Bush Supporting Somali Warlords Responsible for Downing U.S. Black Hawk
Bush Supporting Somali Warlords Responsible for Downing U.S. Black Hawk
Today, the Washington Post reported that the U.S. has been “secretly supporting secular warlords who have been waging fierce battles against Islamic groups for control of the capital, Mogadishu.â€
The Bush administration is “backing the warlords as part of its global war against terrorism,†even though some of these warlords “reportedly fought against the United States in 1993 during street battles that culminated in an attack that downed two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters and left 18 Army Rangers dead.â€
At today’s press briefing, Tony Snow all but confirmed the report:
[Y]ou’ve got instability in Somalia right now, and there is concern about the presence of foreign terrorists, particularly Al Qaeda, within Somalia right now. In an environment of instability, as we’ve seen in the past, Al Qaeda may take root, and we want to make sure that Al Qaeda does not in fact establish a beachhead in Somalia. […] The United States – we will continue to work with regional and international partners wherever we can to crack down on terrorism and also to try to prevent its rising.
Somalia’s interim government has warned the U.S. that this policy is “shortsighted and dangerous,†and is causing more violence in an already anarchic country:
“We would prefer that the U.S. work with the transitional government and not with criminals,†the prime minister, Ali Mohamed Gedi, said in an interview. “This is a dangerous game. Somalia is not a stable place and we want the U.S. in Somalia. But in a more constructive way. Clearly we have a common objective to stabilize Somalia, but the U.S. is using the wrong channels.â€
Shortsighted and dangerous: a good way to describe much of the administration’s foreign policy.
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Do these idiots never learn? That’s what we did with Saddam.
May 17th, 2006 at 6:10 pm…and bin laden
May 17th, 2006 at 6:12 pmReichWingNuts never met a third world despot they didn’t love. Noriega. Pinochet. Saddam. Just to name three.
May 17th, 2006 at 6:12 pmGWB Mission Statement: Shortsighted and Dangerous
May 17th, 2006 at 6:13 pmWe better ask the press: does the Bill Clinton rule apply?
May 17th, 2006 at 6:14 pmYou just KNOW that in the not too distant future, U.S. forces will be fighting against the Iraq military we’re training now. It’s inevitable. It’s predictable. It’s a lock.
May 17th, 2006 at 6:15 pmI think that fairly consistent, with respect to the repug’s past record.
May 17th, 2006 at 6:19 pmdumbya musta been AWOL in college as well as the Air National Guard.
May 17th, 2006 at 6:19 pmI think that is fairly consistent, with respect to the repug’s past record.
May 17th, 2006 at 6:19 pmI wonder how Josh Harnett feels about this?
Or the actual soliders that were there!!!
May 17th, 2006 at 6:20 pmNothing suprsing here then , thats how america stays rich by putting other countries back in time, killing millions and millions at the same time , What a backward crazy Nation America really is ??? time to grow up the world is changing
May 17th, 2006 at 6:34 pmShortsighted and dangerous: a good way to describe the administration’s foreign policy.
Foreign Policy…! What foreign policy? These guys believe in Mergers and Acquisitions, Strategic Global Alliances to Maximize Profit Margins for the Trillion dollar war machines that feed off of the strife and misery and suffering of the Little People everywhere.
I mean let’s face it here… We’re talking about Africa. When has the United States of America EVER given a rats ass about Africa?
May 17th, 2006 at 6:38 pmOh great, now we gotta listen to Dim Son try and pronounce Moagu-dee-su? Thanx alot PNAC!!!
May 17th, 2006 at 6:41 pmReichWingNuts never met a third world despot they didn’t love. Noriega. Pinochet. Saddam. Just to name three.
Comment by Jesus Christ God of WAR — May 17, 2006 @ 6:12 pm
Given Bush the daddy fed two of the above before he went to war with them, george is just setting up Jeb’s nemisis, must have a third rate dictator to fight to keep the GWOT going for another generation or two, must also be the actual mission statement on Iraq….destroy Saddam, take the oil and create terrorists for Jeb’s turn
May 17th, 2006 at 6:50 pmSame crap the Repugs did in Afganastan, Iraq and many other places, then created a more f*cked up situation.
Repugs never learn the hard lessons of history and the US along with other countries end up suffering the consequences of such dire stupidity with the blood of our soldiers and innocent lives.
Bush didn’t get the idea for this, he doesn’t even know where Somalia is on the map. he is too much of amoron. Those Nixonite neocons filling his ear are behind this type of stuff. Cheney, Dumbsfeld and crew.
