US Invades Somalia-gctid24252

[Kala Kambon]

http://www.nytimes. com/2007/ 01/13/world/ Kmt/13proxy. html?_r=1& hp&ex=1168664400 &en=b347ad3ebab1 3def&ei=5094& partner=homepage &oref=slogin

Pentagon Sees Move in Somalia as Blueprint
By MARK MAZZETTI
Published: January 13, 2007

WASHINGTON, Jan. 12 — Military operations in Somalia
by American commandos, and the use of the Ethiopian
Army as a surrogate force to root out operatives for
Al Qaeda in the country, are a blueprint that Pentagon
strategists say they hope to use more frequently in
counterterrorism missions around the globe.

Military officials said the strike by an American
gunship on terrorism suspects in southern Somalia on
Sunday showed that even with the departure of Donald
H. Rumsfeld from the Pentagon, Special Operations
troops intended to take advantage of the directive
given to them by Mr. Rumsfeld in the weeks after the
Sept. 11 attacks.

American officials said the recent military operations
have been carried by the Pentagon's Joint Special
Operations Command, which directs the military's most
secretive and elite units, like the Army's Delta
Force.

The Pentagon established a desolate outpost in the
Horn of Kmt nation of Djibouti in 2002 in part to
serve as a hub for Special Operations missions to
capture or kill senior Qaeda leaders in the region.

Few such "high value" targets have materialized, and
the Pentagon has gradually relocated members of the
covert Special Operations units to more urgent
missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But officials in Washington said this week that the
joint command had quietly been returning troops and
weaponry to the region in recent weeks in anticipation
of a mission against members of a Qaeda cell believed
to be hiding in Somalia.

Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, told members of Congress on Friday that the
strike in Somalia was executed under the Pentagon's
authority to hunt and kill terrorism suspects around
the globe, a power the White House gave it shortly
after the Sept. 11 attacks.

It was this authority that Mr. Rumsfeld used to order
commanders to develop plans for using American Special
Operations troops for missions within countries that
had not been declared war zones.

But since the retreat of the Taliban in 2001, when
American Special Forces worked with Afghan militias,
Mr. Rumsfeld's ambitious agenda for Special Operations
troops has been slow to materialize.

The problem has partly been a shortage of valuable
intelligence on the whereabouts of top terrorism
suspects. Mr. Rumsfeld also dispatched teams of
Special Operations forces to work in American
embassies to collect intelligence and to develop war
plans for future operations.

Pentagon officials said it is still not known whether
any senior Qaeda suspects or their allies were killed
in the airstrike on Sunday, carried out by an AC-130
gunship. A small team of American Special Operations
troops has been to the scene of the airstrike, in a
remote stretch near the Kenya border, to collect
forensic evidence in the effort to identify the
victims.

Some critics of the Pentagon's aggressive use of
Special Operations troops, including some Democratic
members of Congress, have argued that using American
forces outside of declared combat zones gives the
Pentagon too much authority in sovereign nations and
blurs the lines between soldiers and spies.

The State Department and Pentagon took control of
Somalia policy in the summer, after a failed effort by
the Central Intelligence Agency to use Somali warlords
as proxies to hunt down the Qaeda suspects.

The trail of the terrorism suspects in Somalia, blamed
for the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania,
had long gone cold. But American military and
intelligence officials said that the Ethiopian
offensive against the Islamist forces who ruled
Mogadishu and much of Somalia until last month flushed
the Qaeda suspects from their hide-outs and gave
American intelligence operatives fresh information
about their whereabouts.

The Bush administration has all but officially
endorsed the Ethiopian offensive, and Washington
officials have said that Ethiopia's move into Somalia
was a response to "aggression" by the Islamists in
Mogadishu.

In the weeks before the military campaign began, State
Department and Pentagon officials said that they had
some concerns about the impending Ethiopian
government's offensive in Somalia.

But as the Ethiopian's march toward war looked more
likely, Americans began providing Ethiopian troops
with up-to-date intelligence on the military positions
of the Islamist fighters in Somalia, Pentagon and
counterterrorism officials said.

According to a Pentagon consultant with knowledge
about Special Operations, small teams of American
advisers crossed the border into Somalia with the
advancing Ethiopian army.

"You're not talking lots of guys," the Pentagon
consultant said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"You're talking onesies and twosies."

[Kala Kambon]

http://kurtnimmo. com/?p=719

Instead of "al-Qaeda," U.S. Kills Nomads in Somalia
Saturday January 13th 2007, 11:20 am

As usual, it takes a few days for the truth to emerge,
not that the corporate media here in America notices.

