Saturday - April 19, 2008

This is what real disenfranchisement looks like

This post was put up as an educational opportunity to any far left readers. Surely we have one or two? Remember this post come November, and think back to how much blood has been shed in Zimbabwe between now and then. My prediction is that several thousand will die over this in the next 7 months, and it could go so far as revolution.

Officials began recounting ballots for a couple dozen legislative seats Saturday, an exercise that could overturn the opposition’s landmark victory.Meanwhile, an independent human rights monitor charged that the government has begun a campaign of torture and harassment against those who voted for the opposition, while the country continues to await the results of presidential election.

The ruling party is challenging the count in 23 parliamentary races, most won by the opposition, including in President Robert Mugabe’s home district of Zvimba. The counting began after an opposition attempt to stop it was blocked in court Friday. The court is stacked with Mugabe loyalists.

The opposition has also gone to court to try to force the release of results from the presidential vote. Three weeks after the March 29 elections, which Mugabe is widely believed to have lost, they have not yet been published.

Results from legislative races held alongside the presidential votes gave control of the parliament to the opposition for the first time.

In Zvimba, officials excluded reporters as the count began in the presence of officials from the ruling and opposition parties as well as local observers.

Reporters saw no international observers present, though the state-controlled Herald newspaper quoted officials of the Southern African Development Community as saying it had sent 50 monitors.

In one contested constituency, The Herald reported a failed petrol bomb attack on offices where ballot boxes were stored early Friday morning. The newspaper quoted police as saying three attackers threw a homemade bomb at the Gutu district administration office, but that it did not explode. It said the attackers drove away when challenged by a police officer.

New York-based Human Rights Watch charged in a report released Saturday that “torture and violence are surging in Zimbabwe.”

It said the ruling party was setting up “torture camps to systematically target, beat, and torture people suspected of having voted for the (opposition) MDC in last months elections.”

Let’s also recall that Mugabe has ordered up a boatload of weapons from China recently. Maybe since the election? After all, how long would the proverbial “slow boat from China” take to get to Zimbabwe? (about 2 weeks actually. 7000ish nautical miles at 20 knots)

So there you have it. The counting is obviously rigged. The courts are rigged. Probably there is no privacy in the balloting, if “suspected opposition voters” are being tortured. There is torture going on, and in Africa that means the real deal, not some panties on your head. So the next time we have an election here, shut up. Somebody has to own the voting machine companies; just because Mr. Diebold happens to be a Republican doesn’t mean a thing. And if you’re not allowed to vote because you were too stupid and lazy to get out and register ahead of time, tough luck. And if you’re such a loser that you can’t even detach a chad properly AND you don’t even bother to check, too bad. Is our system perfect? No. Can it be improved? Yes it can, but most of the resistance to such improvements is coming from your side of the aisle. So shut up again. And thank God once again that you don’t live in Africa.

Posted by Drew458     on 04/19/2008 at 08:51 AM   
Filed Under: • Africa • Politics •  
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   Wednesday - April 16, 2008

Chinese Army in Zimbabwe?

Odd things are going on over in Mugabe’s alternate dimension. And not just the mess of an election. Now it appears that a large arms shipment has been recieved from China. Complete with Chinese soldiers. Not that many of them, but hello? Just what the heck is going on?

Armed Chinese soliders police Mutare streets

By David Baxter

HARARE - A general strike called by the MDC to pressure the Zimbabweans government and the Zimbabwe Election Commission (ZEC) to release presidential results appeared to have faltered in all major cities despite the despair within the majority over the lack of results, almost three weeks on.

People were seen going about their usual business, maybe due to fear the weight of the state security officers deployed ahead of the strike could descend on them or because the economic crisis does not allow people to drop earnings at all.

Soldiers and police fanned out across Zimbabwe early in the day with army trucks, some equipped with water cannon, moving through opposition strongholds around the cities. The riot police and other officers even set up checkpoints.

zimbabwejournalists’ correspondent, David Baxter, reports from Mutare that it is calm in the city as the MDC stayaway failed to attract many people.

“Residents are going about their normal business despite a call by the opposition to stay at home. Businesses were operating as usual but there was a heavy police presence in the city centre and in all the high density suburbs,” he said.

The police are armed with AK rifles, teargas canisters and baton sticks. Water cannons were being driven throughout the suburbs. There were no incidents of violence as of mid-morning. However, says Baxter, there was a surprise presence of Chinese soldiers armed with revolvers in the city.

You would think, after the protests we’ve seen with the Olympic torch procession, and the recent crackdown on Tibet, that they would be a lot more circumspect about actively getting into bed with an aging despot, never mind lending support to his repression.

I can’t offer deep insightful political analysis on this, but my layman interpretation is that they must be there to protect their economic interests.

Remember Mugabe’s ‘Look East’ policy?

Zimbabwean’s joke, bitterly, about how Mugabe is allowing the Chinese to colonise our country. They refer to the Chinese products flooding our shops as ‘zhing zhong’. ‘Zhing zhong’ has now become a term used to describe anything that breaks or doesn’t work when you buy it.

Chinese traders are given more advantages by the Zanu PF government to do business in Zimbabwe than locals do.
...
But if the Chinese government is actually sending in soldiers, and actively lending some level of military support - advice or otherwise - to Mugabe’s efforts to subvert democracy and cow the population, then their involvement must be exposed.

