No Black Hawk Down

You guys are forgetting that the UN mission was politically oriented and was not dedicated to insuring the supply of food.

The UN was under the influence of the Losing side of the Civil war that were on the excellent terms with Boutros Ghali.
Boutros Ghali was the foreign minister of Egypt and used to closely work with the ex Government of Siad Barre.
Furthermore he had personal issues with General Aideed himself, they never got along with each other..

Boutros Ghali was using the power of the UN and US muscle to settle this personal grudge with aideed, aided by the politicians of the ex government that have been defeated and were advising and whispering in the ear of the Secretary General.

The intervention happened at the moment when The SNA aideeds alliance of millitias and clans were about to achieve total victory and create a new government within a year.
Aideed cooperated with the UN by moving all his heavy armour, tanks, artillary and apcs to his own warehouses and bases and removing them from the streets. He also banned his men from engaging any UN troops..

Boutros Ghali deliberately escalated the situation by ordering the Pakistani to sieaze his radio station, after aideed declared several times that this was a no go area, a red line not to be crossed.

The pakistnis were ambushed and 24 killed.

The US immedietly knowcked out all of aideeds bunkers and bases storing what was left of his armour , then 4 US soldiers where ambushed when their humvee was taken out..

This escalation was initiated by Boutros Ghali .

The entire operation was full of errors and incompetence due to the lack of knowledge about the local power structures and clans.
The US launched an airstrike on a hotel where the Habar Gidir (aideeds clan) leaders where holding a conference.
This meeting was to determine wether aideed should be replaced as leader and a more conciliatory approach to be taken towards the UN.

since the somali clan structures are egalitarian and no single leader can gain dictatorial powers, and since the clan elders can veto major policies and even
remove a leader like aideed from power.

knocking them out was tantamount to giving aideed full controll over his clan and the full support of his allies in fighting the UN.
Before this incident his own allies were pushing him to negotiate and threatening to start negotiating on their own unless a common agreement was taken.

Aideed was a secular leader and he had his own problems witht he minority islamists in those days, since he killed and imprisoned many from those groups that got in his way , and they were generally anti-aideed.

The attack on the clan elders , removed the enmity between them and the Islamists along with several afghan war veterens immedietly joined him in battle..


The main factors that led to this disaster was boutros ghalis wish to change the power structure of somalia in favour of his defeated friends that were lobbying in NewYork. The incompetence and ignorance of Admiral how was another reason.

Robert Oakley the former US ambassador to Somalia who was head of the mission under the Bush government should have been kept on as an advisor at least. He knew all the players in somalia and he would have known how to influence aideed and even remove him as a problem with as little bloodshed as possible due to his knowledge of local politics.


by the Way not all memeber of the UN mission to somalia were under the influence of Boutros Ghali, the Italians routinely clashed with him on policy and even ignored many directives and did their won thing.
The Italians were also secretly aiding aideed, and providing intel.
 

Cook

Banned
You guys are forgetting that the UN mission was politically oriented and was not dedicated to insuring the supply of food.

A profoundly silly conspiracy theory if ever I heard one.

According to Bowden's book the Somalis and some of their Islamist allies had created time detonators for their RPGs.

This didn’t ring any bells with me, mind you it has been sixteen years since I read the book so maybe it just didn’t register at the time.

Anyway; its nonsense. RPGs stored in hot, dusty conditions without maintenance have a tendency to not detonate. There are accounts coming out of the fighting in Afghanistan of RPGs repeatedly skidding past allied positions without exploding. There is no logical reason why anyone would want to put a delay fuse on a rocket propelled grenade, the whole point of the weapon is to blow the fuck out of what you’ve fired at, not give them a chance to duck.

Al-Qaeda were active in the region at the time and a set of the night vision goggles lost by the Americans in the fighting in Mogadishu were eventually recovered in Afghanistan in 2001.
 
FLAK bursts

There is no logical reason why anyone would want to put a delay fuse on a rocket propelled grenade, the whole point of the weapon is to blow the fuck out of what you’ve fired at, not give them a chance to duck.

Because they lacked the proximity fuses used to do the same job.

Heavy FLAK traditionally had timed fuses to explode at the altitude of the aircraft, since a near miss was HUGELY more likely than a direct hit. Originally a train of gunpowder like substance was used for the time fuse then proximity fuses came in late WWII.

They were improvising and stoned out of their heads a lot of the time from chewing KAT, ok. You are being sane, rational and reasonable, which is SO not Somali militia mindset:eek: Think more Cheech and Chong movie with automatic weapons

Don't hit me with the negative waves so early in the morning?:rolleyes:
 
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