The expanding US role in Somalia
The New York Times writes about the role US troops have been fulfilling in Somalia during the Obama years;
The Somalia campaign is a blueprint for warfare that President Obama has embraced and will pass along to his successor. It is a model the United States now employs across the Middle East and North Africa — from Syria to Libya — despite the president’s stated aversion to American “boots on the ground” in the world’s war zones. This year alone, the United States has carried out airstrikes in seven countries and conducted Special Operations missions in many more.
[…]
In its public announcements, the Pentagon sometimes characterizes the operations as “self-defense strikes,” though some analysts have said this rationale has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is only because American forces are now being deployed on the front lines in Somalia that they face imminent threats from the Shabab.
Ya know, for a Nobel Peace Prize winner, this president sure does use US military forces a lot. I guess that’s probably because, like the rest of America, he’s finally realized that they’re the only government workers who do what they’re expected. However, there’s not one thing in Somalia worth the life of one American.
About 200 to 300 American Special Operations troops work with soldiers from Somalia and other African nations like Kenya and Uganda to carry out more than a half-dozen raids per month, according to senior American military officials. The operations are a combination of ground raids and drone strikes.
[…]
The strikes have had a mixed record. In March, an American airstrike killed more than 150 Shabab fighters at what military officials called a “graduation ceremony,” one of the single deadliest American airstrikes in any country in recent years. But an airstrike last month killed more than a dozen Somali government soldiers, who were American allies against the Shabab.
It’s tough to kill bad guys when you’re pretending that you’re not at war.
Category: Terror War
Nothing to see here. Move along.
/sarc
Back in Iraq, back in Somalia, still in Afghanistan, plus Syria, Yemen and Libya (feel free to add any I might have overlooked)-damn those warmongering Republicans!
don’t forget the Philippines until Duterte kicks us out. Plus SOF troops in Ethiopia, Central African Republic, and Djibouti. Oh, and we’ve been in the Sinai with the MFO mission since 1981. Those are the ones that immediately spring to mind.
Muhammads horse is all about peace. He is just spreading freedom to these poor bastards.
He only objects to defending white conservative American citizens.
I guess because they have been hoarding all the freedom.
Nothing like a few “friendly” fire incidents to cool relations with our supposed allies…it’s a good thing they awarded that Peace Prize before they knew he’d be king of the drone strike…
Did you not get the memo? Only Republican presidents get us involved in wars.
I mean except for Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Truman, Kennedy and Johnson.
Say, has anyone heard from Cindy Sheehan lately?
Don’t forget Clintoon. During the last 3-4 weeks of the Bush administration, Somalia was a humanitarian mission. It didn’t become a protracted conflict until Clintoon decided he had to try his hand at “nation building”.
To add to that Hondo, although it was a peace enforcement operation there were some highly kinetic aspects to Kosovo in the early days – including air-to-air combat.
I didn’t get there until it really was all PEO/PKO, but some others on this board may have experienced some of the earlier phases.
As per my Historian instructor at SWCS who taught the History classes for me, according to the Marines, they were finished with the humanitarian mission in 54 days. Bam, done.
Mission creep became a huge deal after Clinton took office and left the task force there instead of pulling them out. The same POTUS who saw to a 40% military drawdown, while increasing the OPTEMPO 300%.
Except, of course, Rwanda. Bill didn’t want another battle for Mogadishu and having to explain Soldiers dragged through the streets caught on camera. So he quietly skipped Rwanda and let the atrocities there happen. Then afterwards said, “Well, ‘we’ should’ve done something here….”
Oh, and Bosnia and Kosovo and Haiti and a dozen other little fun spots that Civil Affairs was involved in and were deployed to support because “PKO” n’ shit.
And he used quite plentifully his “Presidential Select Reserve Call-up” (PSRC) powers to call reservists up for up to 270 days at a time without any approval from Congress and put them to work in a variety of locations.
Funny thing about Rwanda – my active duty unit at the time (3/3 SFG at Bragg) had Rwanda as part of our AO (Sub-Saharan Africa) and we got spun up to deploy in early August of 1994. We went through POR, palletized our gear, did area briefings for the battalion, etc. Then we waited for transportation and nothing happened.
Meanwhile our sister battalion, 2/3 SFG, along with Group HQ, was preparing for the invasion of Haiti (because the Caribbean was part of their AO.)
After about a week of literally doing nothing (because our weapons and gear were all on pallets or in containers) we were told to stand down, and a week or so later we were folded into the Haiti mission.
No, republican presidents get us into an economic depressions, Democratic Party presidents get us into wars.
He gives two shits. Honestly, he’s a double-digit midget at this point. Less than 100 days in office.
All he cares about is checking the block and leaving a potential mess for Trump if he’s elected. Though he’ll even leave a mess for Hillary and not give a crap because he’ll be retired making stupid amounts of money for talking for 5 minutes to anyone who will listen.
Yeah, why not? Maybe we should draw plans to invade Canada, as we did in the early 1920s. True. Here’s the link. Seems we’re trying to restore peace/democracy/whatever to one country after another. I saw we set our sights on Canada. Eh?
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/revealed-americas-secret-war-plan-invade-canada-15359
IIRC the US had contingency plans to fight a war against England as late as the 1920’s, I’m assuming the invasion of Canada (at that time a possession of England) was part of that.