J. Peter Pham, director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs at James Madison University and an academic fellow of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, on the growing threat taking shape in Somalia. From the WSJ, “The New Taliban” (subscription only):
On June 5, an armed Islamist group, the Union of Islamic Courts, took control of Mogadishu, Somalia’s largest city, after heavy fighting against “warlords” representing an ad hoc alliance apparently recently underwritten by the CIA and the Department of Defense […]
Like the Taliban before them, the Union of Islamic Courts portrays itself as a popular indigenous law-and-order group emerging to provide governance and social services in the absence of any functioning state institutions […]. And like their Afghan counterparts who sent the man who is now Yale’s most famous student on tour, the Somali Islamists put forward a moderate face in the person of a former high school teacher, Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, who assures such members of the international media as make it to Mogadishu that he is a “moderate” and that his group poses no threat to the outside world.
Alas, the truth is that the Union is made up of at least four major jihadi groups: al-Ittihad al-Islami (“Islamic Union”), a group which used to appear on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations (the folks at Foggy Bottom apparently bought at face value the group’s previously self-proclaimed dissolution); al-Takfir wal-Hijra (“Excommunication and Exodus”), a group so extreme that it considered Osama bin Laden too moderate and tried to kill him in Sudan in 1996; al-Islah (“Reconciliation”), an Islamist group pushing for the establishment of a Islamic state in Somalia; and al-Tabligh (“Making Known”), an Islamist “missionary” group with links to the same madrassas in Pakistan which gave us the Taliban.
The forces of the Union, like those of the Taliban, are reinforced with foreign jihadis including, according to my sources in Somalia, Arabs, Afghans, Pakistanis, Kashmiris, Palestinians and Syrians. And, again like the Taliban, the Union is generously supplied by nominal U.S. allies on the Arabian peninsula—in this case Saudi Arabia and Yemen, via daily flights from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
The Taliban proved the lethality of allowing a militantly Islamist group to seize control of any country. But in contrast to isolated Afghanistan, Somalia sits astride shipping lanes vital to the global economy for the flow of oil and cargo.
After they make short shift of Somalia’s shambolic government—notwithstanding the last ditch attempt at the U.N. this week to shore it up with the appointment of a new International Contact Group—the Union will turn its attention to destabilizing Somaliland, whose democratically elected, secular government has already been declared anathema by the Union’s chief ideologist, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, the al Qaeda-linked head of al-Ittihad. (This month alone, the Somaliland government has intercepted two major arms shipments destined for Union-aligned jihadis from well-wishers in Arabia.) Then the Union will turn on Ethiopia and Kenya, both countries with large ethnic Somali populations with significant pockets of jihadi infiltration. If all this sounds a bit far-fetched, recall that the Taliban’s Mullah Omar thought of himself as the emir of a nascent Central Asian caliphate.
[…] As the 9/11 Commission report, among other sources, makes painfully clear, throughout the late 1990s the Taliban regime was not exactly subtle about what it and the numerous foreign groups it hosted were up to in the mountains and valleys of Afghanistan. Yet it was only after the twin towers came down that the U.S. took action—and, by then, our best potential ally, the long-neglected Ahmad Shah Masud, leader of the Northern Alliance, lay dead at the hands of al Qaeda assassins, felled two days before 9/11.
Today, it is an open secret that the same dynamic is at work in Somalia as was at work in Afghanistan a decade ago. Ironically, while senior U.S. officials have had even less reaction to the fall of Mogadishu to the Union of Islamic Courts than their predecessors had to the fall of Kabul to Taliban, even the U.N. has acknowledged the existence of terrorist training camps in Somalia. One report prepared for the Security Council last year listed 17 of them by name. Yet not only are the U.S. military personnel of the Combined Joint Task Force, Horn of Africa, based in nearby Djibouti (and not allowed to take direct action against the camps), but official U.S. policy does not even make provision for shoring up Somaliland as a bulwark against the rising tide of radical Islamism in the horn.
Unfortunately for Somalia, its neighbors, and ultimately the U.S., it seems we’re well on our way to proving once again the truth of Santayana’s warning that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
[my emphases]
A couple of observations: first, let me say that I’m sure the UAE is simply dying to help us out on this and stop those shipments of provisions to Somalia. After all, we showed so much faith in them to “manage” a few ports—why wouldn’t they be looking to do us a favor in return?
Second, I find it difficult to believe that the DoD and the US military is allowing the Union of Islamic Courts to take control of important shipping lanes without having some plans in place to combat the threat—whether or not such plans are spoken of publicly, or whether or not they are official US policy at this point.
Of course, I could be completely mistaken. Perhaps too much of our attention is focused on the Middle East and Afghanistan—and with North Korea purportedly testing long-range missiles capable of hitting Chicago, it’s possible, I suppose, that both the State Department and the DoD just haven’t the time right now to concern themselves with what is happening in Africa.
But for what it’s worth, I do doubt that’s the case—and I don’t, as Mr Pham seems to do, put much stock in the lack of reaction from senior US officials, particularly insofar as Mr Pham uses it as a gauge to determine our level of concern, or our military / diplomatic preparedness.
