now we have 2 dead somalis and a french widow and some orphans.
That's *three* dead Somalis....and as for the widows and orphans, I just don't care. I have a finite capacity for caring, and it doesn't include the next of kin of dead Somali pirates.
the problem is somalia...not pirates....pirates are just a symptom.
How could Somalia be the problem...after all, Clinton and the hugely effective United Nations straigtened them right out in 1993, and they've hardly been heard from since then.
The pirates can exist because Somalia is a lawless garbage pit of a country. The pirates are a problem unto themselves, and one which can and should be solved exactly as this incident was (after nearly a week of pointless waiting). Stop paying ransoms. Kill the pirates without mercy. Destroy their motherships. Bomb their ports and villages. Eradicate their bases and kill their families. Do that, and there will be no more piracy.
Why didn't the previous administraton flatten them? Wasn't our problem. This was the first US-flagged ship they took a run at. The other ships? Well...those were the problem of the countries whose ships they were. Countries who have both negotiated and paid off these pirates, creating profit for them and insuring that there will be futher piracy.
Hmmm....I guess occupation like Iraq and Afghanistan is the only option.
Oh...occupation like we did...um... I mean effectively still do...in Germany, Japan and Korea? Yeah, I can see how you object to that. It never works. Those countries are dumps...
Time for a coalition....what, no one wants to join?
Coalition? Oh....you mean like the 49 nations who supported the invasion of Iraq? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_of_the_willing Yeah...that would be handy, but not entirely necessary. Especially if it involves the United Nations who did such a bang-up job handling Somalia before.
Why's that?
I don't know. Why don't you ask President Teleprompter Obama, triumphantly returning from getting NATO to really snap to and pull their weight over in Afghanistan? He sure knocked those guys back in line...
French people yachting off Africa is a fun subject isn't it? Richard the 1st and George the Second had plenty of time to do stuff about this. Its been in the threat assessments for decades and growing during their terms. So, now that there are a bunch of dead Somalis and the crew is safe, what does that say to you?
The reason the Iraq thing still isn't working as well as it could is that we were lied to by the previous administration about the whole thing from the get go. And even after they forced us in, and denied all planning by people like the Army History Geniuses....they still had the nerve to declare a mission accomplished. We needed 500,000 troops and lots of real solutions and after we weren't greeted as liberators.....then what? Hem and haw and reality kept magically changing.
In Somalia now there are huge refugee camps filled with sick starving people on the borders of all their neighbors, and much like Nigeria they are brewing up all sorts of wonderful diseases and much like Afghanistan all sorts of wonderful terrorists to send our way.
Hell Iraq was the only country in the Middle East who wasn't pursuing a nuclear program when we invaded.
The reason we messed up in Somalia in the 90's is Hubris. "We can do anything......" "We're 'Merica"
Bill Clinton is another matter entirely. Nice guy...but don't trust him around stray wives children and sheep.
I don't think Obama is the answer to everything. I also don't think McCain would have lived out his first term and I am not even close to likn' what Moose Disembowel-er Barbie might do.
But hey.....I thought you promised you wouldn't be political in the livejournal....
I thought there was another livejournal you made so you could stay 85% in lock step with the folks whose ancestors rode to church to worship Jesus on dinosaurs 6000 years ago.
Wow. Just wow. The amount of inaccurate and misleading info you've posted here is impressive.
Iraq not working? Talk to Petraeus and Ordiero and the thousands of voters who just participated in local elections. Read Michael Yon and Michael Totten, two people who are actually there to find out how well Iraq is working.
Iraq was the only country in the Middle East who wasn't pursuing a nuclear program
You seriously belive this? Saddam was doing everything he could to maintain the nuke capacity he had and was ready to actively restart it once the sanctions came down. A likely prospect before 9/11. And despite what the New York Times tells you, Saddam's gov. did try to buy uranium from Nigeria, they were just turned down flat. This is what Joe Wilson reported to the CIA and Senate intelligence committee. It's just not what he wrote in an NYT Op Ed.
And there's this that I stumbled across from 2008 re: Saddam's non-existant nuke program,http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25546334/. The possession of which is a blatant violation of the 91 ceasefire by Saddam's gov.
