Demagogue

While genocide might not be enough to garner much attention for Africa from the Bush Administration, maybe this will:

Ethiopia's prime minister warned on Thursday of the danger posed by a “very active al-Qaida cell” in Somalia's capital and said a stable government is the best way to eliminate the terrorist threat in the chaotic Horn of Africa country.

“Wherever there is distress, wherever there is acute poverty, social dislocation, the potential for a terrorist state exists,” Meles said. “We have a very active terrorist cell in Mogadishu, which has been involved in terrorist activities in Kenya.”

Kenya has been hit twice in recent years by major terrorist attacks that killed hundreds. In 1998, the U.S. Embassy was destroyed by a car bomb, and another exploded outside a tourist hotel on Kenya's Indian Ocean coast in 2002.

Despite reports that the masterminds of both attacks -- which were claimed by al-Qaida -- fled to Somalia, most Somalis reject the charge that there country is a base for terrorists.

Maybe it would help if someone spread the word that there is al-Qaida in Darfur? No, not because I want the U.S. to blow it up, but it might motivate more Americans to care about what is going on there if our own self-interests are involved. After all, aren't we supposed to be hunting down terorists everywhere, wherever they live?