Certain mistakes made in the early days of Afghanistan allowed for the escape of any number of jihadists, including bin Laden himself; perhaps what we are seeing this time is a US content to let the next wave of Islamic terror groups gather and make themselves comfortable before official US policy on shoring up Somaliland is announced to the world.
Which, if it’s done correcty, should come about 6 hours after the massive military strikes that destroy each and every one of those training camps, and most of the jihadists in them. Probably not the “million Mogadishus” Nicholas De Genova had in mind when he made his notorious anti-American statement back in March of 2003. But what the hell, huh? Seems a shame to waste such a memorable phrase—particularly when we have the opportunity to so completely ironize it.
And believe me, humanities and social science academics will really appreciate that.
Anyway, I’m interested to hear your thoughts. Are we really unprepared?—in which case, we need to start raising our voices on this and put debates over gay marriage on the backburner; or is something else at play here?—and the US is simply biding its time before they deal the problem.
(h/t Terry Hastings)
The wet ass hour cometh, if Iraq’s new government can’t stand on its own two feet pretty soon now.
I’d say that an jihadist Somalia would be more of a threat as a safe haven for terrorists, rather than any direct threat on its own. Bully boys in wraparound shades piloting technicals through the streets of Mogadishu aren’t a strategic threat to us. But Osama bin Laden sheltered there, reportedly, and doubtless other AQ kingpins would too, given the chance.
Turing = theory, as in Liberal creationism holds that terrorism is “only a theory”, and that actually the WOT is the work of an Unintelligent Designer.
I doubt we’re really unprepared, but I fully expect that Pelosi et al will be on TV within the week complaining that we “have no plan” in Mogadishu.
Hmmm.
According to StrategyPage.com, which is a fairly good site, American covert ops teams have been operating in Somalia identifying targets and conducting intelligence gathering with UAVs.
I think when the time comes a nice friendly message will be sent a la JDAM.
I know that, were I a Somali warlod, that’s something that would keep me awake at night. Particularly since the US military is going to field the SDB, Small Diameter Bomb, which has folding wings that give it the ability to glide up to 50+ miles before striking a target.
Translated: If you get on America’s shitlist, you won’t have to worry about being on it for long.
Anyway, I’m interested to hear your thoughts. Are we really unprepared?
My short answer is “no.” After 9/11, I heard the great wailing and nashing of teeth. “We weren’t prepared! They caught us with our pants down!”
But I had just come from DOD language school, a graduate of arabic class. Arabic, of the four languages offered to first term Marines, made up sixty percent of the students there. It’s pretty clear the DOD knew where the threat was coming from, even if we didn’t know the exact form the attack would take.
That said, any project that raises awareness of this as the number one threat I will happily lend it my voice.
Jeff, dude, the US has ‘SmartDust’ now … the same stuff that Zarqawi had on him that guided the 500lb bombs to his feet will be deployed in Somalia.
The guided bombs will get smaller and more efficient, until, eventually … probably by this December, the US Military will be at a technological point where an unmanned drone can fly over an area release 500 explosive tipped darts and take out 500 terrorists – and only terrorists – who are standing among a crowd of school kids.
The effectivity will be such that the role of the US military will be to act as grief counsellors for the families of recently deceased terrorists.
I sure hope you’re right, ed. It’s just that…well, ever since we wasted the Z-man, I’ve been…how do I say this?…jonesin’ hard for some more jihadi-killin’ courtesy of the good old US military.
Do you think I have a problem?
We do need to help out Somaliland. They need recognition as a real, responsible government and they need assurances that we won’t consign them to the chaos that the rest of Somalia is in.
I’m not gong to be happy till we drop a MOAB on something.
And we need to tell the Saudis that their idea of “charity,” which seems to be giving money and weapons to anyone willing to kill for Islam anywhere OTHER than Saudi Arabia, is getting REAL old.
Or the reason we didn’t allow the ports deal to go through is that UAE allows this kind of thing to go on with their tacit approval. Kind of a chicken or the egg kind of problem, eh? In addition you assume they would have been willing to help us in the manner you suggest if we had asked and for that matter you assume we hadn’t already asked and they said no.
That aside, I am fairly confident that this is on the White House, Pentagon, CIA, State Department etc radar. What is happening there right now is what the White House has warned against when the subject of exiting Iraq comes up, a failed state that could become a safe haven for terrorists. In fact the situation in Somalia seems to me to be the exact type of situation for the White House to invoke the Bush Doctrine of preventative war.
“Million Mogadishusâ€Â
BECAUSE OF THE ALLITERATION!!!
Hmmm, Rob B.
MOAB eh?
MMMMMOAB
I like the sound of that.
I’m with ed on this one. I think there are so many black ops people from so many countries that they probably outnumber the bad guys – just sitting there in Somalia racking up the targets.
I think Somalia has been on the radar for a loooong time. Just have to make sure that we’re targeting the right guys. Then……BOOM!
You have to think about how much they’re really taking over. I don’t think the threat has changed that much, in the sense that if someone wanted to operate in those shipping lanes before, they could have. That place seems to be pretty out of control.
Big E —
You write:
Uh, weren’t those the people who said the Dubai ports deal wasn’t a problem?
Funny to trust them on one and not the other.
