...In November 1992, the outgoing Bush administration sent 30,000 U.S. troops, primarily Marines and Army Rangers, to Somalia in what was described as a humanitarian mission to assist in the distribution of relief supplies which were being intercepted by armed militias without reaching the civilian population in need. The United Nations Security Council endorsed the initiative the following month. Many Somalis and some relief organizations were grateful for the American role. Many others expressed skepticism, noting that the famine had actually peaked that summer and the security situation was also improving gradually. At this point, the chaos limiting food shipments was limited to a small area; most areas functioned as relatively peaceful fiefdoms. Most food was getting through and the loss from theft was only slightly higher than elsewhere in Africa. In some cases, U.S. forces essentially dumped food on local markets, hurting indigenous farmers and creating greater food shortages over the longer term. In any case, few Somalis were involved in the decisions during this crucial period.
Most importantly for the United States, large numbers of Somalis saw the American forces as representatives of the government which served as the major Western supporter of the hated former dictatorship [of Siad Barre]. Such an overbearing foreign military presence in a country which had been free from colonial rule for only a little more than three decades led to growing resentment, particularly since these elite combat forces were not trained for such humanitarian missions. (Author and journalist David Halberstam quotes the U.S. Secretary of Defense telling an associate, "We're sending the Rangers to Somalia. We are not going to be able to control them. They are like overtrained pit bulls. No one controls them.") Shootings at U.S. military roadblocks became increasingly commonplace and Somalis witnessed scenes of mostly white American forces [Cf. Stan Goff, "Black Ops, White Ops," <http://www.freedomroad.org/milmatters_2_blackops.html>] harassing and shooting their black countrymen.
In addition, the U.S. role escalated to include attempts at disarming some of the war lords, resulting in armed engagements, often in crowded urban neighborhoods. This "mission creep" resulted in American casualties, creating growing dissent at home in what had originally been a widely-supported foreign policy initiative. The thousands of M16 rifles sent, courtesy of the American taxpayer, to Barre's armed forces were now in the hands of rival militiamen who had not only used them to kill their fellow countrymen and to disrupt the distribution of relief supplies, but were now using them against American troops. It wasn't long before the slogan of American forces was "The only good Somali is a dead Somali." It had become apparent that the U.S. had badly underestimated the resistance.
The United States passed the mission on to the United Nations in May the following year, marking the first time the world body had combined peacekeeping, peace enforcement and humanitarian assistance. It was also the first time the UN has intervened without a formal invitation by a host government (because there wasn't any.) But Somalis had little trust of the United Nations, either, particularly since the UN Secretary General at that time was Boutros Boutros-Ghali, a major supporter of Barre when he led Egypt's foreign ministry. U.S. forces, now leading the UN mission, went on increasingly aggressive forays, including a major battle in Mogadishu which resulted in the deaths of 18 Marines and hundreds of Somali civilians, dramatized in the highly-fictionalized thriller Black Hawk Down. The U.S.-led UN forces had become yet another faction in the multi-sided conflict. Largely retreating to a fixed position, the primary American objective soon became protecting its own forces. With mounting criticism on Capitol Hill from both the left and the right, President Bill Clinton withdrew American troops in March 1994. The United Nations pulled its last peacekeeping forces out one year later.
The U.S. intervention in Somalia is now widely considered to have been a fiasco. It is largely responsible for the subsequent U.S. hesitation about so-called humanitarian intervention outside of high-altitude bombing.... -- Yoshie
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