The sad thing is these people get voted in by people who have their values all screwed up.
Just look at entertainment industry and the FCC rules governing them. Violence is entertainment, yet that act of creating life is considered obsene. You can’t even show a baby nursing, it is considered too obsene. Yet you can show someone getting shot, or show a bloody corpse and it is supposed to be good entertainment.
May 17th, 2006 at 6:52 pmCreation of life is obsene, yet ending of life is entertaining, Wow.
No wonder we have issues in this country.
When you really think about it, we as a society are really,really f*cked up.
My God. Bill Clinton recklessly killed 18 Americans. My God! 18 Americans died for those (insert racial slur). My God, I watched the news and they showed the Americans body getting dragged through the streets over and over and over again. Of course the media was doing the nation a great service by showing those dead American soldiers. They proved Bill Clinton recklessly killed 18 Americans. My God. 18 Americans were killed. Why are there US troops in another place nation building? What do I care about democracy in Somalia……
This flash back to right wing talking points about a military mission in the middle east while Bill Clinton was president has been brought to you by:
-GSD
May 17th, 2006 at 6:55 pmDoes this surprise you, considering that Cheney was secretly entertaining Mubarak’s son after his father had recently squashed a pro-democracy demonstration?
A more expanded treatment of Steve Lopez’s followup article on Lee Sevilla (no, not last night’s post. This is a new one).
May 17th, 2006 at 6:56 pmHow ironic.
Clinton Defense Secretary Les Aspin lost his job over the Blackhawk Down episode while Donald Rumsfeld keeps his.
May 17th, 2006 at 7:04 pmBoth cons and dems support attacking false flags and divide and conquer war tactics. It’s part of the curriculum in the US War College. These tactics are very old and very good as a tool to rile up their minions. Harry Milgram even proved that Americans would even kill people under orders 100% of the time, just as the Nazis did. Fascism still lives in the heart of America.
Bob Herbert has a good article “America the Fearful” at http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13075.htm Presidents have been using the fear tactic since the enactment of the National Security Act of 1947 to turn this country into a military state. Bush has been the biggest user of it. Americans are full of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt). Eisenhower was hoping that the people might turn that whole idea around and use it on our elected officials to demand peace. I don’t see it happening in my lifetime but I will never stop trying.
While over at ICH, check out The Real Assault on America By Paul Craig Roberts.
May 17th, 2006 at 7:06 pm2000: George W. Bush is elected (so they tell me) President of the United States. Bush and his family claim to be descendants of the House of Plantagenet which is descended from the Royal House of Judah.
2001: On September 11th the attack on the World Trade Center is orchestrated by Israel with the complicity of Britain and America, under the orders of the Rothschilds as a pretext for removing the liberty of people worldwide in exchange for security, just as happened with the Reichstag fire in Germany where the citizens were lied to in order to give up liberty for security.
They also will use the attacks to gain control of the few nations in the world who don’t allow Rothschild central banks and so less than one month after these attacks, US forces attack Afghanistan, one of only 7 nations in the world who don’t have a Rothschild controlled central bank.
So be it….masters of the world
May 17th, 2006 at 7:15 pmBubble boys legacy:
Murderer
May 17th, 2006 at 7:20 pmDictator
Liar
Mental
Closet Gay
I wish he’d fall off of his bike and do the “Schaivo” already.
#12.
You forgot Decider.
-GSD
May 17th, 2006 at 7:30 pmI’d like to hear comments from those who would like to have crucified Clinton over Somalia — what do they think of the boy-king making nice with the gangs today.
May 17th, 2006 at 7:31 pmBush, the warmongering moron, keeps his incompetent defense secretary, while his malevolent vice president courts dictators around the world.
Not to mention that Bush and his daddy remain close friends with the Saudis whose citizens conspired to commit the 9/11 atrocity.
What is it going to take before the man is run out of town?
OFF TOPIC
I just got to get this out of my system.
I moved to Mexico in 1999, after much investigation of the economics, the people, the weather, etc. I had to find a place to retire where I could live on my $1479 a month social security, since everything else had been taken from me, via a divorce, by the way.
Since I moved down here I have jumped through all the hoops and restrictions set up by the Mexican government to extract money from Americanos.
Each year I must renew my Mexican documents. I have an FM-2, and will apply for permanancy this year or the next, depends on finances. To renew my Mexican documents I must pay an application fee, and then when I fill out the papers, pay the renewal fee. This amounts to around $200 per year.