If history has shown us anything, I’d imagine that the military is keeping an eye on it & may plan limited responses. It is the political side that will prevent any real or overt dealings. Our hands are tied by Iraq. I’d imagine we’ll be forced to let the chips fall where they will like we have had to in past like is SouthEast Asia, Africa during the 70’s & the Middle East until recently.
If by “shipping lanes” we’re talking maritime shipping, then unless I’m missing something I doubt they’re really much of a threat. Sure, a rubber boat packed with explosives can damage a warship or tanker (USS Cole, anyone?) but if you realize the threat’s there it’s also pretty easy to defend against in a tactical sense: small boat coming up on the starboard side? Open fire with a .50 cal.
But as a potential terrorist haven? Yeah, big problem. Lefty conniptions about pre-emption aside, we need to keep an eye on things and act when appropriate.
What could they DO to the shipping lanes from Somalia?
Seriously. We’re already offshore, and we offed some pirates there a month or so ago.
I’m not saying there’s no problem. I am saying that Somalia isn’t home to advanced anti-ship missiles or warships, and that neither are likely to be shipped to them soon if we watch carefully enough.
Or am I being to optimistic?
If we are gathering intel for future strikes, the UAE might be a good source of information regarding who, what, when, and where.
Maybe they’re helping the bad guys but that doesn’t mean they’re not helping us.
or “too” optimistic?
One thing I think we’ve all relearned over the past 5 or so years, is that just because the media doesn’t cover something doesn’t mean it’s not happening.
I’d bet dollars to donut holes that our military has a plan for cleaning out places like Somalia and they’re just waiting for George to tell Don to make it happen. And I’d like to think that they have willfully neglected to alert the media.
TW: press – AI? I’d like to fuckin’ know how this thing fuckin’ works.
And by “cleaning out” I mean reducing to rubble and hamburger meat.
It’s eerie, alright. I suspect that John Bolton’s mustache, Karl Rove’s breakfast burrito, and Tucker Carlson’s strap-on are reading what you type and providing the words. That or the NSA.
I will admit to being against the ports deal initially due to the UAE’s connections to terrorism, however I was eventually persuaded by the fact that they were not taking over security for the ports as I had initially believed. In addition, and to a much lesser extent, I agreed with the logic that we need to treat them as equals and help bring them fully into the free world. That doesn’t change the fact that the reason the deal was scuttled was because of Dubai’s terrorism connection.
Where I am puzzeled is as to my alleged lack of trust on the ports deal and my trust now over Somalia. In the case of the ports deal I had every reason not to trust the administration initially as reports indicated that they were doing something very foolish by allowing Dubai Ports World to take control over security of several major ports. As the information showing that I was wrong became available I changed my position to reflect the facts on the ground. I had never really taken a position as far as trusting the administration goes. I reacted to the info I had.
In this case all I have intimated is that I am confident that the appropriate agencies are aware of the situation. In my opinion it may at some future point become an ideal situation for invocation of the Bush Doctrine after the situation on the ground becomes more settled. I don’t believe that this administration could do it for a million reasons starting with Iraq but I think it is the kind of thing that Bush and many others have talked about as being unacceptable in this day and age. As far as trusting the administration? I don’t know. I guess I trust that they are at least aware of it but it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if they figure its the type of thing they could kick the can down the road to a future administration on. It will certainly take several years before Somalia is ready to pose the kind of threat that Afganistan did.
I think you’re right to be alarmed. One of the dangers of the political divide in the US is that it makes it more difficult for us to unite when we need to. Unfortunately, Somalia is likely to be one of those times.
I also felt, at the time, that rejecting Dubai so publicly was a slap at Arab moderates that we desparately need to encourage. I don’t think its going to come back to haunt us so much as I think we need to do better by our Arab friends in the future.
Sounds to me like you reacted prematurely on the ports deal, Big E. Though I’m glad you eventually came around.
Of course, by the time you and many others came to trust the judgment of the administration on that point, the political repercussions were too much to overcome. Which is a shame, I think.
Which is why I’m likewise glad that in this case, you believe that something useful is being done, even though it may not look that way to those who don’t have all the info, or who aren’t privy to the bigger picture.
Of course, it’s impossible to know this for certain; but all’s I’m saying is you seem much more confident in the competence of the administration here than you did, initially, with respect to the Dubai deal.
We need to start a pool – if we put troops in Somalia, how long before Murtha wants to take them out?
I would start the over/under at 6 days – to get on the weekend talk shows.
Seems like there doesn’t need to be much of a plan for that. Just bloodlust.
Big E and I were/are on the sane page, though I still, w/o rehashing the specs of the defunct deal, understood that “security for the ports” was`nt to be their (UAE) responsibility. The operations in the terminals was their AOR. There is a big difference. And lets not forget where the UAE are running things today inside our borders.
BTW-who was running our terminals on 9/10 and still?
OT-UAE is pouring a bunch of ¥en into Japan right now. Oh what a tangled web we weave.
Let me get this straight: the Saudis (Emirates, insert whatever oil-rich gulf state you like) are providing support to jihadis who are now in a position to challenge the shipping lanes from Saudi?
Evidence enough for me that the threat is not particularly credible.