The world is a pretty small place these days. It’s getting harder and harder to hide things, even in Africa. The word just gets out. So what is going on here? Is Mugabe arming up just in case the election results go against him? Is this just a typical arms shipment - 6 or so shipping containers worth really isn’t that huge a pile of weapons - or is it something special? And why on earth are armed Chinese soldiers patrolling the streets of the city? Perhaps they are just there as “advisors”. Perhaps they are just there to provide security for the arms shipment. Perhaps. But it is still very odd.

thanks for the tip and the pre-post, DWMF.

UPDATE:
As word gets out, the protests start. Looks like quite a few people believe these arms will be used by Mugabe against the people:

A large arms consignment bound for Zimbabwe remains on board a ship at the South African port of Durban after running into a political row.

South African dockworkers are refusing to unload the Chinese vessel, which is anchored off the port.

And a local lobby group has asked the High Court to block the shipment in case it leads to human rights abuses.

South Africa’s government says it cannot legally prevent the arms being transported through the country.

The row comes amid continuing tension in Zimbabwe over the failure to publish election results.

Critics say Zimbabwe’s Zanu-PF government will use the weapons to further suppress democratic rights, as accounts continue to emerge of the beating of opposition supporters.

Another reason is platinum. Just like nickle, copper, and molybdenum, China wants a slice of this precious ore too, and Zimbabwe is the world’s #2 producer.

Posted by Drew458     on 04/16/2008 at 01:56 PM   
Filed Under: • Africa • Commies • Military •  
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   Friday - January 11, 2008

A Kiss On The Hand May be Very Sentimental, but Lawyers Are a Guys Best Friend

DeBeers diamond cartel agrees to $295 million settlement in anti-trust price-fixing class action lawsuit. If you bought a diamond from a retailer it actually came through De Beers. If you bought one between January 1, 1994 and March 31, 2006, you are eligible for a refund if you sign up for the settlement. Maximum payout will be about $640.

I know I’m eligible. I think I’ll sign up.  The diamond cartel has been artificially inflating prices for over a century.

Diamonds are said to be a girl’s best friend. Now, that friend is potentially worth a substantial amount of money back as a result of a multimillion-dollar settlement with diamond behemoth De Beers.

The company that controls a huge share of the rough diamond market has agreed to pay nearly $300 million in a price-fixing dispute.

Customers who bought finished diamonds might be able to get hundreds of dollars back.

De Beers, one of the largest diamond suppliers in the world, has agreed to give Americans money back as a result from a class action lawsuit against the company alleging antitrust violations.

John Maher, the plaintiffs’ attorney, said the diamond leader violated the law.

“They controlled and monopolized the sale of rough diamonds and as a result merchants paid more than they should have for those stones,” he said.

De Beers has not admitted to doing anything wrong in the $295 million settlement. An earmark of $135.4 million has been made for consumers who file a claim.

According to the claims administrator, a consumer who purchased a $2,000 engagement ring would be entitled to a maximum of $640 back.

Here are some facts:

Several class-action lawsuits were filed asking for money damages on behalf of diamond purchasers. The lawsuits also asked that the defendants stop certain business conduct. The lawsuits claim that the largest suppliers of diamonds in the world—De Beers S.A. and its associated companies—violated antitrust, unfair competition, and consumer-protection laws by monopolizing diamond supplies, conspiring to fix, raise, and control diamond prices, and disseminating false and misleading advertising. De Beers and the other companies deny they violated the law or did anything wrong. They also say that because they do not do business in the United States, the courts in the United States do not have authority over them.

The courts where the lawsuits were filed have not made any determinations regarding whether the Defendants have done anything wrong. If the lawsuits are settled, the Court will not rule on any of Plaintiffs’ claims or on Defendants’ defenses to those claims, and the lawsuits will be dismissed. This means the Class Members may not sue any Defendant ever again about any past, present or future claims based on or related to the conduct covered by the lawsuits.

So what we have here is a zillion dollar cartel throwing a few pennies to the crowd to make this problem go away. Yeah, $300 million really is just chump change to De Beers.

News article here

FAQs and background info here.

Sign up online here, but please read the other info first.

Wow, some group of lawyers just got very rich!!

Posted by Drew458     on 01/11/2008 at 10:06 PM   
Filed Under: • Africa • Fun-Stuff • Judges-Courts-Lawyers •  
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   Thursday - December 06, 2007

Unreconcilable

Now that the dust has settled in the “Let’s give a name to this Teddy Bear, shall we class?” affair, maybe it’s time to sit back and reflect upon some of the reactions to it.  Not so much from the blog-o-sphere, but from some of the “organizations” we’ve grown to know and love over the years…

NOW - “In the U.S., a spokeswoman for the National Organization for Women said the situation is definitely on the radar, and N.O.W. is not ignoring it.  But she added that the U.S.-based organization is not putting out a statement or taking a position.” (Fox News)

CAIR - Nothing.  (via search for “Teddy Bear” at cair.com)

Amnesty International - Nothing (via search for “Teddy Bear” at amnesty.org)

Human Rights Watch - Nothing (via search for “Teddy Bear” at hrw.org)

Well, you get the idea.

