Tag: Somalia

Are We Still In Somalia?

I got to thinking after I read a news story about the latest attack by the US in Somalia….and it made me ask the question in the title.

US Africa Command announced that it launched an airstrike in Somalia on March 10 in support of the Mogadishu-based government, marking the second time the US bombed the country this month.

AFRICOM said the strike hit a target in the vicinity of Ugunji, a village about 44 miles southwest of Mogadishu.

The command claimed its “initial assessment” found three al-Shabaab fighters were killed and no civilians were harmed, but AFRICOM is notorious for undercounting civilian casualties, and US military operations in Somalia are shrouded in secrecy.

The last strike AFRICOM reported in Somalia took place on March 2, and the command claimed it killed two al-Shabaab members. It’s unclear if AFRICOM reports all US airstrikes in Somalia, as the CIA could also be carrying out covert drone strikes.

(antiwar.com)

After reading the news I thought back to something I read a couple of days ago about our fixation on Somalia….

The Pentagon has known of fundamental flaws with U.S. military operations in the Horn of Africa for nearly 20 years but has nonetheless forged ahead, failing to address glaring problems, according to a 2007 study obtained exclusively by The Intercept.

“There is no useful, shared conception of the conflict,” says the Pentagon study, which was obtained via the Freedom of Information Act and has not previously been made public. “The instruments of national power are not balanced, which results in excessive reliance on the military instrument. There is imbalance within the military instrument as well.”

The 50-page analysis, conducted by the Institute for Defense Analyses, a private think tank that works solely for the U.S. government, is based on anonymized interviews with key U.S. government officials from across various departments and agencies. It found America’s nascent war in the Horn of Africa was plagued by a failure to define the parameters of the conflict or its aims; an overemphasis on military measures without a clear definition of the optimal military strategy; and barriers to coordination between the military and other government agencies like the State Department and local allies like the Somali government.

Who Could Have Predicted the U.S. War in Somalia Would Fail? The Pentagon.

The US military hypes the threat of al-Shabaab due to its size and al-Qaeda affiliation, but it’s widely believed the group does not have ambitions outside of Somalia.

If so then why waste the ordinance?

Speaking of AFRICOM….their record is not something to be proud of in any way.

Africa–“We Are Here To Help”

Please stop wasting money and time on things that are not that important.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Still Bringing The Troops Home

Trump trying to gain favor for the election he just lost he has gone on a tear to bring the troops home (well at least out of the danger zones) Afghanistan, Iraq, Korea and even from Germany…..and keeping with the fad he stared he has ordered US troops out of Somalia…

The Pentagon announced on Friday that President Trump ordered the withdrawal of the “majority” of US troops from Somalia.

“The President of the United States has ordered the Department of Defense and the United States Africa Command to reposition the majority of personnel and assets out of Somalia by early 2021,” the Pentagon said in a statement.

The statement said “some forces may be reassigned outside of East Africa,” but the remaining troops will be reassigned to neighboring countries to “allow cross-border operations.”

The US currently has approximately 700 troops in Somalia. The majority of them were sent by the Trump administration. The US operations in the country consist of training local forces, covert raids, and a drone war against al-Shabab.

(antiwar.com)

Not to worry….the troops will just be moved and home is not on the agenda….

The New York Times reported on the plan and said the troops would be repositioned to neighboring Djibouti and Kenya, where the US drones that carry out airstrikes in Somalia are based.

President Trump dramatically escalated the air war against al-Shabab by loosening the rules of engagement when he first came into office. In 2019, the Trump administration conducted 63 airstrikes in Somalia, the most US airstrikes on the country in a single year.

Out of Somalia but not out of harm’s way…..

Next I would like to hear the Biden plan for Somalia and the US troops under his command.

Since Biden has always been on the wrong side of war I suspect that he will leave Somalia pretty much as it is today.

Any thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

More Good News From Trump?

Yes I know I have been a critic of Trump since he took office….but I have also stated that I approve of his attempts to end our endless wars……and now he has made another statement that I can support….( I shall qualify that shortly)…..

He is attempting to bring home the troops from Afghanistan and Iraq….and moving some out of Germany…..

Pres. Trump wants to bring our troops home from Somalia…..Somalia?  Think Blackhawk Down…..

