Black Hawk Down, Mogadishu was Al Qaeda strike!

[Genesys]

Originally posted by: InfectedMushroom

you are one racist piece of sh1t.

and pupet governments ARE NOT freedom and democracy.

(A) how is he being racist?
(B) i see no indication that we are setting up a puppet govt. if you have any form of supporting evidence, please share it.

 

[Bulk Beef]

Originally posted by: Helenihi

Originally posted by: drewshin

Originally posted by: heartsurgeon

The fact that some of the Somalis may have had contact with Al Qaeda is inconsequential since the situation was not an Al Qaeda operation".

Not so fast...Al Qaeda trained the people who shot down the helicopter. They probably supplied them with the arms to do it. It may not have been planned, but they had been taught how to do what they did. Clinton even knew (this is documented) the location of the camp where these folks were trained. Perhaps they were not Al Qaeda, but without the support and training of Al Qaeda, it's possible the event may never have happened. Your using the "this was a criminal enterprise" mentality in analyzing this situation (like the Clinton's). If you take the approach that we were at war with Al Qaeda, then,the somalis become allies of Al Qaeda, and as such we are at war with them as well. this is the genesis of the Bush statement "either for us or against us" It reflects a war time judgment of actions.

hmm by your reasoning many of the senior al qaeda members were supplied and trained by americans, i know americans didnt plan this operation, but we taught them how to do what they did, so americans should be responsible for killing americans in somalia. nice reasoning! LOL

What the hell are you babbling about?

He's talking about the possibility that the CIA trained Afghan and Arab mujahideen in the technique of shooting down low flying Soviet helicopters with RPGs, who in turn trained the Somalis in the same technique; however, while the US certainly armed and trained the Afghans with US made Stingers for the same purpose, the idea of massed RPG attacks and ambushes against helicopters is not rocket science *sorry*.

 

[abracadabra1]

Originally posted by: DBL
Please. The Mogadishu situation was the result of an unfortunate accident (Seal who fell from a helicopter). W/O this, the raid would most likely have been pulled off w/o a hitch.

Why continue to attack Clinton w/ regard to his actions against Al Qaeda. The simple fact remains that before 9/11, there was no public support for significant offensive operations against terrorists. In fact, when Clinton lobbed a few dozen cruise missiles into Afghanistan in an effort to eliminate bin Laden, it was Republicans who screamed that he only did so to deflect attention from Monica.

Why is it so hard to remember this?

Just for clarification...it was not a SEAL that fell; it was a Ranger.

 

[MacBaine]

Originally posted by: abracadabra1

Originally posted by: DBL
Please. The Mogadishu situation was the result of an unfortunate accident (Seal who fell from a helicopter). W/O this, the raid would most likely have been pulled off w/o a hitch.

Why continue to attack Clinton w/ regard to his actions against Al Qaeda. The simple fact remains that before 9/11, there was no public support for significant offensive operations against terrorists. In fact, when Clinton lobbed a few dozen cruise missiles into Afghanistan in an effort to eliminate bin Laden, it was Republicans who screamed that he only did so to deflect attention from Monica.

Why is it so hard to remember this?

Just for clarification...it was not a SEAL that fell; it was a Ranger.

It's been pointed out already.

 

[PowerMac4Ever]

Originally posted by: conjur

Originally posted by: Crimson
Bush's INACTION? Iraq and Afghanistan are his ACTIONS. Clinton had attacks on American soil and did NOTHING.. Bush responded, Clinton didn't..

BOTH of them had intelligence failures under their watch.. but don't say Bush didn't ACT.

Iraq has NOTHING to do with the war on terror.

Bush took five months to move any sizable number of forces into Afghanistan. Five months! By then, the Al Qaeda leaders were long gone into Iran, Pakistan, and beyond.

As for the OP, the Pentagon is to blame for the tragedy in Mogadishu. They ran repeated strikes at the same time every day. They were asking to be attacked. Clinton (and Clarke) were wanting covert operations but the Pentagon doesn't do covert and the CIA would not agree to it.

You're an idiot for thinking Bush took his time invading Afghanistan. I don't know where you got 5 months from, but you are dead wrong. For example, Kabul was taken on November 17th. It is generally agreed-upon that the US mobilization was damned fast.

 

[MacBaine]

Originally posted by: PowerMac4Ever

Originally posted by: conjur

Originally posted by: Crimson
Bush's INACTION? Iraq and Afghanistan are his ACTIONS. Clinton had attacks on American soil and did NOTHING.. Bush responded, Clinton didn't..

BOTH of them had intelligence failures under their watch.. but don't say Bush didn't ACT.

Iraq has NOTHING to do with the war on terror.

Bush took five months to move any sizable number of forces into Afghanistan. Five months! By then, the Al Qaeda leaders were long gone into Iran, Pakistan, and beyond.

As for the OP, the Pentagon is to blame for the tragedy in Mogadishu. They ran repeated strikes at the same time every day. They were asking to be attacked. Clinton (and Clarke) were wanting covert operations but the Pentagon doesn't do covert and the CIA would not agree to it.