I don’t think for a minute that there wasn’t discussion at any of these organizations about this, but the public response speaks volumes.  With the exception of CAIR, whose motives have been well-explained elsewhere, none of the above can reconcile what’s happened in the Sudan with the kind of moral equivalence that gets preached in our direction on a regular basis. 

The editorialists at USA Today, with whom I normally disagree, got this one right: “If any value is to come from this sorry episode, it is to put moderate Muslims on notice: If you do not stand up, forcefully, and in a sustained way, the religion you claim is peaceful will be defined by intolerant extremists and manipulated by cynical politicians such as al-Bashir. And that, in turn, makes Western hatred of Islam, and a clash of civilizations, more likely.” (Read the whole editorial at http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2007/12/message-from-a.html)

But back to those stalwards of Human Rights - NOW, AI, and HRW: I will maintain that it’s their inability to reconcile world events with their so-flawed dogma that has rendered them silent.  And I’ve got news for them: there is no moral equivalence between decent human beings and those vermin that slithered through the streets of Khartoum calling for the execution of this woman.

Shame on them.  Shame on them all.

Posted by Somnambulist57     on 12/06/2007 at 04:40 PM   
Filed Under: • Africa • RoPMA •  
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   Thursday - July 05, 2007

TED - Hans Rosling

If you are not familiar with the TED conference, it is a gathering of real thinkers (and some loons) to give short, 18 minute talks about what is important in their worlds.  It started as a conference about Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED), but has expanded to cover much more.  To be sure, there is a plethora of liberal thought spread thickly throughout this community, but amongst the chaff, there is some good wheat.

This talk is by Dr. Hans Rosen.  He makes some claims about CO2 emissions and climate change that you will most likely take issue with, but don’t let that keep you from missing some very interesting points he is making.  Also, the software he is using is absolutely amazing in terms of statistical Visualization (my pet project for the past couple of years).  Finally, his conclusions about the means and goals of helping the developing countries is fascinating to me.

What do you think?

Posted by Drew458     on 07/05/2007 at 10:54 AM   
Filed Under: • Africa • Climate-Weather • Colleges-Professors • Health-Medicine • International •  
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   Tuesday - February 06, 2007

Out Of Africa

(1) Africans living in poverty, starving to death, suffering from disease and malnutrition, (2) Europeans go to Africa, open diamond and gold mines, introduce large-scale agriculture, long-term planning with global trade and modern health care, (3) Africans revolt against “white oppression”, pitch Europeans out, confiscate their lands, (4) Africans living in poverty, starving to death, suffering from disease and malnutrition.

Have I missed anything in this cycle? Is it safe to say that if the rest of the world sits back and just throws money at the African continent that nothing will change and that the misery will only increase? Was colonialism ever as bad as what is now going on as Africa reverts back to the Stone Age?

Zimbabwe Threatens White Farmers
_{JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (NEWSDAY)- February 5, 2007, 8:25 PM EST}

Zimbabwe’s national security minister has told the country’s last remaining white farmers that they will be jailed if they refuse to abide by a deadline that passed over the weekend for them to leave their farms, according to a newspaper report on Monday.

The official Chronicle newspaper quoted the minister Didymus Mutasa as saying police would be “unleashed” to deal with white farmers who ignored the eviction notice.

“Those farmers who do not comply with the orders to vacate the land will be dealt with severely,” said the minister, known to be close to President Robert Mugabe. The deadline was on Saturday. Farming officials said there were no immediate reports of arrests but they feared the worst.

Zimbabwe is suffering its worst economic crisis since independence, with acute shortages of hard currency, food, gasoline, medicines and essential imports. The meltdown is blamed largely on disruptions to the agriculture-based economy after the often violent seizures of thousands of white-owned commercial farms began in 2000.

Annual inflation is running at more than 1,000 percent, the highest in the world. The U.S. State Department last year put Zimbabwe on a list of six countries where restrictions on rights were particularly severe, along with China, Cuba, Iran, Myanmar and North Korea.

There were around 4,500 white commercial farmers in Zimbabwe in 2000, when Mugabe launched the program of land seizures that has seen agricultural production plummet. Now only around 400 white farmers remain—and at least 150 of them were handed eviction letters in December giving them just 45 days to leave their land to make way for new black farmers.

Mugabe says land reform was necessary to correct colonial-era imbalances in ownership. The longtime Zimbabwean leader blames the more-than-40-percent drop in production on repeated drought and Western sanctions.

Once known as the breadbasket of southern Africa, Zimbabwe has seen its status reduced to an importer of its staple maize crop since land reforms were launched. Critics say many of the new black farmers were allocated farms on the basis of political patronage rather than agricultural expertise, and lack the dedication and financial resources to make a success of farming.

- More ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 02/06/2007 at 01:12 AM   
Filed Under: • Africa •  
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   Wednesday - January 17, 2007

Obamarama Storms Africa

You good folks will have to pardon me today if I seem a little out of sorts. You see, I caught this Reuters story a little while ago and have been totally incapable of stopping the giggling. Every time I look at this story I break out in snorts of laughter. My stomach hurts. Please make Obama go away ... just for a few days until I regain my composure!

