Increasing operations involving U.S. Special Forces in Somalia raise serious risks for Americans at home.
The United States has been dabbling militarily in Somalia since late 1992, when then-President George H.W. Bush, in response to what was evolving into a tragic humanitarian crisis, during Thanksgiving agreed to put U.S. forces into the northeastern African nation to try to stabilize it to permit the delivery of food, medical and other assistance.
Somalia had not had a government in place in its capital, Mogadishu, since January 1991. Bush’s successor, Bill Clinton, withdrew almost all U.S. forces from Somalia in 1994 after the fatal “Black Hawk Down” incident, with the departure of the rest occurring in 1995.
Somalia still does not have an accepted, elected government in place. Elections are supposed to take place this year, but continuing circumstances of insecurity suggest that, if they take place, they will be very indirect elections, with Somali clan elders selecting delegates who will then choose a president and members of parliament. Whatever government emerges from these maneuvers will resemble the current one, chosen out of the country by clan-based delegates with uncertain popular mandates.
In the meantime, the United States, in the form of the U.S. military Africa Command, has continued to expand a base in Djibouti, the former French Somaliland, bordering on actual Somalia. The installation in Djibouti includes thousands of U.S. troops, fighter bombers and a drone station.
Press reports indicate American forces, as recently as Aug. 17, participated with Somali forces in an attack on the forces of the externally imposed Somali government’s opponent, Al-Shabab, at Saakow in southern Somalia, killing some.
There are at least two problems with this action and comparable operations carried out against Al-Shabab. There is, first of all, the question of the wisdom of continued U.S. efforts to determine governance in Somalia, after 24 years of expensive, unfruitful involvement.
Second, it is important to understand Somalis in general, many of whom have now settled in the United States, particularly in Minnesota but also even in Washington, D.C. Somalis as a people have a strong sense of family and clan loyalty, which includes obligatory revenge for killings. If a member of a Somali family or clan kills a member of another, either a reciprocal killing or carefully negotiated financial compensation is automatically required.
Given that many Somalis now live in the United States, and some have traveled back to Somalia to participate in combat on the side of Al-Shabab, Americans at home — on the basis of U.S. Special Forces’ actions in Somalia — risk the required retribution taking place on American soil.
That reality calls either for changing policy and letting the Somalis work out their own destiny and governance, free of U.S. military action, or bracing Americans for likely, even imminent, revenge exacted on U.S. soil.
The situation is dangerous, and it is not clear that Washington understands what is at stake.
— Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