I agree that I jumped the gun on the Ports deal. I had a knee jerk reaction due to my frustration that the US has not had the will to correctly identify the enemy in this war and that we still make nice with countries like Saudi Arabia that work against our interests. In a sense it was “to good for me to check”. It fit into the narritive of what I feel is going on in this country with respect to the overall war on radical islam and stoked my outrage. I have to watch myself on issues like that because I have a tendency to take a more us vs them stance than is helpfull. I also regret that the deal didn’t go through although I blame partisan media and democrat action more than anything.
After some reflection I think that it would be premature for the US to take a strong stand about Somalia until it was clear that the new government that forms is radical and inimicable to our interests. After all we wouldn’t want to look like we were just knee jerk against any Muslim government.
Certainly. Because the threat to the shipping is enough to drive up the price of oil. Wouldn’t even have to be any effective attacks on tankers; just a few feints and a few bullet holes would be enough to drive up the price. Think of it as a way to schedule hurricanes and refinery fires without as much investment at risk.
Also, the Saudis—as far as I can tell—are just as interested in jihad as oil. Setting up a jihadi paradise that gives them a little plausible deniability is always in order. It means fewer princes who need to get into car wrecks or get lost in the desert.
Meanwhile China bores holes 45 miles off of Florida. Fox can punch`em in anywhere in the Gulf. The Caribou and greenies own Alaska and the band played on…..
If I were a visiting dignitary from another planet, I`d love to hear someone explain that little dilemma in logical terms. Oh hang on! We`ve already got dignitaries from another planet in Congress. I wonder which version or is it diversional update they got…..like that`s not evident by now.
I think we’re a lot more prepared than most of us know. I got an e-mail from Spirit of America that had this intriguing paragraph:
I had no idea we had Army Special forces in North Africa, so I’m assuming that I’m ignorant of all sorts of other deployments.
Now, if the Special Forces in North Africa were on the ball, they’d ask to be based in Iceland so that they could be ready to deploy back to North Africa if necessary.
TOM LOL! Montezuma`s got nuthin` on Murtha`s revenge!
Well, hell, what about Darfur again?
Oye, my head is spinning.
You know, I think if an enemy who strength lies in its amorphous organization and invisibility insists on concentrating in one location, where they can’t even blend in with the indigenous population, then I might keep in mind Napoleon’s old dictum, “never disturb your enemy when he’s making a mistake…”
To effectively attack shipping they would need thier own navy. I don’t think they’ll get one soon. Plus the fact that first world navies can patrol for months with being relieved.Plus the fact that we, the good guys, have aircraft carriers and submarines that carry missles, and that the whole country is virtually a free fire zone. Yeah. Let’s hope they do something stupid.
N.Korea’s nuclear program is ALL N.Korea has. It’s doubtful that the equipment that Kin Jong il’s army relies upon is fit for service. I’s doubtful that the army is. Should he launch. If he launches, it will be the first and only time. Furthermore he knows it.
WSJ’s probably right. [Which is a damned rare phenomenon.]
Thing is, there isn’t a goddam thing we can do about it.
Unless someone is proposing a new Iraq-type exercise in military adventurism.
Our last attempt at nation-building in SOmalia didn’t work so well.
At least we gotahell outta there. Youdda think Somalia would have taught the Neocons a lesson.
It didn’t, apparently.
Cuttin’ and runnin’ has that effect.
I’m wondering if our lads are hoping that more jihadis move to Somalia as they get squeezed out of the Middle East. I’m trying to think of a better place (from our perspective) to have a concentration of bad guys.
Somalia is wreched and already war torn, we have experience in the area, it borders on the wide-opean ocean – which we control without question. It is easy for us to get into and out of quickly with covert ops (and a direct flight to Diego Garcia – no airspace violations to worry about. Unlike the Phillipines, there is no canopy jungle for them to hide in, nor high mountians like Afghanistan. There is no tin-pot dictator we have to worry about keeping in power like Pakistan, so we can tread as heavily as we like. The place is on the ass-end of nowhere, no resources to worry about destroying.
Sounds like a perfect killing field to me.
Can anyone think of a better place for jihadis to congregate (other than hell or gitmo, that is)?
The LESSON to be taken, Carl is not to let Bill Clinton and Les Aspin run the military, you revisionist idiot.
Carl,
Its always amusing to watch you display your utter ignorance of both history and current affairs.
“Our last attempt at nation-building in SOmalia didn’t work so well. “
I thought that was a very small deployment to provide humanitarian aid.
But you are right if it was supposed to be a nation building effort, a dismal failure.
I can’t decide whether we should kill them or just admit then now to the Ivy League of their choice.
Go here and click on the Horn of Africa tab.
Yes, we have been keeping an eye on the area for a long time – Carl and the Telephone Pole aside. And, yes Virginia, as other posters have mentioned, the US Navy can easily control those shipping lanes.
I don’t know about “North Africa” but the Sahel and some of the West sure have seen the SF.
This is a case of strategic retreat by the jihadis – they cannot set up in Afghanistan, and Iraq is killing them. They can lurk in the Northwest Frontier – but it isn’t much of a logistical base, and when they come over to Afghanistan, we kill them. If they go to Kashmir, the Indians kill them.
Somehow the concept of the National Redoubt keeps coming to mind…
Is that how it was received? Did people really want us to be in Somalia back then?
