These illegal bastions of capitalism had sprung up throughout much of the country, establishing a semblance of a working economy alongside the nonfunctioning state system, and enriching a dangerous new merchant class.
A weak transitional government has received millions of dollars from the United States and the United Nations to establish a semblance of order, but it has succeeded in controlling only a few city blocks of Mogadishu.
It was inevitable, given the scale of destruction, that early attempts to re-establish a semblance of civic life on the scorched earth of ground zero were marked by chaos and confusion.
The idea, several people told me on a recent visit, is to tell a new story, one that breaks with a long history of regional decline, including the recent upheavals caused by militant fundamentalism, and to re-establish a semblance of cultural parity with the West.
The visitors grew in confidence and started to establish a semblance of control.
A semblance of normalcy Since that day, their school routine has been vital for Mackintosh Durvier and his younger brother Freddy to establish a semblance of normal life.
The Giants have produced a mass of yards between the 20-yard lines but have not established any semblance of a reliable running game, hence the failures in short-yardage situations.
Lebanese society was able for a long time to give a semblance of relative economic stability.
After successfully arguing for the chance to test a new Army counterinsurgency strategy that he himself wrote, General Petraeus flooded Iraq's cities with American forces, creating the military presence necessary to re-establish at least a semblance of authority in areas that had been taken over by extremist militias or terrorist groups.
