At least not when their Black Africans being slaughtered and enslaved by Muslims. That’s the clear message sent by liberal antipathy to the joint Ethiopian/Somalian victory over the brutal I.C.U and the Arab fighters they brought in to enforce their barbarism on the defenseless populace.

Hot Air points out how the left is missing the big picture and instead attempting to frame this as another “mistake” of the Bush administration ala Iraqi WMDs. The argument, articulated by what David Gartenstein-Ross calls “two prominent left-wing bloggers” seems to be that because American intelligence can’t really prove that the Islamic Court Union is either related to terrorism or a treat to America, we should not support Ethiopian intervention in Somalia.

One could have made the same argument in Bosnia, as Milosevic wasn’t tied to any terrorist groups on our hit list, and certainly was no threat to America, yet we did actively dismantle his genocidal regime. We did it not for our security, but because it was right.

Ethiopia has legitimate concerns about it’s security if a radical Islamic government takes over their neighbor. But more importantly, the I.C.U. sought to take the life liberty and dignity away from all Somalis, not just the Muslims. If this was a European country, people like Matthew Yglesias and Spencer Ackerman wouldn’t be asking for “more proof” that the murders, rapes and enslavement of non-Muslims was “our business”, they’d demand bombings for us in support of the Ethiopian advance.

Just as white liberals are happy to wag their fingers at the atrocities in the Sudan, never lifting that finger to try to stop the evil that’s being perpetrated there by Muslim Imperialism, they were happy to watch as Somalia became a Islamic theocracy where non-Muslims had no rights. It doesn’t bother them, because it’s not happening to anyone they care about. They don’t care, because the victims are Black Christians, or Animists, and aren’t interesting enough to care about. The victims aren’t Muslims, so speaking out for them isn’t hip, it doesn’t feed into their vision of themselves as counter cultural.

The victims are Blacks who can’t vote here in ’08, and to the left that means they don’t matter.