I understand that the USS Cole is enroute to that area. Probably to conduct water-skiing and wind-surfing classes for Seal Team 6.
Somolia is a train wreck that we need to make happen.
From a pure military analysis our options in Somalia are far better than Afghanistan. One Carrier group combined with one amphibious group makes us the dominant power in the region with no need to rely on a reluctant Moslem ally with nuclear weapons. B-52s can reach the region also from Indian Ocean bases without over flight permissions. The only limitations are related to internal politics and national will.
actus,
When the President and his milquetoast SecDef put armor support in the hands of the Malaysians, yeah, things are going to be f’ed up.
Other than that–stick your head in a blender and hit “puree.” You know as much about military tactics, strategy, and capabilities as I do about menu choices at Ward Churchill’s house.
C.Gross: You almost pinched off a thought with your …”Somalia would have taught the Neocons a lesson.” ,remark.
It was more of a confirmation than a lesson, however. Care to venture on what that was. Perhaps we’ll see if you learned anything.
Well, it’s been several years since I read Black Hawk Down but I seem to remember that there was a multinational humanitarian force in Mogadishu at the time. I don’t know who wanted or didn’t want them there, but that multinational part is pretty damned important to reality based cats. I don’t know that anyone polled the Somalis. I’d imagine that it’s kinda tough conducting a poll in a state of anarchy.
We have assets in the area. The US has maintained a significant military presence in Djibouti for quite a while, including a significant number of special forces soldiers. Djibouti has long-standing ties to France, but we still have an active base there. Here’s a link for your perusal
The SF guys have been running MEDCAPS (medical civic-action projects) in that area for years, caring for the indigenous people, as well as gaining intel and friends.
Somalia sits on the southeast border of Djibouti.
Not as much as they do.
A subtlety that lots of people have trouble understanding is that it’s a rare — and generally unsuccessful — military officer or enlisted who has any particular bloodlust.
They do have, in general, a clear and realistic recognition that “rubble and hamburger” generally are both more trustworthy, and more benign, than one’s adversary alive in intact buildings.
Is that how it was received? Did people really want us to be in Somalia back then?
Actus, hard as it might be to imagine, “how it was received” in the US is not the only characteristic of a successful operation.
In this particular case, we put in under-armored, under-supplied armed forces, didn’t support them, then bugged out after 18 of them were killed (rather horrifically.) I do’t recall it being received particularly well here.
It was, however, received much more happily among al Qaeda: Somalia was one of the examples that UBL used to make the argument that the US could be beaten with a couple planes into a big building.
The Clinton administration allowed the United Nations to lead the “nation building” effort which was at least one contributor to its failure.
Gross: Didn’t think so.
About as much as Darfur now, by the same bleeding heart ‘root-cause’ theorists that think we should have negotiated with Iraq and now Iran.
You know actus, if your side doesn’t get a base hit, or even a balk on just one game in the registered season, you might think about shutting the fuck up and playing another sport.
Surely, you can fuck off anywhere on the internets; go see the broad world out there. Protein Wisdom will still be here, bud, if you get scurred.
This is untrue. The Bab el Mandeb Strait at the mouth of the Red Sea is one of the biggest shipping bottlenecks in the world. It’s less than 100 miles from the coast of Somalia and the straight is less than 20 miles across. Dozens of ships and more than 3 million barrels of oil pass through the straight every day. If you only intend to damage the shipping, attacking the straight from Somoalia wouldn’t be much more difficult than a Lake Michigan boat ride from Milwaukee to Chicago.
They do have, in general, a clear and realistic recognition that “rubble and hamburger†generally are both more trustworthy, and more benign, than one’s adversary alive in intact buildings.
There are idiots in any company, be it a Fortune 500 company or an infantry company. Some officers apparently believe that “rubble and hamburger” are more trustworthy and benign than any non-American alive in intact buildings, since you never know whether or not that non-American might be an adversary. This approach keep turning more and more non-Americans into adversaries.
Waaaw Waaaa
Hey, brooksfoe, do you even have a passport, buddy? I doubt you’ve even been to Canada.
But la-la-land is beautiful this time of century.
And?
Whew, these boys are dense…
Jihadi ping pong anyone?
Somalia to Afghanistan to Iraq and back to Somalia.
And at each stop we kill a couple of thousand of them … and none of them get on a plane to the USA.
I like it fine (TW)
Well, gee wilickers Bruce, that is high-diggity-dolly irregular! I mean, the 19 hijackers on 9-11 were all victims of “Bloody Murder” Mogadishu, or the al Shifa “Abattoir o’ Doom”, or our Imperial Crusade of Halliburton in Kosovo?
No?
Maybe they were folk we bombed in Beirut? Libya? Muhajadeen we “funded” in Afghanistan?
No?
Oh, it was just jihadi crazies, the simple misunderstanders of their own religion (of Peace TM), who had to divert those airplanes to catch the next Tony Robbins’ spiritual gathering.
From Saudi Arabia. Which, very noticeably, we have not bombed.
Odd, that. Seems if we kill people, they stay dead. Hmmm, a mystery to me.
Ease up on the boob lads. He meant the non-American “snooozzze media”, or possibly the professors, no discernible distinction.
