him Eritrea, were in the sandbox together. Let's call the sandbox the Horn of Africa. While US was busy building a huge castle in the Ethiopia corner, Eritrea was burying US' toys in the Somalia corner. US came over to Somalia and started digging with his shovel in Somalia and uncovered the stolen contraband, I mean toys. US shoved Eritrea. Eritrea threw sand in US' eye. I (let's call me the UN) stood by and pointed out that the US really shouldn't be in Somalia, anyway and why won't Ethiopia and Eritrea play along together. I suggested that Ethiopia, now actively playing the Somalia corner, give Eritrea back the hand full of sand it had taken from Eritrea. Both the US, Ethiopia and Eritrea ignored me and went about their business...

[Ken White]

-- diplomacy as currently practiced, that is -- and that my sarcastic 'nuance' (a cover word for refusal to honestly state ones concerns and take care of ones interests) was perhaps itself too nuanced or too diplomatic. I also note that you (at least in that situation) and the UN (most always) seem to be equally ineffective?

In short, I agree. Pity about the Foreign Office, the State Department and Turtle Bay living in a world that seem to have passed them by...

[wm]

Shouldn't the next step from the US be to use the force at Camp Lemonier to conduct some punitive cross border ops into Eritrea? Let's not forget to bring an AC-130 strike into downtown Asmara and maybe use some standoff ALCMs, launched from a B-52 loitering over, say, Libya, in violation of its air space. To ice it all, there needs to be a US press release with intimate details about the ALCM strike so that the rest of the Islamic world can join in the outrage over the Crusaders "invasion" of Libya or wherever the aircraft happened to be tracking at launch time.

[Ken White]

FSOs reaction to the suggestion, no more, from a military guy that his approach to diplomacy is just a tiny bit too conciliatory and thus is unlikely to achieve his aims.

There is a middle way...