US strikes on al-Qa'ida chiefs kill nomads

[deminks]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/article2149716.ece

The herdsmen had gathered with their animals around large fires at night to ward off mosquitoes. But lit up by the flames, they became latest victims of America's war on terror.

It was their tragedy to be misidentified in a secret operation by special forces attempting to kill three top al-Qa'ida leaders in south-ern Somalia.

Oxfam yesterday confirmed at least 70 nomads in the Afmadow district near the border with Kenya had been killed. The nomads were bombed at night and during the day while searching for water sources. Meanwhile, the US ambassador to Kenya has acknowledged that the onslaught on Islamist fighters failed to kill any of the three prime targets wanted for their alleged role in the 1998 US embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam.

(snip)

The operation, which opened a new front in Washington's anti-terror campaign, seems to have backfired spectacularly in the five days since it was launched. In addition to the scores of Somali civilians killed, the simmering civil war in the failed state has been rekindled.

(end snip)

The whole mess is being described as a dismal failure around the world. Words cannot express my shame as an American. Herr diktater has gone to war against nomads and their animals. Tera, tera, tera.

[dipsydoodle]

1. I'm not in the least bit surprised

probably a lot of women and children too.

No mention in the American papers ?

[lligrd]

49. They Lied About It Yesterday

They said only eight people had been killed. This administration has no shame! And the American public just accepts their lies over and over again.

[entanglement]

2. Outrageous. Shameful. Disgusting.

The corporate (US) media has no word about this, as usual...
:puke:

[MasonJar]

3. That is heartbreaking...innocents looking for water...now dead.

I am beginning to believe that the US is totally inept and led by maniacs. Hey, George, if you are reading my comments, that means "you."

[rodeodance]

6. and i hear nothing about it on the "news"

[freefall]

28. Of course we hear nothing about it on the news. If we did we might actually

rise up against the cowards and bumbling idiots who perpetrate these horrors and they can't have that now can they. What really bothers me is that my children and grandchildren are going to reap the fruits of the hatred we are sowing all over the world. It is so frustrating to know that these things are happening and to not be able to do anything about it except call and write to a bunch of politicians who are more worried about their political futures than the health and safety of the nation.

Peace,

freefall

[MsKandice01]

38. It's Africa...who cares??

:(

[roseBudd]

4. Anyone remember what Rummy said about the precision of their bombing?

I remember it was a peculiarly tone deaf statement.

[ishtar66]

14. Evil and brain dead....

Was it "shock and awe"?

I hope you Americans can impeach this bone head. I really do!

[rodeodance]

5. whow. talking about a botched mission!!

[rodeodance]

7. but it is the UK press we hear of this mess

[Bjorn Against]

17. And even their headline is misleading...

This was NOT a strike on Al Qaida chiefs it was a strike on civilians.

[TomInTib]

8. Special Forces? More like satellites

This just makes me ill.

I do not believe that SO troops would call in a strike based on a visual like this.

More than likely, they were spotted from the air by either sat or drone.

Either way, this is sickening and someone should be held to task.

[Az_lefty]

9. Right, no one on the ground would have made this mistake...

what a screw up!

[Schema Thing]

11. That's what I was thinking

Special forces my ass.

We've got special forces... here's a novel idea America, USE them.


This shit, and the shit in Iraq, is symbolic of just how weenie America has become, and how much contempt we have as a people for "other" people.

"Why did you drop a bomb on a house full of 15 women and children to get 3 suspected fighting men?".... "because it's too dangerous to go in face to face". We have the worlds best trained soldiers for this?


It's also an indicator of what shit passes for military "intelligence" in America too. Remember a few years ago when about once a week you'd hear about a Isreali helicopter blowing a Hamas member away as he drove down the road? Even Hamas seldom claimed that the Isrealis got the wrong man, and if there was "collateral damage", at least it truly was a bystander, not 70 fucking nomads TARGETED for no other reason than being alive in a joy-stick gunner's field of vision. No matter what side of the Isreali/Palestinian issue you come down on, at least they were working with real military intelligence.

[oasis]

10. Target practice. (n/t)

[Strelnikov_]

12. "And now, for the rest of the story . . ."

Who here did not expect it to turn out this way.

Like I said the other night . . .

"If they run, they're Al-Queda, if they just stand there, they are well-disiplined Al-Queda".

[Eric J in MN]

13. We aren't told the names of the people who decided

...the nomads were terrorists.

We aren't told the name of the person who gave the order to drop the bombs.

Zero names. Zero accountability.