I disagree with your closing sentence, B.
respy,
Zarq and the missing Virjuns
The decision to go to war is the gravest decision any nation can make. It is the weightiest of matters, requiring of us the sternest deliberation, and, if ultimately necessary, a commitment to total victory.
If they’re worth fighting, they’re worth killing. If they’re not worth killing, then they’re not worth fighting in the first place.
We had no business in Somalia in the nineties, we never should have put the first troop in harm’s way there.
That being said, I believe we should also wait and see what develops in Somalia now. It could prove a wonderful opportunity to nail motherfuckers like Bin Laden and Zawahiri as they make a break for Somalia, but I think they would be very hesitant to try because they know that they would stick out like a sore thumb in Somalia.
yours/
peter.
I doubt you’ve even been to Canada.
And I might ask whether you’ve ever been to another country except to kill people there.
I’ve lived in 5 countries, including in Africa and the Middle East, and speak 6 languages, including two of those of our former adversaries (Russian and Vietnamese).
I have also been to Canada.
Word to the unwise, brooksfoe–
I’d be very careful about trying one-upsmanship around here–you’ll quickly be outclassed. I myself have lived in more countries than you and haven’t killed a soul. You do have the advantage on laguages–I just don’t have the ability beyond the two I know.
Having said that–you seem to fall into the camp of those that believe that the great problem in the world is the behavior of the United States. If America would just be warm and fuzzy all would be happiness and light, right?
Breaking news, we have adversaries, they don’t like you any more than they like me. And faux sensitivity won’t win you points either. The American military is very good at telling friend from foe. Better than any military in history and much better than any other on the planet now because they actually TRY to make the distinction. Ask an average Chechen sometime if your Russian friends do the same.
And, obviously, not everyone who commits a terrorist act against the US has personally experienced violence at the hands of the US military. Nor am I saying that violence against US troops is somehow “justified”. But it has been my observation that in countries where the US military is busy blowing the place apart and creating “rubble and hamburger”, Americans tend to be less popular than in countries where the US military is behaving civilly, or is simply not around. In Vietnam, where I live, for example, Americans are a lot more popular now than we were when we were bombing the living shit out of them, and people were scrawling “Kill the Americans” on tree trunks. And that goes for the north and the south.
Well you tried wishbone. I’ll give you that. Standby…..
wishbone:
I am very well aware that we have adversaries who aren’t going to like us no matter how nicely we behave. A Jew who spends time in the Middle East learns that pretty quickly.
Up until the invasion of Iraq, I also gave the benefit of the doubt to the US military in terms of the effort they take to distinguish friend from foe. I am starting to wonder, however, what the evidence is that they are so much better than any other military ever has been, or so much more careful. Obviously, they’re vastly better than the Russians; and while a lot of that is a simple function of competence, as Vercingetorix has pointed out, there is also sometimes an element of American niceness and tolerance involved.
But. American military personnel are often quite nice. Others are dumb, jingoistic, insensitive, prejudiced and violent. Or just clueless. In the West African country I lived in, the detachment of US Marines who were theoretically supposed to evacuate us in case of emergency (who were very nice) spoke no French, rarely left their compound or the Embassy due to security concerns, and on the few occasions I saw them out in the city, seemed utterly lost and helpless. They shared a general American weakness in foreign countries: a tendency to barricade oneself off into islands of mini-America, which leaves one hostile and uncomprehending in one’s relations with the local population. The obnoxious, terrified and violent behavior of US troops in Iraqi traffic; the isolation of most troops on giant mall-like FOB’s; and the repeated incidents in which US troops see unarmed locals as a potential threat (at checkpoints, etc.) and kill them—all these ring very true to a certain characteristic feature of the story of America abroad.
And I don’t think that “if America would be warm and fuzzy all would be happiness and light”. But I do think that if America would stop staggering around like a paranoid drunkard, barfing on itself, hollering threats (which we can’t deliver on), and beating up on mean, unpopular weaklings to show everyone how tough we are, we might stop making the situation worse.
wb: Do I lie?
Forest Hunter – you’re practically psychic.
Why, thank you Master.
I’ll start here:
If you are referring to the MSG detachment at an embassy, they are not here to evacuate you. They are there to guard the classified information at the embassy and provide internal security. If you are referring to a Marine support team, I’d say that the logisitics of teaching them all the languages of the countries they might hypotehtically be rushed to is, in a word, daunting.
As for the compund mentality–you said it yourself–there are security concerns everywhere. Just being American will do that in some cases regardless of the foreign policy beheavior of the government. Much of what you cast aspersions on would be viewed in toehr quarters as necessary steps to maintain morale.
But here is where you really go wrong:
<blockquote>But I do think that if America would stop staggering around like a paranoid drunkard, barfing on itself, hollering threats (which we can’t deliver on), and beating up on mean, unpopular weaklings to show everyone how tough we are, we might stop making the situation worse.<blockquote>
I’m trying to discern what your alternatives are. Okay, you disagree with the Iraq War. Does that mean we were a paranoid drunk beating up on weaklings in the case of the Taliban?
And I for one, do not see the situation as worse. A world without the Taliban running their own terrorist strip mall and without Saddam just waiting for the opportunity to cause mischief is a better place. Period.
