In 1991, a Civil War started in Somalia with a power struggle between two warring clan lords. This power struggle quickly spiraled out of control, and by the next year, an estimated 350,000 Somalis died of disease, starvation, or civil war. In reaction to horrifying images of famine and war shown on American news networks, U.S. President George H.W. Bush ordered emergency airlifts of food and supplies to Somalia. When the corrupt war lords began stealing those emergency food supplies, the United Nations Security Council got into the game by approving a military mission, named Operation Restore Hope. This military intervention was led by the United States, and its goal was to try to help the starving country by protecting food shipments.
Famed English writer, Samuel Johnson once wrote: “The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions,” and this old adage proved itself in the Battle of Mogadishu, better known as Black Hawk Down. On October 3, 1993, US forces entered Mogadishu in what was intended to be an hour-long raid. In a heated battle, Somali forces shot down three American Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters with two crashing deep in hostile territory. A desperate defense of the two downed helicopters began, and fighting lasted through the night to defend the survivors. Total U.S. casualties included 18 dead American soldiers and 73 wounded,. In the aftermath of the battle, dead American soldiers were dragged through the streets of Mogadishu by enraged Somalis, an act which was broadcast on American television networks. According to Wikipedia, “the battle shifted American foreign policy and it eventually led to the pullout of the U.N. mission in 1995.”
This pullback of American forces in the region did not last long. By 2006, a radical Islamic group, al-Shabab, had risen enough to power that it threatened security in the region. In reaction, the U.S. increasingly sought to defeat the militant group through air strikes, special forces operations and in the training local forces. According to a May 2022 report in zerohedge.com, “in recent years the Pentagon has established dozens or even perhaps hundreds of small forward operating bases across the African continent, as part of broadly defined 'counterterror' support given to allied host nations.”
In December 2020, in one of his last important decisions, President Trump pushed back against this military intervention and ordered the withdrawal of most of the 700 troops engaged in counterterror operations in Somalia. Then in May 2022, President Biden reversed course. According to The Hill, a senior administration official said that "President Biden has approved a request from the Secretary of Defense to reestablish a persistent U.S. military presence in Somalia to enable a more effective fight against al-Shabaab, which has increased in strength and poses a heightened threat… This is a repositioning of forces already in theater who have travelled in and out of Somalia on an episodic basis since the previous administration made the decision to withdraw in January 2021." The New York Times has also confirmed that "Biden secretly signed an order in early May authorizing the military to redeploy hundreds of Special Forces into Somalia to target about a dozen Al Shabab leaders."
Do we really want or need a “persistent U.S. military presence in Somalia”? On April 28 Congress gave its answer. Republican Representative Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida proposed legislation that would require President Biden to withdraw most U.S. troops from Somalia within a year. Speaking from the House floor, Representative Gaetz questioned whether 900 U.S. troops could save a country of 17 million from a hardened group of 7,000, and he stated that “The future of Somalia must be determined by Somalia.” Opponents of the legislation said it would hurt national security by making it harder to fight al-Shabaab, designated as a terrorist group by the United States over a decade ago. They argued that U.S. presence in countries like Somalia protects global security and makes Americans safer. Other opponents argued that American military presence prevented a vacuum in which Russia and China could quickly step in to fill. The vote wasn’t even close. In a rare spirit of bipartisanship, Mr. Gaetz’s proposal was decisively defeated by a vote of 321 opposed and 102 in favor. We also note that in the month previously Mr. Gaetz also forced a House vote to withdraw American forces from Syria. That legislation was also decisively defeated.
By those votes, it seems obvious that the majority of Republican and Democrat legislative leaders, along with our President, are comfortable with sending our young men and women to dangerous places all over the world. Assuming the two current leading candidates face off again in the 2024 Presidential election, the American people will have their say on this issue. The policy difference between Trump and Biden seems pretty clear cut. While both Presidents had the same goal of withdrawing from Afghanistan, they have differed on the question of our continued military presence in Somalia and Syria. President Trump acted to reduce our presence in Syria and withdrew our soldiers from Somalia; in contrast, President Biden increased our troop presence in Syria and reintroduced troops into Somalia.
Our view is that the United States can no longer afford to solely take on the role of “protecting global security.” Our federal debt is too large already, and it continues to grow exponentially. I believe that our military is spread too wide, and that our armed forces should not be sent anywhere, unless it is to protect vital American interests. I don’t believe that an amorphous standard of fighting terror is good enough anymore to justify increased military intervention by the United States. While we’ve certainly had good intentions – promoting, peace stability and democracy - in sending our young men and women to places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Lybia; unfortunately, it has led to hellish conditions, if not to hell itself, in those poor countries.
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