Operation Restore Hope was launched in December 1992 amid shock-ing—and carefully orchestrated—im... more Operation Restore Hope was launched in December 1992 amid shock-ing—and carefully orchestrated—images of anarchy and starvation in Somalia, with the mandate of ‘creating a secure environment for the delivery of humanitarian relief’. Eight months later it turned into the greatest US military humiliation since Vietman. In three months of urban counter-guerilla warfare against the unpaid, irregular but resourceful militia of General Mohamed Farah Aidid in Mogadishu city, US military doctrines of overwhelming force and near-zero American casualties came unstuck. The culmination was the 3 October battle, after which pictures of a dead US pilot being dragged through the streets by a jeering crowd and the plight of another taken prisoner of war—‘hostage’ in the White House’s preferred terminology—forced a truce and US withdrawal.
For over twenty years the United States government has engaged in what it calls a global 'war on ... more For over twenty years the United States government has engaged in what it calls a global 'war on terror' (GWOT). This war spans continents and while US interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq receive modest attention, the secretive US war in Somalia remains under-discussed. This article offers an empirical and theoretical examination of what the US has done in Somalia since 2001, considering the political, economic and ideological elements of these acts. Data on the US's war on the Somali people is placed in dialogue with ongoing theorising on the merits of reparations in the world system.
Operation Restore Hope was launched in December 1992 amid shock-ing—and carefully orchestrated—im... more Operation Restore Hope was launched in December 1992 amid shock-ing—and carefully orchestrated—images of anarchy and starvation in Somalia, with the mandate of ‘creating a secure environment for the delivery of humanitarian relief’. Eight months later it turned into the greatest US military humiliation since Vietman. In three months of urban counter-guerilla warfare against the unpaid, irregular but resourceful militia of General Mohamed Farah Aidid in Mogadishu city, US military doctrines of overwhelming force and near-zero American casualties came unstuck. The culmination was the 3 October battle, after which pictures of a dead US pilot being dragged through the streets by a jeering crowd and the plight of another taken prisoner of war—‘hostage’ in the White House’s preferred terminology—forced a truce and US withdrawal.
For over twenty years the United States government has engaged in what it calls a global 'war on ... more For over twenty years the United States government has engaged in what it calls a global 'war on terror' (GWOT). This war spans continents and while US interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq receive modest attention, the secretive US war in Somalia remains under-discussed. This article offers an empirical and theoretical examination of what the US has done in Somalia since 2001, considering the political, economic and ideological elements of these acts. Data on the US's war on the Somali people is placed in dialogue with ongoing theorising on the merits of reparations in the world system.
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