The Somali Front

"I said a long time ago, one of our objectives is to smoke them out and get them running and bring them to justice. We're smoking them out, they're running, and now we're going to bring them to justice. I also said, we'll use whatever means is necessary to achieve that objective and that's exactly what we're going to do.


"The American people must understand that we've got a long way to go in order to achieve our objective in this theater, but we're patient, we're resolved, and we will stay the course until we achieve our objective."

-- George W. Bush, November 26, 2001

Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid think that they've taken control of the government. The Dems have such an abundance of confidence that the House was not in session on Monday. They decided to take the day off, in honor of the BCS championship game.

Yes, the Dem Congress' promised five day work week has already been shortened.

It doesn't matter. The nation, as well as our enemies, were reminded yesterday that the Party of Appeasement is not calling the shots.

Monday's airstrike in Somalia proves that the Dems have not usurped President Bush's power as Commander-in-Chief.

From The Washington Post:

A U.S. Air Force AC-130 gunship attacked suspected al-Qaeda members in southern Somalia on Sunday, and U.S. sources said the operation may have hit a senior terrorist figure.

The strike took place near the Kenyan border, according to a senior officer at the Pentagon. Other sources said it was launched at night from the U.S. military facility in neighboring Djibouti. It was based on joint military-CIA intelligence and on information provided by Ethiopian and Kenyan military forces operating in the border area.

It was the first acknowledged U.S. military action inside Somalia since 1994, when President Bill Clinton withdrew U.S. troops after a failed operation in Mogadishu that led to the deaths of 18 Army Rangers and Delta Force special operations soldiers.

Read some background on Clinton's disaster in Somalia.

Sources said last night that initial reports indicated the attack had been successful, although information was still scanty.

"You had some figures on the move in a relatively unpopulated part of the country," said one source confirming the attack, who, like several others, would discuss the operation only on the condition of anonymity. "It was a confluence of information and circumstances," he said.

...One target of the strike, sources said, was Abu Talha al-Sudani, a Sudanese who is married to a Somali woman and has lived in Somalia since 1993 -- the year of the attack against U.S. troops that was chronicled in the book and movie "Black Hawk Down." In a 2001 U.S. court case against Osama bin Laden, Sudani was described by a leading witness as an explosives expert who was close to the al-Qaeda leader.

Being married to a buddy of al Qaeda is risky business.

...The Bush administration has long claimed the right to launch discrete military attacks in other countries when terrorist targets have been identified.

What a stupid statement!

The insinuation is that Bush is overstepping his power as the President.

When Bill Clinton bombed the aspirin factory in Sudan, I suppose he claimed the right to launch discrete military attacks. Was that wrong?

Of course, Clinton's choice of targets was wrong; but his right to order an attack wasn't out of line in terms of presidential powers.

A strike by a U.S. Predator drone was ordered by the CIA last January in response to intelligence placing Ayman al-Zawahiri, the second-ranking al-Qaeda leader and bin Laden's chief deputy, at a compound near the Afghanistan border in Pakistan. The attack killed a reported 17 people, including six women and six children, but not Zawahiri, who apparently was not at the compound at the time.

And of course, The Post paints the U.S. as the bad guys, killing six women and six children in an attack last year.

Typical libs.

The bad guys are the cowardly terrorists that hide among women and children, putting them in danger. The bad guys are NOT the Americans.

Reuters disagrees, naturally. Like The Post, Reuters presents the Americans as the bad guys in this fight.

It must be remembered that the War on Terror doesn't have strictly defined borders. Where the terrorists are, AND their aiders and abettors, is where the war is.

At least as long as President Bush is in office that's where the war will be waged.