US bombs Somalia.

[SanCristobal]

MOGADISHU, Somalia — The Pentagon confirmed Tuesday that at least one U.S. airstrike had been carried out in Somalia targeting Al Qaeda suspects, as a Somali official reported a new attack carried out by U.S. helicopter gunships.

U.S. military spokesman Bryan Whitman said a strike carried out by a C-130 gunship Sunday in the town of Afmadow targeted senior Al Qaeda leadership operating in southern Somalia...

...The AC-130, a four engine turboprop-driven aircraft, is armed with 40 mm cannon that fire 120 rounds per minute and a 105 mm cannon, normally a field artillery weapon. The plane's latest version, the AC-130U, known as "Spooky," also carries Gatling gun-type 20 mm cannon. The gunships, which have long ranges and take off from land, were designed primarily for battlefield use to place saturated fire on massed troops.

"We don't know how many people were killed in the attack but we understand there were a lot of casualties," (Somali) government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari said. "Most were Islamic fighters."

Apologies if this is a dupe.

[David__77]

1. Crimes upon crimes.

How many innocents were killed in this act? We'll never know. But surely their loved ones will...

[shain from kane]

2. U. S. bombs Cambodia.

[arikara]

3. So convenient, that label

anyone who gets killed by American bombs are simply called Al Qaeda and that makes it all right.

From the Guardian:
...
The Associated Press cited witnesses as saying 31 civilians, including two newlyweds, had been killed in the strike, by two US helicopter gunships. Reuters cited a local witness as saying between 22 and 27 people had been killed.
...
"They must have believed they knew where the al-Qaida suspects were. It seems they decided to kill everything within a certain grid square and then find out what they had hit," he said...
...
"The AC130 is an appallingly blunt instrument and I very much doubt it can be used to target individuals," he said. "To kill alleged terrorists regardless of collateral damage is highly hypocritical."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1986350,00.html

[SanCristobal]

7. Not to dispute the figures,

but the AC130 very much CAN be used to target individuals. There was a few impressive gun camera shots of one doing so early on in the Afghan war.

[Nickster]

21. You have ZERO idea about what you're saying. They have a 500 meter "safe" zone on the ground when

using 20mm cannons, in other words, you better be AT LEAST 500 meters out of the target area or else you might get sliced up as well.

[magellan]

4. Terrorist suspects

The dead tell no tales. Convenient.

And btw, why was this wrong when BC did it but right now?

Welcome to DU, SanCristobal. :hi:

[stillcool]

5. bombs here ...bombs there...

it's amazing...I'm numb. It all seems so normal..

Hold tight wait till the partys over
Hold tight were in for nasty weather
There has got to be a way
Burning down the house

US Accused of Covert Operations in Somalia
By Antony Barnett and Patrick Smith
Observer
September 10, 2006

Emails suggest that the CIA knew of plans by private military companies to breach UN rules.

Dramatic evidence that America is involved in illegal mercenary operations in east Africa has emerged in a string of confidential emails seen by The Observer. The leaked communications between US private military companies suggest the CIA had knowledge of the plans to run covert military operations inside Somalia - against UN rulings - and they hint at involvement of British security firms.

The emails, dated June this year, reveal how US firms have been planning undercover missions in support of President Abdullahi Yusuf's transitional federal government - founded with UN backing in 2004 - against the Supreme Islamic Courts Council - a radical Muslim militia which took control of Mogadishu, the country's capital, also in June promising national unity under Sharia law.
--------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/intervention/2007/0103antiussomalis.htm
Somalia: New Hotbed of Anti-Americanism
By Nicola Nasser*
Global Research
January 3, 2007

The U.S. foreign policy blundering has created a new violent hotbed of anti-Americanism in the turbulent Horn of Africa by orchestrating the Ethiopian invasion of another Muslim capital of the Arab League, in a clear American message that no Arab or Muslim metropolitan has impunity unless it falls into step with the U.S. vital regional interests.

