It’s not like Somalia had a functional government that the Islamists overthrew. Just a short time ago they were merely one of many warlord groups vying for power and gained territory quickly because they were more organized and the people were tired of the warlords’ brutality (not sure why they thought the new guys would be better). The situation is closer to Afghanistan than Lebanon in that almost all the power players are “bad” guys that aren’t interested in a central government. An article I read made it very clear that even now the local warlords are “allowing” the Ethiopia/UN backed government troops to be in their area.

It’s hard to give aid to such a country when the power structure is so factional. I think this is a place were traditional foreign aid and neoconservatism both fail. They both assume that there is a relatively centralized power structure but we’re seeing this isn’t the case at all. Al Qaeda and its ilk can still operate in the country as long as there’s chaos — indeed our government feared this even before the Islamists appeared on the scene.

For more about Lebanon and why it’s not a very good analogy, I think you should read Michael Totten’s blog.