Backup meme spreads. Ethiopians seem to do it better.

“The government has taken over Mogadishu,” a transitional government leader, Jama Fuuruh, told Reuters by telephone from Mogadishu’s port.

Right. "Militias loyal to the transitional government" of Somalia, backed up by the Ethiopian army, have captured Mogadishu, reports the NYTimes, backed up by nobody, after "Islamists" scampered.

“No one is really in command,” said one adviser to Western diplomats who has close contacts with both the Islamists and the transitional government. “Chaos is in command.”

So then. Why is it when the Ethiopians back somebody up they capture a whole city, but when we back somebody up it's all they can do to capture a police station? Just wondering here. Maybe we should ask the Ethiopians for some backup.

And what the hell is "an advisor to Western diplomats"?