Back to Somalia

alledan

Brussels, Belgium-AP -- There's word the U-S has decided on another stage in the war on terrorism -- Somalia.A senior German official says American officials have decided to go after al-Qaida (al-KY'-ee-duh) terrorists in the African nation.There's no comment from U-S officials.But the German source says there's no longer a question of whether to go after al-Qaida terrorists in Somalia -- but only when and how.Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told NATO defense ministers yesterday that Yemen and Sudan are suspected of supporting terrorism.And President Bush has identified Iraq as a potential target.Administration officials have mentioned Somalia as a country with terrorism problems, along with the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

v35

I worry about how we are going to disengage from some of these countries.It reminds me of Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby.

gruntled

To go in like Afganistan, NO. This is one time we need to copy the Mosad.

simonbs

I hope we don't get too many irons in the fire and let it come back to bite us. I'm not qualified to comment, but I will anyway - We should concentrate on no more than two fronts at a time.That's my onion - feel free to saute it.

Teamblue

If we do go to Somalia I say it's payback time. We all saw those bastards drag our boy's bodies through the streets of Mogadishu yelling and grinning like a bunch of drunk heathens. Lets do this with prejudice. You know if the Rangers go in there, there will be some serious * kicking. Gary Gordon and Randy Shugart were two Delta snipers who volunteered to be inserted to defend one of the downed chopper crews even though they both knew they would not come out. The guys had courage and loyalty that none of these terrorists can even contemplate. Lets do it right this time now that we have a president with a backbone!!!

badboybob

It will be done right with dubya in charge.Klinton's sorry traitorous * is out now. It's nice to have a man with balls in the White House for a change.

cpermd

"BlackHawk Down" is coming out.You can bet your happy * there will be many Americans supportive of a Somalia attack of some kind after the movie starts.GW will wait til then.cpermd

beachmaster73

Having spent nearly four months on the ground at Green Beach near the Airport in Mogadishu during our disasterous "feed the starving Somali's" expedition I feel just a little qualified to talk about Somalia. Outside of Mogadishu the Americans were well liked. We brought them food in our convoys. The reason things went so bad in Mogadishu is that we we cutting into Ahdied's action. He had been using the food supplies stored in Mogadishu to blackmail the other warlords to see his way of thinking....if they didn't agree with him they got no food. I can tell you after seeing all those poor starving Somali's out in the bush on TV back in the States and then arriving in Mogadishu to warehouses full to the brim with foodstuffs it sure confused the crap out of a lot of us. When our Marine convoys started delivering food around the country we were looked upon by the Somali's as demi-gods.....except by Ahdied in the city....when the 10th Mountain Div arrived to relieve us things started to go to hell in a hand basket. It was several months after that the Ranger's got the donnybrook that cost us 18 of them. I tell you one other thing it will be nearly impossible to find bin Laden in Somalia if he gets there. It seems like every single Somali is 6'3" or taller. Unless we only check out the short ones. We would nearly literally have to check every man in the country to find him if he wanted to go to ground there. Of course the 25 million dollar reward might help us get him! Finally I'd say I don't think we really really want to get into any sort of pitched battle in that country.....we would win, no doubt about that, but we would also fill a lot of body bags with some very fine American soldiers, sailors, and marines. I'd much rather up the reward and have a trussed up bin Laden delivered to some US Embassy than risk another few thousand American lives in that sewage pit of a country. Beach

Dave3

Hey beach who where you with over there? Were you driving one of those LCACs Those looked cool. I slept next to that runway for a couple weeks then in country to an old russian air field Balladoglle I think. 10th mountain was there and some boys from the corp, and the Marocons, I was with Naval Mobile Construction Battalion One.

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"Protect the Right to Protect yourself"

beachmaster73

Dave3, I was CO of BMU-1 at the time. I had one of my platoons over there at Green Beach. We had the beach and part of the right flank of the Pakistani positions next to us and just south of us was a platoon of SEALS...just a little further south of them was the AMTRAC platoon. I know the PHIBCB's were in the port area but I think you guys were even further to the south than the AMTRAC guys. I was the Offload Control Officer for the USMC Maritime Prepositioning Force operation in the port area but I pulled the rest of my guys out of the port and went with the Pakistani's because I felt a lot safer with their watch standing techniques than what was being done in the port area. I also had a * set up of Marines who put in the fuel farm and had no one looking out for them. That fuel farm on the beach was the last thing we turned over to 10th Mountain Division before we took the "great white bird" home. Have to admit the professionalism of 10th Mountain was far less than I expected. Had about 40 or more soldiers to relieve 6 Marines of the farm and they dilly dallied for days before they would accept responsibility for it....it was almost like they were afraid of the responsibility. Most unusual. Anyway we probably did overlap for awhile there. Beach