But I'm sure this is all falling on willfully deaf ears as I can tell from you're first sentence that you still suffer from BDS.
French people yachting off Africa is a fun subject isn't it?
Not particularly, but I'm more than happy to comment on it. First off, taking a yacht through those waters is like walking through, oh...say the worst part of Atlanta wearing a t-shirt which reads "Unarmed Victim" and carrying a clear plastic bag full of $100 bills. It's not "right" that you're going to get beaten and robbed, but you shouldn't be surprised when you do, and you really were asking for it. When it happens, you're pretty much getting what you deserve. Secondly, if France wasn't a third rate country with a long and proud history of military failure and defeat, perhaps their shooters would have done a better job and saved all the hostages. Do I care that they didn't? No...not really. The way you beat pirates is make piracy unprofitable. Killing them and destroying their boats is how you do that.
The reason the Iraq thing still isn't working as well as it could is that we were lied to by the previous administration about the whole thing from the get go.
The real lie is the bumpersticker slogan of a political philosophy thrown around by the "Bush Lied" crowd.
Hell Iraq was the only country in the Middle East who wasn't pursuing a nuclear program when we invaded.
Of the many ridiculous statements you've made in responses to my various posts, this one is by far the most hilarious. Just what exactly do you think Saddam was doing with the 1.2 million pounds of yellowcake uranium we pulled out of there? Now...since you have have long history of abandoning any thread of a conversation which is going very badly for you, I don't expect I'll get an answer to that one...but I'd love to hear it from one of your fellow travelers some day.
The reason we messed up in Somalia in the 90's is Hubris. "We can do anything......" "We're 'Merica"
I stand corrected. THIS is the most ridiculous thing you've said so far. Yes...fine...I get that your response to any international problem is that it's our fault and that blaming the U.S. is very fashionable among your crowd. However the fact remains that Somalia in the 90's was an absolute clusterfuck because it was a United Nations operation. Clinton put US troops under the auspices of the UN with predictable results. A weak-kneed and spineless Democrat president ceeded United States sovereignty to the United Nations and if you saw the movie, you know what happened next. I suspect we're going to see a lot more of this kind of thing under the administration of the current "just say yes to appeasement" administration.
As for my alleged "promise" that I wouldn't "be political" here, I never promised any such thing. When I make I promise, I use the word promise....and I keep it under any circumstances. A moment's review will demonstrate that I did no such thing in this case.
Oh...and really? You really want to try to tie my to fundamentalist christianity because some of the people in that crowd share some political opinions with me? I wonder...who would we be tying you to if we were going to paint with the same absurdly broad brush?
I like your articles....they are funny. Saddam Hussein did the same thing people have done for centuries, pretended to have something he didn't to keep Iran at Bay. The diminished capacity for his war machine, at least for the chemical weapons and nerve agent he could have used, were mostly used up gassing Shiites and Kurds.
As far as lent out forces to the UN. Our commanders have every right to question the field commanders of any operation. We did not do enough to secure our own forces because we did not believe in the capacity of our "foes".
Some of you folks have the same fervor as Strauss and Teller had dogging Oppenheimer to his early grave...pushing forward....with we need 50,000 Thermo Nuclear warheads because god knows we are always right and even though using a tenth of them will destroy humanity as we know it....we can't possibly be wrong.
IF you sound like FOX news who am I supposed to think you aligned with? O.K. lets drop you into a neoGorean Fox News atheistic sub niche. Happier? Or are you worshiping Bal these days? :)
Paint away. I'm an Eagle Scout. I raise money for kids with Cancer. I phone bank so gay people can get married. I pay my taxes and like the roads and schools...even though they could be better. Especially in the prison mills that are the schools we underfund in the ghet-to. I think we should buy a hunk of our jet fighters from Israel or Sweden and spend the money saved on building a few bridges. :) You know...like the ones that have been falling apart all over our country.
I think we should split the money for the aerial fueling contact between Boeing and NGC and let them take their fight out of congress and into the real world where it belongs. Instead of wasting billions of dollars and still using the same f-ing refuelers we have since the Vietnam Era.