The U.S.-backed Ethiopian invasion of the Somali capital, Mogadishu, on Dec. 28 is closely interlinked in motivation, methods, goals and results to the U.S. bogged down regional blunders in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Sudan as well as in Iran and Afghanistan, but mainly in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.

Mogadishu is the third Arab metropolitan after Jerusalem and Baghdad to fall to the U.S. imperial drive, either directly or indirectly through Israeli, Ethiopian or other proxies, and the fourth if the temporary Israeli occupation of Beirut in 1982 is remembered; the U.S. endeavor to redraw the map of the Middle East is reminiscent of the British-French Sykes-Pico colonial dismembering of the region and is similarly certain to give rise to grassroots Pan-Arab rejection and awaking with the Pan-Islamic unifying force as a major component.

[Beril]

6. US Attack

It's hard to see how the attacks will help the Somali government. They aren't popular already and don't have a lot of power on their own.

What I find almost funny about this is that just Monday morning the Bush administration was trying to get the Somalis to reach out to moderate Islamists. I guess they don't see any irony in talking reconciliation on one hand while bombing on the other. If there were any moderates in the village where the suspected al Qaeda were, there probably aren't any now.

[DoYouEverWonder]

9. Winning hearts and minds

Bombs and death is all Bush knows and wants.

His bloodlust will never be satisfied.

Welcome to DU :hi:

[bdamomma]

8. I am going to perfectly be blunt here

but if our sick regime keeps on doing this someone somewhere will kick our asses but good. This is getting to be too much now.

[Jane Austin]

10. To be accurate, do C-130 Gunships

even carry bombs?

The attack was serious and devastating, but if there were no bombs, we would sound less clueless about military affairs if we referred to the attack accurately as an air assault.

Please correct me if I am wrong about the C-130 and bombs.

Also, here is a sobering analysis of how that assault may backfire.from the London Times.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2537948,00.html

[NoPasaran]

13. No they don't

http://www.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?fsID=71

[ShortnFiery]

14. That's a pertinent question ...

Let me see, hum? <shuffling feet looking up in the sky>

The munitions fired by a 105 mm (normally assigned to The Queen of Battle = Field Artillery Units). <pondering>

Yes, you make a VALID point - I agree this aircraft is not armed with bombs per se. Just sporting a howitzer, four cannons and a gatling gun that are set to fire some very HIGH CALIBER rounds ... and lots of them!



AC-130H Spectre AC-130U Spooky
Primary Function: Close air support, air interdiction and armed reconnaissance
Contractor: Lockheed Aircraft Corp.
Range: 1,500 statute miles (1,300 nautical miles)
Unlimited with air refueling 2,200 nautical miles
Unlimited with air refueling
Ceiling: 25,000 feet (7,576 meters) 30,000 ft.
Speed: 300 mph (Mach 0.40) (at sea level)

Armament:

1) two M61 20mm Vulcan cannons with 3,000 rounds
2) one L60 40mm Bofors cannon with 256 rounds
3) one M102 105mm howitzer with 100 rounds
4) One 25mm GAU-12 Gatling gun (1,800 rounds per minute)
5) one L60 40mm Bofors cannon (100 shots per minute)
6) one M102 105mm cannon (6-10 rounds per minute)

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/ac-130.htm

--------------------------
I think that an aerial mounted 105 mm CANNON plus plus plus other armament bells and whistles (listed above), may not technically qualify as BOMBING. However, given their massive firepower, targeted personnel would be cut down in almost as many pieces as the carnage that would be left by "a bomb" ... leaving only kibbles and bits ... and bits ... and bits. :wow:

Yes, IMO, if you are a fleeing SUSPECTED Somali Al Quaeda Terrorist, OR a family member, livestock OR neighbor who happens to live nearby, use of the armaments on this "aerial death machine" may very well put a premature end to your day. :(

[bobthedrummer]

17. Also directed energy weapons have been fitted to some AC-130 airframes

as well as to waterborne platforms. Woe.

