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-- The US media often reports overseas developments, but doesn't always explore their underlying causes, which, in many cases, conveniently lets Washington off the hook. The recent internecine violence in Somalia provides a classic example of reportage failing to get to the root of a conflict.

To date, US news sources have focused almost exclusively on the rising Islamist movement in Somalia and America's "covert" assistance to the Ethiopian invasion that backed Somalia's transitional government against the stronger Islamists. However, the media's focus should actually be on one of the Somali conflict's major causes: US government meddling.

After the 9/11 attacks, the George W. Bush administration feared that the absence of a strong government in the "failed state" of Somalia could turn the small east African country - slightly smaller than the state of Texas - into a haven for terrorists. Washington ignored the fact that other states with similarly weak governments had not become sanctuaries for extremists. Not to mention that, even if Somalia had become a terrorist enclave, such militants, absent US provocation, would probably not have attacked the distant United States.

As a result of the Bush administration's unfounded fear, the US began supporting unpopular warlords in the strife-torn nation. That's when the real trouble began.

The radical Islamists in Somalia never had much of a following until ordinary Somalis became aware that an external power was supporting the corrupt and thuggish military chieftains. The popularity of the Islamist movement then surged, allowing the Islamists to take over much of the country. In sum, where no problem with radical Islamists previously existed, the US government helped create one.

In many respects, the Somali episode is a replay of earlier, horribly counterproductive US interventions. In the 1980s, for example, Washington supported Afghanistan's radical Islamist mujahideen - then fighting the non-Muslim Soviet occupiers of the Muslim country - which later morphed into Al Qaeda, now attacking America for its non-Muslim military presence in the Persian Gulf.

History followed a similar pattern in Iraq. The Bush administration justified the US invasion of Iraq in part by Al Qaeda's alleged link to Saddam Hussein - a thug, to be sure, but one who had been wise enough, in reality, to support groups that didn't focus their attacks on the United States. Now, in Iraq, where there were once no anti-US Islamic terrorists, there are now plenty to combat.

Somalia is the third example of the United States creating a potentially anti-US Islamist threat where none previously existed. The US-supported Ethiopian invasion weakened the Somali Islamists, but they are still fighting fiercely for control of the capital, Mogadishu. Like their counterparts in Iraq, all the Somali Islamists have to do is hang on until the foreign occupier gets exhausted and leaves. When that happens, the Islamists could very well become the dominant political force in the country, capitalizing on their "patriotic" resistance to the hated Ethiopian occupiers and their US benefactors.

The US-backed Ethiopians, already unpopular, have become even more despised as a result of their alleged indiscriminate shelling of Mogadishu's civilian areas, which human rights groups are calling a war crime. Unlike the period when the Islamists controlled Mogadishu, the transitional government has been unable to keep order, undermining both its credibility and public support. As a result, many in Somalia see the period of Islamic rule as the good days, and now long for its return.

And that's probably what will happen. Like the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan, whose recent good fortunes were brought about by the continued foreign occupation of that country, we will likely see the Somali Islamists make a comeback.

US experiences in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia should teach foreign policy experts and the American public that US meddling abroad is often counterproductive and dangerous. Regardless, the US media aids the Bush government in disguising these policy failures by not exposing the underlying causes of violence, thereby enabling Washington to make the same mistakes over and over again.