U.S. strike targets al-Qaida in Somalia

[The Avon Lady]

Good job, America!

[Camaero]

[Konovalov]

I guess that when you want to make absolutely certain you use the AC-130.

[The Avon Lady]

Originally Posted by Konovalov

I guess that when you want to make absolutely certain you use the AC-130.

It reminds me of the pray and spray SAW Bunnies back in my Delta Force 1 and 2 MP gaming days. :p

Fond memories!

[The Avon Lady]

More details: 2 attacks - not 1.

[The Avon Lady]

Looks like Al Qaeda's having a bad hair day.

[Oberon]

Wonder if they're planning an air strike here, I've seen six helicopters fly over within the past hour, four Sea King lookalikes (not sure of their make) and two AH-64s. :hmm:

Anyway, good shooting A/C-130, there's not a lot in the world that can survive one of those visiting your home. Looks like this may be the beginning of longer ops in Somalia, apparently there's a carrier on the way to join the warships on the coastline.

Course, this isn't going to do a great deal in favour of how other countries view the US, but that's never bothered the US Government before.

EDIT: There goes another two Apaches....or the same two from earlier.

[Schatten]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Course, this isn't going to do a great deal in favour of how other countries view the US, but that's never bothered the US Government before.

The Somali government (as it is) supported the airstrikes, they don't want the Islamic Courts and/or Al Qaeda running around in their boonies with time to regroup after spending the time and effort to knock them out of Mogadishu. The Ethiopeans, who have ground troops in Somalia and the Kenyans both supported it and gave intel to the US to plan the strikes; they're both right next door and are sick and tired of what Somalia has become, especially since it's right on their doorstep.

I find it strange that people say that using the US using military force to assist countries which want the help, and with neighboring nations that provided support for the strikes will somehow bring down our image in the world. They wanted the assistance, we gave it to help stabilize a region in turmoil. Hmmm, isn't that what we did in the Balkans in the early '90s? But since that was destabilization in Europe's backyard I guess it was okay, but when we do it elsewhere we're being bullies. Sort of ironic don't you think?

[Letum]

Am I the only one a little unnerved by the zealous* enthusiasm and lack of cinicism some people appear to view these American attacks?


*edit*
*English meaning only, Im not makeing historical comments here!

[Oberon]

Yeah, but it's just fuel for the fire for some peoples, isn't it?

Naaah, just bomb away US, I've given up trying to figure out what's right and wrong in this crazy world. 'sides, I have no say, no matter what I vote for, things I don't think are wise will happen, just as things that I think are wise'll happen.

So long as an A/C-130 gunship doesn't tear away my ceiling, or a jihadist doesn't knock on my door, then that's about the limit of it.

I know that a picture of an ostrich will get posted at some point, but what do such people want? Every citizen in the western world to pick up an M16 and march for the Holy Land? Naah, not for me thanks guv...I'll use my M16 to defend my house and the land around it. Hell, if I could build a castle I would. An Englishmans home and all that

And Letum, I've long since given up trying to critisise the US's actions, it doesn't achieve anything and only creates a flame war between left and right. I'll sit back in my bunker with a flame extinguisher and lob in the occasional missile, then dig my way out when its all over.

[SUBMAN1]

After reading some of the negative news reports, I am beginning to think that a large part of the rest of the world is a bunch a ninnies and is scared that they will get bombed because the US took action or something.

As the Islamists know all too well, the only way to fight fire is with fire. Seems that all they get is praise and sidestepping when they do it, and the US gets ridiculed when they try and stop it??? Maybe its time to have the US pull out of the rest of the world and let the Western nations that do the ridiculing get overrun. Then we can come back and liberate them and be the hero's once again.

-S

[geetrue]

Originally Posted by Oberon

I know that a picture of an ostrich will get posted at some point, but what do such people want? Every citizen in the western world to pick up an M16 and march for the Holy Land? Naah, not for me thanks guv...I'll use my M16 to defend my house and the land around it. Hell, if I could build a castle I would.

Why not? I would go if they feed you everyday ... lol

We could call it the "Last Crusade"

The History of the Crusades: The Crusades of the Middle Ages were an almost continuous series of military-religious expeditions made by European Christians in the hope of wresting the Holy Land from the infidel Turks. From 1096 until nearly 1300, Crusaders, traveling in great armies, small bands, or alone, journeyed into the Orient to wage war against the Moslems, who had become a serious threat to Christianity. Although many went for worldly gain, it was religious faith that inspired thousands upon thousands of these "soldiers of the Cross." When the Crusades began, Europeans were still living in the so-called Dark Ages; before they were ended, the West stood upon the threshold of the modern era. The Crusades were not wholly responsible for his progress, but none will deny that they hastened the development of our modern world.

