Murderous swing and a miss

Wipe it all out, things related and not.

Continuing the policy of "kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out," employing indiscriminate fire power in the hunt for "top" al Qaeda suspects, the recent airstrikes in Somalia have proven, once again, to have netted the deaths of no such creatures while managing, once again, to kill at least two dozen people who may or may not be terrorists. Given the record to date, I'm guessing not.

The operation was meant to obliterate three al Qaeda operatives believed to have been involved in the African embassy bombings, Taha al-Sudani, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed and Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan. Naturally, it did not do this. As consolation, we are assured by US officials that "Somalis with close ties to al Qaeda were killed."

While these sorts of statements are designed to merely put an official gloss on an otherwise ill-considered and ultimately murderous action, who can help but wonder whether these anonymous US officials believe that we believe anything they say.