US attacks position in Somalia with an Air Strike

US Launches Air Strikes in Somalia

Looks like an AC130 went and had a pop at an Al-Quaeda positon

The US has stationed warships off the coast to conduct an "anti-terror" excercise and is sending an aircraft carrier to their position to join in the operations.

Anyway, just the facts for now. Political commentry I'm sure will follow.

Why is it with all the Airforces in the world that it is the USA that must only be involved? I heard many innocent civilians died. They were only described as Al-Queda sympathizers. They said they struck them because they knew 2 of them to be bombers of American property. I wonder how much of that is true and how much is bogus. I think Bushco is opening another can of worms and its going to spread like wildfire. Who will suffer? Only the people outside of the nice and safe confines of the underground bunkers made especially for the people making the decisions.


Edit to add: I'm really surprised this is getting such low response.

[edit on 9-1-2007 by ThePieMaN]

I was a little shocked at the callousness of the government officials about this air raid:

"A government spokesperson Abdirahman Dinari said: "We know that a US gunship raided targets of al-Qaeda in southern Somalia sometime yesterday afternoon", confirming reports by US television channels.

Dinari said: "The target was a small village called Badel, where the terrorists were hiding. And the gunship did hit on the exact target", adding that Somali and Ethiopian troops were nearby.

The spokesperson said there were casualties from the raids, which, according to reports, were carried out by a AC-130 gunship, operated by the US Special Operations Command, that flew from its base in Djibouti for the attack.

Raid 'was a success'

Dinari said: "Absolutely a lot of people were killed. So many dead people were lying in the area, but we do not know who is who, but the raid was a success." " - www.24.com...

Anybody remember Mogadishu and Black Hawk Down? - www.pbs.org...

[edit on 9-1-2007 by LovingSoul]

Who would have approved this? The presidency itself? Wouldn't it require the backing of congress for an act of war on foreign soil?

Originally posted by Shar_Chi
Who would have approved this? The presidency itself? Wouldn't it require the backing of congress for an act of war on foreign soil?

I believed that Congress gave support to the President to target Al Qaeda personnel around the world. I'll look it up.

Does it really matter come on, Its a GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR!

The President of Samolia said we had the right to bomb them because known Al-Qaida figures were there that attacked US Embassys etc.


I'm sorry for anyone that doesnt think America has the right to do it but we do. People attack are country we will find them and attack them. 3,000+ American Civilians died on 9/11/01 if that was ok to due then us attacking them is just as right.

Somalia has no recognized central government authority nor any other feature associated with an established independent state. De facto authority resides in the hands of the governments for the unrecognized entities of Somaliland, Puntland, the Supreme Islamic Courts Council (SICC) and the United Nations-recognized, interim Transitional Federal Government (TFG).

We attacked Al Qaeda on our own accord, that region is so plagued by war that no authority can successfully assume control. I only hope that this action does not escalate into another major military operation.

...and isn't Al Qaeda just the "database" of mujahideen with CIA and Pakistani intelligence connections?

Originally posted by Shar_Chi
Who would have approved this? The presidency itself? Wouldn't it require the backing of congress for an act of war on foreign soil?

Not really. Several points here, the internationally-recognized Somali government invited the action, as deltaboy said the Congress already approved the 'War on Terror', and finally The War Powers Act of 1973 gives the president the ability to wage war for 60 days before the approval of Congress is required.

I'm sure after throwing all that stuff at the wall, something will stick.

Originally posted by KonigKaos
Does it really matter come on, Its a GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR!

The President of Samolia said we had the right to bomb them because known Al-Qaida figures were there that attacked US Embassys etc.

3,000+ American Civilians died on 9/11/01 if that was ok to due then us attacking them is just as right.

Ok thats fine, but WHAT-IF people that had nothing to do with the bombing, aren't even terrorists, were killed? If there are only 2 "Suspected" bombers and you kill 50 and then you are not even sure if you got these "suspects" what will that make us appear as? You just said it yourself about how 3000 innocent people were attacked. Since I can only assume no CIA or government people that makes decisions for the Middle East died in 9-11 then they did the same thing we are basically doing now when we kill people that arent and were never involved.

Originally posted by ThePieMaN
Ok thats fine, but WHAT-IF people that had nothing to do with the bombing, aren't even terrorists, were killed?

No point dealing with WHAT IF scenarios, just deal with the facts. We could say what if Mars attacks.

I just heard on FOX that it has been confirmed that the ringleader of the African embassy bombings was indeed killed by the airstrikes.

