Channels, Fall 2016

Channels • 2016 • Volume 1 • Number 1 Page 3 militia was capturing food crates that the United Nations had been dropping on the coast, and he used starvation to gain power over the populous. To control the problem, the United States originally sent in twenty thousand Marines who quelled the situation temporarily, restored order, and then pulled out of Somalia. As soon as the Marines left, however, General Aidid declared war on the remaining UN peacekeepers. This continuous unrest led to the Clinton administration’s decision to insert Task Force Ranger under General William Garrison’s Operation Restore Hope in late August 1993. The American response force, however, was only part of the larger United Nations operation (code name UNSOM), which initially saw success. “In those [first] five months, it worked pretty well. People forget the early successes of Operation Restore Hope to feed the hungry and break the famine,” said John L. Hirsch, an adviser to the U.S. Ambassador to Somalia (Robert Oakley) as well as the U.S. commander of the mission (Lieutenant General Robert Johnston). 4 The operation in Somalia had created an early hope for the UN that peacekeeping could be taken to a new level; they believed that “a matrix could be crafted [in Somalia] for future operations in other global hotspots.” 5 Following the Battle of Mogadishu, however, the blueprint for saving the world’s weakest links was shredded and “American policy changed virtually overnight.” 6 The Battle of Mogadishu, more commonly referred to as “Black Hawk Down,” was one of the most controversial conflicts in the second half of the twentieth century. However, Task Force Ranger (TFR) accomplished the objective of the mission, despite significant losses, by retrieving the two targets assigned to them. Task Force Ranger (TFR) was a mix of several American special operations units. Rangers, Delta Force operators, Para-Rescue operators, Combat Controllers, Navy SEALs, and Night Stalkers were all part of the one hundred-sixty man unit assigned to Mogadishu, Somalia in August 1993. Every unit sent to Mogadishu had one thing in common; they all had “the skills required to handle any terrorist incident.” 7 They were assigned to Mogadishu, or the “Mog,” in response to the growing unrest and starvation in the city. The situation was not resolved, however, and in just under two weeks “American ground troops were fighting with militias close to the main United Nations http://www.thefreelibrary.com/'Heroic+things'%3A+air+force+special+tactics+personnel+at+Mogadishu...- a0369914461 4 Paul Alexander, Fallout from Somalia Still Haunts Us Policy 20 Years Later, Stars and Stripes , October 03, 2013, accessed January 20, 2016, http://www.stripes.com/news/fallout-from-somalia-still-haunts-us-policy- 20-years-later-1.244957 . 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid. 7 C Beckwith, Delta Force: The Army’s Elite Counterterrorist Unit (New York: Avon Books, 1983) p.158