The BBC is reporting that the US has bombed a town in Somalia that is believed to Islamist.
Let's take a step back look at this, we have bombed a town, not a target, a town. With non terrorist people in it, and non-terrorist sources of food, water, and other structures within the town as well, most likely.
As we're sitting here in the office, we start musing about the justification. We thought what is this? Is this another example of the American military classification of casualties?
1 white person= 2 brown people= 4 black people
I don't know, I guess I'll hold off programming that into my TI-83 Plus for now.
What do you guys think? Is that true? Am I missing other variables in the equations or is this all just liberal commie madness?
Monday, March 3, 2008
Drop Knowledge, Not Bombs
Posted by The Odalisque at 2:25 PM
Labels: somalia, US military action
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A single Tomahawk Land Attack Missile, which is the minimum claimed by the US official not named in the report, costs over half a million dollars. An AC-130 Gunship, which is named specifically (and is hard to miss) by the local spokesman, irrespective of variant, carries a lot of firepower. The largest weapon mounted on one is a 105mm howitzer, which is normally used in towed artillery. On the ground. Between these two weapons platforms, a lot of people in a small town could be killed in a short time, if that were the objective. Or less selective weapons platforms could be used. The fact that this much firepower was brought to bear and only picked off four people suggests to me that they were looking for very particular targets. If I were to speculate further, I'd guess that there were either spotters on the ground or one or more UAVs loitering in the area to provide target selection in advance. The particular advantage of the AC-130 is its slow relative speed and long endurance; it can linger in an area and adapt to a change in target location and act accordingly. The most advanced Tomahawks can be redirected en route to a similar end. The town was not targeted itself; if this were the case, there are quite a few options open to the US military to level it, above and beyond the immense potential destruction offered by the weapons systems used. Granted, I'm ignorant of the specific objectives, and there are probably other military options open that are less public, less risky to civilians (though perhaps more risky to US soldiers, even though the advantages of the AC-130 also make it highly vulnerable to familiar small-scale AAA, of the Stinger/9K3x type), but these options probably aren't very favorable to those who criticize this move.
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