[fooj]

20. Yes. Where is the accountability?

[Surya Gayatri]

15. Future quote from upcoming Condi testimony

in front of Congressional Committee:

NO-ONE COULD HAVE IMAGINED THAT THOSE SHEEP AND GOATS

WOULDN'T EXPLODE IN A MENACING MUSHROOM CLOUD!


SG :banghead:

[LostInAnomie]

16. Reminds me of when we killed the wedding party in Iraq.

(What ever happened with that, by the way?)

The truth is that again we bombed a group of "terrorists" just before another public relations blitz by the administration. Anytime * wants to whip his base of knuckle dragging shit throwers into a frenzy of support, he can always find a group of brown people to bomb.

[Dr.Phool]

18. I had a guy installing some electronics in my house last week.

He was a vet, did a year in Iraq, and said he spent the last 2 years working in Afica. He came in a few days later, and we started talking. He was living in a tent in Ethiopia, working for KBR as a firefighter.

He talked a little bit about his job, the things he did, and the fact that he wasn't qualified for the job they had him doing, but he did it anyway.

The first thing that raised a flag, I was thinking, "What in the hell is Halliburton doing in Ethiopia"? And he talked about military planes ejecting flares on take-off (combat departure) setting a village on fire.

Now I was wondering why the hell our military is in Ethiopia.

I didn't press him for any answers, but I guess now I know the answer.

[thereismore]

19. Clinton bombed the aspirin factory, and who knows how many nomads

were hiding there! So there. :sarcasm:

[orleans]

21. of course we killed innocents. we always fucking do. and these

"smart" bombs are about as smart as a stump

[knitter4democracy]

22. We're so toast.

It's crap like this that turns people all over the world against us. The next world war will be everyone against us, I'm afraid, and we'll most likely lose if they manage a good blockade on both oceans. *sigh*

[libodem]

23. No mention in the papers?

This is a crime against humanity. Remember when the aspirin factory got bombed in Iraq when Bill was president? Aren't they still talking about that miscalculation? What is wrong with this world? I can't take it. This must be why people go insane or decide to become junkies. Sometimes I can't stand this world. Rush Limbaugh will be printing tee-shirts, I suppose, to make fun of the dead.

[Olney Blue]

24. How many more will die as we extract revenge on the world?

[grasswire]

25. the question is begged

What am *I* going to do about this? What are *you* going to do about this? Eventually we must force this WH to stop. When? How? What is the tipping point for each of us?

[Olney Blue]

26. Good point- voting against the Chimp in elections and marching in

D.C. against the war can only go so far..... it ain't working.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

27. Sen. Byrd asked Gates who authorized this attack and if anyone in Congress were

apprised of it. Gates didn't have the answer.......
I hope Byrd and the Dems hold Gates' feet to the fire.

[oblivious]

29. Can't find one US newspaper that puts this in the headline.

They all put missed targets or something like that in the headline.

I's the rule of law that separates civilized countries from barbarians.

[tanyev]

30. Fighting those nomads there, so they don't come looking for water here.

:cry::cry:

[Robbien]

31. The US doesn't have any intelligence in Somalia

Privately, senior US officials in the region have admitted that they have no intelligence sources of their own inside Somalia. Newspaper reports from the region's Nairobi-based correspondents and Somali reporters inside the country are read before intelligence briefings.

What intelligence they do have comes from their regional allies - Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia's transitional government. A Somalia expert in Nairobi raised doubts over the veracity of intelligence given by governments which are paid for the information they provide.

"What if Kenya or Ethiopa don't have any new information? The need for cash is always there. The Kenyans are quite nave about the situation on the ground in Somalia and Ethiopia is pursuing its own national interest. There is heavy emphasis on faulty intelligence. The US is being milked. That's why there were so many civilian casualties."

http://www.sundayherald.com/international/shinternational/display.var.1122024.0.0.php

[aaronbees]

33. Lack of intelligence....

is what defines this administration.

[oblivious]

35. and murder

[Disturbed]

34. The Busholini and the Likud Regimes have adopted the

policy of "Kill 'em all and let god sort 'em out".

[Glimmer of Hope]

32. He screws up everything he touches. Why did he think this would

operation would work? I am so sad and disgusted.

[ariellyn]

36. Who keerz as long as they bombed Al Qaeda? You libruls

whine too much. :sarcasm:

[stevietheman]

37. 70 more innocents murdered by Traitor Bush. n/t

n/t

[magellan]

39. BushCo could not be more of a failure if they tried

MORE innocent civilians killed. Yet another bloody stain on this country thanks to the chickenhawks. And the liberal media can't stop yammering about ice storms and missing boys found long enough to report it.

