Battle of Mogidishu

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Background
For the past fifty years Somalia has been plagued with internal fighting, poor economic conditions and no centralized authority for its people. In 1969 a man by the name of Mohammed Siad Barre became the leader of Somalia through a military coup. During his long regime as the leader of Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party, he too was overthrown in January 1991 by opposing clans including the United Somali Congress, Somali Salvation Democratic Front, Somali National Movement, Somali Patriotic Movement and the Somali Democratic Movement. Not soon after Mohammed Siad Barre was overthrown these clans divided into two main groups. Ali Mahdi was the leader of one and the other by Mohammed Farah Aidid. This led to widespread violence, and the destruction of the Somalia agriculture that worked under Mohammed Siad Barre. The main source of power in Somalia was the distribution of food. It is said that approximately 80% of all humanitarian aid was stolen during the early 1990’s. This resulted in over three hundred thousand Somalis dying of starvation, due to the fact that they were stealing internationally provided food to secure the backing of clan leaders to fight each other.
In light of the severe food crisis in Somali, the United Nations created a Unified Task Force to facilitate the distribution of humanitarian relief during the widespread fighting between the Somali clans. The United States and other NATO nations sent troops, but the Task forced failed because they were unable to secure shipments of supplies. Most of the supplies were ransacked by the militants abruptly upon arrival. This led to the United Nations passing Resolution 794, which established a protected environment to carry out humanitarian operations. In Dece...

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...le would forever change the military thinking and decision making process on humanitarian/peacekeeping operations.

Summary
Even thought Task Force Ranger apprehended some of General Aidid's top commanders, General Aidid was still at large. A purposed 90 minute operations turned into a 20 hour full blown assault on American forces leading to 18 dead and 73 wounded soldiers. I believe this chalks up to a military defeat for the united states because of our intelligence failures, and the fact that pulled our force out of this region ever so quickly. This showed The United States weren't fully committed to change in the region, and gave the impression that the United States armed forces were weak. And just how the American public viewed the armed forces after failure in Vietnam and Operation Eagle Claw, the Battle of Mogadishu would reek of death and defeat.

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