December 28, 2006

NOW IT'S THE SORT OF WAR THEY CAN WIN RATHER EASILY:

Islamist Forces in Somali City Vanish (JEFFREY GETTLEMAN, 12/27/06, NY Times)

The Islamist forces who have controlled much of Somalia in recent months suddenly vanished from the streets of the capital, Mogadishu, residents said Wednesday night, just as thousands of rival troops massed 15 miles away.

In the past few days, Ethiopian-backed forces, with tacit approval from the United States, have unleashed tanks, helicopter gunships and jet fighters on the Islamists, decimating their military and paving the way for the internationally recognized transitional government of Somalia to assert control.

Even so, the Islamists, who have been regarded as a regional menace by Ethiopia and the United States, had repeatedly vowed to fight to the death for their religion and their land, making their disappearance that much more unexpected.


An Ethiopian occupation will be a bloody fiasco.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 28, 2006 11:29 AM
Comments

. . . the Islamists . . . had repeatedly vowed to fight to the death for their religion and their land, making their disappearance that much more unexpected.

How do you say "Buck-buck-braaawk!" in Somali dialect?

Posted by: Mike Morley at December 28, 2006 11:41 AM

Who said anything about an Ethiopian occupation? Fighting these guys are like fighting cockroaches: no matter how good an effort you do to get rid of them, you'll have to get rid of 'em again next year. The key is to make the fumigation efforts painless and cost free for your side, while hurting the other side as much as possible. If anything, that's the lesson no one seems to want to learn from Iraq. (But that's what happens when you let the Leftists and the Islamophiles talk you into running a Humanitarian War.)

Posted by: Raoul Ortega at December 28, 2006 12:06 PM

An Ethiopian occupation will be a bloody fiasco.

As opposed to the peaceful, prosperous rule you expected from the Al Qaeda-friendly Islamic Courts?

Posted by: PapayaSF at December 28, 2006 2:42 PM

Peaceful, not prosperous. But what are dead Ethiopians to us?

Posted by: oj at December 28, 2006 5:13 PM

I don't think "peaceful" applies well to regimes that murder you for (among many, many things) watching TV soccer.

Posted by: PapayaSF at December 28, 2006 7:00 PM

No, enlightened does.

Posted by: oj at December 28, 2006 9:00 PM
« WHY DID THEY THINK MEN "LIBERATED" THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE?: | Main | LEGEND? HE WAS BARELY A RUMOR: »