Black Hawk Down Revisited

To the country for the weekend. It sure felt good. Maybe one quick post.
So the guys who killed our soldiers and dragged their bodies through the streets of Mogudishu are now Bushco's friends. Figures.
I agree with Susie at Suburban Guerrilla this is definately a case of IOKIYAR(It's okay if you're a Republican)

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Black Hawk Down Revisited

Somalia is still ruled by the brutal warlords who dragged dead US soldiers through the streets in 1993. But times change. Now they are America’s new allies in the war on terror

THIRTEEN years after President Bill Clinton withdrew forces from Somalia, in the “Black Hawk down” shambles, American security officials are giving clandestine support to the same warlords who mutilated and humiliated US soldiers in 1993.
The American Operation, in breach of the United Nations’ arms embargo on Somalia and therefore in breach of international law, is controlled through the US Embassy in Kenya and Washington’s 1800-strong Combined Joint Task Force in Djibouti, on Somalia’s northern border.

The Combined Joint Task Force, under Admiral Richard Hunt, is an anti-terrorist operation for the troubled Horn of Africa, but most specifically for Somalia, which has had no effective government since 1991 and is seen as an ideal place for al-Qaeda activists to hide and plot attacks.

Somalia is only a short boat ride from Yemen and is a historic doorway to Africa from the Middle East. No visas are needed to enter Somalia and there is no police force. The country has a weak and ineffective transitional government operating largely out of neighbouring Kenya. Most of Somalia is in mayhem and lawlessness, ruled by a patchwork of competing warlords; the capital is too unsafe for even Somalia’s acting prime minister to visit.

The US, terrified that Islamists allied to al-Qaeda are gaining control in Somalia, has turned to the kind of warlords who once dragged dead American soldiers through the streets of Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, as its new allies in the “war on terror”."

Continue at Sunday Herald