Rolling up Al Qaeda in Somalia

[Arrian]

I don't know whether or not it was a mistake, and neither do you.

You believe it was deliberate, for whatever reason. I simply don't know, and furthermore believe that it's unknowable, at least anytime soon (possibly declassified documents fifty years from now might provide concrete proof, but that's not certain either).

-Arrian

[Pekka]

Yeah, well if it's not a top lieutenant or captain, it's a huge failure. EVEN IF it was a top officer, it's still a damn failure.

If they got OBL in this, well maybe then we could think, hmmm.. don't know if it was worth hundred lives of people we don't know, but.. still, a pretty good score.

All I'm saying is, let's call it what it really is. I'm not saying, let's sit on our hands and never do anything about things, I'm just suggesting let's see how things are, and call it like it is. In this case, a failure, I don't care how high of an officer this is, it's a failure. It's not 100 lives worth.

Of course you can always start being mathematical, well, 100 .. then again the officer is able to.. and then 1000 is killed, so that leaves us 900+ so it's a win... well if we want to live in the world of ifs and buts, there's lots of way to count those success rates, just the way we like them to go. A failure, a failure, 100 x a failure.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by MOBIUS


Actually what all too often happens is...

a) Americans claim great success killing 'A senior terrorist figure and lots of his henchmen...'

b) Americans backtrack, admitting the didn't get him but 'got a lot of bad guys...'

c) The press finds most of the bodies look suspiciously like women and children. No comment from America.

I'd say this happens about 75-90% of the time...

Amazingly enough, the top guys dont wander around on their own, but go around with fellow bad guys, go to meetings with fellow bad guys, etc. You have a group of bad guys, but you focus your assets where you think the higher level guys are. If the higher level guy is at the meeting, good. If he failed to show up, you still get the guys you thought he was going to meet with.

Not rocket science, huh? And yeah, the bad guys hide in villages, and use human shields.

[Jaakko]

Originally posted by lord of the mark



Theres no doubt on anyones part here that the Admin would bomb a village where there are AQ, so theres nothing to prove. The only gain is if they actually GET somebody important, which is why they focus efforts on that.


US rules of engagement in general have been discussed elsewhere, and are not materially different from those of other NATO countries in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Here you go again with your accusation equals fact reasoning. That's the whole problem. You think it's ok to kill an arbitrary number of civilians just as long as someone accuses them of being evil afterwards. You're the most perfect stooge anyone could ever wish for. After they're done ****ing with you, you'll gladly defend their ****ups.

[MOBIUS]

Originally posted by Arrian
I don't know whether or not it was a mistake, and neither do you.

You believe it was deliberate, for whatever reason. I simply don't know, and furthermore believe that it's unknowable, at least anytime soon (possibly declassified documents fifty years from now might provide concrete proof, but that's not certain either).

-Arrian

I believe it for the reasons set out when it was exhaustively debated on Poly when it happened...

[Last Conformist]

What Mobius affects to know matters not at all. What matters is the Chinese didn't feel like going to war over it.

Besides, I can't recall AQ offering to pay compensation for mistakenly knocking down the WTC.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by MOBIUS


Otherwise known as "Operation Latest Failure: Sweep Innocent Civilian Casualties Under the Carpet #206" is already in full swing!

Or, alternatively, "Operation call everyone who dies as the result of a US bombing raid a civilian."

It is unclear exactly who we killed and exactly what those people are properly called (innocent civilians, A-Q terrorists, or something in between), because I seriously doubt many people know enough about the village we hit to know the answers to those questions. Clearly people in the US military think they knew, but obviously they've been wrong before.

-Arrian

[Pekka]

"Amazingly enough, the top guys dont wander around on their own, but go around with fellow bad guys, go to meetings with fellow bad guys, etc. You have a group of bad guys, but you focus your assets where you think the higher level guys are. If the higher level guy is at the meeting, good. If he failed to show up, you still get the guys you thought he was going to meet with.

Not rocket science, huh? And yeah, the bad guys hide in villages, and use human shields."

Here we go, trivializing this stuff.......

So, it was actually the cunning use of human shields, when AC130 attacked?

Right. Click the heels three times man, if you don't want to believe in grand failure, where prolly more than just one people were incompetent, most likely still have their jobs, because it's so tough no one else can actaully succeed in 'not ****ing up'.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
What Mobius affects to know matters not at all. What matters is the Chinese didn't feel like going to war over it.

Besides, I can't recall AQ offering to pay compensation for mistakenly knocking down the WTC.

Right, which is why MOBIUS's analogy sucked balls.

-Arrian

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Jaakko


Here you go again with your accusation equals fact reasoning. That's the whole problem. You think it's ok to kill an arbitrary number of civilians just as long as someone accuses them of being evil afterwards. You're the most perfect stooge anyone could ever wish for. After they're done ****ing with you, you'll gladly defend their ****ups.

No, I think its ok to bomb a village where out intell suggested there were terrorists. You are the one asserting that we bombed a place without such intell, and you provide no evidence of that whatsoever.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


No, I think its ok to bomb a village where out intell suggested there were terrorists. You are the one asserting that we bombed a place without such intell, and you provide no evidence of that whatsoever.

Funny thing is, we'd not have this discussion if Ethiopia had flattened the place.

[Arrian]

No, the discussion would be about how the Ethiopians flattened the place, but clearly had gotten secret permission (or orders) from the evil USA first.

-Arrian

[dannubis]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


No, I think its ok to bomb a village where out intell suggested there were terrorists. You are the one asserting that we bombed a place without such intell, and you provide no evidence of that whatsoever.

If by any chance an imaginary top Palestinian bombmaker was hiding in an imaginary remote Israeli village, and word got out, would you still approve to bomb the place ?

Imaginary speaking that is ?

[dannubis]

Originally posted by Last Conformist

Funny thing is, we'd not have this discussion if Ethiopia had flattened the place.

No indeed, no one in his right mind would even think of defending that one.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Pekka
"Amazingly enough, the top guys dont wander around on their own, but go around with fellow bad guys, go to meetings with fellow bad guys, etc. You have a group of bad guys, but you focus your assets where you think the higher level guys are. If the higher level guy is at the meeting, good. If he failed to show up, you still get the guys you thought he was going to meet with.

Not rocket science, huh? And yeah, the bad guys hide in villages, and use human shields."

Here we go, trivializing this stuff.......

So, it was actually the cunning use of human shields, when AC130 attacked?

Right. Click the heels three times man, if you don't want to believe in grand failure, where prolly more than just one people were incompetent, most likely still have their jobs, because it's so tough no one else can actaully succeed in 'not ****ing up'.

Im not sure what youre driving at. I was responding to Moby, who seemed surprised at the pattern involved, and implied it was the result of dishonesty, not operational reality.


to you I would respond

1. We dont know yet if it was a failure. We dont know if the folks killed there were civilians. We DO know that whenever the US or its allies attack somewhere, those locals who want to stop such attacks ALWAYS claim large scale civilian deaths. Which very often prove to be false.

2. Nonetheless it MAY be that a failure occured. And yes, failures happen in war. That IS a reality. You can make stupid remarks about how they dont, but they do. Even when competent people are involved.