Murax: Prove that Morgan liberated Bardheere.
Posted: Thu Aug 13, 2009 1:22 am
In the "Cumar Mohamud" thread you claimed Bardheere was liberated by some Marehan generals(can't remember their name). Haye, go read here from the Washington Post
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The 325 U.S. Marines left at this scorched and dusty crossroads in a desolate corner of western Somalia have coined a sad motto summing up their desire to go home: "The Forgotten, the Few - the Baardheerans."
Most of the time, Baardheere is engulfed by a powdery fine reddish- gray sand that fills nostrils, stains clothes and wreaks havoc on truck engines and weapons parts. When it rains, the town becomes submerged in a three-foot-deep river of brown mud. Said Master Gunnery Sgt. Ross Cochron of El Paso, as he was surveying the barren landscape around the dirt and gravel airstrip here, "We figured the good Lord took one day off and let his disciples build this place."
Elsewhere around the "famine belt" of southern Somalia, the U.S. Marines and Army soldiers who moved into its desolate towns last December have pulled back to Mogadishu, the Somali capital, and at least half of the initial intervention force has already gone home. Security for Somalia's towns has been turned over to various other nations of the American-led coalition - the Australians in Baidoa, the Canadians in Beledweyne, the French in Oddur.
Baardheere, however, remains the last U.S. military outpost outside the capital, and American military officials in Mogadishu concede that they have had trouble finding another country willing to send troops to this forgotten town. Indians were once rumored to be coming. Now Pakistanis are said to be considering taking over here. But the Marines in Baardheere - who first arrived here on Christmas Eve to a dramatic welcome from a famished and war-weary population - continue to wait. And wait.
Their feelings of homesickness have been intensified because the Marines - many of whom arrived here with the first intervention wave and are now on their second posting in Baardheere - believe they accomplished their mission long ago.
Indeed, to a returning visitor who saw Baardheere last fall - during the most desperate days of Somalia's famine and death - the town is a vastly different place today and stands as one of this devastated country's most dramatic success stories.
"The job was done, and it was done well," said Lance Cpl. Reuben Herrera of Yoakum, Tex. In the words of Cpl. Scott Tessier of Manchester, N.H., the Marines' mission here was "to kick {butt}, feed some people - and go home."
To make life more bearable for the remaining U.S. forces - and to prepare for the expected rainy season this month - Army engineers spent three weeks constructing a new camp of plywood and hard-back tents, with permanent buildings three feet high on stilts in the style of Southeast Asian huts. The huts are connected by an intricate network of plywood planks. For recreation, there is now a baseball diamond and courts for basketball and volleyball. The Marines have named their space Camp Higgins, in honor of William R. Higgins, the Marine lieutenant colonel serving on a U.N. observer mission in southern Lebanon who was kidnapped in 1988 and slain by terrorists the next year.
Marine officers here say that in building Camp Higgins, they were reminded of the line in the Kevin Costner movie "Field of Dreams," about a farmer who builds a baseball diamond in his cornfield and attracts early legends of the sport - "If you build it, they will come." The Marines of Baardheere were hoping that their well- constructed camp might entice another country to send its soldiers here to replace them. "We figured if we built this camp, they would come - but they didn't," Cochron said.
Last August and September, Baardheere had one of the highest daily death tolls in Somalia. More than 300 people were dying each day from starvation or malnutrition-related diseases. By October, Baardheere had run out of shrouds for the dead, and survivors were using empty sacks of donated rice to wrap bodies. Gravediggers worked from dawn until dusk under the hot sun, burying bodies in shallow graves alongside the Juba River, where the ground was less parched.
Baardheere also was the scene of fighting between two of Somalia's premier warlords, Mohamed Farah Aideed and Mohamed Said Hersi Morgan. Aideed briefly held the town and made it his regional headquarters, entertaining visiting journalists and inviting them to lunch while, all around, townspeople were starving to death. Then Morgan's forces moved in from across the Kenyan border, routed Aideed's troops and reclaimed Baardheere. Throughout this back-and-forth power play, Baardheere's death rate rose.
