There is an obvious pathway for the @JoeBiden to rehabilitate its international reputation and change the subject from its debacle in Afghanistan. I.E. to focus on preventing a new foreign policy catastrophe in Ethiopia.

Thread follows....
At least since 1991 and the fall of the DERG, which coincided with the fall of disintegration of the Soviet Union, Ethiopia, and the TPLF led governments which followed have been been close allies to the U.S.
This long-standing relationship deepened in the years after the 9/11 attacks in 2001 and became a partnership for counter-terrorism.
During this period the U.S. turned a blind eye to what the TPLF was doing inside Ethiopia - human rights abuses, stoking of ethnic tensions, imprisoning political opponents, rigged elections, and all manner of kleptocratic machinations for the sake of the War on Terror.
When the enigmatic leader of the TPLF led EPRDF coalition Meles Zenawi died suddenly in 2011 @AmbRice46 and Jeffrey Feltman the recently appinted Biden appointed peace envoy to the Horn of Africa spoke at Meles funeral. And under the new govt. the cosy relationship continued.
Periodically concerns were raised in Washington about HR abuses by the TPLF led Govt. of Ethiopia, notably in June 2013 in a hearings chaired by the GOP's Rep. Chris Smith in the Subcommittees on Human Rights and International Operations, and the Subcommittee on Africa.
But even though these hearings showed clear evidence of human rights abuses taking place under the TPLF leadership, no action was taken. The War on Terror national interest partnership trumped any concerns the U.S. Govt had about the TPLF's methods.
Then after a popular uprising led by Ethiopian Youth in 2017 the PM of Ethiopia resigned suddenly in February 2018 and @AbiyAhmedAli was appointed Prime Minister with the blessing of the United States.
However the TPLF were not about to surrender power quietly and their hold over the security and intelligence services left them in a position to cause a great deal of trouble for the new PM.
Organisationally the TPLF incorporated aspects of Maoist, Stasi like control systems into its internal structure, it governed through intimidation and violence and by stoking conflicts, particularly ethnic conflicts, to divide and rule Ethiopia.
The best example of this activity was exposed in a wikileaks @StateDept cable which attributed false flag bombings in 2006 (during GWB admin) - blamed on rebels and Eritrea - to the Govt of Ethiopia i.e. to the TPLF.
The mastermind of the bombings was the TPLF's elusive spy chief Getachew Assefa, who also tried repeatedly to censor the VOA, and even complained to the @StateDept in 2009 about then @VP @JoeBiden's staff meeting with "Ethiopian Terrorists".
"Just as Ethiopia would not meet with domestic U.S. insurgent groups, referring to individuals and groups who would conduct bombings of U.S. government offices, abortion clinics and advocates of racial and gender hate...." - Getachew Assefa June 4th 2009.
After Abiy's appointment as PM (with U.S. blessing), Assefa and his networks went to work on removing him. The attempted assassination was just one such occasion. FBI investigators were sent to work on the assassination attempt. But nothing seems to have come of this.
On the 22nd of June the following year, Abiy's army Chief of Staff and his Se'are_Mekonnen and his aide Gizae Aberra were assassinated by their bodyguards while responding to a coup attempt in Amhara. [Src: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Se'are_Me…]
The following year, also in June, on the 29th, hero of the Qeerroo revolution that brought Abiy to power, singer Hachulu Hundessa was also killed in suspicious circumstances whilst driving a friend home from a baby shower event at his house. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hachalu_H…
Now while its not possible to say definitively whether these and many other events during this period of time were the work of Getachew Assefa/the TPLF, given their track record it seems very likely they were.
And as we can see from the @StateDept cables which we have access to, the United States would have had every reason to suspect that their former ally was responsible for these attempts to destroy the nascent democratic state in Ethiopia before it could begin.
Five months after Hachulu's likely assassination by the TPLF the war started in Tigray with a horrific attack on the Northern Command.

This attack, which launched the war, was much more serious than is generally publicly understood.

I describe it here:
The attack took place on U.S. election day. Timing which was clearly deliberate. And amid all the drama the following day, as counting continued, @SecPompeo issued a tweet attack -perhaps because of the nature of the reports he received.
Pompeo tweeted about the war again a fortnight later as Trump's tantrums, recounts and growing #stopthesteal movement was transfixing the entire planet. Nobody was paying attention.
And that was 10 months ago today. In the period since for reasons which are hard to understand - but which mainly relate to terrible media coverage, and very effective information warfare (another skill of the TPLF) - the war somehow became Ethiopia's fault.
I personally started looking at the war in April 2021. At the time the #GERD issue was completely compartmentalized from the war. In news media terms it was an atrocity and humanitarian crisis in which the TPLF was portrayed as an innocent party.
Having covered Kosovo and East Timor crises in the late 90s it initially seemed similar. Both involved massive IC concern, refugees, dirty wars, and guerilla liberation armies the KLA and Fretilin.

[Note: These comparisons are worth exploring in greater depth, albeit not now]
Both conflicts were also elevated rapidly to the UN where they became significant global crises. And by June this was also happening with the Tigray War.

