The good thing about the Internet is that we are all writers and journalists. The big guys are in trouble! Writing is not anymore the exclusive club that it once was. I never understood why the Nobel Prize Commission ever thought of rewarding the two poor guys who invented the Internet.  This is the proof. 

I would like to make the following comments on this article:

Doweden: ... President Bush has already ordered the closing down of Barakaat,......... Do you close down a telephone company because a criminal used it to make a call?.

Comment/question: What a great analogy Mr. Dowden. Are you joking or serious? You close down the company if the owner and the guy who is making the call are the one and same and if they are using the phone to blow up your family...Right?

Dowden:....Ethiopia ...aimed to keep Somalia weak and divided?.

Comment/question: Rubbish. This sounds  like an old children's lullaby, to make them sleep. Can Mr. Dowden tell us what Ethiopia would gain from such a situation?. Ethiopia and Somalia are two African sisterly countries who want to live in peace as good neighbors. But this good neighborliness might be rather troubling for some third party countries, who are trying to create an atmosphere of suspicion and enmity between them. It just won't work this time around.

Dowden:. Washington has also declared al-Itahaad, a Somali Islamist movement, to have "terrorist" links....... It received some money from Saudis...... Al-Itahaad was always a purely local Somali phenomenon, without an international vision. Now it is in decline. ...

Comment/question: If this is the case, we would like Mr. Dowden to provide supporting documents. Let the benefactors of Al-Itihad raise their hands. All we are asking is transparency. Where did all that money come from? In Somalia there were a handful of the so-called rich individuals, which you could count with the fingers of one hand. Now, all of a sudden we have companies in our midst vying with  AT&T and MCI for fame and wealth. It can't be pure creativity and luck?

Dowden.  ...America’s informants on the "terrorist" activities of al-Itahaad are its local enemies, the Rahanwein clan militia of the south-west and their allies, the Ethiopians who are also America’s favored regional power.

Comment/question: If that's the case, can Mr. Dowden tell us who his own informants are? It's not fair to count loudly the chicken of your neighbor while hiding your own.

Dowden:....Last year a long drawn out peace conference ended in the nearest thing that Somalis have ever had to a broad-based national government. Ethiopia immediately started supporting its rivals, powerful warlords like Hussein Aideed, the son of Mohammed Aideed, and Mohammed Hersi Morgan, a war criminal who destroyed Hargeisa city ten years ago.

Comment: Here Mr. Bowden jumps right in. He calls some of  the Somali faction leaders criminals and others good guys. After reading phrases like this, you can't helping but grow more and more suspicious of Mr. Dowden's ultimate motives. Any links with BBC and Yusuf Garad? Just kidding... 

Regards.