Who can blame anyone for hating America at this point. Bush** has made sure we've earned it a thousand times over.

[oblivious]

40. I can't believe this has only 19 votes.

[montanto]

41. what everyone else said. I weep for the victoms of our "freedom."

[pa28]

42. "I'm not going to fire a $2 million missile

at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt" *

He was right. He was going to kill nearly a hundred innocent people as well.

:(

[undeterred]

43. Collateral damage, to Repukes.

[Diane R]

44. I hate what he is doing in our name. K&R

[sandyj999]

45. This Just Makes Me Ashamed n/t

[Seldona]

46. It's almost like they WANT to create more terrorists.

How many shattered lives did these 70 people leave behind? How many children are going to grow up hating Americans because we killed his dad or mom or brother or sister, or all of the above?

Those are the things that CIVILIZED people think about in situations like this. And this administration is about as far from that as you can get.

Great question about moving forward in this thread. One that I have been ruminating on for months now. Just about everyone here knows what and who the problems are. Now what are we going to do about it?

[nickynoo]

48. Of course they WANT to create more terrorists...

The Military Industrial Complex NEEDS terrorists and "terra" in order to manufacture and sell more bombs and bullets.
It really doesnt matter who gets killed as long as the media says its GOOD versus BAD.
This is Capitalism at its worst, and its truly disgusting.

[Torn_Scorned_Ignored]

47. I'm so tired

I wish the world community would grow tired of chimpy too. One of shrubs favorite dick wagging sayings is, "we are going to hold these leaders to account."

Waiting for the world to follow suit since our own elected officials won't.

[nealmhughes]

50. Unfortunately, this event will be little recalled very shortly by the people of the United

States, or dare I write, the entire West. However, to the people of this nation, and their families, it will go down in their oral history as "the night the Franks came and killed four score of us from the air as we were searching for water...this was during the Bad Times when Ethopia was invading and the Arabs were there in Mogadishu and then the Franks came again...Hassan had decided that the cattle needed to be watered within the next two days, and the boys had gone out searching..."

What is to be done by George W. Bush, commonly styled "President of the United States of America" and "Commander in Chief", to rectify the murders of these men? Money? How much? To whom? How much is a Somali nomad's life worth, Mr. Bush?

The majority of the religions of the world teach, "the worth of any human is the same."

[go west young man]

51. Many of us agreed the other night when this attack took place

that this was a wag the dog scenario coming right around the so called "surge" speech so that the American people will buy the troop escalation and swallow another pill in the "wa on terra". That whole thread that night everyone said they were either lying or had the wrong people. Our media are so complicit it's pathetic. Terror, terror, terror. Thats all they were selling last week. A gas smell in New York? Come on. 6 hours of coverage on that one on 3 networks. Aren't they supposed to be independent media outlets? Because they always seem to report the same shit. Sounds a bit like a monopoly or state run media. Do a wkipedia search of CNN Time Warner and see who is on the board of directors and understand why. We all know Faux is Murdoch and the RNC, MSNBC is GE, but CNN has people sitting that have dircectly served the administration. This country is absolutely pathetic these days and the sad part is we are all so dumbed by MSM that no one would ever get organized enough nowadays to take back the country. Sorry DU'ers about the rant but man one wonders how much more fucked up can it get? The answer with this administration is that it can always be more fucked up.

[emald]

52. stunning and ugly, and not surprising

My worry is that if the military is willing to strafe and bomb civilians there, and it is becoming quite clear that "corollary damage" is quite acceptable to this government, be it a herd of camels and their keepers at water holes in the dessert or clearing houses of "terrorists" in Baghdad, then it can not be that hard to imagine the military turning on our own citizens, right here. Now with the current news on spying on americans this whole military thing seems quite a mistake, or quite a plan. Certainly we are now a fascist state, by all reasonable definition. Crap.

[IWantAChange]

53. 'Liberal" American MSM seems to be - uh - missing?

Is Cheney worried the nomads are coming for our water?????

[OwnedByFerrets]

54. We are a rogue nation.............

led by a bunch of hot-blooded maniacs out for the death and destruction. Doesnt matter who they kill as long as they cant fight back. I get more and more ashamed to be of this country.

[libodem]

55. Does being a war President

give, George, the authority to bomb any place on the planet that he feels like? Is there no going to congress for the authority to declare war and/or make preemptive strikes? The 'War on Terror' is suck a vague description of the enemy. God, bless our new Democratic Congress. Please take control of the crazy boy Emperor. And his Evil Puppet master, Cheney. BTW, hasn't that guy overstepped his bounds somewhere along the way? This hast to be stopped!