Essay On Operation Restoration Hope

The use of Irregular Warfare has been ongoing for years around the world. Irregular warfare is described as a violent struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant populations. I will discuss where the U.S. may apply military force in conjunction with other means of national power to stabilize the nation of Somalia. I will also discuss why it would be considered as an Irregular Warfare environment.

In the 1980’s and 1990’s violence in Somalia was getting worse as the days went by. This violence allowed warlords from the regions of Somalia and, in turn, go to war with one another. Images of the war showing starving children called for a response from the United States. The United States government sent supplies of food to the needy. However, these warlords got to the food trucks first. This resulted in President George H.W. Bush sending in troops to make sure that the supply lines could reach these desperate people in need of our help. As violence arose in Somalia United States citizens began to question whether or not it was our place to be there.

Then, United Somalia Congress divide into multiple clans which escalate the turmoil through inter-clan warfare. Such warfare destroyed the economy, and left hundreds of thousands of Somalians to perish of starvation.

The deployment of United States Special Forces to Somalia to apprehend General Aidid was in the interest of the United States, if Nuechterlein's outline of national security interest was anything to go by. Somali had gone through difficult times and there was need to restore normalcy in this Horn of Africa's state. Restoring normalcy would have ensured that stability returned. Moreover, this would have ensured that the instability that had been realized here never spilled over into other Eastern Africa states. Had the United States Special Forces succeeded in apprehending General Aidid, a democratically elected government would have been instituted. This government would have prioritized democratic governance principles that conform to United States Army War College's "Favorable World Order category" (Nuechterlein, 1985). Yes, it was difficult to establish Jeffersonian democracy in Somalia bearing in mind that Somalia was a tribal nation; however, it was something worth giving a short. This could only be made possible by chopping off the head of Aidid's organization and ultimately taking Aidid out of the streets. Under the leadership of Aidid, the United Nations lost at least 24 soldiers of Pakistani origin many of whom were skinned (Bowden, 1997).

Affirmation of Somaliland is crucial because the encouragement of African action should not become the basis for inaction on the part of the United States. Jendayi Frazer, in her report on “Somaliland: Time for African Union Leadership,” states that the United States would recognize Somaliland if the others acted first. But Somaliland deserves recognition from a purely U.S.-centric national security perspective. The United States has always stood to protect the values that it was founded upon. Somaliland, in its entirety fits this impression. The Somaliland government and population embody a moderate voice in the Muslim world that rejects radical interpretations of Islam, including that espoused by the Council of Somali Islamic Courts currently in control. It would serve as a bulwark against the further expansion of radical ideologies in the Horn of Africa by offering a brilliant case of how

With the absence of Mohamed Siad Barre, the country had no proper government to run it. Faction groups started forming in Somalia to take control. In 1992, there was killing and starvation in the south of Somalia (Global Security 1). The U.N. sends peacekeeping operations into Somalia. In addition, the United States started sending troops into Somalia. In 1994, there was too much casualties in Somalia, so the U.S. soldiers withdrew from Somalia with the problems still unsolved (Phil Stewart 1). Fishermen started taking advantage of the bad condition Somalia is in and started raiding different fishing ports. The Somalians started to fight back. The Somalians began to raid and became pirates. Some observers say that the Somalians pirates are usually poor folks trying to get their fortune back (Ishaan Tharoor

“I don 't recognize my people anymore. I feel Somalia is lost. There is no Somalia. It is just a name (Abdi, 2016)”. Over the past 20 years Somalia as a country has been in turmoil and constant fighting. Today’s Somalia is still a harsh environment and the people are unforgiving as they too are trying to survive this oasis of violence. Considering Somalia in the news now we see after years of fighting and trying to support this country with food, water, and security it has progressed but not quickly. It has been a battle for any support to the country essentially taking two steps forward and one step back.