Every time I see the quote “He has experienced a hard life as an African growing up in the United States” I crack up again. Barack “Ears” Obama is obviously being sold as a god in Africa. Africans everywhere, especially in Kenya, are overjoyed that “one of their own” will be in the White House and he will then proceed to solve all their problems.

Bwah-hah-hah-hah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha ......

Please ... can’t we have just one halfway serious day without the Obamarama Grand Celebration interrupting? I can’t take much more of this hoopla over a junior Senator from Ill-Annoys with no real government experience to speak of and nothing going for him other than the fact that he’s half-black half-African with adorable elephant ears.

Uh-oh! Here comes another attack .... Bwah-hah-hah-hah-ha-ha-ha-ha ....... 

Memo: Before any of you wankers accuse me of being racist, let me state clearly that I would welcome a black President ... provided it was someone like Alan Keyes, Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell .... i.e., someone grownup, experienced and intelligent --- without big, goofy ears.

Kenyans Celebrate As Obama Eyes White House
_{NAIROBI (Reuters) - Wed Jan 17, 2007 7:49am ET145}

Kenyans rejoiced on Wednesday after Barack Obama plunged into the U.S. presidential race, saying if the youthful senator from Illinois wins the White House he will not forget his African roots.

Obama, who was born in Hawaii to a Kenyan father and a white American mother, was greeted like a long-lost son in August when he visited his ancestral village in the remote western Kenya.

His vow on Tuesday to “change our politics” with a campaign that could make him the first black president in U.S. history was greeted with cheers of joy and pride on the streets of the capital Nairobi. “Obama can win,” Giddings Ochanda, a trainee medical technician, told Reuters.

“He has experienced a hard life as an African growing up in the United States, and that experience will make him a good leader for everyone. It will be good for Kenya-U.S. relations.”

Others were overjoyed that someone they saw as a “fellow African” could aspire to the world’s top job. “If an African can make it into the White House, it will show Africans anywhere can make it,” said office worker Moreen Chirchir. “It will show we can make it.”

When the 45-year-old Obama visited Kenya last year, he was welcomed with a carnival atmosphere and cheering crowds thronging his motorcade. Despite his efforts to play down local expectations during that trip that his role as a U.S. senator would have an immediate impact in Kenya, many still revered him as one of their own who had succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.

Obama’s father grew up herding goats before studying in America then returning to Kenya to become a noted economist. “He has the people at heart,” said Nairobi teacher Leah Alisa. “He will have American interests as his priority, and he should, but he will change their foreign policy,” she said.

“He won’t forget Africa.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/17/2007 at 08:39 AM   
Filed Under: • Africa • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists •  
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   Wednesday - January 10, 2007

Somalia Update: End Game

When I first saw this story in the NY TIMES, my first thought was a hysterical image of a front page headline in 1944 saying “US and British airstrikes on Dresden Rekindles Germans’ Anger at Allies.” After a few minutes of pondering the greater cosmic irony of such a headline I decided to read the article below.

First, the “general mood” of the populace in Mogadishu came from a single cab driver, who probably drove the reporter from the airport to a local bar before proceeding to his hotel. Second, the reports of civilian children being killed came from an unidentified “Islamic Courts source by phone and could not be verified”. Are you starting to get the picture yet?

It beats me where the TIMES gets these “reporters”. There must be a breeding farm somewhere in LaLaLand where they are hatched. The rest of the story (actual facts from the Somali government and American officials) tell of the complete and utter destruction of the insane IslamoNazis in the South of the country. It should also be noted that the reporter wants you to know that the IslamoNazis were surrounded and bogged down in the mud on the road and were “sitting ducks” for those mean Americans in choppers. What a pity.

Of course the requisite references to “Black Hawk Down” are included to make the bias complete. Well, almost complete. The reporter just had to make sure you know that the IslamoNazis did rule the country before they were ousted by “bringing a much needed semblance of peace.” Go ahead and read the piece and make note of the obvious anti-American bias .... and ask yourself the $64 million dollar question ... what’s up with this “white guy from Sweden” among the IslamoNazi fighters ... ?

Airstrike Rekindles Somalis’ Anger at the U.S.
_{MOGADISHU, Somalia (NY TIMES) - Jan. 9, 2007}

Somali officials said Tuesday that dozens of people were killed in an American airstrike on Sunday, most of them Islamist fighters fleeing in armed pickup trucks across a remote, muddy stretch of the Kenya/Somalia border.

American officials said terrorists from Al Qaeda had been the target of the strike, which they said had killed about a dozen people. But the officials acknowledged that the identities of the victims were still unknown.

Several residents of the area, in the southern part of the country, said dozens of civilians had been killed, and news of the attack immediately set off new waves of anti-American anger in Mogadishu, Somalia’s battle-scarred capital, where the United States has a complicated legacy.

“They’re just trying to get revenge for what we did to them in 1993,” said Deeq Salad Mursel, a taxi driver, referring to the infamous “Black Hawk Down” episode in which Somali gunmen killed 18 American soldiers and brought down two American helicopters during an intense battle in Mogadishu.

The country’s Islamist movement swiftly seized much of Somalia last year and ruled with mixed success, bringing a much desired semblance of peace but also a harsh brand of Islam.

Two weeks ago, that all changed after Ethiopian-led troops routed the Islamist forces and helped bring the Western-backed transitional government to Mogadishu. Ethiopian officials said the Islamists were a growing regional threat.