Bloomberg published a story on Wednesday that cited anonymous sources who said President Trump is looking to withdraw hundreds of US troops from Somalia, a war the administration has significantly escalated since 2017.

The sources said the Pentagon has begun drafting plans for the president, and discussions have involved Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien, and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley.

According to the Congressional Research Service, the US currently has 700 troops in Somalia. Mostly special forces who train Somalia’s army. Most of these troops were sent to the African country by President Trump, according to the Bloomberg story.

The US is engaged in Somalia as part of its war against the militant group al-Shabab. In 2017, President Trump loosened the rules of engagement for the drone war and his administration has dropped a record number of bombs on Somalia.

In 2019, the US conducted 63 airstrikes in Somalia, the most in a single year. The first seven months of 2020 saw more US airstrikes in Somalia than were conducted during both the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, combined.

The war in Somalia is extremely underreported, and it is tough to know how damaging it has been to the civilians on the ground. US Africa Command usually claims its airstrikes only kill militants and only occasionally have to admit to civilian deaths if there is enough outcry.

(antiwar.com)

Now is this just election posturing or is he serious?

He has made promises before an election that he has not carried forward once he was placed in the seat of power for the United States.

So I ask again….can we trust him to do what he says?

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Here We Go Again!

The US has started many useless wars and our Dear Supreme Leader Trump has just decided we have not had enough war…so why not just start another drawn out affair?

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: The U.S. is committing itself to a long-term stabilization mission in a chronically unstable country. The mission involves training and equipping the local government forces to fight against jihadi insurgents and won’t end until those local forces are capable of fighting on their own. Unfortunately, recruitment is low and the training is slow going, in part because the local U.S.-backed government is weak and commands little public support. Under the pretext of fighting international terrorism, the U.S. is taking on a group that poses little direct threat to the United States, is being drawn into local conflicts unrelated to its ostensible mission, and risks creating more radicalization through civilian casualties.

It could be Iraq or Afghanistan (or substitute communist for jihadi and it could be any number of Cold War proxy conflicts), but in this case it’s Somalia.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/04/trump-somalia-executive-order-military-national-emergency.html

We have Iraq, Syria, Yemen and now an extension of our commitment to Somalia……of goody….HERE WE GO AGAIN!

When will the American people hit their saturation point for war?  We keep allowing these “leaders” (I use the term loosely) to send our citizens into wars that serve no purpose other than making profits for some and death for others…..

Why is this?

The Return To Somalia

Recently the East African nation of Somalia has been in the news more so than in the years since “Black Hawk Down” incident…first the US is re-opening the embassy in Somalia…..

Image result for Somalia images

In a sign of how much the security situation in Somalia’s capital has improved, the US has established a permanent diplomatic presence there for the first time in almost 28 years. In a sign of how dangerous Mogadishu remains, many staffers will remain at the US diplomatic mission to Somalia based in Nairobi, Kenya. The State Department said the permanent diplomatic mission was opened in a small ceremony Sunday. “This historic event reflects Somalia’s progress in recent years,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement, per the BBC. The department still lists Somalia as “Level 4: Do Not Travel,” and it’s not clear whether Ambassador Donald Yamamoto will be moving to Mogadishu from Nairobi.

The US closed and evacuated its embassy in Mogadishu at the start of 1991 as Somalia’s civil war intensified and the government collapsed. Officials have not disclosed how many diplomatic personnel will be moving to Mogadishu, where the US already had a facility for visiting staffers from Nairobi inside the heavily guarded airport security zone, ABC News reports. The announcement of the restoration of the permanent diplomatic presence comes 26 years to the day after George HW Bush announced that 20,000 American troops would be sent to the country to “save thousands of innocents from death.” They were withdrawn after 18 service members were killed in the 1993 “Black Hawk Down” incident.

Is this for some diplomatic mission?  I cannot see it since diplomacy is not a priority for the Trump admin…..could it be because our military has an expanding role in the country?

Since taking office, the Trump Administration has dramatically increased lethal strikes in Somalia. U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) has carried out more than 30 strikes in each of 2017 and 2018, more than twice the previous highest total during the Obama presidency. As part of a recent series of strikes in Somalia, on Nov. 20, the U.S. military conducted a “planned and deliberate” airstrike that the U.S. military claimed killed as many as 27 members of al-Shabaab.

