This week, American forces were involved in a military offensive targeting members of Al-Qaida in parts of Somalia. It appears that the Al-Qaida chief in Somalia, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, may have been killed in the abrupt attacks. If he was killed, this would end a hunt for a long-sought after Al-Qaida suspect who is thought to have planned the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 225 people.

Most everyone can agree that this man's death is probably the best outcome for Americans, Somalis and everyone else who was threatened by his presence. However, this man had no trial, no conviction, and no opportunity to explain the history of his activities. The information that was killed along with this man may have been extremely valuable in understanding and tackling the activities of Al-Qaida.

The fact that his killing was also done with apparent unilateral American action is disconcerting. America's war on terror has shown itself to be one without any real respect for the borders of sovereign nations. There is no disagreement about the issue of stopping Al-Qaida's activities, but for U.S. forces to quickly pop in and take care of it when a situation presents itself is not a viable long-term foreign policy option.

The apparent secrecy surrounding the issue is also deeply troubling and inexplicable to newsreaders that want the whole story. Much of the information concerning the military activities has come from Somali officials who are working with U.S. forces and getting information from Americans on the events happening in their country.

Knowledgeable officials in the U.S. government, however, are willing to speak only under the condition of anonymity. Why do U.S. officials find it taboo to discuss a military intervention our country is conducting? Whether or not this military intervention was the right move to make, the right thing to do is to come clean and openly inform the American people of military incursions being conducted in our country's name, in the Middle East of all places.

America has been to war-torn, refugee-rife, governmentally collapsed Somalia before, and we failed miserably the first time. If this is the beginning of yet another unilateral American intervention in the Middle East, hindsight and history say it probably won't go well.