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Title

Somalia Accused

Description

The <a href="http://www.newsday.com">New York Newsday</a> reported a <a href="http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-ussold212632485mar21.story?coll=ny%2Dnationalnews%2Dheadlines" title="Stunning Turn of Events - Pentagon quickly retracts claim of Somalia-al-Qaida link">Stunning Turn of Events...</a> recently. In a somewhat transparent attempt to provide some continuity from the attack on Afghanistan to a continued war in Somalia, the Pentagon announced recently that a GPS from a soldier killed in Somalia (and whose name Black Hawk Down has entered into the public consciousness) has been found in Afghanistan. Whereas this should be more than is needed to satisfy an unquestioning public, an Army reporter noted immediately that the device was first manufactured in 1997, whereas the officer in question, Master Sgt. Gary Gordon, died in 1993. However, when he tried to mention this: <bq>They told me I was wrong, they were 95 percent sure it belonged to Gary Gordon," Army Times managing editor Robert Hodierne said. "They trusted their elite intelligence-oriented fighting unit.</bq> A quick call to the manufacturer, <a href="http://www.garmin.com/">Garmin International</a>, got this reply: <bq>The first thing I said before he gave me the serial number was, it can't be [Gordon's] because the product wasn't manufactured until late '97, early '98," Garmin spokesman Pete Brumbaugh said.</bq> Despite this research, later that day: <bq>Hodierne was stunned to hear Air Force Brig. Gen. John Rosa surmise at yesterday's daily Pentagon briefing that the GPS unit's apparent use by Gordon "could obviously tie al-Qaida to Somalia."</bq> Because of the rather obvious temporal difficulty, the Pentagon was later forced to retract the statement. However, this is akin to asking a jury to "ignore that outburst" in a criminal trial. The facts won't be remembered, just the connection between the two countries will remain. People will say "Somalia is tied to Afghanistan somehow, I remember reading something like that."