You like quotes and promises....here you go. "To that end, this will be my last political post on this journal. I'm returning this one to it's original intended purpose and moving my considerable fury to my new second home at [info]newcruelty. I invite you to add me over there....or don't. If it remains my own personal ammo dump that's fine too." -EM Nov 2008
I'd like to point out that this rescue/pirate take down was done on the initiative of the Captain of the destroyer on the scene.
And as for a coalition. We have a rather strong and effective coalition in the area, most notably w/ Ethiopia but also with Djibouti, Uganda and Kenya. In 2007 Ethiopian forces w/ significant US support (air,naval,intelligence, surveillance and SOCOM) invaded Somalia and completely destroyed the Islamic Courts Union. The Islamic Courts (reminants of Al Queda and other sympathetic Islamic groups) had taken over Somalia and established a Taliban like gov/base in Mogadishu. These people executed Somalis for watching the world cup.
Unfortunately Eritrea has been at odds w/ Ethiopia since they won independence a few decades ago. Eritrea played spoiler by supporting any group that would make the Ethiopians lives in Somalia miserable. Therefore holding land in Somalia was untenable. Then there's the ancient rivalries and tribalism in Africa that ensured that the Ethiopians didn't really give a damn what happens to the average Somali.
Actually the piracy outta Somalia is nothing new. It's just an out growth of the banditry that's been going on there since the Brits left. Hell, the reason we went into Mogadishu in 92 was to stop the bandits (warlords in technicals was the popular term) from stealing all the aid that was pouring in because of the huge famine in the area. The warlords would steal the aid convoys and either sell the food and medicine or use it as a weapon to keep the people in line.
All was fine until the enemy adapted, they'll do that, and got the advatage over a tiny portion of our forces. Then the commanders on the scene wouldn't take the initiative and Clinton, worried about polls, bugged out. We should have hit Aidid hard during and after the Blackhawk Down incident, and use all force avail to rescue our troops and secure the situation.
That's *three* dead Somalis....and as for the widows and orphans, I just don't care. I have a finite capacity for caring, and it doesn't include the next of kin of dead Somali pirates.
the problem is somalia...not pirates....pirates are just a symptom.
How could Somalia be the problem...after all, Clinton and the hugely effective United Nations straigtened them right out in 1993, and they've hardly been heard from since then.
The pirates can exist because Somalia is a lawless garbage pit of a country. The pirates are a problem unto themselves, and one which can and should be solved exactly as this incident was (after nearly a week of pointless waiting). Stop paying ransoms. Kill the pirates without mercy. Destroy their motherships. Bomb their ports and villages. Eradicate their bases and kill their families. Do that, and there will be no more piracy.
Why didn't the previous administraton flatten them? Wasn't our problem. This was the first US-flagged ship they took a run at. The other ships? Well...those were the problem of the countries whose ships they were. Countries who have both negotiated and paid off these pirates, creating profit for them and insuring that there will be futher piracy.
Hmmm....I guess occupation like Iraq and Afghanistan is the only option.
Oh...occupation like we did...um... I mean effectively still do...in Germany, Japan and Korea? Yeah, I can see how you object to that. It never works. Those countries are dumps...
Time for a coalition....what, no one wants to join?
Coalition? Oh....you mean like the 49 nations who supported the invasion of Iraq? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_of_the_willing Yeah...that would be handy, but not entirely necessary. Especially if it involves the United Nations who did such a bang-up job handling Somalia before.
Why's that?
I don't know. Why don't you ask President Teleprompter Obama, triumphantly returning from getting NATO to really snap to and pull their weight over in Afghanistan? He sure knocked those guys back in line...
Reply
Richard the 1st and George the Second had plenty of time to do stuff about this. Its been in the threat assessments for decades and growing during their terms.
So, now that there are a bunch of dead Somalis and the crew is safe, what does that say to you?
The reason the Iraq thing still isn't working as well as it could is that we were lied to by the previous administration about the whole thing from the get go.
And even after they forced us in, and denied all planning by people like the Army History Geniuses....they still had the nerve to declare a mission accomplished.
We needed 500,000 troops and lots of real solutions and after we weren't greeted as liberators.....then what?
