A small-scale special forces raid on an al-Qaeda cell in Somalia sounds like a good idea to me. The article, however, is quite unclear as to who the targets of the operation were, whether or not we hit them, etc. Presumably more information will come out later. One thing I wish I understood better was the specops people's love of the AC-130 gunship whose primary attributes (loud, slow, hard to maintain) don't seem all that appealing.
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Striking Somalia
09 Jan 2007 09:55 am
Comments (50)
"One thing I wish I understood better was the specops people's love of the AC-130 gunship whose primary attributes (loud, slow, hard to maintain) don't seem all that appealing."
Same problems as Shaquille O'Neal. Same benefits too, in that it totally dominates the scene.
I don't support any action in Somalia until I am provided the exact names of each and every terrorist in the camp we attack. Certainly I won't give anyone the benefit of the doubt by saying that probably some information will come out later. Names publicly disclosed first! Then we decide whether to attack.
Oh man, I am in such a snarky mood this morning. I better stop. Sorry.
slow is important for ground attack, if you go too fast you can't hit what you're supposed to. the other reason is that the AC-130 (and it's precursor, the AC-47) can put down a staggering volume of fire.
It's all about loitering. Hang over a target for hours, drop tons and tons of explosives on it, hang out some more and see if anything is moving, repeat.
Of course, I would think that you would need 100% certainty that the enemy did not have any shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles in order to hang this beast in the sky for hours and hours. I wouldn't want to have one of these planes come down in some remote corner of Africa (I think there's like 10 guys or so on the plane).
Matt, you need to make some more friends among the infantry. Grunts love planes like these for exactly the reasons listed by others above. These things exist solely to support us groundpounders.
Pilots, OTOH, hate them and the unglamorous buddies, the A-10, which the USAF has been trying to kill for years. First of all, they're not glamorous to fly. Secondly, they are sitting ducks against any enemy with decent antiaircraft capability. Thankfully AQ and the Iraqi insurgents don't have much of that. You won't be seeing these over Iran, North Korea, or Taiwan, though, if it ever comes to that.
Pardon the military geekspeak, but in most situations (particualy those in which strong resistance is a possibility)an A-10 would be preferable as a close air support platform. Like the AC-130, it can linger around a site for a long while, but is more maneuverable and is much more survivable. You could bring down an AC-130 down with small arms fire. You better bring something much bigger to bring down a Warthog.
The AC-130 is very photogenic. It may be that they media love them because people pay attention to the pictures. People like Matt who blog about them.
Maybe that's why the spec ops people always include a mention or photo of one in their press releases.
Bragan: the range on the AC-130 is much greater than the A-10, also. I'm guessing they couldn't fly A-10s from Djibouti down to wherever the heck this was.
They love them because they've got them; the AC-130s are part of the Air Force special operations command, and are thus more accessible to the SF community than, say, A-10s or F-18s.
I second Al's comment about needing to know the names first. They could be killing anybody (we don't know who) and say that they were al-Qaeda and everybody seems to roll over and say 'well thats okay then'. To me this is very close to the US committing terrorism, but since it involves gunships and bombs (versus suicide bombers) and we claim the victims were terrorists, nobody even blinks (witness the comments on this blog).
Neil,
the sad thing is that Al *thinks* he's being sarcastic.
Don't be so quick to knock the AC-130. There's a reason the military keeps going back to it. It's reliable, tough, and easy to use - the AK-47 of attack gunships. Fancy substitutes like helicopters tend to crash or get shot down too easily (look at the Apache's woeful record), and speedy bombers can't hit their targets nearly as well. You basically want a big slow pig that drifts just over the treeline...
Bragen I will disagree with you. An A-10 would be better aginst tanks but that is about it. Its ability to put concentrated fire on a specific target for long periods of time is no where close to that of an AC-130. A-10 must make gun pasess which means there are significant points of time in which there are no support. An AC-130 flyes in such a manner that there are always guns on the target. Plus the accuracy of an A-10 is not even close to that of an AC-130
From a Guardian article (http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1986350,00.html):
Richard Cornwell, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria, said the strikes showed that cooperation between Ethiopia and the US over the Somalia incursion had been far closer than was previously suspected and was critical of the manner of the attack.
