Posted on 01/08/2007 3:53:36 PM PST by Rose in RoseBear
Edited on 01/08/2007 4:00:49 PM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
FAS and GlobalSecurity show that there are 8 'H' models and 13 'U' models operated by U.S. special forces squadrons. No mention of foreign militaries. From what I'm reading, those planes have electronics and night vision capabilities that we don't want ANYBODY to know about.
"[They are aimed at] conflicts in high density urban areas...against enemies having social and cultural traditions that may be counter-intuitive to us, and whose actions often appear to be irrational because we don't understand their context."
Thanks. Good stuff!
I have a friend who is about to get his PHD in medieval history, and is looking to join the military, as he says they need me, I know how the Islamists think. We need people that know the difference between (say) Egypt & Malaysia the way people live...etc. as the US military is going to be spending a great deal of time in the "dark Disconnected Places of the world" as Thomas P M Barnett puts it.
Slow is a virtue when one is plinking tanks and other armored vehicles. And they are slow. That fat wing can't go much faster, even if you added a third engine (something the Air Force looked into in the late '80s or early '90s). But it can carry lots of bombs, and that big gun is a whole other thing.
Not really, we used it, or it's predecessors, in Vietnam. We used in cities in Panama, hitting a corner of the Comandancia, roughly their equivalent of the Pentagon. We used it in Fallujah. It's more of precision weapon than you might think. You can easily target and hit a single building.
I'd rather see the A-10 rip 60 minutes....just a few runs...
Seems to have been written BEFORE this strike, but lays out the struggle Somalia faces:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/08/opinion/edstevenson.php
1-8-07 - What Next in Somalia ~ A Fleeting Victory
Somalia's internationally recognized government pulled off a stunning military victory over its Islamist rivals, taking control of the capital, Mogadishu, and the key port city of Kismayo last week.
This may appear to bode well for the containment of Islamism on the Horn of Africa. But unless America plays a constructive role in Somalia's next stage, the conflict could become a regional war and a new field of jihad.
The success of the transitional government was made possible entirely by troops from neighboring Ethiopia, many of them trained and equipped by the United States.
But Ethiopia cannot be expected to act as the government's main force indefinitely. Nor, eventually, will Somalis, who are almost all Sunni Muslims, tolerate an open-ended occupation by Ethiopians, who are predominantly Christians.
Al Qaeda's leadership would inevitably cast the Ethiopian military presence as the non-Muslim occupation of a Muslim land. This would draw foreign jihadists into the conflict and lead to greater Islamic radicalization of Somalis themselves.
Enforcing peace in a politically atomized territory is remarkably difficult, as was painfully demonstrated by the disastrous American intervention in Somalia in the early 1990s.
The Ethiopians, thoroughly familiar with the American experience, are already talking about pulling out within a few months.
Similar considerations argue against a peacekeeping force led by a major power — even if one could be marshaled, which at present looks unlikely.
The upshot is that there is no military solution to the quandary of Somalia. Robust diplomacy, with an eye toward creating some sort of power-sharing agreement between the transitional government and the Islamic Courts Council, appears to be the only hope.
There are a few hopeful signs that, in Somalia, diplomacy has a chance.
For one thing, the European Union has shown an interest in becoming an honest broker among the main Somali factions. And Kenya, alarmed by the prospect of tens of thousands of Somali refugees pouring across its northern border, may feel compelled to resume its longstanding diplomatic role in Somali conflict resolution.
Finally, neither the transitional government nor the Islamic Courts are in a position to take over governance of the whole country: the various clan leaders, tribal elders and militia bosses around Somalia together control the pulse of power.
In fact, it was the decision by dozens of local clan elders to withdraw their political and military backing that made it impossible for the Islamic Courts Council to defend Mogadishu and Kismayo.
This parlay underscored how central the elders are to Somalia's tenuous political equilibrium, especially those of the four main clans — the Darod, Hawiye, Dir and Digil-Mirifle — and their various sub-clans. These leaders must be included in any peace negotiation, and any deal with their backing would be hard for the Islamists or the transitional government to walk away from.
The knottiest substantive issue would likely be deciding to what extent Islamic Shariah law would apply in Somalia. The Islamic courts have insisted on universal religious law, while the secular transitional government has refused to entertain it. But there is recent African precedent for resolving the issue.
In January 2005, persistent negotiations overseen by the United States, European powers and Kenya produced a power-sharing compromise between southern Sudanese Christians and Sudan's Arab Muslim government. The deal was that Shariah would apply in the northern part of the country and not in the south, and that its applicability in the capital, Khartoum, was to be decided by an elected assembly.
Nonetheless, the temptation in Washington will be to keep its distance and rely on Ethiopia, the European Union and Kenya for as long as possible.
This attitude is myopic. Neither the American public nor the world believe that the Bush administration's predominantly military approach to counterterrorism is working. Relying primarily on Ethiopian troops to tamp down Somali Islamism would represent a continuation of that flawed model, and of the corresponding risk of fueling the jihad.
The United States' full participation in a diplomatic process in the Horn of Africa, on the other hand, would constitute a relatively low-cost way of signaling a new American approach to Islam and a re-engagement in sub-Saharan Africa, which has largely been left out of Washington's post-9/11 calculus.
One result could be a rare political victory in the Muslim world that would deprive Osama bin Laden and his followers of a new grievance rather than supplying them with one.
Where we have a bunch of Marines, most of them Reservists. My wife's former student spent a year or so there, starting just a few months before he was to get out of the Marine Reserve. He hated it, called it the armpit of the world. Now he's a teacher at a Jesuit run school.
He sounds brilliant, and God bless him for wanting to serve his country.
Too much for the remaining mission perhaps. The Ethiopians have done a pretty good job of killing the Jihadis, driving them out of wherever they were, and hearing the lamentations (or were those cheers) of their women.
Maybe the Ike and group are about other business?
No he didn't. That would be US Army Lt. Gen. Honore, referring to the press covering the Katrina relief efforts.
sure is good news...there are many more to go after in that region for sure.
The name Spooky, which was the same as Puff, was resurrected for the AC-130U, earlier models are Specter.
well we saved some court costs this way
C-130H is a transport, a darned good one, but not a gunship.
Same basic airframe, power plant etc.
Thanks, EG.
Corsair was a Vought design. The P-47 Thunderbolt was built by Republic, the same as the A-10 Thunderbolt II, aka The Warthog, for good reason.
Good news and good links, thanks.
More cleanup of unfinished business from the Clintoon's reign of terror for America.
-
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.