Ethiopians Offer To Help Islamists
Directly related to the previous post, detailing a call by al Qaeda's huge number two for Somali islamists to kill themselves, the Ethiopian Army is offering to help right away. They are preparing an all-out assault on the final stronghold the islamists have.
The Somali and Ethiopian force captured a southern town near the Kenyan border Thursday evening. Col. Barre "Hirale" Aden Shire, the Somali defense minister, said Islamic militiamen were dug in with their backs to the sea at Ras Kamboni at the southernmost tip of Somalia.
"Today we will launch a massive assault on the Islamic courts militias. We will use infantry troops and fighter jets," said Shire, who left for the battle zone on Friday. "They have dug huge trenches around Ras Kamboni but have only two options: to drown in the sea or to fight and die."
I'm still waiting to see if the islamists can get up sufficient velocity with their brisk walks to actually briskly walk across the Indian Ocean. I wouldn't bet against it at this point. Their brisk walks up until now have shattered every record.
War, World news | Gaius Friday, 5 January , 2007
By Jack Gunter, Jr., Friday, 5 January , 2007 @ 8:53 am
I’m awfully glad to see us thrown in with the Ethiopians. I suspect what it really means is something I’ve thought true for years, Byzantium is finally Come Again. And I’ll be extremely glad to finally see the US African Command, something that has been needed for at least fifty years.
But I can’t help but wonder if we shouldn’t be offering assistance in a more tangible and direct way as well. After all, “Duty is as Duty Does.”
By Quilly Mammoth, Friday, 5 January , 2007 @ 11:53 am
We’ve been training African officers for years. In fact I helped train some of them in the early 80’s from places you’d be amazed including Zimbabwe. The idea isn’t so much to train them as to show them how a democracy produces the best army in the world.
FAS.org has the budgets for training African soldiers it has been steadily growing since about 2000.
As for what the Ethiopians will do with the encircled terrorists…as I asked on my blog “what would Alois Hammer do?”
By Gaius, Friday, 5 January , 2007 @ 12:08 pm
Take the planet?
By Jack Gunter, Jr., Friday, 5 January , 2007 @ 7:31 pm
“We’ve been training African officers for years.”
Yeah, I know. I know something about Africa myself. I know someone who was machetied to death in Rwanda, among other things. Got a Marine Corp. friend who was recently trianing African troops. But I was talking about both a true African Command and nations there that are true allies in every sense: militarily, governmentally, socially, having basic liberal (in the true sense of the word) Western values, etc.
We’ve just dipped our stick in at random in Africa for too long. We need to be in all the way. That’s one messed up continent with a bunch of screwed up nations.
We need to be there and we need solid allies there. We need to pitch our tent and linger awhile, not just migrate around like Bedouins.
We could kill a lot of snakes in Africa by growing up some nations in the best tradition of the West.
Cleaning up Africa could do the whole world a whole lotta good. Wouldn’t hurt America much either in the long run.