And it was good old General William G. Boykin behind this attack, which is going to get him retired again.

DoYouEverWonder started this thread about the consequences of Boykin's command skillsets in Somalia
"Gates Cleans House"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2682176

[yodermon]

11. War Powers Question

Doesn't shrub need congressional approval before he goes bombing country x willy-nilly? Or, because it's "Al Qaeda", he can bomb whomever he pleases due to the 9/11 War Powers Authorization? (aka "The War on Terra")

[stillcool]

12. the Pentagon can do damn near anything these days...

Secret Unit Expands Rumsfeld’s Domain
By Barton Gellman*
Washington Post
January 23, 2005

The Pentagon, expanding into the CIA's historic bailiwick, has created a new espionage arm and is reinterpreting U.S. law to give Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld broad authority over clandestine operations abroad, according to interviews with participants and documents obtained by The Washington Post.

The previously undisclosed organization, called the Strategic Support Branch, arose from Rumsfeld's written order to end his "near total dependence on CIA" for what is known as human intelligence. Designed to operate without detection and under the defense secretary's direct control, the Strategic Support Branch deploys small teams of case officers, linguists, interrogators and technical specialists alongside newly empowered special operations forces.

Military and civilian participants said in interviews that the new unit has been operating in secret for two years -- in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places they declined to name. According to an early planning memorandum to Rumsfeld from Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the focus of the intelligence initiative is on "emerging target countries such as Somalia, Yemen, Indonesia, Philippines and Georgia." Myers and his staff declined to be interviewed.
The Defense Department is planning for further growth. Among the proposals circulating are the establishment of a Pentagon-controlled espionage school, largely duplicating the CIA's Field Tradecraft Course at Camp Perry, Va., and of intelligence operations commands for every region overseas.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/terrorwar/analysis/2..

The Moscow Times claims that the US government has activated a longstanding secret plan to “foment terrorism by sending covert agents to infiltrate terrorist groups and goad them into action.” The author suggests that this well-funded global “free-fire” policy, with virtually no oversight, aims to bring terrorist groups into the open. The Pentagon’s “terrorist operation” also aims to provide justification for US military action against states where these groups would operate, such as Iran.
Global Eye
American Terror
By Chris Floyd
Moscow Times
January 21, 2005

More than two years ago, we wrote here of a secret Pentagon plan to foment terrorism by sending covert agents to infiltrate terrorist groups and goad them into action -- in other words, committing acts of murder and destruction. The purpose was two-fold: first, to bring the terrorist groups into the open, where they could be counterattacked; and second, to justify U.S. military attacks on the countries where the terrorists were operating -- attacks which, in the Pentagon's words, would put those nations' "sovereignty at risk." It was a plan that countenanced -- indeed, encouraged -- the deliberate murder of innocent people and the imposition of U.S. military rule anywhere in the world that U.S. leaders desired.

This plan is now being activated.

In fact, it's being expanded, as The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh revealed last week. Not only will U.S.-directed agents infiltrate existing terrorist groups and provoke them into action, but the Pentagon itself will create its own terrorist groups and "death squads." After establishing their terrorist "credentials" through various atrocities and crimes, these American-run groups will then be able to ally with -- and ultimately undermine -- existing terrorist groups.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/terrorwar/analysis/2...

[ShortnFiery]

15. Awe there's the rub, our illustrious SF units are merely employing helicopter gun ships and

C-130 aerial mounted cannons, howitzers and gatling guns to cut any suspected group of "terrorists" in half. :eyes:

Raining down high caliber rounds is deadly but NOT, as a thoughtful fellow member corrected me above, ... NO, not a bombing campaign. What some call "targeted assassinations." However, we all know, it's not the neatest way to die as your relatives won't have much to bury in your grave. :(

On edit: The most accurate terminology would be "airstrikes" instead of "bombings."