[Oberon]

Oh....oh...alright, but only if I get to play Sean Connerys character.

"Junior! Junior!"

"We called the dog Indiana!"

[baggygreen]

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

Maybe its time to have the US pull out of the rest of the world and let the Western nations that do the ridiculing get overrun. Then we can come back and liberate them and be the hero's once again.

-S

Why bother liberating em? They'll only be abusing you again in another few years, n you'll be the worst people in the world again..

[The Avon Lady]

Originally Posted by geetrue

The History of the Crusades: The Crusades of the Middle Ages were an almost continuous series of military-religious expeditions made by European Christians in the hope of wresting the Holy Land from the infidel Turks. From 1096 until nearly 1300, Crusaders, traveling in great armies, small bands, or alone, journeyed into the Orient to wage war against the Moslems, who had become a serious threat to Christianity. Although many went for worldly gain, it was religious faith that inspired thousands upon thousands of these "soldiers of the Cross." When the Crusades began, Europeans were still living in the so-called Dark Ages; before they were ended, the West stood upon the threshold of the modern era. The Crusades were not wholly responsible for his progress, but none will deny that they hastened the development of our modern world.

Wake up world, Christians included. You are being had!

Why the Crusades Were Called

The Crusaders' sack of Jerusalem in 1099, according to journalist Amin Maalouf in The Crusades Through Arab Eyes, was the "starting point of a millennial hostility between Islam and the West." Islamic scholar and apologist John Esposito is a bit more expansive - he blames the Crusades ("so-called holy warriors") in general for disrupting a pluralistic civilization: "Five centuries of peaceful coexistence elapsed before political events and an imperial-papal power play led to centuries-long series of so-called holy wars that pitted Christendom against Islam and left an enduring legacy of misunderstanding and distrust."

Maalouf doesn't seem to consider whether "millennial hostility" may have begun with the Prophet Muhammad's veiled threat, issued over 450 years before the Crusaders entered Jerusalem, to neighboring non-Muslim leaders to "embrace Islam and you will be safe." Nor does he discuss the possibility that Muslims may have stoked that "millennial hostility" by seizing Christian lands - which amounted to two-thirds of what had formerly been the Christian world - centuries before the Crusades. Esposito's "five centuries of peaceful coexistence" were exemplified, he says, by the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem in 638: "churches and the Christian population were left unmolested." But he doesn't mention Sophronius' Christmas sermon for 634, when he complained of the Muslims' "savage barbarous and bloody sword" and of how difficult that sword had made life for Christians.


PC Myth: The Crusades were an unprovoked attack by Europe against the Islamic world

Wrong. The conquest of Jerusalem in 638 stood at the beginning of centuries of Muslim aggression, and Christians in the Holy Land faced an escalating spiral of persecution. A few examples: Early in the eighth century, sixty pilgrims from Amorium were crucified; around the same time, the Muslim governor of Caesarea seized a group of pilgrims from Iconium and had them all executed as spies - except for a small number who converted to Islam; and Muslims demanded money from pilgrims, threatening to ransack the Church of the Resurrection if they didn't pay. Later in the eighth century, a Muslim ruler banned displays of the cross in Jerusalem. He also increased the anti-religious tax (jizya) that Christians had to pay and forbade Christians to engage in religious instruction of others, even their own children.

Brutal subordination and violence became the rules of the day for Christians in the Holy Land. In 772, the caliph al-Mansur ordered the hands of Christians and Jews to be stamped with a distinctive symbol. Conversions to Christianity were dealt with particularly harshly. In 789, Muslims beheaded a monk who had converted from Islam and plundered the Bethlehem monastery of Saint Theodosius, killing many more monks. Other monasteries in the region suffered the same fate. Early in the ninth century, the persecutions grew so severe that large numbers of Christians fled to Constantinople and other Christian cities. More persecutions in 923 saw additional churches destroyed, and in 937, Muslims went on a Palm Sunday rampage in Jerusalem, plundering and destroying the Church of Calvary and the Church of the Resurrection.