The last remnants of the Islamist forces fled to Ras Kamboni, an isolated fishing village on the Kenyan border that residents said had been used as a terrorist sanctuary before. Starting in the mid-1990s, they said, the Islamists built trenches, hospitals and special terrorist classrooms in the village and taxed local fisherman to pay the costs.

On Sunday, an American AC-130 gunship pounded the area around Ras Kamboni, and also a location father north where American officials said three ringleaders of the bombings in 1998 of the United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were hiding. Somali officials said those bombings had been planned in Ras Kamboni after a local Somali terrorist outfit invited Al Qaeda to use the village as a base.

According to Abdul Rashid Hidig, a member of Somalia’s transitional parliament who represents the border area, the American airstrike on Sunday wiped out a long convoy of Islamist leaders trying to flee deeper into the bush, though he said he did not know if the specific suspects singled out by the United States had been with them.

“Their trucks got stuck in the mud and they were easy targets,” he said.

Mr. Hidig toured the area with military officials on Tuesday and said he had met several captured foreign fighters who had come from Europe and the Middle East. “I saw two white guys and asked, Where are you from?” Mr. Hidig said. “One said Jordan, the other Sweden. Yeah, it was weird.”

Mr. Hidig said two civilians had been killed by the airstrike, but representatives of the Islamist forces said it had killed many more.

The Islamists’ health director said dozens of nomadic herdsmen and their families were grazing their animals in the same wet valley that the Islamists were trying to drive across. “Their donkeys, their camels, their cows — they’ve all been destroyed,” he said. “And many children were killed.”

He spoke by telephone from an undisclosed location; his account could not be independently verified.

Mustef Yunis Culusow, a former Islamist leader who abandoned the movement days ago, said the once-powerful Islamist movement’s top leaders were now trapped in a small village with Ethiopian soldiers in front of them, the Indian Ocean behind them and now American gunships circling above them.

“The leaders know they’re finished,” Mr. Culusow said in a telephone interview from Kismayo, a large town north of Ras Kamboni. “They’ve basically told the young fighters they can go, it’s over, and that anyone who stays behind should be resigned to die.”

- More ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/10/2007 at 10:58 AM   
Filed Under: • Africa •  
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   Tuesday - January 09, 2007

The Enemy Within

Let’s see a show of hands. How many of you are surprised by this news? I’m not. This is what we get for bowing to the whims of CAIR, the ACLU and other Islamist groups here in America who are trying to cover up the Islamic monster in our midst. They’re here and they are just waiting for the call to jihad. Some will join up and go overseas to fight and some will stay in sleeper cells here in the US.

Is it time to start building the internment camps and/or start the deportations yet? As far as I’m concerned we should have started a long time ago. These ratbag bastards hiding in our midst, plotting their attempt to overthrow Western civilization are only going to stab us in the back at the first opportunity.

Why isn’t Washington doing anything about this? Shut down CAIR and the ACLU. Now! Neither group has America’s interests in mind. Neither group has any reason for existing one minute further.

American Passports Found on Bodies of Al Qaeda Fighters in Somalia
_{(ABC NEWS) - January 05, 2007 2:46 PM}

A senior official in the Somali government’s new Ministry of the Interior told ABC News government forces had recovered “dozens of foreign passports,” including several American passports, on the bodies of al Qaeda fighters killed in combat between forces affiliated with the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) and Ethiopian forces in Somalia.

According to the same source, most of the foreign passports were Sudanese, Pakistani and Yemeni, but several American, British and Australian passports were also recovered.

The senior Somali government official told ABC News that the American passports found on the dead bodies near Baidoa, in Somalia, would be turned over to the American government. The UIC, which took power in Somalia’s capital of Mogadishu in June 2006, are believed to be linked to al Qaeda networks in Pakistan, the Sudan and Yemen.

Last summer, a senior Pakistani intelligence official told ABC News that his government had collected information on the movement of dozens of al Qaeda militants from Pakistan to Somalia, a migration Pakistani officials believe is part of an elaborate al Qaeda operation not only to provide military and financial resources to the UIC but also to establish bases and training facilities in Somalia.

Last October, Yemeni authorities arrested eight foreigners, including three Australians, a British national, a German and a Dane, for running an al Qaeda-sponsored weapons and human smuggling network to Somalia.

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/09/2007 at 05:18 PM   
Filed Under: • Africa • RoPMA •  
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The Exterminator

Ethiopian troops routed the Islamic Courts and their Al-Qaeda buddies in Somalia, flushing them out of Mogadishu and driving them south into the jungle. Finally cornering them in their base camp, it was time to call in ... THE EXTERMINATOR (a.k.a. “Puff, The Magic Dragon").

The AC-130 gunship flew from a US base in Djibouti and, lighting up the sky with its GAU-12 Equalizer 25mm Gatling Gun, nothing much was left on the ground in a breathing condition. Reports from the ground said bodies of IslamoNazis were scattered all over the scenery.

CBS has obviously never seen an AC-130 in action or they would know better than to say ”if the attack got the operatives it was aimed at”. Silly newsmen! When “Spooky” shows up overhead there is no place to hide. End of story.