Quick response: invasion of Afghanistan: good move. Supported by me and by most other Democrats – hence the 80% popularity ratings – and by the rest of the world – hence extensive European participation and cooperation from Pakistan and, ahem, Iran. Being as how Al-Qaeda was based there.
Invasion of Iraq, where there was no Al-Qaeda presence: very, very, very dumb move, neither strategically promising nor morally justifiable. Replaced tyranny with mayhem. Combined with “Axis of Evil” speech, refusal to negotiate with Iran or NKorea, etc. etc., 2003 was real beginning of drunken staggering – though potential for such behavior had been evident since various obnoxious gestures in early 2001 (viz. renouncing Kyoto).
Forest Hunter – it’s freakin’ eerie!
I agree that as a terrorist base, Somalia is a poor choice (stone age infrastructure, nowhere to hide, easy for us to reach, no organized military to speak of).
On the other hand, that makes it a difficult place for us too. Somalia is probably one of the most f’ed-up countries in the world. Nation-building there will make Iraq look like Switzerland.
In other words, I don’t doubt that we can take out any hostile individual or organization that doesn’t keep its head down, but I don’t see the endgame. Going into Somalia overtly makes every problem there our fault, in the eyes of the usual suspects.
If there are any friendly, or at least non-hostile, locals on the ground who might form the nucleus of a civilized government, they seem to be getting their asses kicked.
So I think Somalia will be more challenging than Afghanistan and Iraq, in some important ways.
Oh boy.
A flawed agreeement that placed NO limitations on half the world’s population and its two fastest-growing economies that had less than a ZERO chance of being ratified in the US.
Nice to know you prefer tyranny to “mayhem.” That one remark speaks volumes about your world view. Let’s ask the Kurds what they prefer, deal?
Next!
BTW, earlier today I was looking at Mogadishu on Google Earth – the satellite images are surprisingly high-res for such a backward place.
Anyway, if you want a stiff and depressing dose of reality, take a look. The place looks like its already been nuked. Whole neighborhoods of houses missing their roofs, paved streets overgrown with grass, buildings that were clearly once important to the economy in ruins, and mile after mile of slums, with rows of ramshackle houses crammed together haphazardly, about a car-width apart.
This is way worse than it seems.
Forget the “what will this mean?” junk. The fuck-up is already done. I don’t have a WSJ subscription, so maybe they detail this in the long version, butâ€â€
The U.S. has been “secretly” (as in, everyone knows it) supplying the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism (“warlords” per WSJ) with boatloads of money that was making a couple “humanitarian” stops for massive skimming before turning into a handful of weapons for use against this Union of Islamic Courts. The losers in Mogadishu were just CIA money-laundering stooges, and the Union of Islamic Courts will take full propaganda advantage of the fact that it’s not “warlords’” they just defeatedâ€â€it’s us.
Remember right after the USSR/Afghanistan dustup, the video of Bin Laden saying that the greatest lesson he got from that war wasn’t that his men could defeat the Soviets, which he’d always believed, but that the U.S. in its assistance to him had revealed its fatal weakness, which the Islamic world soon exploit? This is what he was talking about.
The CIA is not on our sideâ€â€or the other. They’re the Don King of this fight. And there are only two ways they can be cut out of the action (which eventually they will be): lame-duck Bush can commander-in-chief them out of existence like Kennedy had planned (which is not happening), or the war can escalate beyond their capacity for fucking it up (…yeah).
This is really, really bad news.
Let’s ask the Kurds what they prefer, deal?
Kurdistan had de facto autonomy before the invasion of Iraq, and was run by the same parties who are running it now. And, for that reason, it is the one part of Iraq which does not suffer from mayhem. If you wanted an independent Kurdistan, there was no need to plunge the rest of Iraq into civil war to do that.
Hundreds of people per week are being kidnapped off the streets of Baghdad and turning up as corpses full of electric drill holes. Today the news included 18 civilians killed by a terrorist bomb and 3 US soldiers charged with murdering 3 captives. In what way is this situation superior to what existed under Saddam? I mean, it’s obviously superior from the point of view of an Islamist terrorist who wants to organize, train, and kill Americans, but superior from our point of view?
I would not pay $200 billion, lose 2500 American troops, and kill well over 30,000 civilians to turn tyranny into mayhem. I find nothing to choose between the latter two conditions.
OK, let’s turn back the clock to late 2002. The sanctions regime is falling apart. And oil is getting ready to triple in price.
Now do the calculus on the cost of fighting a nuclear-armed Saddam or failing that, the cost of an Israeli nuclear strike to prevent a nuclear-armed Saddam. One of those two things would have happened.
Yeah, there’s bad news in Iraq. There’s also good news, a condition, my friend, that did not exist under tyranny.
MT: Eerie indeed, I do not lie.
Hundreds every week— as in more than two— which is at least three. For the sake of round, albeit bullshit numbers, an average of fifty people showing up with holes in their heads daily minimum by your lying sack of shit argument calculations, brooksfoe! Do you read what your fingers have done. You are clearly out of your fuckeen mind and element! POAD you lying fuck!
a nuclear-armed Saddam
A year and a half of post-invasion investigations confirmed exactly what the IAEA inspectors found: there was no nuclear weapons program in Iraq. Saddam would have died of old age long before his decrepit failing state managed to build a nuclear weapon.