Hem and haw and reality kept magically changing.
In Somalia now there are huge refugee camps filled with sick starving people on the borders of all their neighbors, and much like Nigeria they are brewing up all sorts of wonderful diseases and much like Afghanistan all sorts of wonderful terrorists to send our way.
Hell Iraq was the only country in the Middle East who wasn't pursuing a nuclear program when we invaded.
The reason we messed up in Somalia in the 90's is Hubris.
"We can do anything......"
"We're 'Merica"
Bill Clinton is another matter entirely.
Nice guy...but don't trust him around stray wives children and sheep.
I don't think Obama is the answer to everything.
I also don't think McCain would have lived out his first term and I am not even close to likn' what Moose Disembowel-er Barbie might do.
But hey.....I thought you promised you wouldn't be political in the livejournal....
I thought there was another livejournal you made so you could stay 85% in lock step with the folks whose ancestors rode to church to worship Jesus on dinosaurs 6000 years ago.
Please man.....be a promise keeper. ;)
Reply
Iraq not working? Talk to Petraeus and Ordiero and the thousands of voters who just participated in local elections. Read Michael Yon and Michael Totten, two people who are actually there to find out how well Iraq is working.
Iraq was the only country in the Middle East who wasn't pursuing a nuclear program
You seriously belive this? Saddam was doing everything he could to maintain the nuke capacity he had and was ready to actively restart it once the sanctions came down. A likely prospect before 9/11. And despite what the New York Times tells you, Saddam's gov. did try to buy uranium from Nigeria, they were just turned down flat. This is what Joe Wilson reported to the CIA and Senate intelligence committee. It's just not what he wrote in an NYT Op Ed.
And there's this that I stumbled across from 2008 re: Saddam's non-existant nuke program,http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25546334/. The possession of which is a blatant violation of the 91 ceasefire by Saddam's gov.
But I'm sure this is all falling on willfully deaf ears as I can tell from you're first sentence that you still suffer from BDS.
Reply
Not particularly, but I'm more than happy to comment on it. First off, taking a yacht through those waters is like walking through, oh...say the worst part of Atlanta wearing a t-shirt which reads "Unarmed Victim" and carrying a clear plastic bag full of $100 bills. It's not "right" that you're going to get beaten and robbed, but you shouldn't be surprised when you do, and you really were asking for it. When it happens, you're pretty much getting what you deserve. Secondly, if France wasn't a third rate country with a long and proud history of military failure and defeat, perhaps their shooters would have done a better job and saved all the hostages. Do I care that they didn't? No...not really. The way you beat pirates is make piracy unprofitable. Killing them and destroying their boats is how you do that.
The reason the Iraq thing still isn't working as well as it could is that we were lied to by the previous administration about the whole thing from the get go.
Oh...that's right...you get all your information and talking points from people like Keith Olberman...I forget that sometimes. Tell you what, why don't you read these two articles and tell me where Bush lied: http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007540
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200401/pollack
The real lie is the bumpersticker slogan of a political philosophy thrown around by the "Bush Lied" crowd.
Hell Iraq was the only country in the Middle East who wasn't pursuing a nuclear program when we invaded.
Of the many ridiculous statements you've made in responses to my various posts, this one is by far the most hilarious. Just what exactly do you think Saddam was doing with the 1.2 million pounds of yellowcake uranium we pulled out of there? Now...since you have have long history of abandoning any thread of a conversation which is going very badly for you, I don't expect I'll get an answer to that one...but I'd love to hear it from one of your fellow travelers some day.
The reason we messed up in Somalia in the 90's is Hubris.
"We can do anything......"
"We're 'Merica"
I stand corrected. THIS is the most ridiculous thing you've said so far. Yes...fine...I get that your response to any international problem is that it's our fault and that blaming the U.S. is very fashionable among your crowd. However the fact remains that Somalia in the 90's was an absolute clusterfuck because it was a United Nations operation. Clinton put US troops under the auspices of the UN with predictable results. A weak-kneed and spineless Democrat president ceeded United States sovereignty to the United Nations and if you saw the movie, you know what happened next. I suspect we're going to see a lot more of this kind of thing under the administration of the current "just say yes to appeasement" administration.