"The AC130 is an appallingly blunt instrument and I very much doubt it can be used to target individuals," he said. "To kill alleged terrorists regardless of collateral damage is highly hypocritical."
Does anybody other than me and Ajay think he's not making a really good point here?
The love of action for its own sake, un-mediated by thought and moral dissections, is one of the attributes of Fascism.
So, if our leaders who don't love thought or moral dissections say they're killing terrorists with Big Powerful Photogenic Machines, hell, why should we do anything but cheer?
Cornwell is right about the AC-130 being a very blunt instrument. It might have been better to use a fast mover dropping a PGM in this case.
Did anyone actually go to the links and watch the video? It was shot in Afghanistan but gives an excellent idea what the AC-130 can do. It CAN target individuals. Its is very precise. Cornwell doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
As for the bigger picture the US is supporting a friendly nation in wiping out some very evil people. Do you think we could send in a couple of FBI agents and arrest people? Do you understand that they are fighting a war? Do you understand that the US is at war?
"Cornwell is right about the AC-130 being a very blunt instrument. It might have been better to use a fast mover dropping a PGM in this case."
I would guess the events of the past 24 hours aren't about a targeted assassination, but rather are about mopping up remnants the Ethiopians don't have the resources to chase after.
And I'd say Cornwall is a bit dense if the fact that the US and Ethiopia are operating in very close coordination hasn't been obvious to him prior to today.
Sorry, Here's the link. Go to the video and watch. Excellent showing of the AC-130 capabilities in LIC. Leave on the audio also, good cockpit chatter of what's going on (note how they make sure the don't targets the mosque.)
http://pajamasmedia.com/2007/01/payback_us_ac130_strikes_al_qa.php
Tequila, you are 100% wrong. An AC-130 is much more effective targeting an individual then a precision guided munition. I could be off by a little, but it strikes me a gun on an ac-130 is accurate within 1 foot. A 500 pound bomb, no matter how accurate is going to cause damage over a much wider area. Short of a sniper an ac-130 is the best weapon in the us inventory to target an individual for a distance.
"Do you understand that they are fighting a war? Do you understand that the US is at war?"
I'd just love to be able to figure out who we're at war with. Somehow, I think it'd be easier to win the war if we knew that.
Have to agree with the commentors above re: the desirable qualities of the AC-130. Combination of loiter time and armament package make it my CAS of choice for low-intensity conflicts. A-10s are primarily tankbusters. Love 'em too, but for this mission the AC-130 was the right stuff...but...
My question would be, given the nested matryoshka doll of lies we've had to listen to from this administration regarding everything from yellowcake to Saddam to whatever's-in-the-latest-Tony-Snow-regurgitation-about-anything, why should we believe that the group they targeted is truly a terrorist cell and not just some Somali Islamic mooks with a technical? Not that I could give a cigarette butt about ICU gunsels, but it costs an assload of taxpayer dollars to fly an AC-130 down from Djibouti if all they're doing is whacking ICU grunts for the Somalis.
So I'm with Al - kinda - in that I'd like to hear more than "an al-Queda cell". What were they doing? Was this anyone of importance? Are we getting any kind of geopolitical bang for our tax buck, or is this just live fire training for the USAF?
I have not seen these work up close, but friends of mine have in Fallujah during Phantom Fury. They were very upset that they didn't AC-130 support during daytime ops, but when the nighttime strikes went out the 130 could annihilate whole city blocks, which they did.
The most precise weapon in the U.S. arsenal to kill small groups of people from the air would be a helicopter gunship, which it appears we are also using now in Somalia.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,242500,00.html
I sincerely hope we nailed the AQ terrorists, because frankly the Ethiopian government is not one we should be pulling CAS for.
Al, quite by accident, prompted a worthy discussion.
I think most of us can agree that the intelligence community should be identifying terrorist training camps, the President should be making decisions about whether the intelligence warrants military action, and if a quick airstrike is deemed appropriate he'll proceed without notifying the press pool in advance.