Instead of killing Fazul Abdullah Moham-med, Saleh Ali
Saleh Nabhan and Abu Taha al-Sudani, supposedly
"al-Qaeda" operatives responsible for the 1998 US
embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, the
Pentagon killed "herdsmen ... gathered with their
animals around large fires at night to ward off
mosquitoes" in Somalia, according to the Independent.

"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," described as "backfir
spectacularly" by the British newspaper.

All of this runs counter to the assertions of U.S.
ambassador, Michael Ranneberger, who said "that no
civilians had been killed or injured and that only one
attack had taken place. The UN's refugee agency,
UNHCR, reported that an estimated 100 people were
wounded in Monday's air strikes on the small fishing
village of Ras Kamboni launched from the US military
base in Djibouti after a mobile phone intercept." It
is not explained why impoverished nomads, in search of
water, would be in possession of cell phones (or, for
that matter, why there are cell phone towers in a
remote area of one of the world's poorest countries).

As should be expected, the operations against innocent
Somalis serve but one purpose only, that is beyond
satiating the blood lust of Muslim hating neocons—it
was an excuse to get "boots on the ground for the
first time since a 1993 mission backfired and led to a
humiliating withdrawal from Somalia," a mission
mythologized in violent Hollywood fashion in the film
Black Hawk Down.

"Under international law, there is a duty to
distinguish between military and civilian targets,"
said Paul Smith-Lomas, Oxfam's regional director. "We
are deeply concerned that this principle is not being
adhered to, and that innocent people in Somalia are
paying the price," as innocent people have since the
neocons captured the Oval Office and large swaths of
the Pentagon.

It is of no concern to the Pentagon that above
mentioned "terrorists" were not killed and innocent
nomads suffered instead. In fact, such reckless
behavior will serve as a "blueprint" for future
operations against Muslim enemies.

"U.S. commandos' military operations in Somalia and
the use of the Ethiopian army as a surrogate force to
root out al Qaeda operatives there provide a blueprint
for counterterrorism missions across the globe,
Pentagon strategists say," reports the neocon
propaganda syndicate, the New York Times. "U.S.
officials said the recent military efforts in Somalia
have been led by the Pentagon's joint Special
Operations Command, which directs the military's most
secretive and elite units, including the Army's Delta
Force."

The Pentagon's Special Operations Command runs P2OG,
or the Proactive and Preemptive Operations Group, a
black budgeted psyop designed to "stimulate reactions"
among "terrorists," or maybe that should be nomadic
animal herding Muslims careless enough to light fires
as AC-130 gunships roam the night skies.

Unfortunately, many Somalis live in the Pentagon's
"battlespace" where we are told "al-Qaeda" operates,
thus putting "their sovereignty ... at risk," as an
August 16, 2002, Power Point presentation held at the
Defense Science Board made abundantly clear.

"Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, told members of Congress on Friday that a U.S.
airstrike by an AC-130 gunship early this week in
Somalia was executed under the Pentagon's authority to
hunt down and kill terrorism suspects around the
world, a power given to it by the White House shortly
after the Sept. 11 attacks."

Bush and crew believe the non-declaration of war
against Iraq—that is to say, a "war" not declared by
Congress, as required by Article One, Section Eight of
the Constitution— gives them the right to attack
anybody, anywhere, without regard to Article 51 of the
First Protocol to the Geneva Conventions, stating that
parties "shall at all times distinguish between the
civilian population and combatants and accordingly
shall direct their operations only against military
objectives."

But then neocons don't do the Geneva Conventions—or
the Constitution for that matter.

Democrat members of Congress complained, if slightly,
that the Pentagon is "using U.S. forces outside
declared combat zones," thus giving "the Pentagon too
much authority in sovereign nations," not that such,
again, matters to neocons, hell-bent on killing
Muslims, no matter where they live.

In response, the Pentagon said it had sent "onesies
and twosies" into Somalia "with the advancing
Ethiopian army that helped Somalia's weak transitional
government oust a strong Muslim militia that had been
in control of Mogadishu, the capital, and most of
southern Somalia."

In other words, it was a classic CIA assisted military
coup, with Pentagon ops replacing those of the CIA.

It should be noted that this coup was arranged to get
rid of the Islamic Courts Union, a rival
administration to the Transitional Federal Government,
supported by the United States. The ICU enjoyed the
support of a majority of Somalis because they resisted
the endemic chaos of armed warlord thugs and provided
education and health care to the impoverished
populace.

Of course, we can't have that, especially in a Muslim
country.