On this day in 1992, 1,800 United States Marines arrive in Mogadishu, Somalia, to spearhead a multinational force aimed at restoring order in the conflict-ridden country.
Following centuries of colonial rule by countries including Portugal, Britain and Italy, Mogadishu became the capital of an independent Somalia in 1960. Less than 10 years later, a military group led by Major General Muhammad Siad Barre seized power and declared Somalia a socialist state. A drought in the mid-1970s combined with an unsuccessful rebellion by ethnic Somalis in a neighboring province of Ethiopia to deprive many of food and shelter.
By 1981, close to 2 million of the country’s inhabitants were homeless. Though a peace accord was signed with Ethiopia in 1988, fighting increased between rival clans within Somalia, and in January 1991 Barre was forced to flee the capital. Over the next 23 months, Somalia’s civil war killed some 50,000 people; another 300,000 died of starvation as United Nations peacekeeping forces struggled in vain to restore order and provide relief amid the chaos of war.
In early December 1992, outgoing U.S. President George H.W. Bush sent the contingent of Marines to Mogadishu as part of a mission dubbed Operation Restore Hope. Backed by the U.S. troops, international aid workers were soon able to restore food distribution and other humanitarian aid operations.
Sporadic violence continued, including the murder of 24 U.N. soldiers from Pakistan in 1993. As a result, the U.N. authorized the arrest of General Mohammed Farah Aidid, leader of one of the rebel clans. On October 3, 1993, during an attempt to make the arrest, rebels shot down two of the U.S. Army’s Black Hawk helicopters and killed 18 American soldiers.
As horrified TV viewers watched images of the bloodshed—-including footage of Aidid’s supporters dragging the body of one dead soldier through the streets of Mogadishu, cheering—-President Bill Clinton immediately gave the order for all American soldiers to withdraw from Somalia by March 31, 1994. Other Western nations followed suit.
When the last U.N. peacekeepers left in 1995, ending a mission that had cost more than $2 billion, Mogadishu still lacked a functioning government. A ceasefire accord signed in Kenya in 2002 failed to put a stop to the violence, and though a new parliament was convened in 2004, rival factions in various regions of Somalia continue to struggle for control of the troubled nation.
How culturally and racially pure is Somalia?
The entire country of Somalia is not worth one American life. Fuck those skinnies.
Certainly one of the stupidest American interventions in remote hellholes…Though I admit, there’s a lot of competition.
But then the ruling class decided to bring Somalia to the US…
Don’t worry the US has imported enough Somali refugees that they are quickly turning everything they touch into an instant shithole !
No we did not have to do shit on the ground there militarily but like every shithole in conflict in the world some do gooder asshole in DC cannot wait to piss away other people’s money and our young volunteer military people on some fools errand . Wasting blood and treasure for nothing ! Nothing that is unless you are a contractor supplying the needs for these foolish involvements .
Does anyone remember the msm being there on the beach filming the SEALs swimming up and crawling onshore? All the lights and cameras.
America was great, having just killed all those Iraqis on the Highway Of Death.
Pure hollywood satanic.
You reap what you sow.
Don’t go anywhere near large crowds unless you are ready to say…”Let’s do this muthafucka.”
More of the legacy.