As throughout Somalia in the months before the U.S. intervention, no matter which warlord controlled Baardheere, the powerless became the forgotten victims. In the feeding center here, well-fed young thugs with machine guns slung over their shoulders often were seen beating starving people, the elderly and small children with branches and sticks.
All of that changed, however, after the Marines arrived. They found a town that had been starved to death. "The city of Baardheere was in sad shape," said Lt. Col. Mike Sullivan of San Diego, commander of the Marine detachment here. "The city itself was empty of people. There were no children - they were sick, they were dying." The Marines discovered an orphanage filled with hundreds of emaciated children, most of whom had lost all of their family members to starvation or war.
That was when Sullivan launched what he calls his "hearts and minds" campaign. After declaring the town a "weapons-free zone," Sullivan and his Marines began a widespread civic campaign in the town's hospital and the orphanages. Calling in Army engineers, they built plywood schoolhouses and asked their wives and family members back in the United States to send crayons, chalk and other needed school supplies.
In a kind of modern-day example of turning swords into plowshares, the Marines took materials from confiscated weapons and used them to build a playground. The rotating turret from an antiaircraft gun became a merry-go-round. Part of a truck was cut and welded to become a slide. The gun mounts from old antiaircraft guns now mount seesaws.
There are, of course, still problems in Baardheere. About a dozen people still die each day here, mostly from diseases related to poor sanitary conditions and the bad water supply from the Juba River. Malaria is rife, measles still kill small children, tuberculosis is rampant. There are still malnourished Somalis at the feeding center. But compared to the nightmarish city of death Baardheere had become last fall, the difference now is stark.
The 325 Baardheere-based Marines say that if there is any consolation to their extended stay here, it is that the town is far friendlier - and safer - than Mogadishu. That first wave of Marines last December rotated out to Mogadishu for one month, endured nightly sniper fire and rock-throwing children and were then sent back here for a second tour.
But while the Marines are waiting for a new force to arrive and replace them, the people of Baardheere express anxiety about the prospect that the Americans might soon, one day, be going home. "The U.S. must stay," said town elder Bishar Adan Ahmed. "We don't want anyone else. We understand each other now. We don't want somebody else who just arrives. It's hard for us to understand why they are leaving."
....................................................................................................
The 325 U.S. Marines left at this scorched and dusty crossroads in a desolate corner of western Somalia have coined a sad motto summing up their desire to go home: "The Forgotten, the Few - the Baardheerans."
Most of the time, Baardheere is engulfed by a powdery fine reddish- gray sand that fills nostrils, stains clothes and wreaks havoc on truck engines and weapons parts. When it rains, the town becomes submerged in a three-foot-deep river of brown mud. Said Master Gunnery Sgt. Ross Cochron of El Paso, as he was surveying the barren landscape around the dirt and gravel airstrip here, "We figured the good Lord took one day off and let his disciples build this place."
Elsewhere around the "famine belt" of southern Somalia, the U.S. Marines and Army soldiers who moved into its desolate towns last December have pulled back to Mogadishu, the Somali capital, and at least half of the initial intervention force has already gone home. Security for Somalia's towns has been turned over to various other nations of the American-led coalition - the Australians in Baidoa, the Canadians in Beledweyne, the French in Oddur.
Baardheere, however, remains the last U.S. military outpost outside the capital, and American military officials in Mogadishu concede that they have had trouble finding another country willing to send troops to this forgotten town. Indians were once rumored to be coming. Now Pakistanis are said to be considering taking over here. But the Marines in Baardheere - who first arrived here on Christmas Eve to a dramatic welcome from a famished and war-weary population - continue to wait. And wait.
Their feelings of homesickness have been intensified because the Marines - many of whom arrived here with the first intervention wave and are now on their second posting in Baardheere - believe they accomplished their mission long ago.
Indeed, to a returning visitor who saw Baardheere last fall - during the most desperate days of Somalia's famine and death - the town is a vastly different place today and stands as one of this devastated country's most dramatic success stories.
"The job was done, and it was done well," said Lance Cpl. Reuben Herrera of Yoakum, Tex. In the words of Cpl. Scott Tessier of Manchester, N.H., the Marines' mission here was "to kick {butt}, feed some people - and go home."
