U.S. aircraft hit by gunfire in South Sudan

[Valin]

Reuters:

Carl Odera

JUBA Sat Dec 21, 2013

 

(Reuters) - A U.S. aircraft came under fire on Saturday on a mission to evacuate Americans from spiraling conflict in South Sudan and four U.S. military service members were wounded.

Nearly a week of fighting threatens to drag the world's newest country into an ethnic civil war just two years after it won independence from Sudan with strong support from successive U.S. administrations.

The U.S. aircraft came under fire while approaching the evacuation site, the military's Africa Command said in a statement.

"The aircraft diverted to an airfield outside the country and aborted the mission," it said.

 

(Snip)

[Valin]

South Sudan Teeters

South Sudan was never stable. It was never on a trajectory toward becoming a normal Westphalian state, no matter what foreign observers hoped and wished.

Armin Rosen

12/21/13

 

The world’s newest country is on the brink of civil war. On December 16, South Sudanese president Salva Kiir announced that former Vice President Riek Machar, whom he dismissed in July, had launched a failed coup attempt. Kiir wore military fatigues rather than his now-iconic cowboy hat, the original of which was a gift from then-president George W. Bush.

 

As Africa security analyst and CNA researcher Lesley Ann Warner has noted, it’s unclear whether Kiir was telling the truth about the coup attempt, but it’s significant that he kicked off his presser by harkening back to internal conflicts within the governing Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement in the early 1990s, when the SPLM was in the midst of a 20-year-long insurgency against the Khartoum government. Kiir, of the Dinka ethnic group, and Machar, from the Nuer, have been at this for a long time. Their grudge, and the ethnic cleavages it embodies, long predate South Sudan’s independence from Khartoum in July of 2011, and they now have the potential to plunge the country into even deeper chaos. Machar has fled the capital—Warner has started a #whereisRiek hashtag on Twitter—and the past few days have brought credible reports of heavy artillery fire and organized ethnic violence.

 

There was always evidence that Kiir’s control over the country was basically non-existent, and that the SPLM lacked either the expertise or the intention to reverse course. The past two years have been pock-marked with troubling hints of the country’s fragility, like the devastating attack on a UN convoy in April, and Kiir’s shocking announcement in June of 2012 that $4 billion had been lost to corruption during South Sudan’s first year of independence. An early warning sign was the Juba government’s expulsion of American advisor Ted Dagne, a former Congressional Research Service specialist and longtime proponent of South Sudanese independence, in August 2012. That the SPLM had so quickly turned on one of its most dedicated American allies suggested that corruption and factionalism were winning out in Juba, a suspicion that was all but confirmed by Kiir’s heavy-handed cabinet reshuffle this past July—a gambit that included Machar’s firing. There were subsequent crackdowns on the media, and ten senior politicians have been arrested amid this week’s violence.

 

(Snip)

 

 

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How many times have we seen this movie?

[Draggingtree]

#SouthSudan: It’s Civil War Now

Posted on | December 23, 2013

 

http://theothermccain.com/2013/12/23/southsudan-its-civil-war-now/

[Pepper]

Hey, @Draggingtree, look, another fluster cluck

[Valin]

Hey, @Draggingtree, look, another fluster cluck

 

I would like to say I am surprised, but the fact is I would be surprised if the Didn't happen.

[Draggingtree]

#SouthSudan: Words Aren’t Enough

 

Posted on | December 24, 2013

 

There has been relatively little conservative commentary on the crisis in South Sudan. Part of this could be explained by low expectations: Anarchy in Africa is not exactly unusual, and why should this particular episode of mayhem deserve our attention? Part of it may be due to the sense that no important American interest is affected by events in South Sudan. But it may be that conservatives are just overlooking an excellent opportunity to hoist President Obama by his own petard, to cite this crisis as further evidence of the Nobel Peace Prize winner’s ineptitude.

Rick Moran at American Thinker expresses a pessimistic view:

 

Things are getting out of control in South Sudan. There are now reports of massacres, mass graves, rape, and it’s getting worse. A refugee crisis is brewing as tens of thousands flee the ethnic cleansing underway.

South Sudan could easily become another Somalia — a failed state run by gangs and warlords who target the innocent. Will the world stand by and let it happen again?

Of course we will.

 

Quite likely true, but why should we pass up this chance to point out the vast distance between President Obama’s “Hope and Change” rhetoric and the dismal result of his policies? Because the dismal result is staring the world right in the face:

 

U.S. Marines stood by to help evacuate Americans in South Sudan as the top U.N. official there warned Tuesday of a “breakdown in

 

http://theothermccain.com/2013/12/24/southsudan-words-arent-enough/