The problem is that our intelligence analysis has been dirt-poor in recent years, the President has displayed decision-making skills so faulty that he shouldn't be allowed to manage a 7-11, and it's crystal clear that any information they eventually do give the press will be pure propaganda that bears little resemblance to the truth. At this stage in a lame-duck Imperial Presidency it hardly seems worth forming an opinion about such an operation. Anything we say will be based on incomplete information from untrustworthy people.
In theory, I don't have a problem with this type of military action to disrupt international terrorism. This is exactly the sort of action that should have become the central focus of our post-9/11 military. In practice, I have no idea what happened. This operation might have killed dozens of dangerous terrorists, or it might have decimated Hafiz and Asma's wedding reception. It's probably best to reserve judgment.
FDChief, the mastermind of the 1998 bombings was supposed to be there. If so I'd say that he would be worth the taxpayer dollars.
What LaFollette Progressive said.
If a Gore administration were in charge, I'd say the past few weeks in Somalia would be good geo-political strategery. But no one ever lost money underestimating this administration's ability to screw up even relatively simple things.
That's wonderful! The Al Qaedas are bad, right? I have a hard time getting excited about this stuff. It wasn't that long ago when the warlords were so terrible that we had to protect UN food shipments from them. More recently, they were so terrible that the Islamists weren't entirely unwelcome.
So here we are helping the warlords now, along with the Ethiopians, who are no peaches themselves. American foreign policy has been to ally ourselves with anyone but the Fascists..er..Communists..er..Islamists..er..who's next?
Which faction-of-the-day will be next to experience our haphazard application of brute force?
Hey, as long as we're putting some wogs in the grave, what's not to like?
Only a billion of 'em to go!
"the US is supporting a friendly nation in wiping out some very evil people."
How the hell do you know how "evil" these people are, or even who they are? You trust that whenever the U.S. government kills people in distant places, it makes you safer?
"In Vietnam, gunships destroyed more than 10,000 trucks." What more do you need?
There are costs associated with repeated lying.
After Colin Powell's report to the UN on Iraq's WMDs and Bush's "16 words" in the State of the Union, why should anyone believe anything Bush says? Why would anyone?
In practice, I have no idea what happened. This operation might have killed dozens of dangerous terrorists, or it might have decimated Hafiz and Asma's wedding reception. It's probably best to reserve judgment.
Hear, hear. If anything, I'd go a little further--my default position on just about anything that comes from this administration is to assume that it's a baldfaced lie until independently proven otherwise. And I think I stand on very solid ground in that assumption.
Al: "Certainly I won't give anyone the benefit of the doubt by saying that probably some information will come out later."
Considering that the pattern of the last six years has been that the later information coming out proves the administration to be fools, liars and frauds, I agree with Al. The administration shouldn't be given the benefit of the doubt.
This is like that old Maxwell Smart joke, "Would you believe...?" But the joke here is that Matt would believe- and a number of other commenters as well, apparently.
Well, stick around a few more decades and you'll need the help of ten strong men to believe, because your capacity to believe will be just plumb wore out.
Matthew Y:
When confronted with this kind of fait accompli, weakly saying "it sounds like a good idea" is so 9/12/2001. The people running our country don't know what they're doing, they're liars and they're desperate. Who the fuck knows who we just blew up, or why?
Why even offer comment on this?
OK, good point about AC-130's being better able to put near-continuous fire (by essentially fling in a circle and firing from the side), while the A-10, with its gun mounted in the nose, will have to fly in sweeps, temporarly allowing ground targets a reprieve. If you have more than one A-10, though, you could have continuous coverage.
I don't buy the accuracy or range arguments. The A-10's 30mm gun is very accurate and they could easily be refueled from a KC-130 if need be. Again, to me, if there's any expectation that the enemy will put up much of a fight, I'd rather have an A-10. That 30mm gun will chew up concrete at least as well as it does tank armor. The AC-130, or attack helicopter, is vulnerable to small arms fire. Unless the bad guys have stingers or SA-7s, they not likely going to have a reasonable chance of shooting down an A-10, which can survive fire from 23mm guns. The slower speed of the AC-130 is an advantage for time on target (though the A-10 is subsonic), but a disadvantage (in addtion to presenting such a huge target) when it comes to terrorists/insurgents armed with small arms and RPGs.