Did we know that in late 2002? State Dept intel branch and CIA analysts had serious doubts, but were swept aside by Cheney and the ODI. Us regular folks knew that something funny was going on, because they didn’t seem to be presenting any convincing intelligence – they kept repeating that stuff about the aluminum pipes, which was disputed, and they didn’t have anything better to go with. One starts to have doubts.
Sanctions regime falling apart: so what? We have no sanctions on Syria, few effective sanctions on Iran, no sanctions on Yemen or Turkmenistan or any number of bad regimes. So Iraqi sanctions get porous; so what? This is worth killing tens of thousands of people? On a wild, unpredictable gamble of a war that ultimately didn’t improve anything, and only made it worse?
On a related note: how do you square all this with the fact that Osama bin Laden is now actually living in a viciously anti-American country, a center of Islamic jihadism, with a failing and unstable government that might topple at any time, that actually HAS nuclear weapons? Why is an Iraqi or Iranian bomb the emergency? Isn’t Pakistan the emergency?
forest hunter: according to Time magazine, the Baghdad city coroner estimates he gets about 20 corpses a day that appear to have been executed and/or tortured, which is about 140 a week. So amend “hundreds” to “over a hundred” if you wish. Obviously not all of them have drill holes; some just have bullet holes, or massive burns, or whatever. Incidentally, he faces political pressure to reduce his estimate of daily casualties, not to exaggerate it.
Yes, brooksfoe–let’s invade Pakistan.
You again offer no alternatives than the US should behave better. You lost me at, “Kyoto” by the way.
Time magazine? Amend your lie from hundreds to 140? POADYLF!
brooksfoe
Sorry, but those two sentence make you look pretty bad in my book. Sure, toss out a little hate grenade toward marines, but expect them to save you in an emergency.
brooksfoe, couple of things.
You know what laws are, I assume? Treaties and the like? OK, let’s talk nukes.
In the vicinity, 3 countries have nukes, and we have not invaded nor shall we invade any of them because of their nuclear programs. You’ll notice that we haven’t even insisted that they disarm and the “we” in that case includes the best scolders ever, the United Nations.
Those 3 countries are Israel, Pakistan and India. It occurs to me that some attempts and many demands have been made of Israel, and also that those are ignored out of hand without repurcussion.
Now, we have Iran pursuing nukes, Iraq at some point was pursuing nukes and Libya recently pursuing nukes. All of these countries are prohibited from having nuclear weapons programs.
Do you know why that is?
Next thing is this (buried at the bottom of the piece), which you need to square with the drunken, bumbling idiot Americans that everyone hates, and the huge mistake they made turning Iraq from order to mayhem:
There are more than Sunnis in Iraq, brooksfoe. Iraq will be an American ally for years to come, and Iraqis will celebrate the relationship. Many, many, many of them already do.
Oh, one more thing…Pakistan can’t even think about doing anything that would spark a war with the US. They’ve got India to worry about.
How does that compare to the murder rate of a comparably sized city over here?
And I thank God that the men who made the history that lead to me sitting here this morning weren’t cast in your mold.
Put it next to pre-Katrina New Orleans and adjust for the population differential, and I’ll bet it would make a Democrat’s eyes roll right out of their skull and head for the door.
I haven’t read the other comments yet, but let me state that in 1944 the United States had forces in the Southwest Pacific, the Central Pacific, fighting in Italy, in Northwestern Europe, providing supplies to China, fighting in Southeastern Asia, keeping the North Atlantic open, patrolling the South Atlantic, and in many more places.
I too doubt that nothing is being done and that there are no plans in place. This nation can walk and chew gum and more at the same time.
How does that compare to the murder rate of a comparably sized city over here?
Put it next to pre-Katrina New Orleans and adjust for the population differential, and I’ll bet it would make a Democrat’s eyes roll right out of their skull and head for the door.
How much would you bet?
There were 265 homicides in New Orleans in 2004, when it had a population of 462,269. Baghdad has a population of about 7.4 million. If there were about 7,000 ethnic-cleansing executions in Baghdad this year, that would be a rate of a little under one per thousand inhabitants. New Orleans’s murder rate in 2004 was about one per 1744 inhabitants.
The figures are not comparable because the execution rate in Baghdad does not include all murders, just those that were obviously carried out by death squads. So in fact the Baghdad rate will be much higher.
What is the obvious difference between a death-squad bullet hole and a normal bullet hole?
LOL!
If you just trust me and factor in the numbers I don’t have simply because I’ve told you that you should. Then you’ll see that I’m right. Brilliant.
Now, also according to the article, in 1994 it was 421 homicides makes my point precisely if we look at the cities in a place in time. The numbers as they stand, though improved (but trending to worsening), don’t speak well for N’awlins. Still, any improvement is a good thing.
Five years later, NO homicides dropped to 159. So, time can make a difference. Things can improve. The current Baghdad murder rate has also existed in an American city in very recent history, without a war on and without sectarian feuds.
New Orleans really is a quagmire.
BTW, what exactly is an ethnic cleansing execution? Where is the ethnic cleansing in Iraq?