U.S. Strikes Al Qaeda In Somalia
_{(CBS/AP) - January 9, 2007}

A U.S. Air Force gunship has conducted a strike against suspected members of al Qaeda in Somalia, CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports exclusively.

The targets included the senior al Qaeda leader in East Africa and an al Qaeda operative wanted for his involvement in the 1998 bombings of two American embassies in Africa, Martin reports. Those terror attacks killed more than 200 people.

The AC-130 gunship is capable of firing thousands of rounds per second, and sources say a lot of bodies were seen on the ground after the strike, but there is as yet, no confirmation of the identities.

The gunship flew from its base in Dijibouti down to the southern tip of Somalia, Martin reports, where the al Qaeda operatives had fled after being chased out of the capital of Mogadishu by Ethiopian troops backed by the United States.

Once they started moving, the al Qaeda operatives became easier to track, and the U.S. military started preparing for an air strike, using unmanned aerial drones to keep them under surveillance and moving the aircraft carrier Eisenhower out of the Persian Gulf toward Somalia. But when the order was given, the mission was assigned to the AC-130 gunship operated by the U.S. Special Operations command.

If the attack got the operatives it was aimed at, reports Martin, it would deal a major blow to al Qaeda in East Africa. Meanwhile, a jungle hideout used by Islamic militants that is believed to be an al Qaeda base was on the verge of falling to Ethiopian and Somali troops, the defense minister said Monday.

While a lawmaker had earlier told The Associated Press that the base was captured, Somalia’s Defense Minister Col. Barre “Hirale” Aden Shire said troops had yet to enter it and that limited skirmishes were still ongoing, though troops were poised to take the base.

Ethiopian soldiers, tanks and warplanes were involved in the two-day attack, a government military commander told the AP on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

- More ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/09/2007 at 01:22 AM   
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   Thursday - January 04, 2007

Operation Crushed Nuts: Custers Last Stand

Somalis, Ethiopians Engage Islamists
_{MOGADISHU, Somalia (ABC NEWS) - Jan 4, 2007}

Government troops backed by Ethiopian soldiers were fighting about 600 Islamic militiamen in the southern tip of Somalia, an official spokesman said Thursday. In the past 10 days, Ethiopian-backed government forces have driven out the Islamic movement that had controlled Mogadishu and much of southern Somalia for more than six months. The Islamic movement retreated to the southern tip of Somalia and vowed to keep fighting, raising the specter of an Iraq-style guerrilla war.

The Somali forces have surrounded the Islamic militiamen “from every direction” in the southwestern district of Badade, near the Kenyan border, government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari told The Associated Press. “The fighting is going on,” Dinari said. “We hope they will either surrender or be killed by our troops.”

Kenya sent extra troops to the Somali frontier and closed its border, fearing an exodus of refugees and foreign fighters. Dinari said some Islamic militants have been trying to escape by sea. “But U.S. anti-terrorist forces have been deployed there to prevent them from escaping,” he added.

In Washington on Wednesday, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said U.S. Navy vessels were deployed off the Somali coast looking for al-Qaida and allied militants trying to escape. Dinari said the government believes foreign terrorist elements are among the Islamic militiamen fighting in Badade.

With the Islamic movement’s fighters on the run, concern has grown about extremists believed to be among them. Three al-Qaida suspects in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa are believed to be leaders of the Islamic movement. The movement denies having any links to al-Qaida.

Earlier Thursday, Somalia’s Interior Minister Hussein Aideed said there are about 3,500 Islamists hiding in the capital and they are “likely to destabilize the security of the city.”

Aideed did not explain the source of his information or what prompted his comments. Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi later tried to play down the threat and disputed Aideed’s number of Islamists hiding in the capital, although he did not offer his own estimate. The Somali Islamic movement denies having any links to al-Qaida. Earlier Thursday, Somalia’s Interior Minister Hussein Aideed said there are about 3,500 Islamists hiding in the capital and they are “likely to destabilize the security of the city.”

Aideed did not explain the source of his information or what prompted his comments. Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi later tried to play down the threat and disputed Aideed’s number of Islamists hiding in the capital, although he did not offer his own estimate.

Gedi said his government would begin efforts to disarm Somalis by seizing large arms caches located around Mogadishu. A house-by-house search will follow, the prime minister told journalists, without saying when that will happen.

Thursday was the deadline for people in Mogadishu to surrender their arms. Gedi said the disarmament program was progressing but offered no details. By Wednesday, only a handful of people had heeded Gedi’s demand and turned in any weapons in the capital. In Ethiopia, a top U.S. diplomat said that she hopes African peacekeepers will be in Somalia by the end of the month.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni had promised President Bush in a recent phone call that he could supply between 1,000-2,000 troops to protect Somalia’s transitional government and train its troops, said Jendayi Frazer, assistant U.S. secretary of state for Africa, after meeting Museveni. Frazer said there had been no request for U.S. troops or military assistance so far.

- More ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/04/2007 at 05:42 PM   
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   Tuesday - January 02, 2007

Operation Crushed Nuts: Mopping Up

After 15 Years, Someone’s in Charge in Somalia, if Barely
_{ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (NY TIMES) - January 2, 2007}

After Somalia’s Islamist forces abandoned their final outpost on Monday, the transitional government moved aggressively to assert control, setting a three-day deadline for all weapons to be turned in and calling for international peacekeeping troops to be sent immediately.