You're an idiot for thinking Bush took his time invading Afghanistan. I don't know where you got 5 months from, but you are dead wrong. For example, Kabul was taken on November 17th. It is generally agreed-upon that the US mobilization was damned fast.

Not to mention that the first strikes began less than a month after 9-11, on October 7th.

 

[kage69]

Simple. If the Mogadishu situation was the result of an Al Qaeda operation and you blame Clinton for not acting against Al Qaeda, then you are blaming Clinton for Mogadishu. Essentially, that is what heartsurgeon is saying. Understand?

I am saying that whole situation escalated out of control when an Army Ranger (thanks for the correction) fell from a helicopter in the beginning stages of the operation. The fact that some of the Somalis may have had contact with Al Qaeda is inconsequential since the situation was not an Al Qaeda operation". It was a US operation.

My 'huh?' was directed at your incorrect citing of a SEAL Team member in the incident. SEALs were deployed in Somalia, but not in the timeframe we are discussing.

 

[Bulk Beef]

Originally posted by: kage69

Simple. If the Mogadishu situation was the result of an Al Qaeda operation and you blame Clinton for not acting against Al Qaeda, then you are blaming Clinton for Mogadishu. Essentially, that is what heartsurgeon is saying. Understand?

I am saying that whole situation escalated out of control when an Army Ranger (thanks for the correction) fell from a helicopter in the beginning stages of the operation. The fact that some of the Somalis may have had contact with Al Qaeda is inconsequential since the situation was not an Al Qaeda operation". It was a US operation.

My 'huh?' was directed at your incorrect citing of a SEAL Team member in the incident. SEALs were deployed in Somalia, but not in the timeframe we are discussing.

There were a couple of SEALs participating in that mission.

 

[DBL]

Originally posted by: sward666

Anything is possible but the general consensus is that this particular accident was the catalyst for everything else that went wrong after.

I don't think that's at all correct. It was simply the first thing to go wrong, but aside from having a few Humvees split off from the rest of the convoy, and subsequently getting shot to sh!t, Todd Blackburn's fall did not in any way cause the downing of the first Blackhawk. I don't know whose "general consensus" you're referring to, but it's BS.

Well, I guess there can only be opinions since no one really knows how the events would have played out had Blackburn not fell. However, the facts as I remember are that the first helicopter was hit 20 minutes after all the targets of the raid were acquired. Blackburn's fall increased the complexity of the raid turning it into a rescue mission and forcing a dramatic change in logistics . How can you be sure that his fall had nothing to do with the first Blackhawk being shot down and the subsequent American fatalities?

 

[Bulk Beef]

Originally posted by: DBL

Originally posted by: sward666

Anything is possible but the general consensus is that this particular accident was the catalyst for everything else that went wrong after.

I don't think that's at all correct. It was simply the first thing to go wrong, but aside from having a few Humvees split off from the rest of the convoy, and subsequently getting shot to sh!t, Todd Blackburn's fall did not in any way cause the downing of the first Blackhawk. I don't know whose "general consensus" you're referring to, but it's BS.

Well, I guess there can only be opinions since no one really knows how the events would have played out had Blackburn not fell. However, the facts as I remember are that the first helicopter was hit 20 minutes after all the targets of the raid were acquired. Blackburn's fall increased the complexity of the raid turning it into a rescue mission and forcing a dramatic change in logistics . How can you be sure that his fall had nothing to do with the first Blackhawk being shot down and the subsequent American fatalities?

Blackburn was already loaded onto a Humvee and on the way out of the city when the first helicopter was shot down. There was no rescue dispatched for him, nor was there any dramatic change in logistics for him. He fell, some of his squad carried him back towards the target building, a Humvee met them halfway, he was loaded onto the Humvee, and he was driven out with a small column of accompanying Humvees. While that drive was hellish, it did not really affect the rest of the mission.

This mission used what had become an established practice, with Rangers securing a perimeter around a target building, Delta Force doing the entry work, and low flying helicopters in support. What made this raid different was that it was in the middle of the day, and in the middle of a Habr Gidr neighborhood where Somali militias could respond very quickly, in force, and well-armed with a LOT of RPGs. The low flying Black Hawks would have been there, Blackburn or no Blackburn, and the militias knew that if they shot one down, the Americans would have to act to rescue the crew, so that's what they intended to do.

In short, the first Black Hawk getting shot down was what caused the mission to unravel, and that Black Hawk was not doing anything special for Todd Blackburn.

 

[DBL]

Originally posted by: sward666


In short, the first Black Hawk getting shot down was what caused the mission to unravel, and that Black Hawk was not doing anything special for Todd Blackburn.

Could you prove any links that support your version?

Everything I've read seems to say that there was already a considerable delay caused by confusion and a number of unfortunate circumstances, one of those being Blackburn's fall. The bottom line is that his fall could only have slowed down the operation and the first Black Hawk was hit after the forces should have started pulling out. The fact that he and three other vehicles were on their way back to base before the Black Hawk was hit doesn't shed any light on whether treating Blackburn caused a delay and a shortage of available men and vehicles, which could have possibly prevented much of the ensuing chaos.