A task force of over 400 American special operations Soldiers flew into Somalia with orders to apprehend a warlord. Their mission was part of an international peacekeeping and humanitarian effort to stabilize the areas’ estimated 4.5 million starving population. The seventh attempt by these Soldiers, to capture this warlord, named Muhammed Farah Aydid, is the subject of this paper and known as the Battle of Mogadishu, occurring on October 3 - 4, 1993 (Encyclopedia Britannica, “Somalia Intervention”). The process of time, leadership resolution, and the changing battlefield have produced relevant and elaborative primary and secondary sources on this event. This paper examines a number of those sources, which include actors who were

In 1994, one of the most brutal genocides of all time took place in the small country of Rwanda. Over the span of approximately 100 days, 800,000 Rwandans were killed—an average of 8,000 people per day— with Tutsis being the primary target. The staggering numbers called for international intervention, yet the action taken across the world was slim. Samantha Power’s “Bystanders to Genocide” reveals that the U.S.’s handling of the Rwandan genocide under the Clinton Administration was both minimalistic and ineffective. She discusses how the U.S. made full effort to pull out all Americans and then pulled back completely on aid, put their own interests above the needs of the Rwandans, and used the history of a similar situation in Somalia to validate their reluctance to take action. Power’s article presents a strong case for why the action, or lack of action, taken by the U.S. was a poor handling of the situation, but leaves the reader with little understanding of why these decisions were made. By examining the U.S.’s decisions in relation to the ideas that Dalai Lama discusses in “Beyond Religion”, the question of why can be answered. Through this lens one can see that the true reason behind their decisions is a lack of “genuine compassion”. This lacking becomes the basis of their decisions, and becomes a rational for standing by during the murder of 800,000 people.

By November of 1992, conditions were getting worse instead of better. Food was still being stolen and sold off to clan leaders while aid workers were threatened and attacked. Americans were stunned at the lawlessness and starvation. Thousands of troops were ordered into Somalia to assist in the aid by President George H. Bush. Now food was getting to the people that it was intended for but distrust for the American soldiers was growing after they often violated Somalis privacy by bursting into their homes and confiscating the weapons that was the Somalis only defense against the opposing clans.6 In March of 1993 the U.S. withdrew most of its troops leaving the security of the people to the UN. By this time anger was growing towards the outsiders and the UN took most of the fallout for that by being attacked regularly. Hostility grew even more when the UN announced that the clan led by Aidid was the one responsible for the lawlessness in Somalia.7 When the UN took sides against the most powerful warlord in Somalia, the attacks against the aid workers was stepped up. 24 Pakistani peace keepers were killed

The first major point left out by Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down is the initial conditions that lead to the state of civil war, anarchy, and famine that existed in 1992-1993. The first scene of the movie shows many Somalis that are dead or dying from starvation. The audience is told only that “Years of warfare among rival clans causes famine on a biblical scale” and that one of the most powerful warlords, Mohamed Farrah Aidid, is a brutal dictator who is willing to starve his own people. The famine causes the death of 300,000 Somalis, which is enough to prompt a response by the US and UN to restore order to Somalia and to save the population from starvation. The audience is then told that after the withdrawal of the US Marines “Aidid’s militia

During his time as president, Mohammed Barre attempted to regain Somali territory from their neighbouring country, Ethiopia, but eventually the fight was lost. The citizens of Somali started to build up a resistance against Barre’s harsh regime and in 1991 government were overthrown again.

In August of 1992, President George Bush Sr. sent US soldiers into Somalia to provide humanitarian relief to those Somalis suffering from starvation. The major problems in Somalia started when President Mohammed Siad Barre was overthrown by a coalition of opposing clans. Although there were several opposing groups, the prominent one was led by Mohammed Farah Aidid. Following the overthrow of Barre, a massive power struggle ensued. These small scale civil wars led to the destruction of the agriculture in Somalia, which in turn led to the deprivation of food in large parts of the country. When the international community heard of this, large quantities of food were sent to ease Somali suffering. However, clan leaders like Aidid routinely

Since 1991the Civil War began, and during the 90s the United States and the United Nation made several efforts to bring peace to the region which failed. In 1998 the northern punt land region declares autonomy. In the 2000s in Somalia the unrest would continue; from several attempts to have a stable government and bring peace to the region. Ethiopian troops also made an effort to bring peace to the region, but eventually also gave up and left Somalia as well. The country also has problems with pirates, and the terrorist group Al-Shabab who has control over part of the country. It was not until 2012 when Somalis elected their first president and parliament but even then this new government its still dependent on outsiders to stabilized and offer

It was twenty five years ago when troops were stationed in Somalia to achieve America's humanitarian goal of liberating the Somali people from the grasps of the country's cruel warlords. What America's very best task force rangers would soon learn was that by forcing our rule on the Somalia's without truly knowing it’s people or the full extent of the situation; we created not just a war on radical clans but a war on the whole country itself. We had thrown our soldiers into a fire full of anti-American sentiment that was ready to burn them