To make life more bearable for the remaining U.S. forces - and to prepare for the expected rainy season this month - Army engineers spent three weeks constructing a new camp of plywood and hard-back tents, with permanent buildings three feet high on stilts in the style of Southeast Asian huts. The huts are connected by an intricate network of plywood planks. For recreation, there is now a baseball diamond and courts for basketball and volleyball. The Marines have named their space Camp Higgins, in honor of William R. Higgins, the Marine lieutenant colonel serving on a U.N. observer mission in southern Lebanon who was kidnapped in 1988 and slain by terrorists the next year.
Marine officers here say that in building Camp Higgins, they were reminded of the line in the Kevin Costner movie "Field of Dreams," about a farmer who builds a baseball diamond in his cornfield and attracts early legends of the sport - "If you build it, they will come." The Marines of Baardheere were hoping that their well- constructed camp might entice another country to send its soldiers here to replace them. "We figured if we built this camp, they would come - but they didn't," Cochron said.
Last August and September, Baardheere had one of the highest daily death tolls in Somalia. More than 300 people were dying each day from starvation or malnutrition-related diseases. By October, Baardheere had run out of shrouds for the dead, and survivors were using empty sacks of donated rice to wrap bodies. Gravediggers worked from dawn until dusk under the hot sun, burying bodies in shallow graves alongside the Juba River, where the ground was less parched.
Baardheere also was the scene of fighting between two of Somalia's premier warlords, Mohamed Farah Aideed and Mohamed Said Hersi Morgan. Aideed briefly held the town and made it his regional headquarters, entertaining visiting journalists and inviting them to lunch while, all around, townspeople were starving to death. Then Morgan's forces moved in from across the Kenyan border, routed Aideed's troops and reclaimed Baardheere. Throughout this back-and-forth power play, Baardheere's death rate rose.
As throughout Somalia in the months before the U.S. intervention, no matter which warlord controlled Baardheere, the powerless became the forgotten victims. In the feeding center here, well-fed young thugs with machine guns slung over their shoulders often were seen beating starving people, the elderly and small children with branches and sticks.
All of that changed, however, after the Marines arrived. They found a town that had been starved to death. "The city of Baardheere was in sad shape," said Lt. Col. Mike Sullivan of San Diego, commander of the Marine detachment here. "The city itself was empty of people. There were no children - they were sick, they were dying." The Marines discovered an orphanage filled with hundreds of emaciated children, most of whom had lost all of their family members to starvation or war.
That was when Sullivan launched what he calls his "hearts and minds" campaign. After declaring the town a "weapons-free zone," Sullivan and his Marines began a widespread civic campaign in the town's hospital and the orphanages. Calling in Army engineers, they built plywood schoolhouses and asked their wives and family members back in the United States to send crayons, chalk and other needed school supplies.
In a kind of modern-day example of turning swords into plowshares, the Marines took materials from confiscated weapons and used them to build a playground. The rotating turret from an antiaircraft gun became a merry-go-round. Part of a truck was cut and welded to become a slide. The gun mounts from old antiaircraft guns now mount seesaws.
There are, of course, still problems in Baardheere. About a dozen people still die each day here, mostly from diseases related to poor sanitary conditions and the bad water supply from the Juba River. Malaria is rife, measles still kill small children, tuberculosis is rampant. There are still malnourished Somalis at the feeding center. But compared to the nightmarish city of death Baardheere had become last fall, the difference now is stark.
The 325 Baardheere-based Marines say that if there is any consolation to their extended stay here, it is that the town is far friendlier - and safer - than Mogadishu. That first wave of Marines last December rotated out to Mogadishu for one month, endured nightly sniper fire and rock-throwing children and were then sent back here for a second tour.
But while the Marines are waiting for a new force to arrive and replace them, the people of Baardheere express anxiety about the prospect that the Americans might soon, one day, be going home. "The U.S. must stay," said town elder Bishar Adan Ahmed. "We don't want anyone else. We understand each other now. We don't want somebody else who just arrives. It's hard for us to understand why they are leaving."
sad story there.