[frogcycle]

16. reportedly the Somali govt was more than willing

believe it or don't but the news report I heard said the Somali govt has been cooperating to get rid of this "cell", located it, gave us the info, said "go get 'em." Supposedly the ringleader of the embassy bombings in '98 was killed

and no, it was not bombs, so the first portions of this thread do look pretty clueless.

Rather than immediately scream and rant that "here we go again", it might be worth contemplating whether this was an actual, honest-to-gosh mission in the largely mythical "war on terror(ists)"

Now if they'd just send a KC-130 to make pate' out of bin laden, we could call it a wrap.

[ShortnFiery]

18. Oh, IMO, you have to be drinking the "dee dee dee" I believe everything

that the government tells me KOOLAID in order to buy into that sick-minded propaganda.

Gee, given the massive firepower to literally pulverize personnel with cannons, I don't think the comparison between "blown to bits" (bombing) versus "torn to shreds with 105mm rounds" (airstrike) is really such a stretch. :eyes:

Hum, we killed, by modest accounts, over 50 innocent civilians to, perhaps, kill one *suspected* Al Quaeda whom the government *tells us* was present. Every living family member of those innocents now HATES AMERICA'S GUTS. Was it worth slaughtering all those innocents for a "perhaps?" NO! I don't think so. :(

Granted - our terminology was initially not spot on (it's an airstrike not a bombing), but our moral compass is sound enough NOT to buy into Dear Leader's "we must destroy an entire village in order to save it from the radical Islamists" type depraved philosophical blood lust. :thumbsdown:

[GreenZoneLT]

19. You can dispute the wisdom or morality, but this is all legal

The U.S. forces are providing air support at the request of the internationally recognized government of Somalia, which is fighting a war against the Islamic Courts forces. These aren't criminal suspects who are being hit because of suspected crimes against the U.S., they're armed fighters involved in a civil war.

I haven't seen the pictures, but the BBC reported that people who were on the ground after the air strikes said they apparently were targeting convoys of technicals (pickup trucks mounting large machine guns). At least, that's what was left after the strikes yesterday, burned-out technicals.

[ShortnFiery]

20. Sure, everything we do is "legal" because WE say so!

Might makes right! However, when the dust settles, it remains morally unsound to kill scores of CIVILIANS because our government is too chicken shit to carry out an "honest to gosh" raid to truly extract or kill the REAL Islamic Terrorist. NOT their family, neighbors and livestock. :eyes:

No, the message we (Superpower USA!) are sending the rest of the world regarding the ongoing airstrikes is that American Soldiers' lives are far more valuable than foreign "innocent civilians" who have the bad luck to be found in the same locale as our *suspected* al Quaeda.

Can't you see how that logic is indifferent of civilian casualties if not outrightly morally depraved? Yes, the term "war crime" comes to mind because our leaders are not considering the blow back from those family and friends of the innocents caught up in the CANNONS' line of fire. May The Good Lord have mercy on our arrogant souls because we are making more enemies than we are killing *suspected* Al Quaeda. :shrug: :(

Are we - the Mighty American Empire - on The Side of The Angels when we kill scores of innocents JUST BECAUSE there MAY be an radical Islamist among them within The Crowd ... The Convoy? The village? The Funeral Gathering? or Wedding Procession? :( :thumbsdown:

[frogcycle]

22. flame on if you wish

but i did not say i bought or didn't buy the report.

what i didn't do was make up stuff to characterize it the way i wanted it to be based on sketchy, unreliable information

[ShortnFiery]

23. My true desire was not to flame you personally, but to stress "legal" does not

equate to "morally sound."

My sincere apologies for being too blunt: the intention of my post was for sake of "an argument" and not meant as a attack toward your person. :blush: :hi:

[frogcycle]

24. i was quick on the trigger

misread your title - thot you said i was drinking the kool aid

can we kiss and make up?
:)