Looks like we finally had some good intel!

Originally posted by djohnsto77
I just heard on FOX that it has been confirmed that the ringleader of the African embassy bombings was indeed killed by the airstrikes.

Looks like we finally had some good intel!

Sure he was and you heard it on Faux news too. Credibility of the US intel and Israel intel has gone right down the drain after Iraq. I believe nothing until I here it from credible sources.

First of all, for those of you who haven't read the other threads, doesn't it seem suspicious that the US was tracking these terrorists for all this time and knew where they were, but waited for a war to come along between Ethiopia and Somalia before we acted on it? We pulled the Ike out of the gulf for this; it appears that the ike arrived on station on the 29th of December at latest, if we assume that she was part of the original interdiction force off the coast (which seems reasonable since part of her destroyer screen was)

In other words, we sat on our hands for a couple of weeks while we had good intel so that we could bring in overkill firepower to lay waste to a village on account of a couple of guys.

A likely story.

Next, there's authorization. CJTF-HOA has been deployed under circumstances which subject it to the War Powers Resolution of 1973 for a few years, so assuming that Bush has obeyed the law, the strike was effectively authorized by congress, although I'd have to do some looking to see if everything adds up, particularly where regular reports to congress required by the resolution are concerned. My initial guess is that they are using the WOT as a blanket for all military action world wide as a means of circumventing the resolution, and any violation would be contentious enough that nobody could claim absolute truth on the matter, unless there is some precedent that we can assume a SCOTUS ruling would follow.


That being said, there are several other threads you guys should check out because this discussion has been ongoing.

ATSNN: www.abovetopsecret.com...

WOT:
Since nobody has physically kissed my butt yet, I'd like to point out that the first thread on this subject was started by yours truly about 6 months before the event happened.
www.abovetopsecret.com...

WOT: Helmutt also has a thread here in WOT on the war, which has included discussion of the strikes, which forces were used, and why.
www.abovetopsecret.com...

This was a hit to get the guys who pulled the 1998 embassy bombing? Am I right? I wonder what took us so long to figure out who they were and where they were?

I dunno. It seems strange.

As far as 'innocent people' who died .. I don't know about that. What kind of 'innocent people' are holed up with mass murdering terrorists?

Whatever.

Originally posted by FlyersFan
As far as 'innocent people' who died .. I don't know about that. What kind of 'innocent people' are holed up with mass murdering terrorists?
Whatever.

I'm not going to pass absolute judgement on the casualties because I don't know the first thing about the town of Afmadow. I've never been there, I haven't met the people, etc. Maybe it's the home of the only charm school in Somalia, or maybe it's the home of the worlds biggest crackpipe, I just don't know.

What I can say is this: saying that without doubt no innocents were killed strictly on the basis of bad people being around is not something I'd wager on.
My next door neighbors used to be drug dealers, until they were busted. Not my fault. I don't do drugs, I don't like drugs, I'm not especially tollerant of drug users. If standard operating proceedure for shutting down a drug dealer involved an AC-130, I would be dead. Just because some fragments of my body would probably have been found on their side of the property line wouldn't mean that I had been in league with them.


Of course that's following the official story. I find it more likely that the US was using the terrorists as a pretext to send a message that Ethiopia is not to be toyed with by the militias, and I presume that we would have made that example on an area that had a high concentration of UIC militants- not just a town full of innocent people. (Not that I would put it past us to hit them anyway if there were a few civilians- I understand that from a strictly military point of view, setting aside the debatable moral nature of war itself, you can't make an omlett without breaking a few skulls- and I also realize that some people, though not necessarily the people in charge of CJTF-HOA, would see collateral damage as a positive thing, in that it would provide a particularly strong deterrent to Somalis, because of their clan-oriented society.)

Originally posted by The Vagabond
If standard operating proceedure for shutting down a drug dealer involved an AC-130, I would be dead.

If SOP involved an AC-130, I'm sure you'd kill em first, I know I would.

I am disgusted by this attack.

Many civilians have been killed to hunt down a few.

Surely, the US military (whom we are constantly being told is The Best)
could have sent some specialists in to snipe these guys and therefore not put poor disadvantaged civlians at risk. It could have been a more clean kill.

US Military (hierarchy) and Government = a pack of Rip, Sh%t and Bust merchants.

Poor guys on the ground paying for the stupidity at the top (my heart goes out to them)



[edit on 10-1-2007 by resistancia]