All papers are in Spanish, nothing is in English. The people at the counters cannot, or will not, speak English. That is where the rub comes in. Call the WH and you get a choice of English or Spanish. WHY? If we people in America can offer the Mexicans the courtesy of Spanish, why cant the Mexican government afford the thousands down here papers in English?
The Bushco program is going to cost the taxpayers at least 1 trillion, yes trillion, dollars to implement, while down here the Americans are given nothing.
The end of a sad story, and the beginning of an election year boondoggle in the US.
May 17th, 2006 at 7:33 pmGotta agree with madrino (comment 19) here – this kind of action is not a Republican thing. It’s a bipartisan, imperialist-foreign-policy-establishment strategy. Remember it was the Carter administration that started to support islamist insurgents in Afghanistan in an attempt (successful) to lure the USSR into a trap.
May 17th, 2006 at 7:41 pmit’s all about the killing. as long as there is killing going on, the mission continues.
Death is Life is Bush’s Orwellian world.
He should receive the Nobel Peace Prize for Death.
May 17th, 2006 at 7:47 pmIt’s not about terrorism. It’s about oil in Africa of all places:
May 17th, 2006 at 7:53 pmhttp://www.nytimes.com/cfr/international/slot2_011806.html?oref=login
STOP! STOP! STOP! I can’t take it anymore! I’ve got “Scandal Fatigue”! Ask your Kool-aid republican friends/foes to remind you of just one week since the bastards took power that has gone by without a scandal.
May 17th, 2006 at 8:03 pmToday, Jason Leopold has some VERY interesting insight into the Rove indictment…
http://patrickjfitzgerald.blogspot.com
May 17th, 2006 at 8:24 pmO/T- Russell TIce (NSA Whistleblower) was supposed to testify before the Senate Armed Services Comm. today, can’t find anything about it – has anyone heard anything ???
May 17th, 2006 at 8:41 pmRepeat and Memorize:
“(Iran), (Syria), (Lebanon), Yemen, (Iran), (Sudan), & (Somalia).” — Project for a New American Dictator, er, Century
It’s Chevron’s, er, the USA’s new Sphere of Influence.
I don’t actually know if they’ve hit Yemen yet, but they did add Qatar to the list.
Henry Kissinger, head warcriminal for the Saudi Crime Families, has also said he wants to partition Saudi Arabia, presumably because conflicts of interest are the only kind rightwingers understand.
I know! Let’s put Kissinger in charge of this year’s June Sixth Commission!
You just know we’re going to need one….
May 17th, 2006 at 8:58 pmOops, the first Iran is actually spelled I-R-A-Q.
I get all those Iran’s mixed up.
May 17th, 2006 at 8:59 pm#29 pjf
May 17th, 2006 at 9:04 pmThanks. God! I wish something would happen here soon.
“STOP! STOP! STOP! I can’t take it anymore! I’ve got “Scandal Fatigueâ€!”
Fatigue in your ’scandals’?
Then you need…a CILICE.
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114778894054433251
It’s self-torture for torturers.
May 17th, 2006 at 9:05 pmWell Somalia hasnt even had a real government for over a decade. I think sometimes you do need to do some questionable things, like forge pacts with shady characters. I think not so much al Qaeda, but the idea of al Qaedism is dangerous, however exploited by th eneocons.
Also I wanted to comment, and ask why the liberal news sites have put a total black out on exposing the 9/11 coverup? I mean, let’s just call anyone who thinks Bush lied about Iraq a tinfoil conspiracy theorist.
May 17th, 2006 at 10:44 pmBush loves sadistic killers, so the Somali warlords are his kind of thugs!
May 17th, 2006 at 10:51 pmHere are more startling torture photos from other locations, including Somalia.
Photos 1-9.
this is what we’re doing in Somalia!
May 17th, 2006 at 10:57 pmAND FOR ALL YOU BUSH SUPPORTERS:
Iraq War Images Uncensored
May 17th, 2006 at 10:59 pmCheck out the pentagon video. Wowow!! Flight 77 crashing right into the building
http://www.str8up.com/watch.php?v=263
Second part of the video. Dude, there isn’t even a guard here.
http://www.str8up.com/watch.php?v=262
May 17th, 2006 at 11:37 pm#39.
That was a guard that was hired during the Clinton Era. A Bush guard would have single handedly wrestled the plane out of the sky and saved everyone.
-GSD
May 18th, 2006 at 12:27 amThis is really no change from US policy of the past. “Enemy of my enemy” is my friend. Make fiends with anyone who can turn a profit or help out point of view politically.