Somalia was already a place where military-grade weaponry was casually flaunted on its streets, but the Islamists’ swift collapse has created such a surplus of guns that the average price of a Kalashnikov assault rifle, one of the world’s most popular killing machines, has dropped to $15.

Ali Mohammed Gedi, the former veterinarian who is the transitional prime minister, said at his daily news conference that he would not tolerate the situation and gave instructions for turning in the weapons.

“Individuals or groups of people who have trucks mounted with antiaircraft guns, known as ‘technicals,’ should bring those battlewagons to Mogadishu’s old port,” he said.

Clan leaders were skeptical about whether he would succeed, and many Somalis seemed dead set against it. “They’re trying to neuter us,” said Muhammad Duudo, an unemployed car mechanic. “And it’s not going to happen. Just wait until the full moon passes and the darkness comes.”

Whatever lies ahead, encouraging or ominous, most Somalis seemed to agree that after a week of fast-moving events, the rough outlines of a new reality were emerging. For the first time since the former dictator, Mohamed Siad Barre, fled the country in 1991, casting Somalia into 15 years of anarchy, there is a credible government based in Mogadishu, the capital, with serious outside support and no organized military threat from within.

True, countless gunmen still roam the streets, heavily armed warlords still command authority and the seeds of a possible guerrilla movement may be taking root.

But so far no major force has emerged to challenge the authority of the transitional government. The only rival, the Islamists, lost their last conventional military battle on Monday. The Islamists had steadily lost ground since Dec. 24, when Ethiopia unleashed a punishing series of airstrikes and pushed ground troops deep into Somali territory.

Ethiopian officials justified their intervention in Somalia’s messy, violent internal politics by saying the Islamist movement was a regional threat with terrorist connections and ambitions to invade their country. Ethiopia commands one of the most powerful militaries in Africa, and within days of its entrance into the war, Burhakaba, a pivotal inland town, fell from Islamist control — then Jowhar, another key town, and then Mogadishu, the Islamists’ former stronghold.

By Sunday, the last remnants of the Islamist forces, which just a few weeks ago controlled a large swath of Somalia, were cornered in Kismayo, a port city on the south Somali coast. Thousands of Ethiopian and transitional government troops were closing in on them, and on Sunday night, the Ethiopians began pounding away with heavy artillery.

- More ...

U.S. Trainers Prepare Ethiopians To Fight
_{DIRE DAWA, Ethiopia (STARS AND STRIPES) - Saturday, December 30, 2006}

As soldiers of Ethiopia’s Christian government continued to rout Islamist militiamen in southern Somalia this week, 2nd Cpl. Wonderfraw Niguse celebrated his own victory on the parched scrublands of eastern Ethiopia hundreds of kilometers to the north.

With the sporadic barking of baboons or braying of donkeys in the distance, the 25-year-old squad leader led two successful ambushes against simulated enemy forces here as his fellow trainees charged through thickets of needle-sharp thorn bushes and down dried river beds.

The feat, which Wonderfraw and his fellow soldiers cheered with songs of victory and courage, was accomplished during a three-month basic infantry skills course offered by the U.S. military at the sprawling Ethiopian Training Academy in Hurso.

“They are very good, these techniques that they are teaching us,” Wonderfraw said through an interpreter. “I appreciate everything they are teaching us, especially the ambush. They instruct us on how to establish it and provide security. The ambush is very interesting for me.”

Troops attached to the Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa have been training Ethiopian soldiers in basic infantry tactics, officer logistics and maintenance since 2003, when the U.S. government identified the East African country as an ally in its global war on terror. Similar training programs are ongoing in Djibouti and Kenya.

In Hurso, the so-called military-to-military training has taken on a new urgency in the days following Ethiopia’s incursion into Somalia on behalf of that collapsed nation’s embattled, albeit U.N.-sanctioned, government.

“Depending on whether things really kick off, it’s a very real possibility that some of these guys could find themselves using these skills very soon,” said Sgt. 1st Class Bill Flippo, an instructor based at Camp Hurso.

“You want to make sure you cover everything thoroughly,” the 27-year-old Winfield, Kan., native said. “The stuff you teach them could result in things working out really good for them, or really bad.”

Flippo is one of a handful of instructors here who belong to Company A, 1st Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 1st Infantry Division. The instructors, who are three-quarters of the way through a yearlong deployment, are currently training more than three dozen Ethiopian army officers, noncommissioned officers and enlisted from throughout the country.

“The majority of these guys are trainers themselves,” said 1st Lt. Ben Daughters, 24, of Chillicothe, Ohio. “The idea is that we train them and they go back and train their own.”

Roughly 60 U.S. personnel reside at Hurso, most of them soldiers from the 1st Battalion of the 294th Infantry Regiment of the Guam Army National Guard. The guard unit is now on its third, yearlong rotation in the Horn of Africa, and is scheduled for a fourth.

“They love us here because we interact a lot with the locals,” said Chief Warrant Officer 2 Noel Camagaganacan, 40, of Dedeo, Guam.