Matt thought a "small... raid" was a good idea, but why the AC-130?
Is it the AC-130 vs commando raid? The AC-130 is low risk to the specops people. There's a lower chance of someone (in Somalia) getting captured. The downside (to larger US interests and innocent civilians) is that the 'surgical' application of firepower sometimes results in 'surgery' being done on the wrong patients, though that's true even if you have boots on the ground.
If it's AC-130 vs other aircraft, I think the other comments addressed that.
American Special Forces always were a bunch of wusses - why can't they slug it out on the ground mano a mano. If the GWOT is so important then America should be prepared for a few casualties to make sure they get it right. Instead they waltz in, zap a few wogs without caring a rat's arse if they are the enemy and waltz out having created a few hundred more insurgents. If you thought Iraq was bad for tribal warfare you ain't seen nothing yet in Somalia.
Because artillery is queen of the battlefield. And even though the specops folks are now light and ultra mobile, they still have some residual army genetics and instinctively recognize this. It's just that to be specops and have mobile artillery, they need to put it on a C-130. So now they have their artillery piece and can call in barages on the folks armed with rifles while they hunker down behind some fortifications.
"the mastermind of the 1998 bombings was supposed to be there. If so I'd say that he would be worth the taxpayer dollars."
1998? Geez, that's SO last decade. C'mon - if we're gonna fly all that way to slag somebody, let's at least slag somebody who wasn't bombing us back when the freakin' Backstreet Boys and Natalie Imbruglia were top o' the pops. What the hell has he done for us lately?
Sarcasm aside. my confidence in the truthiness of the 1600 PA Ave. crew is such that I want to see a body with a face, a mugshot and a driver's license or I figure they turned the USAF loose to kack some village hardboys and used the whole "AQ cell" dodge as an excuse for a joyride/LFX in Somalia.
ben: "Does anybody other than me and Ajay think he's not making a really good point here?"
Er, I think he's making a good point.
blowback - don't be needlessly abrasive. The SF guys are courageous enough, but they know they would fail if they tried to go in on the ground. The battle of the Black Sea was a fiasco, and there they had all sorts of support that wouldn't be available now.
NYT: The targets of this air strike were "suspected" al Qaeda members.
WAPO: the operation "may" have hit a senior terrorist figure.
Reuters: "A U.S. attack plane killed many people with barrages of gunfire in a remote Somali village occupied by Islamists thought to be hiding at least one al Qaeda suspect,"
"…an AC-130 plane rained gunfire on the desolate southern village of Hayo."
"I understand there are so many dead bodies and animals in the village."
OK, so remind me again: we're not at war with Somalia. We're not official allies of the Somali warlords, or the Ethiopian government.
I don't like AQ any more than any other American, but I know that I'd be real pissed off if my city police burned down my house and killed me and my family to get the serial killer hiding in the garage of the house down the street.
Why do we think that other people in other parts of the world won't be pissed off at us when WE do stuff like that? Aren't we supposed to be fighting to win the war of IDEAS against AQ? How does one dead AQ guy help when we have to kill a whole village to do it? Call me geopolitically naive, but thise seems too expensive, both militarily and politically...
I'm sorry but artillery (and it's more modern equivalent airpower) is not the queen of the 4th generation battlefield - it shouldn't even be used anywhere on that particular battlefield - and that is the war the Americans are supposed to be fighting. If American Special Forces who are supposed to be really capable haven't figured out how to win a 4th generation war then America has already lost.
Again I ask if the GWOT is so important then America should be prepared to do what is necessary to win it and that will involve taking casualties. Otherwise it should pack up and go home.
The only other way is to get all genocidal on the enemy but that will eventually destroy your own forces.