I thought we were starting to learn honorably with the rest of the world, but not this Presidency. We are back to the stome ages w. jingoism. Because of our distraction with Iraq, the entirety of South and Central America has moved extremely left. Could have deen different, with a little more cooperative attitude. Now there are worldwide issues that will eventually draw to wars and illegal state sponsored subversion and terrorism, if the hawks have their way. I feel deja vu.
May 18th, 2006 at 12:38 am#24 Think of this: aside from (some) documents in english and spanish in the USA, the legal life of an immigrant sucks, they can have their papers to live & work in the USA legally only after many years of bureaucracy. And USA people tends to understand (hardly) only english, anyways. Immigrants in the USA must learn the language and be lucky to not botch any bureaucratic requirement in the mean time or they are deemed “illegal” for life. Life which, in turn, is far costlier in the USA than in Mexico (for example), and immigrant people don’t have a job paying 1400 dollars per month. So they are living in a much harder life than your retired one. You must renew your papers every year or two? You know the amount of bureaucracy a migrant has to do in the USA, and the periods of time they must wait? Mountains of forms to be filled. In plus, in the USA, you can hardly live near your job, and you have crapy public transport, so you NEED badly a car to live and work, but ALAS, you can’t drive without a lisence and an insurance, or the police will stop you, and sanction you, and you can’t have a lisence without paying for the teaching and the tests of driving. And hardness for the immigrants in the USA don’t stop here, but is too long to explain in a single (and offtopic) post.
And anyways, the official language of Mexico is spanish, not english, why they MUST have forms in other languages? You will find that MANY advanced countries in the world don’t have forms in english. They don’t have 44 milion of USA people living in their country, as USA has of spanish talking people (not only mexicans).
May 18th, 2006 at 7:04 amDoes anyone know what happened to crooksandliars.com? Did they change their url?
May 18th, 2006 at 7:12 amWow Steve its gone. My guess is that the govt took them down. I had a site hosted by yahoo that was taken down. yahoo could not give me an explanation as to why they took it down. I was Bush bashing on it. If they hosted thru Yahoo, thats probably what happened.
May 18th, 2006 at 8:10 am#44 Talking about China censorship scandal…
May 18th, 2006 at 8:24 amBob Herbert asks, Hillary Can Run But Can She Win? What do you think? Are we progressives ready for a woman Prez?
May 18th, 2006 at 8:25 amIn case you haven’t noticed, the people of the United States, are the enemy of this Administration.
May 18th, 2006 at 9:07 amOnce you realize that, and know that our Country, and us, are of no concearn to them, then you know why they APPEAR to make really stupid decisions.
Just remember that those decisions are not based on their oath of office.
If you take away the basic assumption that they are attempting to do the job that they are paid by US to do, there is no reason to debate their decisions.
It’s then plain to see, why those decisions are made.
And it has NOTHING to do with what is best for our Country or us.
It’s pretty much like . . . . Okay, this is why they did this . . . and did that . . . . and here is who benefits. Now, fire their asses, and indict them as the felony offenders that they are.
W’s simply following the pattern set by Reagan and his dad. Give big guns to bad guys so that you can sustain the defense industry 5 or 10 years down the line with a big war. Yeah, that’s it.
http://www.lcoliberal.blogspot.com
May 18th, 2006 at 9:15 amSnow day: Tony’s breakdown.
Now on LCL
Wait a minute, for the longest time the right wing has been harping that Clinton failing in Somalia gave the terrorists heart (Even though it was George Senior’s Mission). They have also been saying that we were fighting Al Queda in Somalia all along and that Clinton allowed Al Queda to stay and flourish. Heck they even wet themselves with embarrassment when they found a piece of equipment labeled G Gordon while fighting in Afghanistan. That was the conclusive proof that Al Queda and Somalia were linked because not all of Gary Gordon’s equipment was recovered after he was killed in Somalia. Of course a day later the story quietly died when it turn out to be a recently lost piece of equipment from a soldier who looks like G Gordon Liddy. The point being that they have been trying to link Somalia and Al Queda for years. Now they abandon that link and align with guys they have said all along were aligned with Al Queda? Just one more blatant hint that these guys don’t know what the F@#$ they are doing.
May 18th, 2006 at 9:17 am1980: “Hey, there’s this guy named Osama who’s willing to raise an army and fight the Soviets in Afghanistan…let’s get the CIA in there to help him out!”
2001: “Oops. Probably wasn’t such a good idea”
May 18th, 2006 at 9:29 amenoughalready
Israel had nothing to do with 9/11, Israel in fact tried to warn Bush that 9/11 was coming, but Bush ignored them. Every time you try to push culpability over to Israel, you are weakening everything the left stands for by coming off as yet another conspiracy theorist nutjob.
