Ethiopia Bombs Mogadishu:

[Sprayber]

I was wondering how long it would take. Now I'm curious how long till the suicide bombs start going off. Although Somalia may be a bit different and not go down that road as much as other places. I'm no expert on Somalia but it seems the loyality of most of their fighters were not very solid with many of them going back to their clans. Probably the most fanatical of the fighters were the foreign and it would seem silly for them to go blow themselves up in Somalia when they can do the same thing closer to their homes.

[TCO]

Ethiopia! Let's send them into Darfur next.

[Richelieu]

Originally posted by TCO
Ethiopia! Let's send them into Irak next.

Fixed.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Sprayber
I was wondering how long it would take. Now I'm curious how long till the suicide bombs start going off. Although Somalia may be a bit different and not go down that road as much as other places. I'm no expert on Somalia but it seems the loyality of most of their fighters were not very solid with many of them going back to their clans. Probably the most fanatical of the fighters were the foreign and it would seem silly for them to go blow themselves up in Somalia when they can do the same thing closer to their homes.

ive seen word the Ethipians are being rather less gentle on any foreign fighters they capture than we are in Iraq or Afghanistan.

It also seems the most hardline fighters (not sure how many are foreign) are holing up in Kismayu, near the Kenyan border.

We can certainly hope that Somalia ends up with a stable govt, and not a return to anarchy. How Ethiopia will see their interests in that regard remains to be seen. But its clear that ethiopia will NOT allow a jihadi state sheltering AQ to emerge on their border, and THAT, at least, is in our interest.

[VetLegion]

How is Somalia standing with the libertarians at the moment?

For a couple of years it used to be darling of many internet debators: no central government, yet the people were fed, you could rent a donkey from enterpreneurs at every corner and recently even the internet access market boomed as independent ISPs set up shop and competed for market.

Then, the anarchy was replaced by a central power. And now by a foreign central power.

[SlowwHand]

Originally posted by Richelieu


Fixed.

You call that fixed?

[C0ckney]

Originally posted by Brachy-Pride
Ethiopia kicks ass!!

[Pekka]

Ethiopia is DEFINITELY a lot stronger with its military than Somalia. It will win all wars, the low fuel war, all out war, long lasting what ever war and the war on hats.

But I don't think Ethiopia will go for the full 9 yards, instead it brings about destructions, leaves it at that, and aftermath is even more messy.

But I support their strike, if they are willing to sort it out If not, then bleh

[GePap]

Last reports is that as the islamist were leaving, the capital desceneded into the kind of anarchy that was there before the islamist quieted the place down.

So basically, Ethiopia has restored the status quo before the Islamists. They are too poor to do anything to help the government to do anything but blow up things and even then, they only care to blow up the islamists.

Unless the international community comes in with large amounts of aid (it won't), the government should remain as ineffective as it was before it got its ass handed to it. And I doubt the Ethiopians have any desire to stay in Somalia for any worthwhile amount of time.

Anarchy, welcome back.

[Pekka]

Ethiopia should deal with this once in for all. THey should take out the strongest clan, and the international community the other clan, then we evacuate everyone for a while, just to bomb the whole place to the ground again, make it all parking space for tourists, build few supermalls and tourist attractions. What do we do with the Somalis? Hmhh.. let's make them fight terrorists. Iraq, Afghanistan, we cna finally have the million man army in those places?

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Brachy-Pride
lol

it lasted less than the 6 days war

Ethiopia kicks ass!!

Actually, Ethiopia's part in the war has been going on for several days now but this offensive only lasted six days. There is still the portion of the country south of Mogadishu left to conquor. Then the assymetrical warfare will start.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Eli
I wanna see how Ethiopia handles this occupation. Should be an interesting contrast with Iraq and the Palestinian Territories.

Remember that the Ethiopian army is mostly the rebel forces which spent 12 years in the bush fighting the Marxist dictator who ran Ethiopia. They didn't have the best human rights record either. I suspect the Ethiopians won't be above the odd public execution or mass punishment. Maybe even attacking whole clans if they feel a clan is trying to play both sides.

This likely won't start happening until the assymetrical warfare gets going then they'll start the reprisal attacks. That's my guess any way.

[TCO]

If anarchy achieves the Ethiopian ends that is fine. Nation building is crap.

[Dr Strangelove]

There's really not that much south of Mogadishu is there? Somehow I don't think that Kenya is going to offer sanctuary to them.

Do the Islamicists have a particular ethnic/tribal base? If not they may not be able to survive. Sudan is a long way away from them. Didn't they basically liquidate then replace the local tribal warlords of southern Somalia? There may be a significant degree of local hostility against them, so they may literally be up a creek without a paddle now that they're on the run. There may be very little "assymetric warfare".

In northwesr Pakistan, where the Taliban has slaughtered the local leadership, I strongly believe that if someone could unite the local tribes the Taliban coiuld be chased out of its last major base.

[TCO]

I would think that liquidating enemy leadership would make it HARDER for enemies to attack either Taliban or Islamicists. You people seem to think that how upset people are rather then the balance of power.