Posted on 10/03/2013 4:01:29 PM PDT by Pan_Yan
Editor’s note: Stars and Stripes Pacific News Editor Paul Alexander was the first Associated Press reporter into Somalia after “Black Hawk Down.” On the 20th anniversary of that infamous battle, he looks at the lessons learned — and forgotten.
U.S. and U.N. officials had high hopes for the cauldron of famine, venom and easy death that Somalia had become by late 1992.
First, a U.S.-led multinational military coalition went in to provide security and ensure food relief was getting to the starving. Early success in that United Nations humanitarian mission created a chance to take peacekeeping to a new level, to peacemaking and nation-building. A matrix could be crafted for future operations in other global hot spots.
There were early warnings of impending disaster. Smith Hempstone, the U.S. ambassador to neighboring Kenya at the time, noted in a diplomatic cable that was later leaked to the press that he had heard estimates he did not think unreasonable that it would “take 5 years to get Somalia not on its feet but just on its knees.’’
“If you liked Beirut, you’ll love Mogadishu,’’ Hempstone warned in the cable that ended with this advice: “Leave them alone, in short, to work out their own destiny, brutal as it may be. … Think once, twice and three times before you embrace the Somali tarbaby.’’
(Excerpt) Read more at stripes.com ...
20 years ago many small Minnesota towns were majority white and Christian.
Wow! I can’t believe it’s been 20 years already.
The media, even talk radio, has convinced America that Airborne Rangers were dragged through the streets.
None of the dragged soldiers were Rangers, 6 of the 18 American killed were Rangers.
I heard a rumor on the news that the female in the car in DC today was of Somali descent.
I hope to God that we don’t get involved in Syria or any more g.d. Muslim countries. If we do, Lutheran Charities and Catholic Charities will get paid to import more Muslim welfare bums. I will never forget the time that I drove past the Catholic Charities building in San Diego and saw a bunch of skinny Muslim women wearing hijabs walking out of the building. Now we can’t get rid of them. Thank you George H.W. Bush.
Thought Stars and Stripes was a no go on FR?
The psychopathic Clintons walk away from things like Mogadishu and Benghazi, and as soon as they know they’re in the clear they forget these things ever happened.
Benghazi hearings!
Stars & Stripes is fine. It’s publicly funded.
No good deed goes unpunished.
Thanks Pan_Yan.
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