9/11 was the indirect result of Bush being incompetent, and the direct result of Osama being a nutter with a penchant for blowing up historic landmarks. Osama planned it, Osama’s guys pulled it off, and Bush was too busy going on holiday or taking photo ops to stop it.
That said, back to the topic:
So basically Bush is continuing his legacy of doing precisely the wrong thing over and over again while hoping for different results, because by gum this is how it was done in the past and this is what is going to be done now?
May 18th, 2006 at 10:32 am[...] Bush Supporting Somalian Warlords Responsible for Downing US Black …Think Progress, DC - 18 hours ago… [Y]ou ve got instability in Somalia right now, and there is concern … This is a dangerous game. Somalia is not a stable place and we want the US in Somalia. … [...]
May 18th, 2006 at 12:47 pmYou just KNOW that in the not too distant future, U.S. forces will be fighting against the Iraq military we’re training now. It’s inevitable. It’s predictable. It’s a lock.
Comment by Badmoodman #6
Badmoodman,
Just imagine yourself as one of the big money players in the Bush-Cheney criminal Military-Corporate-Industrial-Complex…
…what a racket, huh?
…you get to sell arms to your conquered government/enemy military, while stealing your own countrymen’s taxpayer dollars (by saying you’re training the conquered former enemies)…
…blow up their cities (with weapons systems used to steal more taxpayer dollars)…
…then rebuild them (and embezzle EVEN MORE taxpayer dollars)…
…build em up, then tear ‘em down, then build ‘em up again!!!!
…how great is that sh*t for stealing money?
…and there’s a war on drugs too!
May 18th, 2006 at 12:51 pmfunny how those arms sent to Iraq have turned up missing (wasn’t it something like 250,000 assault rifles or something?) round and round and round we go….more lies, more death.
May 18th, 2006 at 1:27 pm[...] Turns out that the Bush administration might just be backing those same warlords in the battles for control of the capitol, according to a report from the Washington Post.. Smooth. [...]
May 18th, 2006 at 2:58 pmBUT TEH CLINTON!!o!N!!!1E!
May 18th, 2006 at 4:37 pm[...] Bush Supporting Somalian Warlords Responsible for Downing US Black …Think Progress, DC - May 17, 2006… Y]ou ve got instability in Somalia right now, and there is concern about the presence of foreign terrorists, particularly Al Qaeda, within Somalia right now. … [...]
May 20th, 2006 at 3:00 am[...] The State Department has transferred Michael Zorick, “formerly Somali political affairs officer at the U.S. Embassy in Kenya,†to a post in Chad after Zorick spoke out against the administration’s support of Somali warlords. “He really decided to take up the battle,†one diplomat said. “He realised very well what he was doing.†[...]
May 30th, 2006 at 9:06 amBush is a very foolish man to say the very least. How can he possibly accuse Somalia of harbouring terrorists like Al-Qaeda? We all know that the reason for him part-taking in the war in Somalia is not because he is concerned about Al-Qaeda. Definitely not! He is in fact no better than a terrorist himself. He is ‘terrorising’ countries with the excuse of accusing them of harbouring terrorists. Currently islamic groups are up against somalian warlords and it does not require a genius to firgure out who Bush is supporting. Even a person who does not know anything about the conflict in Somalia can tell you who Bush supports. It is very obvious!
June 7th, 2006 at 6:48 pmbush can suck me balls
June 8th, 2006 at 11:14 am[...] Last month, news reports revealed that the administration was “secretly supporting secular warlords†in Somalia against Islamic militias as a way to “crack down on terrorism†in East Africa. Some of these secular warlords “reportedly fought against the United States in 1993.” [...]
June 15th, 2006 at 12:32 pm[...] At a press conference yesterday, a reporter asked U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan what he thought about the U.S. “secretly supporting secular warlords†in Somalia. (The same warlords who “reportedly fought against the United States in 1993.â€) Here’s his response: I would not have supported warlords. I don’t think I would have recommended to the UN or the Security Council to support warlords. [...]
June 16th, 2006 at 3:22 pmNew Direction….
In a major new development today President Bush said “I have ordered 30,000 of our brave troops to get some Ali. We will bomb this guy back into the stone age. “
January 10th, 2007 at 11:01 amwhy blame bush. What about the black marcet
February 4th, 2007 at 5:03 pmwhy blame bush. What about the black market
February 4th, 2007 at 5:04 pm#38 suck it
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