As for my alleged "promise" that I wouldn't "be political" here, I never promised any such thing. When I make I promise, I use the word promise....and I keep it under any circumstances. A moment's review will demonstrate that I did no such thing in this case.
Oh...and really? You really want to try to tie my to fundamentalist christianity because some of the people in that crowd share some political opinions with me? I wonder...who would we be tying you to if we were going to paint with the same absurdly broad brush?
Reply
I like your articles....they are funny.
Saddam Hussein did the same thing people have done for centuries, pretended to have something he didn't to keep Iran at Bay.
The diminished capacity for his war machine, at least for the chemical weapons and nerve agent he could have used, were mostly used up gassing Shiites and Kurds.
Yellowcake...
Here is an article of my own.
http://crooksandliars.com/2008/07/06/yellowcake-uranium-found-in-iraq-bush-was-right-well-not-so-much
As far as lent out forces to the UN.
Our commanders have every right to question the field commanders of any operation. We did not do enough to secure our own forces because we did not believe in the capacity of our "foes".
Some of you folks have the same fervor as Strauss and Teller had dogging Oppenheimer to his early grave...pushing forward....with we need 50,000 Thermo Nuclear warheads because god knows we are always right and even though using a tenth of them will destroy humanity as we know it....we can't possibly be wrong.
IF you sound like FOX news who am I supposed to think you aligned with?
O.K. lets drop you into a neoGorean Fox News atheistic sub niche.
Happier? Or are you worshiping Bal these days? :)
Paint away.
I'm an Eagle Scout.
I raise money for kids with Cancer.
I phone bank so gay people can get married.
I pay my taxes and like the roads and schools...even though they could be better. Especially in the prison mills that are the schools we underfund in the ghet-to.
I think we should buy a hunk of our jet fighters from Israel or Sweden and spend the money saved on building a few bridges. :)
You know...like the ones that have been falling apart all over our country.
I think we should split the money for the aerial fueling contact between Boeing and NGC and let them take their fight out of congress and into the real world where it belongs. Instead of wasting billions of dollars and still using the same f-ing refuelers we have since the Vietnam Era.
You like quotes and promises....here you go.
"To that end, this will be my last political post on this journal. I'm returning this one to it's original intended purpose and moving my considerable fury to my new second home at [info]newcruelty. I invite you to add me over there....or don't. If it remains my own personal ammo dump that's fine too."
-EM Nov 2008
SO who, owes whom a coke?
Reply
And as for a coalition. We have a rather strong and effective coalition in the area, most notably w/ Ethiopia but also with Djibouti, Uganda and Kenya. In 2007 Ethiopian forces w/ significant US support (air,naval,intelligence, surveillance and SOCOM) invaded Somalia and completely destroyed the Islamic Courts Union. The Islamic Courts (reminants of Al Queda and other sympathetic Islamic groups) had taken over Somalia and established a Taliban like gov/base in Mogadishu. These people executed Somalis for watching the world cup.
Unfortunately Eritrea has been at odds w/ Ethiopia since they won independence a few decades ago. Eritrea played spoiler by supporting any group that would make the Ethiopians lives in Somalia miserable. Therefore holding land in Somalia was untenable. Then there's the ancient rivalries and tribalism in Africa that ensured that the Ethiopians didn't really give a damn what happens to the average Somali.
Actually the piracy outta Somalia is nothing new. It's just an out growth of the banditry that's been going on there since the Brits left. Hell, the reason we went into Mogadishu in 92 was to stop the bandits (warlords in technicals was the popular term) from stealing all the aid that was pouring in because of the huge famine in the area. The warlords would steal the aid convoys and either sell the food and medicine or use it as a weapon to keep the people in line.
All was fine until the enemy adapted, they'll do that, and got the advatage over a tiny portion of our forces. Then the commanders on the scene wouldn't take the initiative and Clinton, worried about polls, bugged out. We should have hit Aidid hard during and after the Blackhawk Down incident, and use all force avail to rescue our troops and secure the situation.
But Clinton too, was a candyass.
Reply
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