My initial focus was #GERD, it was during this period that @JoeBiden appointed his #HornOfAfrica envoy Jeffrey Feltman.
To me the disconnect between the two issues seemed contrived and after seeing the horrific reports out of Tigray I looked into it and found a connection, which I outlined in this thread on April 9th.
The thread looks at the timeline of #GERD and #AbrahamAccords activity in the final months of the Trump administration and concludes that there are timing correlations which cannot be ignored. Here is the conclusion section:
But at this time I had no knowledge of what the TPLF is, nor of its relationship with the U.S. Govt, noor of the complicated history of Ethiopia over the past 50 years which lies behind the conflict we see in Tigray today.
This Trump thread was a turning point in understanding. While my focus remained on the weather (and the filling of the GERD) and to a lesser extent the approaching Ethiopian Election I started digging.
I could see that the story was much more complicated than it seemed, and that received wisdom behind media reports, broadcast and print, made little to no sense.
The information warfare aspect I was initially focused on was that between the #ItsMyDam #FillTheDam Ethiopian online activists and a very vigorous Egyptian social media effort focused on the existential threat posed by the dam.
This entire debate and the media coverage around it also seemed rather daft.
1. Dam construction was advanced, it could not stop and filling could not be delayed.
2. The parties were in fact in agreement on technical matters about the dam.
3. And there was a lot of rain.
Through June IC pressure on Ethiopia about the humanitarian situation ramped up as Ethiopia was focused on holding its first real democratic election.
During this period the EU's decision to withdraw its observer mission citing security concerns dropped like a bomb.
Then the election was held and 40 million votes were cast in a almost completely peaceful poll. At the polls Ethiopian voters told the media with one voice that they were voting for peace.
At the same time the TPLF, again under the cover of an election, this time an Ethiopian Election was mounting another offensive. Quite when this began is unclear but it seems likely it started before the election. This was indicated in @AsstSecStateAF's testimony on June 29th.
By the time the @NYTimes @DeclanWalsh & @finbarroreilly arrived in Mekelle immediately after the election the TPLF rebels were ready to accept them as embedded reporters and celebrated the occasion by shooting down a Hercules transport plane.
When on June 28th the Govt. of Ethiopia announced its unilateral ceasefire I was shocked to the core. For the past three months the nagging question in my mind had been: Why is media coverage of the humanitarian crisis ignored the fact there is an active insurgency underway?
My other nagging question was who is paying and supplying the TPLF rebels army? It seemed impossible to me that an army able to fight back against ENDF, Eritrean and Amhara militias through this period could do so without backing?
And now nearly 2 months later these two questions remain unanswered to me. Media coverage continues to report the war - which has now been aggressively expanded outside of Tigray, and in which multiple atrocities have been committed - as if it is primarily a humanitarian crisis.
Meanwhile we now see another heavily armed army on the move inside Ethiopia, the OLA, who appear to be being supplied with arms from Sudan. The same Sudan whose PM Hamdock has offered to mediate in the Tigray conflict with @SecBlinkin.
(To be continued.... )

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More from @althecat

17 Sep
The framing of what the USG has done today as "imposing sanctions" is not really what it is. I far better framing to interpret this is as a "framework to achieve and end to the war in North Ethiopia".
As a great imperial power the USG, struggles to say this in as many words. But it is clear when you read between the lines that the U.S. is finally willing to engage with the Ethiopian Govt. in a sincere manner. That said there is still a lot of water to travel under the bridge,
The framing of this initiative is carrot and stick. The stick is of course the bit that Ethiopia should not accept.

But the carrot is significant. The President of the United States is offering to restore Ethiopia's to its rightful place as friend and ally of the US. Image
Read 7 tweets
17 Sep
This letter is fantastic. And a great way to respond to the @JoeBiden peace Initiative. Very very Abiy in its construction, strong, and heartfelt. The final paragraph is crucial.
The U.S. initiative - I just spent a couple of hours getting into the weeds on it - is on one level disrespectful, and on another (more important level) clearly a practical response to try to end this war and crisis.
The final paragraph of @AbiyAhmedAli's letter reads:

"It is essential to point out here that Ethiopia will not succumb to consequences of pressure engineered by disgruntled individuals for whom consolidating power is more important than the well-being of millions.
Read 6 tweets
17 Sep
BREAKING NEWS: We have the US Sanctions announcement. Here reported by CNN. edition.cnn.com/2021/09/17/pol…
There are four statements on this issued by the White House. Here posted in the order they appear chronologically.

1. Executive Order >> whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/…
2. Statement by @POTUS @JoeBiden on the Executive Order. whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/…
Read 8 tweets
17 Sep
So this #TPLFStrategyLeak appears to be a significant event. An 86 page document leaked, allegedly written/presented to TPLF leadership a couple of weeks before the Northern Command attack.

The document appears to have been leaked online. A full version is not yet available.
The second #TPLFStrategyLeak tweet, tweeted earlier contains a summary and description of the full document. And I now have a full translation of that.
The document is in Amharic, which raises questions about its authenticity. However, it's not quite that simple, as it also raises questions about any attempt to fake it. I would also note that faking an 86 page doc. would itself be extraordinary.
Read 8 tweets
16 Sep
The Ethiopian-Tigray Crisis-War has reached what looks like a turning point. The rumours, which are everywhere, that @POTUS @JoeBiden is about to sanction Ethiopia and Eritrea are clearly being telegraphed for a reason.
@POTUS @JoeBiden E.G. this is one of the most recent ones. And this one is weirdly specific. "18 Hours". sounds like there will be a press conference or something.
Apparently the announcement of the sanctions has been approved. On the day that @KarenBassTweets was due to depart for Ethiopia on CODEL (Congressional Delegation) visit. However this seems to have been postponed, now till 27th-29th September. Which is odd.
Read 24 tweets
16 Sep
Translation into English of Somalia President Farmaajo’s statement suspending Somalia PM Roble @MohamedHRoble (aka Rooble)’s powers. [ Translation by @Mohamud_M_A ] Image
And some speculation on possible immediate reasons for Roble’s removal by President Farmaajo @M_Farmaajo.
Read 4 tweets

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