Either sign up or shut up

[lwoolley]

The surge is on! Join the Army now and take your listeners with you! You still have time. There's IEDs waiting for you to find.

John Coskey
Dallas

[lwoolley]

Dear Mr. Woolley,
I recently heard you speaking of how overjoyed you were with the death of humans caused by the U.S. aircraft in Somalia. You were delighted it seems.
Since you praise logic over emotion (ie, joy at slaughter), maybe you should consider these facts:
1)Somalia is a sovereign nation.
2)US violated international law in its attack.
3)a dozen people were reported killed, including children.
4)the US can now not confirm any terrorists were killed.
Imagine Canada believed terrorists were present in Temple,Tx and sent a gunship which killed 12 or so people, none of whom proved to be terrorists. What would your reaction be? Does the term "innocent civilians" only apply to Americans?
Sincerely, Alan Northcutt

[lwoolley]

Should have called tbis section "Kook Central"?

Lynn

[Stu]

Relax Lynn, every Blog needs a bit bucket fit for chaff, noise, spin, and apoplectic ad hominem.

Reference the attacks in Somalia. Even the media reports and open source references refute the points made above.

1. Somalia is many things but it is not a “sovereign nation”. It is in fact a territory ruled by renegades; a dejure state with “ministries” that lacks the recognized central government authority and the infrastructure associated with established independent nation states. Defacto authority actually remains with a conglomerate of international organizations and therefore a functioning government and enforcing the rule of law remain problematic; all requirements for a “sovereign nation”. It would be even worse if Ethiopia has not recently intervened.

2.The US did not violate international law by attacking al Qaeda in Somalia, or anywhere else for that matter. UNSCRs 1377 (2001) through 1735 (2006) reinforce that such actions are in line with the UN Charter, albeit enforcement of Article 42, Chapter 7 is usually left for leaders with backbone. Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya also provided the “actionable intelligence” needed to interdict the targets. The Somali “President” then defended the attack and stated the US “had the right to attack al Qaeda”.

3. The targets were al Qaeda and Somali Islamist terrorists, command and control nodes and training sites therefore the attacks also do not violate the Geneva Conventions or protocols. It is an unfortunate byproduct of war that non-combatants, innocent or not, are often killed when they are collocated with the enemy. Even our precision munitions and direct action teams rarely have a circular error probable of zero meters.

4. Somali officials announced that “hundreds were killed” and the strikes were a success. This time the unverified counter is that “herdsmen” were killed. Sound familiar? Covert US and coalition military and inter-agency assets have no doubt conducted and reported the battlefield damage assessments. The results will not and should not be made public as the best way to fight this enemy remains doing so in the shadows. We should simply consider the source when weighing opinion and spin to the contrary.

Speaking of military service. At 0900 EST on January 12th 2007, somewhere on Sand Hill at Fort Benning Georgia, my youngest son and hundreds of other recruits filed off buses and met their drill sergeants for the first time. Thus began Zero Day and 14 weeks of Infantry One Station Unit Training (OSUT). Then come Airborne and Ranger schools. Sorry, what was that again about “signing up”?

Army Strong!

Stu McLennan
Harker Heights

[rfreedom4u]

Somalia has been and still is ruled by anarchy. I would compare it to a "nation" run by violent street gang thugs. The gang with the most weapons makes the rules. If I were president, not a single penny of US money would go to Somalia except in the form of munitions being dropped on the thugs.

Proud member of the America First group.
Rick Chollett