Abdiweli Mohamed Ali, Somalia Prime Minister, Is Somali-American Harvard Graduate

[High_Gravity]

Abdiweli Mohamed Ali, Somalia Prime Minister, Is Somali-American Harvard Graduate

MOGADISHU, Somalia — Somalia's president on Thursday named a Somali-American economist as the country's new prime minister, saying the Harvard graduate will help end bickering between the executive and the legislature that has paralyzed the fragile government for months.

Abdiweli Mohamed Ali, who previously taught economics at Niagara University in Lewiston, New York, was elevated from his position as minister of planning and international cooperation.

Ali's appointment puts a highly educated technocrat high within the Mogadishu administration. Ali has graduate degrees in public administration from Harvard and another in economics from Vanderbilt University.

President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed lauded Ali for his "very clean" record during the announcement at the presidential palace in Mogadishu. Ahmed said he hoped that Ali's government would help improve ties with the international community, which has been dismayed by the constant bickering among Somalia's leaders.

Ali said he hoped to build on the successes of his predecessor, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, who was seen as a competent leader but was ousted in a political deal. Mohamed made sure government employees were paid regularly, winning him praise in Mogadishu.

"I promise that our new government will continue implementing the policies of the previous government," Ali said.

Eradicating corruption and improving the army's welfare will be his top priorities, he said.

Many Somalis denounced the U.N.-backed deal signed in Uganda's capital Kampala. That deal was aimed at ending the infighting between Ahmed and Parliamentary Speaker Sharif Hassan Sheik Aden.

The two leaders had been locked for months in a dispute over what to do when the government's term expires. Ahmed asked for an extra year in power because he said elections were distractions as the country was in a state of war with Islamist insurgents. Aden insisted on following the country's interim charter calling for presidential and speaker elections before Aug. 20.

Abdiweli Mohamed Ali, Somalia Prime Minister, Is Somali-American Harvard Graduate

 

[PoliticalChic]

Abdiweli Mohamed Ali, Somalia Prime Minister, Is Somali-American Harvard Graduate

MOGADISHU, Somalia — Somalia's president on Thursday named a Somali-American economist as the country's new prime minister, saying the Harvard graduate will help end bickering between the executive and the legislature that has paralyzed the fragile government for months.

Abdiweli Mohamed Ali, who previously taught economics at Niagara University in Lewiston, New York, was elevated from his position as minister of planning and international cooperation.

Ali's appointment puts a highly educated technocrat high within the Mogadishu administration. Ali has graduate degrees in public administration from Harvard and another in economics from Vanderbilt University.

President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed lauded Ali for his "very clean" record during the announcement at the presidential palace in Mogadishu. Ahmed said he hoped that Ali's government would help improve ties with the international community, which has been dismayed by the constant bickering among Somalia's leaders.

Ali said he hoped to build on the successes of his predecessor, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, who was seen as a competent leader but was ousted in a political deal. Mohamed made sure government employees were paid regularly, winning him praise in Mogadishu.

"I promise that our new government will continue implementing the policies of the previous government," Ali said.

Eradicating corruption and improving the army's welfare will be his top priorities, he said.

Many Somalis denounced the U.N.-backed deal signed in Uganda's capital Kampala. That deal was aimed at ending the infighting between Ahmed and Parliamentary Speaker Sharif Hassan Sheik Aden.

The two leaders had been locked for months in a dispute over what to do when the government's term expires. Ahmed asked for an extra year in power because he said elections were distractions as the country was in a state of war with Islamist insurgents. Aden insisted on following the country's interim charter calling for presidential and speaker elections before Aug. 20.

Abdiweli Mohamed Ali, Somalia Prime Minister, Is Somali-American Harvard Graduate

Don't get your hopes up, Grav....

There's a lot to be said for education...
...but not everything.

1. More details are emerging about Humam al-Balawi, the man who blew up seven intelligence agents in Afghanistan. By education and professional status, the Jordanian doctor is typical of recent suicidal attackers. The man accused of trying to blow up a plane on Christmas Day is a Nigerian graduate of the University of London. In the Fort Hood shootings, a Palestinian-American psychiatrist in the U.S. Army has been charged.
Humam al-Balawi was said to be carrying information about Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's number two, himself a surgeon who was born to a prominent Egyptian family.
Mohamed Atta of 9/11, who was an Egyptian urban planner who had been working in Germany - these are not the wretched of the earth. What essentially is the grievance that draws them to al-Qaida?
Groups Recruiting Well-Educated Terrorists : NPR

