Mad Cow

The Shanghai ran off and the cattle all died
The last piece of bacon that morning was fried
--Sweet Betsy from Pike
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Ranger Question of the Day:
If a cruise missile explodes in an uninhabited forest,
does it make a sound?
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U.S. policy has come a long way baby since Shock-and-Awe debuted on the world's stage. Now we have the ripple effect:

"American naval forces fired missiles [note: more than one] into southern Somalia on Monday, aiming at what the Defense Department called terrorist targets.

"Residents reached by telephone said that three civilians were wounded, and that the only other casualties were three dead cows, one dead donkey and a partly destroyed house."

What a swell day for democracy -- three dead cows, one dead donkey and a partly-destroyed house. You could go home and call it a good day with such a haul. At least the chickens appeared to escape unscathed, but the cows and donkey surely paid for their collusion with a terrorist.

The desperation of the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) is palpable. Imagine dropping million-dollar+ Tomahawk cruise missiles, fired from billion- dollar+ nuclear submarines ostensibly to kill one "known al Qaeda terrorist."

"The missile strike was aimed at Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, a Kenyan born in 1979 who is wanted by the F.B.I. for questioning in the nearly simultaneous attacks in 2002 on a hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, and on an Israeli airliner taking off from there, said three American officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the strike."

Who spoke? The U.S. launches missile strikes and our officials are not authorized to speak publicly on those strikes? In other words, bomb them to hell, but don't talk about it officially. It's great to see my tax dollars at work spreading indiscriminate democracy in yet another nation that doesn't want it.

Not a good day for surgical strikes: An unnamed U.S. military official said "the missiles were believed to have hit their targets. Witnesses on the ground, though, described the attack differently."

"The attack on Monday was not the first time that American forces had fired missiles into Somalia or used airstrikes in pursuit of what the Pentagon has called terrorist operatives. They did so at least three times last year."

Aside from the profligate and unjustified expense is the question of legitimacy. Does the U.S. have the right to bomb an Arab neighborhood because a "known operative" may (or may not) be present? Further, that "known operative" stands accused, but not convicted, of a crime.

But of course, a cruise missile makes a hell of a judge and jury. After speaking, it nullifies all appeals. A perfect tool for Bushville. Unfortunately, the world has moved past Judge Roy Bean's form of justice.

It is an embarrassment to this Ranger that this is the best response the U.S. can orchestrate to neutralize, capture and bring to justice a small-time punk like Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan. If and when he is killed, how will the world become a safer place?

Lobbing cruise missiles into Arab neighborhoods is a great al-Qaeda recruitment tool.

Not Seeing the Forest for the Trees

For the grace of God in the desert here
And the desert far away
Democracy is coming to the u.s.a.
--Democracy, Leonard Cohen

I know you're working for the CIA
they wouldn't have you in the Mafia
Why can't we be friends?
Why can't we be friends?
--Why Can't We Be Friends? WAR
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Having a target is a great help in life, unless it is the wrong target, of course.

"A massive U.S. aerial bombing campaign launched in Iraq on Thursday attempted to strike a delicate balance — routing members of a newly resurgent al-Qaeda while trying to avoid civilian casualties that could alienate ordinary Iraqis.

"U.S. planes attacked a rural Sunni area southeast of Baghdad with 40,000 pounds of bombs during a 10-minute period. That surpassed the tonnage that previously had been dropped there during an average month, said Maj. Alayne Conway, a U.S. military spokeswoman.

"The attacks targeted suspected al-Qaeda weapons caches, supply lines and bombmaking sites, Conway said. No civilian casualties were immediately reported, she said, reflecting a central focus of the U.S. military's year-old counterinsurgency strategy: winning the support of the local population (U.S. Air Strikes In Iraq Reflect Targeted Efforts.)"

First, bombs don't do "delicate," regardless of how daintily the bombardier executes his task.

Second, note that these are "suspected supply lines, etc." Does an infantry unit assault a "suspected" enemy bunker? If the target is not hard and definitely pinned down, then it should not be bombed.

Not only does bombing suspected targets not further military objectives, it is costly and wastes valuable ordnance, misutilizing valuable assets.

Iraq Body Count reports "U.S. forces caused an average of 63 Iraqi civilian deaths per month in 2007 — down from 169 per month in 2004." Good news, unless you are one of the 63. And of course, bad news for the nine U.S. soldiers killed earlier this week at the start of a new "drive to kill al-Qaida in Iraq fighters holed up in districts north of the capital."

"Six soldiers were killed and four were wounded Wednesday in a booby-trapped house in Diyala province, where joint U.S.-Iraqi forces were driving through a difficult web of lush palm and citrus groves."

This war is so removed from any reality that might benefit America that it jars the mind. Why is the U.S. chasing this homegrown band of irregulars around their own country, getting killed and maimed in the process of gaining -- what? Al-Qaeda in Iraq didn't even exist until after the U.S. invasion of Iraq. This is not a project which will benefit the U.S. either at home or abroad. It is madness.

Dropping bombs on "suspected" targets is as insane as is building airports to facilitate pilgrimages. Who is providing leadership for this fiasco?

More good news for Iraq: U.S. tax season is approaching.

Howdy Pilgrim

Regime change is infectious--a militarily transmissible
disease, almost invariably fatal, so far, to any political party
or head of government so careless of hygiene as to have
had intimate relations with the Bush administration's
Mesopotamian misadventure
--Hendrik Hertzberg, New York Times (12/10/07)
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Speaking Tuesday with member's of his national security team and Iraq's Provisional Reconstruction Teams (PRTs), President Bush reportedly was pleased that "the PRT in southern Najaf has worked with the local government to build a modern airport to facilitate pilgrimages to that Shiite holy city."

So: Hard-earned U.S. tax dollars are going to build airports to allow Islamists to go to their local mosques. Now that is democracy in action. Fails on the side of separation of church and state, but for an administration looking for good news from a catastrophe in which almost none of their own benchmarks for success have been met, this suffices.

Ranger is proud that the U.S. government funds these upgrades to the Iraqi infrastructure to provide for these religiously-inspired jaunts. So much better than having the dollars go to, say, upgrading failed school districts in America.

This is how one goes about engineering a society safe for the likes of a Huckabee or a George W. Bush, one pilgrim at a time.