Regardless, my original point in this thread was to refute heartsurgeons statement that the whole situation was an Al Qaeda operation. No matter how you view the circumstances, the operation was an American one.

 

[Rogue]

I suggest nearly all of you read as many books about that situation as you can, because nearly all of you are wrong in some aspect of it. There were in fact multiple Blackhawks shot down during that incident and measures were taken by the pilots to prevent such a thing from happening after the first and second ones went down (flying at higher altitude, etc). While there may have been Navy SEALs in part of the operation, they certainly didn't participate in that particular mission. It was the Delta Force guys, a secretive US Army group trained in taking hostages, etc. from hostile environments. Despite our losses, there was easily a 10:1 ratio in that battle. For every soldier we lost in an admittedly poorly planned, poorly executed daytime mission, they averaged 10 enemy casualties or more. Some estimates put the number of Somali casualities up around 2000+ or as high as 4000. If you've only watched the movie, don't bother trying to discuss this particular mission to the detail some of you are attempting.

 

[Bulk Beef]

Link

One of the humvees in the column held a group of Delta soldiers and Navy SEALs, that service's elite commando unit.

I'll take Mark Bowden's word over yours. Sorry.

 

[tweakmm]

Originally posted by: Crimson

Originally posted by: GrGr
Well so far Bush's actions has cost the lifes of some 13,000 civilians. Any fool can ACT. When will the US bloodletting stop? There weren't any terrorists in Iraq pre-invasion. There sure are thousands that will become terrorists now. Good job Bush. What other ACTION could possibly create more terrorists than an illegal invasion of an Arab country?

What were the reasons for the Middle East being at war with eachother/the world before the United States existed? Was its Britain's fault? What about before then? The Romans? The Greeks? Seems like we have a lot of excuses for people who have been at war for thousands of years trying to exterminate those who disagree with them.

You seem to forget the Crusades. Whitey went over to the Middle East and started trying to convert everybody first. Hell, that's probably where they got the idea of "convert or die".

What were the reasons the Islamic people were at war before the United States existed? Do you really think that humans have been holding hands and blowing kisses at each other until Islam came about? I hate to break it to you buddy, but humans are nasty and everybody has been doing attrocious stuff to everyone else since we've been around as a species.

 

[digitalsm]

Originally posted by: tweakmm

Originally posted by: Crimson

Originally posted by: GrGr
Well so far Bush's actions has cost the lifes of some 13,000 civilians. Any fool can ACT. When will the US bloodletting stop? There weren't any terrorists in Iraq pre-invasion. There sure are thousands that will become terrorists now. Good job Bush. What other ACTION could possibly create more terrorists than an illegal invasion of an Arab country?

What were the reasons for the Middle East being at war with eachother/the world before the United States existed? Was its Britain's fault? What about before then? The Romans? The Greeks? Seems like we have a lot of excuses for people who have been at war for thousands of years trying to exterminate those who disagree with them.

You seem to forget the Crusades. Whitey went over to the Middle East and started trying to convert everybody first. Hell, that's probably where they got the idea of "convert or die".

What were the reasons the Islamic people were at war before the United States existed? Do you really think that humans have been holding hands and blowing kisses at each other until Islam came about? I hate to break it to you buddy, but humans are nasty and everybody has been doing attrocious stuff to everyone else since we've been around as a species.

So the white man cause the crusades? Lets see what happened in the 400 years leading up to the crusades? Ill start with the first half of the 600s.

614AD Christian Palestine was invaded by the Persians. The 5th century monastery of St. Theodosius east of Beit Sahour near Bethlehem was destroyed by the Persians

627AD Byzantine Emperor Heraclius defeated the Persian army and regained Asia Minor, Syria, Jerusalem and Egypt.

635AD Damascus was captured by the Muslims

636AD Summer, A Byzantine army arrived in the region of Jerusalem and was defeated by a much smaller Muslim army at the Yarmuk River. With Muslims at the gate Sophronius, head of Jerusalem, requested a meeting with Caliph Omar.

636AD Jul 23, Arabs gained control of most of Palestine from Byzantine Empire.

637AD Ctesiphon, a center of Christianity southeast of Baghdad, was taken by Arabs, who renamed it Madain.

637 Muslim armies conquered Mesopotamia.

640 Muslim Arabs invaded Armenia and capture Dvin, its principal town.

640 The Muslim government began minting coins about this time.

641 Feb 11, Heraclius (~65), emperor of Byzantium (610-641), died.

642 Sep 17, Arabs conquered Alexandria and destroyed the great library. Omar, the second caliph, successor of Mohammed, conquered Alexandria, then the capital of world scholarship.

Then you had the Turks taking the holy land in ~1000AD.

Then you had the Turks conquering the Byzantines in ~1071AD

Then you have the first crusade launched by the former Byzantine Empire and the Pope.

Yes lets solely blame "whitey" for the crusades. And last I checked from the start of Islam ~625-630, Islam and Mohammad WERE MILITANT.