- More ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/02/2007 at 04:27 AM   
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   Sunday - December 31, 2006

Operation Crushed Nuts: The Final Days

Somalia’s Islamists Vow Never to Surrender
_{ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia - December 31, 2006}

A phalanx of Ethiopian tanks and armored personnel carriers chugged toward Kismayo, the last city occupied by Somalia’s diminished Islamist movement, witnesses said Saturday, while the Islamists inside the city dug in and vowed never to surrender.

According to residents along Somalia’s coast, the Ethiopian troops, with soldiers from Somalia’s transitional government, were preparing to seize Kismayo, a port city near the Kenyan border.

Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, a high-ranking cleric, emerged from a mosque in the city on Saturday, surrounded by gunmen, and told his followers that the Islamist leadership was not finished.

“The Islamic courts are still alive and ready to fight against the enemy of God,” Sheik Ahmed told residents of Kismayo in a speech on Saturday. “We left Mogadishu in order to prevent bloodshed in the capital, but that does not mean we lost the holy war against our enemy.”

Sheik Ahmed called on Somalis to begin an anti-Ethiopian insurgency. Already, several masked gunmen have surfaced on Mogadishu’s streets, suggesting a guerrilla movement may have begun.

Diplomats in Kenya, though, said that they were talking to moderate representatives of the Islamic movement on Saturday, trying to persuade them to back down. The Islamists are essentially cornered, hemmed in by the Indian Ocean, a sealed Kenyan border and thousands of troops headed their way. Their only route of escape may be to flee into the thickly forested area south of Kismayo, which Western intelligence officers suspect has been used before as a terrorist hide-out.

In Mogadishu, the presence of Ethiopian soldiers continued to spark scattered violence, with supporters of the Ethiopians battling street by street against the remaining Islamist partisans. Gunshots rang out, men and women battled with sticks and rocks and the thick black smoke of burning barricades lifted into the air.

Just two days ago, in a stunning reversal of fortune, Somalia’s transitional government, with the muscle of the Ethiopian military, reclaimed Mogadishu from the Islamist movement that had ruled large swaths of Somalia. Despite the Islamists’ repeated vows to fight to the death, their forces evaporated and Mogadishu fell without a shot. Many Somalis said Saturday that they hoped the same thing would happen in Kismayo.

More than a thousand people have been killed in fighting across the country since Dec. 20, and Somalia’s leaders now face the daunting task of trying to piece together a country that has not had a functioning central government for 15 years.

Posted by The Skipper     on 12/31/2006 at 11:33 AM   
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   Friday - December 29, 2006

Operation Crushed Nuts: Day 4

Here it is ... in a nutshell ....

Somalia Forces Retake Capital From Islamists

NAIROBI, Kenya, Dec. 28 (NY TIMES) — Just hours after Islamist fighters abandoned Mogadishu, the capital from which they ruled much of Somalia, thousands of troops of the transitional government marched into the city on Thursday in a stunning reversal of fortune.

The government soldiers and the Ethiopian infantrymen who have been backing them poured in from the outskirts, residents said. The only gunshots fired were long celebratory bursts into the air.

Oh ... when the Saints ... go marchin’ in ... 

The Islamists, whom many Western nations had considered a grave and growing regional threat with terrorist connections, were vanquished faster than anyone had expected, or at least removed from power.

“We always knew these Islamists weren’t all they were cracked up to be,” said Abdirizak Adam Hassan, chief of staff for the transitional president, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed. “And now we are where they used to be, in control of Mogadishu — well, as much as anyone can be in control of Mogadishu.”

Run away, little girls! Cowardly IslamoNazis! None of them are worth a bucket of warm spit.

By Wednesday, the Islamist military had been decimated by Ethiopian airstrikes and mass desertions. Clan elders, traditionally the pillars of Somali society, pulled their troops and firepower out of the Union of Islamic Courts, or U.I.C., after a string of back-to-back military loses in which more than 1,000 fighters, mostly teenage boys, were quickly mowed down by the better-trained and equipped Ethiopian-backed forces.

“Our children were getting annihilated,” said Abdi Hulow, an elder with the powerful Hawiye clan. “We couldn’t sustain it.”

That pretty much sums it up. The kids were cannon fodder. Typical IslamoNazi strategy.

Even before the government troops had planted themselves in downtown Mogadishu, the political negotiations began. Mr. Hulow and other elders said they had asked transitional leaders for positions in the new government in exchange for support. Ali Mohammed Gedi, the prime minister, told the elders that first he needed help in disarming the militias.

Mr. Gedi also gave a short news conference on the outskirts of Mogadishu in which he reached out to the Somali diaspora, saying: “We need your help. It’s time to come home.” One group was noticeably absent from all these talks: conservative clerics, who seemed to have overplayed their cards.

You mean the Ratbag IslamoNazi Imams who preach jihad were suddenly silent? Go figure.

It seems that many people, inside Somalia and outside, overrated the Islamists’ strength and popularity. Part of the reason, analysts now say, is that the Islamists had an excellent propaganda machine, controlling most media outlets in Somalia.

Translation: these weren’t “holy warriors” - they were bullshit artists.

On Thursday, to celebrate the departure of the Islamists, many Mogadishu residents stuffed their mouths with khat, a mildly narcotic plant that the Islamists had outlawed, and cranked up Western music, which some clerics had tried to ban.

Things are now back to normal. Every body must get stoned.   

Posted by The Skipper     on 12/29/2006 at 01:21 PM   
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