In a post on the sloppiness of America’s dealings with Somalia, Matthew Yglesias makes a salient point:
One of the most pernicious aspects of the “war on terror” theoretical construct is that it’s created strong institutional and financial incentives for elements of the bureaucracy to characterize whatever it is they do as somehow really part of the war on terror.
Here in Texas an example of this trend is the tendency of communities on the border looking to thwart immigration from Mexico to couch their arguments in terms of possible terrorism, even though not a single documented terrorist has crossed into the US from Mexico. If the issue of terrorism can cause the American foreign policy apparatus to take a serious look at Africa I suppose that’s good, unless doing so creates yet another incompetent approach to US policy toward Africa, where the bulk of the issues have little to do with Islamic terrorism.
