Lessons to be learned in battle

On Oct. 3, 1993, U.S. forces entered the Somali capital of Mogadishu to capture key officials of one of the warring clans in the country's civil war. The mission was a complete fiasco as 18 American soldiers and more than 500 Somalis were killed that night.\nThe event, subject of the recently released Hollywood film "Black Hawk Down," raises an important question. Somalia is a country characterized by its factionalism. The running joke is that if there are four Somalis in a room, there are probably six rival clans present. Yet when the two U.S. Black Hawks went down, an entire city seemed to drop its internal differences and attack the very forces that were there to feed them. Why? Did the Somalis rampage simply out of an inherent hatred for outsiders?\nFew populations warmly embrace foreign involvement in domestic affairs, and the Somalis are no different. But there were specific factors that set the stage for the distinct fury in Mogadishu that day.\nOne important factor was the massacre July 12. Three months prior to the downing of the Black Hawks, the United Nations and U.S. decided to put pressure on the Habr Gidr, one of Somalia's main ethnic clans. The Washington Post described the event as a "slaughter" in which "a half-dozen Cobras pumped 16 TOW missiles and 2,000 rounds of cannon fire" into a gathering of elders, intellectuals, poets and religious leaders, "first blowing away the stairwell to prevent anyone from escaping." Not only did the move turn many Somalis against the UN, but it also was entirely counterproductive because the meeting's purpose was to consider a US-initiated peace plan.\nThe broader context leading up to the intervention is also important to consider. Many Somalis distrusted the UN and then-Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who previously as an Egyptian official had been a backer of notorious Somali dictator Siad Barre. \nFurthermore, one symbol of the West for average Somalis was the International Monetary Fund, whose austerity measures had hit hardest on the weakest in society. Farmers lucky enough to escape drought had little market to turn to. Many watched their children starve. As a desperate migration from the countryside increased, young men arrived to cities with little more than an acute sense of anger toward so-called Western solutions. \nIt didn't help that the country was awash in arms. In Mogadishu it was almost easier to buy a machine gun than lunch. For years, the U.S. kept Siad Barre propped up with $50 million in annual arms shipments. None of these factors lessens the tragedy of the American and Somali lives lost when those Black Hawks went down, but there may be lessons to learn.\nShort-term stabilizing relationships with repressive leaders have long-term destabilizing consequences, especially when these relationships are bought with weapons. The U.S. must begin taking human rights more seriously as it chooses its friends and begin supporting the UN in its efforts at international small arms controls. This action would be a reversal from the role the US gun lobby played at last year's UN arms control convention.\nAbove all, Somalia was a lesson in the danger of ignoring failed states, and the longer-term political and monetary policies which contribute to their demise.