The US aerial bombardments in Somalia (predictably) miss their targets

Assab-Obock - fourteen, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

This is a photo of a typical Somali house, albeit taken in the Danakil area of southern Eritrea on that memorable day on the slowest Toyota Land Cruiser in Africa in our effort to get from Asab to Djibouti in one day.

It is an excuse just to mention that it has been admitted that none of the three al-Qaeda people were killed in the aerial bombing raids in southern Somalia. What is interesting to not is what has been said on a BBC Have Your Say forum, asking the question about whether the fighting will stop in Somalia. At first, there were many US apologists saying that the US has to fight al-Qaeda and kill al-Qaeda suspects wherever it may be found and that anyone who does not agree is weak, anti-American blah blah. Well, since it became news that none of the three suspects were killed and that only Somali herdsmen (and women and children) and their livestock were killed by the bombs, these people have becoem very quiet on the forum.

What it tells me is that the US still does not understand that aerial bombardments are not the way to win battles or wars or to always have your way. Sometimes it may work, but mostly (Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq now Somalia) it does not and it is certainly not the way to bring peace.

Peace in Somalia will come about, if it does, through national reconciliation, hopefully building an indigenous Somali-flavoured democracy on the Somaliland lines. The sooner foreign troops leave, the sooner the Somalis realise that peace is in their hands and it is up to them to embarce it. Leave the Ethiopians in place supporting any one side and you immediately have an outside enemy against which the other side can rally itself against.