In reaction to this persecution of Christians, the Byzantines moved from a defensive policy toward the Muslims to the offensive position of trying to recapture some of their lost territories. In the 960s, General Nicephorus Phocas (a future Byzantine emperor) carried out a series of successful campaigns against the Muslims, recapturing Crete, Cilicia, Cyprus, and even parts of Syria. In 969, he recaptured the ancient Christian city of Antioch. The Byzantines extended this campaign into Syria in the 970s.

In Islamic theology, if any land has ever belonged to the House of Islam, it belongs forever - and Muslims must wage war to regain control over it. In 974, faced with a string of loses to the Byzantines, the Abbasid (Sunni) caliph in Baghdad declared jihad. This followed the yearly jihad campaigns against the Byzantines launched by Saif al-Dawla, ruler of the Shi'ite Hamdanid dynasty in Aleppo from 944 to 967. Saif al-Dawla appealed to Muslims to fight the Byzantines on the pretext that they were taking lands that belonged to the House of Islam. This appeal was so successful that Muslim warriors from as far off as Central Asia joined the jihads.

However, Sunni/Shi'ite disunity ultimately hampered Islamic jihad efforts, and in 1001 the Byzantine emperor Basil II concluded a ten-year truce with the Fatimid (Shi'ite) caliph.

Basil, however, soon learned that to conclude such truces was futile. In 1004, the sixth Fatimid caliph, Abu 'Ali al-Mansur al-hakim (985-1021), turned violently against the faith of his Christian mother and uncles (two of whom were patriarchs), ordering the destruction of churches, the burning of crosses, and the seizure of church property. He moved against the Jews with similar ferocity. Over the next ten years, thirty thousand churches were destroyed, and untold numbers of Christians converted to Islam simply to save their lives. In 1009, al-Hakim gave his most spectacular anti-Christian order: He commanded that the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem be destroyed, along with several other churches (including the Church of the Resurrection). The Church of the Holy Sepulcher, rebuilt by the Byzantines in the seventh century after the Persians burned and earlier version, marks the traditional site of Christ's burial; it also served as a model for the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Al-Hakim commanded that the tomb within be cut down to the bedrock. He ordered Christians to wear heavy crosses around their necks (and for Jews, heavy blocks of wood in the shape of a calf). He piled on other humiliating decrees, culminating in the order that they accept Islam of leave his dominions.

The erratic caliph ultimately relaxed his persecution of non-muslims and even returned much of the property he has seized from the Church. A partial cause of al-Hakim's changed attitude was probably in increasingly tenuous connection to Islamic orthodoxy. In 1021, he disappeared under mysterious circumstances; some of his followers proclaimed him divine and found a sect based on this mystery and other esoteric teachings of a Muslim cleric, Muhammad ibn Isma'il al-Darazi (after whom the Druze sect is named). Thanks to al-Hakim's change of policy, which continued after his death, the Byzantines were allowed to rebuild the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in 1027.

Nevertheless, Christians were in a precarious position, and pilgrims remained under threat. In 1056 the Muslims expelled three hundred Christians from Jerusalem and forbade European Christians from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. When the fierce and fanatical Seljuk Turks swept down from Central Asia, they enforced a new Islamic rigor, making life increasingly difficult for both native Christians and pilgrims (whose pilgrimages they blocked). After they crushed the Byzantines at Manzikert in 1071 and took the Byzantine emperor Romanus IV Diogenes prisoner, all of Asia Minor was open to them, and their advance was virtually unstoppable. In 1076, they conquered Syria; in 1077, Jerusalem. The Seljuk emir Atsiz bib Uwaq promised not to harm the inhabitants of Jerusalem, but once his men had entered the city, they murdered three thousand people. The Seljuks established the sultanate of Rum (Rome, referring to the New Rome, Constantinople) in Nicaea that same years, perilously close to Constantinople itself; from there they continued to threaten the Byzantines and harass the Christians all over their new domains.

The Christian empire of Byzantium, which before Islam's wars of conquest had ruled over a vast expanse including southern Italy, North Africa, the Middle East, and Arabia, was reduced to little more than Greece. It looked as if death at the hands of the Seljuks was imminent. The Church of Constantinople considered the popes schismatic and had squabbled with them for centuries, but the new emperor Alexius I Commenus (1081-1118), swallowed his pride and appealed for help. And that is how the First Crusade came about: It was a response to the Byzantine Emperor's call for help.

- The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), by Robert Spencer

What? They didn't tell you any of this in history class? What? That's not the story you were told by Hollywood when you watched last years screen farce "Kingdom of Heaven"? I am shocked, utterly shocked, I tell ya!