Yeah, I don't think artillery is queen of the battlefield. Unless by queen you mean subservient to the king, which would be the tank. Unfortunately, in this metaphor, if we formulate it correctly, artillery would be the princess, if that, and tanks the queen. The king of course is airpower.
I'm still waiting for that one guy to explain exactly who it is we're at war with. Best I can do is "people who we say might hurt us."
in the ME and environs, we're at war with anyone who refuses to obsequiously genuflect before their US/Israeli masters.
One of the Al-Qaeda members was four.
My guess is this is the same old song you heard first in Afghanistan, then in Iraq, and now in Somalia. The Transitional Government or the Ethiopians got asked where Al-Qaeda was and they pointed at their regional enemies. That or even just random fingerpointing made up for the CIA agents running around with bags of cash.
I'll tell you what I absolutely don't believe. That they killed anyone they believed they were after. If they did you wouldn't be able to get away from the press conferences and they would have been elevated to some sort of status worthy of claiming a victory.
Meanwhile, in completely unrelated news, the AEI is willing to tell anyone interested how awful an influence the Chinese are in Africa. Apparently the Chinese support unsavory regimes, have no respect for human rights, and are motivated only by access to African oil. The evilness of the Chinese in Africa appears to be one more prong in their all-China, all-evil, all-the-time attempt to drum up new imaginary enemies for America.
It's nice to know that the US, on the other hand, wishes nothing but the best for Africa.
Like that gunboat in Heart of Darkness...
... just firing away at random, deserted jungle, the AC-130 is excellent at making big booms, and leaving large smoking holes. This is thought to have a salutary effect on upstart brown peoples.
It really is pointless to discuss the finer points of this system's technical strengths and weaknesses for the task at hand, as if there actually were a task at hand beyond making a demonstration of our ability to leave large smoking holes wherever we want. The notion that we have any idea of whatever structure something called "al Qaeda" may have, sufficient to be able to ID who's in charge of what, is laughable. The idea that some notional "our man in Modagishu", ever alert for these key al Qaeda operatives that our expertise has identified, and probably circulates packs of playing cards with their pictures, spotted our intended target and dogged his footsteps to the Kenyan border to call in this airstrike, is ludicrous. I doubt that even the con men in charge of the whole operation believe that they have any idea who or what may have been at ground zero of those smoking holes. The only thing one can be confident of from this report, is that there would be no report were there not a need for some positive news of progress in the GWOT on the eve of Our Leader's inspiring speech outlining the Glorious Way Forward. Onward, to ever more and larger smoking holes, in ever more countries! The brown people will get the message sooner or later.
There is a reason that such operations are covert. They never accomplish anything, except in the song and story of politically useful legend. I don't mean that they create blowback, and are in the long run ineffective, or even counterproductive, because of unintended downstream consequences. That may be true as well. I mean that they are, in real time, essentially fictional. The people who get blown up are all too real, but these people are props in a bad novel generated by an understanding of the world usually totally off-base, and incredibly superficial even where it is not completely misplaced. I have been a keen observer of the US political scene my entire adult life, and I wouldn't have any idea who in the Republican political machine to send the AC-130s after, or any confidence that knocking off any of them would improve the world, despite an utter confidence that they have fucked up the world mightily. We don't, yet, allow ourselves to think that superficially about our own society. I am confident that these black ops idiots and their political masters do not somehow possess a deeper understanding of the politics of the Muslim world than I do of the US scene, not only from the general principle that they cannot be as immersed in its politics as much as I have been in ours, but from the very fact that they think it even possibly a good idea to send in AC-130s to solve a political problem, even if we did have any idea that who we thought was actually on the receiving end. Even if we did have the intended man, we certainly had no idea who or what he really might have been.
The blind can only lead the blind, which is why they want us to stay blindfolded. We won't be led by sighted persons until we take our blindfolds off and end the security state's regime of secrecy.
Comments closed January 23, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
The specops people love the AC-130 because it is increadibly accurate and can linger. If you drop a guided bomb on something you are already flying away and can't do anything if you miss or if people come running out etc, with an AC-130 you can.
Posted by nathaniel | January 9, 2007 10:07 AM