2. A recent study at Princeton University by Alan Krueger and Jitka Maleckova, called "Education, Poverty, Political Violence and Terrorism: Is There a Causal Connection?" argues this point. One piece of the Krueger-Maleckova evidence involves 129 members of Hezbollah who died in action, mostly against Israel, from 1982 to 1994. Hezbollah is now designated by the U.S. as a terrorist organization. Biographical information from the Hezbollah newspaper al-Ahd indicates that the fighters who died were, on average, more educated and less impoverished than the Lebanese population of comparable age and regional origin….Moreover, the Palestinians' adherence to the view that the mass murder of civilians was not terrorism was independent of education and higher among those working than unemployed. Hence, support for terrorism was not reduced by increases in education and income….a study by Charles Russell and Bowman Miller (reprinted in the 1983 book Perspectives on Terrorism) considered 18 revolutionary groups, including the Japanese Red Army, Germany's Baader-Meinhof Gang, and Italy's Red Brigades. The authors found that "the vast majority of those individuals involved in terrorist activities as cadres or leaders is quite well-educated. In fact, approximately two-thirds of those identified terrorists are persons with some university training, [and] well over two-thirds of these individuals came from the middle or upper classes in their respective nations or areas." BW Online | June 10, 2002 | The Myth That Poverty Breeds Terrorism
http://www.krueger.princeton.edu/terrorism2.pdf

3. …men who belonged to violent Islamist groups active over the past few decades (some in jail, some not). Had those groups reflected the working-age populations of their countries, engineers would have made up about 3.5 percent of the membership. Instead, nearly 20 percent of the militants had engineering degrees. When Gambetta and Hertog looked at only the militants whose education was known for certain to have gone beyond high school, close to half (44 percent) had trained in engineering.
Today's Highly Educated Terrorists | The National Interest Blog

4. Pol Pot, was the leader of the Cambodian communist movement known as the Khmer Rouge[3] and was Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea from 1976–1979. Pol Pot's leadership, in which he attempted to "cleanse" the country, resulted in the deaths of an estimated 1.7–2.5 million people…. he qualified for a scholarship that allowed for technical study in France. He studied radio electronics at the EFR in Paris from 1949 to 1953 Pol Pot - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

5. Khmer Rouge leader Khieu Samphan, who had studied in Paris, wrote in his doctoral dissertation that the Cambodian economy and social structure would be renewed by tapping “the dormant energy of the peasant mass” against the cities. “Kissinger, “The White House Years,” p. 518.

6. Ernesto "Che" Guevara "the man was a mass killer. Hundreds were reportedly executed on his watch" Why Do people love a mass murder like Che? // Current
As a young boy growing up, he had a passion for education, literature and philosophy. Mao Zedong
"he worked as a doctor. Che Guevara : Biography

7. Lenin was born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, April 22, 1870….In 1891 he passed the law examinations at the University of St. Petersburg as an external student, scoring first in his class. He practiced law briefly in Samara before devoting himself to the revolutionary movement. Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin), 1870-1924

8. Bashar al-Assad is the President of the Syrian Arab Republic, Regional Secretary of the Ba'ath Party, and the son of former President Hafez al-Assad. Al-Assad is a controversial figure both in Syria and Internationally… for his disregard for human rights, economic lapses, sponsorship of terrorism, and corruption. Bashar studied ophthalmology at Damascus University 1988 and arrived in London in 1992 to continue his studies. Bashar al-Assad - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[High_Gravity]

PC I know what you mean however Somalia needs all the educated people it can get, alot of people in that country are illiterate and have never been to school and have survived by the gun their whole lives.

 

[Ropey]

I believe that educating the people is what is important. Educated people demand to be heard sooner or later.

Educating leaders who are killers simply makes better killers.

 

[Tank]

Why don't the Somalis have a Harvard?

 

[PoliticalChic]

PC I know what you mean however Somalia needs all the educated people it can get, alot of people in that country are illiterate and have never been to school and have survived by the gun their whole lives.

We can only hope for the best....

 

[PoliticalChic]

Why don't the Somalis have a Harvard?

Had one, sort of....other side of Africa: Timbuktu.

 

[PoliticalChic]

I believe that educating the people is what is important. Educated people demand to be heard sooner or later.

Educating leaders who are killers simply makes better killers.

Education is the true foundation of civil liberty. James Madison.

 

[Ropey]

I believe that educating the people is what is important. Educated people demand to be heard sooner or later.

Educating leaders who are killers simply makes better killers.

Education is the true foundation of civil liberty. James Madison.

I have no doubt.

Kissinger made it clear as well. He said that if you wanted to control a nation, then you control their oil. If you want to control a people, then you control their food.

The more education, understanding and acceptance that is brought to the outlying world the better. But at the moment, it's real fight.

 

[Tank]

Why don't the Somalis have a Harvard?

Had one, sort of....other side of Africa: Timbuktu.

 

[High_Gravity]

PC I know what you mean however Somalia needs all the educated people it can get, alot of people in that country are illiterate and have never been to school and have survived by the gun their whole lives.

We can only hope for the best....

Thats basically it, Somalia is in so much turmoil and choas right now it needs all the help he can get. Hopefully this guy can do the right thing.