AFRICOM said, as it has in numerous cases, that the operation did not kill or injure any civilians. Such claims require greater scrutiny in the wake of repeated allegations of civilian casualties in Somalia by U.S. and U.S.-backed Somali forces in the past two years. The impact on the ground in Somalia also raises serious questions about the effectiveness of this approach and whether the United States would be better served by exploring alternatives.

https://www.justsecurity.org/61708/u-s-lethal-operations-somalia-rise-effective/

The Somali military has an expanding role in conjunction with the US in the battle with the terrorist group called…..al Shabab…..

A large military operation against al-Shabaab is underway in southern Somalia’s Lower Shabelle region, with locals from a farming village reporting that they’ve heard gunfire and explosions overnight.

Somali officials reported a joint operation involving their own commandos and US ground troops attacking a pair of highway checkpoints under the control of al-Shabaab, and which the group has been using to charge tolls to passing commercial vehicles.

There was more fighting clearly than just the two checkpoints. Locals reported that the whole area has been “sealed off,” including the farming village. The US also reportedly carried out two airstrikes against the area, reportedly destroying a minibus that Somali officials believe was full of explosives.

(antiwar.com)

Another region for another American war of intervention and another source of profit for the M-IC…..the real reason for American adventurism…..the smell of cash has started a many of a war…..

Black Hawk Down

24 years ago this month …….

A name that will live in infamy (to use a phrase from the past)….the year is 1994 and the US military was sent into Mogadishu, Somalia on an UN peace keeping mission…..the US decided the way to go about their task was to put away a local warlord, Mohamed Aidid…..taking on this task was mission drift and it went horribly wrong.

The year is 2001 and Hollywood issues a film adaptation to the book “Black Hawk Down”……the movie was a success but then most movies about war are a success…..the actual “war” may not be a success but the movie will be.

During this engagement the US lost 19 soldiers and 73 wounded….but like most of the “war stories” there will be more to the story than the movie will tell……

The 2001 blockbuster war film Black Hawk Down depicted a battle largely forgotten upon the movie’s release. Being released in the wake of 9/11 also gave it an extra dose of significance it might not have held otherwise. The battle occupies a special place in American military history, a legendary status among other post-Cold War military engagements that struggle to gain recognition in the public eye.

The price paid for recognition, however, is that the story becomes a legend that takes on a life of its own. It goes on an unscripted journey, ending up in a place well-removed from where it began. Consequently, the public often appreciates the wrong story or only a part of it. 25 years after the Battle of Mogadishu and 17 years after the film’s release, what the public believes it knows about Black Hawk Down, if not entirely inaccurate, isn’t the whole story.

Dramatic retellings are, of course, entitled to take creative license with a true story. This piece doesn’t contest such alterations. Nor are any of these facts “untold” – they are widely available in various books on the battle. Instead, this piece aims to correct some widely-held assumptions about the battle and reveal some lesser-known facts that have the potential to alter public perception of the Battle of Mogadishu.

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2018/10/03/what_you_may_not_know_about_black_hawk_down_113860.html

This was in our recent history…..keep in mind that NO war is as heroic or as romantic as the movie would have us believe.

Turn The Page!

Should US Troops Take Control Of The Mission?

A loyal reader of IST writes a good blog about East Africa, https://africommons.com/ …..recent he wrote he wrote a post that ask a question.

Since I write a lot about war and other conflicts I thought I would put his post on here and see if there were any answers from my readers…..

This is in the nature of a “thought experiment” rather than an actual suggestion at this point, but here goes rough sketch of the basic points:

1) We all recognize–whether we are willing to publicly admit it–that Somalia is in a “permanent” war state although progress has been made from the lowest ebbs over the years. Somalia is like Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen in the sense that it is a place in which perpetual fighting appears indefinitely sustainable pending some major change.

https://africommons.com/2018/09/24/should-the-united-states-offer-to-replace-ugandan-and-burundian-troops-in-amisom/

My response was that the US was slowly doing just that……we keep adding troops to the fight against the insurgents in Somalia.  But my personal feeling is that we should NOT expand any further…..for we are fighting a “War” on a tactic….a war that cannot be won.

We have too many feet in a fire……we could use the money here in this coungtry.

