Somalia hasn’t had a functioning government since the early 1990’s. 19,000 civilians have been killed since 2007. 1.5 million people have been driven from their homes. In short, things are not going well there and it is well known as one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world.

Now, Somalia’s Prime Minister has sent a letter to The Times in Britain saying that a plan similar to the one Obama is pursuing in Afghanistan could go a long way toward helping to repair his country. Not only would it be more effective than what everyone is currently doing, it would cost less, he says, than trying to treat the symptoms of piracy off the coast.

"The situation in Somalia will appear beyond repair but the reality is very different. What is so startling is that all the conclusions [of U.S. Afghanistan strategy] are as true about Somalia as they are about Afghanistan," said Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke.

"Piracy and the growth of Islamic extremism are not the natural state of being. They are but symptoms of an underlying malaise - the absence of government and hope.”

There’s that word- hope. I think he is striking at something true, here. When I read statistics like the ones I put at the beginning of this article, all I can think is that there is nothing you can really do in a situation like that except wait for it to wear itself out. They are overwhelming numbers, and knowing that the Somali government doesn’t even control all of the capital city only makes the concept of progress even more evasive- how could you possibly make a situation better that has been bad for almost 20 years? The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is cordial compared to what is going on in Somalia.

The Obama strategy the Prime Minister is referring to is Obama’s drive to seek and destroy on the insurgency and train the local military to continue the work, all while cleaning up the government that is in power. Fair enough- it sounds great. But would anyone really be up for taking on the challenge? Is it the kind of thing the UN would do, even if it does snugly fit into some of their mission?

There are problems there with an insurgency, radical Islamic groups, suicide bombers, rampant government corruption, and a laundry list of humanitarian issues. Still, the letter makes a good point that it would probably be a cause that could be dealt with in a similar way as the one in Afghanistan- so what’s the difference?

9/11, of course. The U.S., for all of our big talk of being the bastion of democracy around the globe, entered Afghanistan (and probably Iraq) not to create and craft another democracy for the good of the citizens and of the world, but to get the guy who orchestrated a flying of two airplanes into our World Trade Center. It was, and still is, payback time.

Somalia, for all the problems and issues that are similar there, has not produced a direct attack on America- and for that reason, they will not be receiving a direct military presence.