In other words, many people and organizations alike always found some solace in believing that sympathetic USA would, at least, understand their plight and come to their humanitarian aid.  Some of us went even further by trying to justify some of the otherwise erroneous doctrines our adopted country has been following when it comes to foreign policy. Sometimes I wonder if we really have a foreign policy, sound or not. Do we simply drift into the abyss to meet the requirement of the day or to satisfy the desires of whoever might be at helm without taking into account the real and/or perceived long term interests of the United States?

It is mind-boggling, to say the least, to find a super power endowed with plenty of material and human resources that are the envy of the world, with superb technical know-how and an overwhelming military might to stray aside seemingly with no sense of purpose. Its driving forces appear to be hearsays and innuendos whose informants seem to be, at best, of dubious character.  It is especially disheartening for many of us who have made it our adopted country. That is sad for Americans and even sadder for those people, organizations and/or governments that look at the United States as a beacon of hope worth living and dying for.

While there are many follies in which the United States may have dived into for all the wrong reasons in the past half century, and in my attempt not to bore the reader with probably known facts, suffice it to mention the recent manifestation of apparently misguided foreign policy that does not seem to make any sense. 

• One such blunder was the ill conceived US backing of the Ethiopian dictator, Mr. Meles Zenawi and his EPRDF party when the Ethiopian opposition groups, according to many international observers, had won hands down at the ballot boxes of the so called “Contested” 2005 election in Ethiopia.  Sadly, our State Department officials have, in their infinite wisdom, elected not only to bless the reportedly doctored up election results, but, our tax payers’ money has been flowing incessantly to prop up such a despotic leader of a rotting regime. Interestingly, back in 1995, when hundreds of innocent and unarmed Ethiopian students were murdered at the hands of the minority-led Ethiopian regime, some US officials have been reported as justifying such hideous crimes as being the lack of training of crowd control by the Ethiopian Security forces! Sadly those same but presumably now “trained” Ethiopian troops mowed down almost 200 more university students in cold blood in the latest elections that were held in Ethiopia. This election I might add was hoped to usher in a new era with exemplary balloting discipline and much enthusiasm by the Ethiopian masses. Yet, the US response was, at best, very measured, and yes, the so called economic aid kept on coming in the direction of the self styled “US staunch ally against terrorism” whatever that term means these days.
  
• Another pathetic mistake by our foreign policy makers is none other than the fiasco in which the US finds itself defending the indefensible. The Eritrea Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC) was formed to provide a legal venue by which the so called “Border war” of 1998-2000 would be put to rest. The EEBC handed out its “Final and binding” verdict to both Eritrea and Ethiopia on April 13th, 2002. On that landmark decision, the EEBC issued a delimited map regarding the boundary between the two countries with a schedule of implementing the demarcation on the ground.  Mind you, this 2000 Algiers Agreement between the warring parties was witnessed and signed by the United States, among other nations, and by the UN as the automatic guarantor of the deal.  For some long time observers of the Ethiopian regime’s voracious appetite for cheating, double talking and outright lying, it is not surprising for the rogue regime to want to talk things over on issues that were legally sealed. What is puzzling and certainly disappointing is however that Washington would find the Ethiopian regime one of its bed mates! There is no excuse whatsoever by which Washington planners could convince us that they are doing this for the sake of fairness or even for some unspecified US national interest. They know it isn’t so. When it is known that “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”, going against the internationally decided “Border” ruling and working against Eritrea, a country with hard working people and with a proven record of fighting against terrorism since its inception as a sovereign nation simply does not hold water in any unbiased and clearly thinking mind.
  
• Yet another miscalculation by the US is the 2006 Christmas Eve overt invasion of Somalia by the Ethiopian forces and the concurrent and subsequent US blessing and participation. That invasion is clearly a war of aggression directed against the Somali people that could not and should not bode well with any peace loving and tax paying American citizen let alone the citizens of the rest of the world. To go after known terrorists is one thing and, by all means, one that must be supported by any peace loving citizen. But, to go after some “terrorists’ where there were none and solely based on information that some self serving group may have provided is nothing short of reckless behavior, unbecoming of a country which championed the cause of the Greek-originated word of democracy. How can the US stoop so low to identify itself, from all people, with the likes of Meles Zenawi? Good grief, what is next?
  
• Speaking about Somalia and Eritrea, can somebody please ask the State Department as to what happened to the “2,000 Eritrean troops” who were reported ready to fight in Somalia by some shadowy group, the Somali Monitoring Group, whose composition and intentions were not made public? I know the Eritreans do some pretty cunning tricks, but disappearing in thin air is not one of them. That goes to show how any information is as good as the one who is providing it. Oops! That information must have been given by none other than the street smart Meles Zenawi. The problem is that Mr. Meles Zenawi and his group in Addis Ababa apparently believe, if lies are told over and over (and sometimes to be replaced yet by another lie), the world might, just might, take it as truth after it got tired of hearing it for the umpteenth time. Nice try Mr. Meles, but it does not work!  As to the United States misguided policy, though, it is time that some common sense and sane mind prevail and the policy needs to reflect reality and it must change for the sake of fairness and for the interest of the United States to be met. The US needs to work in partnership with like minded nations. Eritrea comes in mind!
  

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