Please let my friend know you opinion on his question.

Thanx for helping out……chuq

Another American Death

I regret that I must write this post……we have enough US dead on the international battlefield…..over the weekend another special ops trooper has been killed and 4 others wounded….this time in Somalia…..

There are more than 7,300 US Special Operations forces soldiers operating around the world, reports the New York Times, and one lost his life in Africa on Friday. The BBC reports the incident in southwest Somalia was believed to be an ambush by al-Shabab militants; four other American service members were injured. The Times calls the death the “first to have been publicized in Africa since an ambush in Niger in October.” The American forces were serving near Jamaame alongside Somali troops and supported by armed surveillance aircraft.

The BBC reports President Trump has broadened the involvement of US military in Somalia, but the Times notes the US is thought to be moving toward a reeling in of counterterrorism forces in Africa as part of a Pentagon reshuffling that would put the emphasis on Russia, China, and other larger world powers. While al-Shabab was pushed out of the capital city of Mogadishu nearly 7 years ago, the BBC reports it occupies areas around the city. “The mission’s objectives were to clear al-Shabab from contested areas,” United States Africa Command said in a statement following the attack.

I regret that I must do these posts…..it is time for the troops to come home….they have proven all they need to….let them return to their families and get some much deserved rest.

Our condolences go out the the family of this special ops trooper…..

Closing Thought –30Nov17

Say It Ain’t So!

In these days of some many conflicts some things are usually going to go wrong…..and this may well have been one of those times…..

Possible US Special ops and a massacre of local Somalis…..

MOGADISHU, Somalia—It was around five in the morning when Abdullahi Elmi heard the gunfire. Sitting in his small home in Bariire, in southern Somalia, the farm administrator had been recording the names of the laborers who had worked the day before. Stacks of accounting books sprawled on the floor around him. Across the room, his wife sat with their 3-year-old son who dozed as his mother rocked him back and forth in her arms.

When the sound of gunshots began, Abdullahi thought they were too far away to be heading toward his farm. But within seconds they seemed to grow louder, and closer, sending Abdullahi and his wife, carrying their young son, sprinting through the nearby forest of banana trees in search of safety.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/strong-evidence-that-us-special-operations-forces-massacred-civilians-in-somalia

I do hope that this is just a misreporting of something that happened and that US forces are not involved…..

My day is rough and it is done….be back tomorrow….my friends….chuq

OMG! It’s Somalia (Again)

I am sure that every American is aware of the tragedy in Somalia if for no other reason than they have watched the movie, “Blackhawk Down”.

There seems to be a slow trickle of US troops back into the country of Somalia to fight terror…I recently gave my thoughts on this…….

Source: Somalia–Take A Right At Ethiopia – In Saner Thought

The Trump plan is to return special ops operatives into the country to fight the growing ISIS presence in East Africa…..the first encounter for our troops did not end so well….

The death of Navy SEAL Kyle Milliken and the wounding of two more U.S. troops in Somalia this month marked the first deadly engagement for American forces in the country since the Battle of Mogadishu of October 1993. The two events differ in notable respects, not least in their magnitude—the battle of October 3-4, 1993, resulted in 18 Americans killed and 79 wounded. But both operations reflect the adverse conditions that U.S. special-operations forces, and the United States more broadly, face in the world’s most dysfunctional states.

Back in the summer of 1993, warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid bedeviled an international coalition that was trying to restore order and build democracy in the midst of a vicious civil war in Somalia. A ruthless clan leader known for firing artillery into civilian neighborhoods and starving opposing clans into submission, Aidid had made himself the chief obstacle to the nation-building project. The Clinton administration had removed a large U.S. Marine force months earlier and transferred authority over the remaining international troops to the United Nations. Madeleine Albright, Clinton’s UN ambassador, declared at the time, “[W]e will embark on an unprecedented enterprise aimed at nothing less than the restoration of an entire country as a proud, functioning and viable member of the community of nations.”

Source: How American Special Operators Gradually Returned to Somalia – The Atlantic

There seems to be a push to insert American troops into every corner of the globe all with the intention of armed conflict.

The dangers of this type of foreign policy, if we can call it that, are too numerous to count.  And yet the American people are perfectly fine with this world-wide escalation…..and apparently the deaths that will go with it.

Why?