The third of October should also be held as a day of celebration, for it represents a great victory. Once again, a free people faced an invading army in their homes, faced them on the streets, faced them in houses, in courtyards, in graveyards, fought them, overwhelmed them, and proved that no amount of technology or technical necromancy can bind a people willing to die for freedom.
History
The story of the heroism of the Somali people who fought on the streets of Mogadishu cannot be understood in isolation. That their fight was heroic, even epic, is only now beginning to be understood in some quarters.
In December 1992, President George Bush was a "lame duck." He had already lost his attempt to represent American banking establishment interests for another four years. The banking cartel's new choice for the job, the ruthless Bill Clinton, had been presented to the world a month earlier as "president-elect." Of course, his "election" was a farce, to the extent that it was not a separate tragedy.
Bush was asked by United Nations Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali to send American troops to Somalia. The ostensible mission was to provide food aid to starving Somalis in Mogadishu and Southern Somalia where war and weather had combined to the detriment of crops and food distribution. For a time, this pretended purpose was all that was revealed to the American people. "Operation Restore Hope" would bring in thousands of tons of food aid and would help distribute it to a grateful people.
One cannot help but wonder, of course, at the other political agendas at stake. People in many parts of the world are starving at any given time, often owing to war, socialist policies, political expedience, or the vindictiveness of banking cartel leaders. The US was notably inactive in averting the famines in the Ukraine used by the Stalinists to wipe out vast populations, and equally inactive in averting subsequent famines in various quarters.
Boutros-Ghali was known to have sympathy for the Darod clan of fallen dictator Siad Barré. Could Operation Restore Hope have been a pretext for imposing a UN sanctioned government in Somalia?
In 1991, the dictator Barré had been finally overthrown. Somali people everywhere celebrated the freedom and renewed independence of their home lands. Gone was a corrupt central government which imposed brutal taxes, impressed many men as young as 15 into the military, forced socialist policies on an entrepreneurial people, and redistributed wealth and power according to the corrupt schemes of a dictator and his sycophants.
Gone was the hated Barré regime. With it was gone the hated national legislature with stupid Marxist laws to confound the people. Gone was the very type of regime the bankers and the UN are most comfortable with: an oppressive central regime with consolidated power.
Restored all over Somalia was a traditional clan government. While less powerful and less consolidated, the clan system of government was local, approachable, just, and sensible. Somalis could once again seek compensatory justice from clan elders, could rely again on the centuries old traditional law or Xeer of their clan, and could see their government in the people of their own clan or tribe. Government had become smaller, more diverse, closer to the people, and, once again, held the explicit consent of the people governed.
Who would speak for all of Somalia? Nobody.
Somalia had always been an artificial region, pieced together by colonial powers from Italian and British territorial claims. Somalia never encompassed the Somali peoples living in Djibouti or Kenya or, in spite of Barré's brutal wars, Ethiopia. Somalia had never embraced the homelands of all Somali peoples, nor had the Barré government ever represented the interests of anyone but the dictator, his family, and his hangers on.
The Barré government was not replaced. Why replace a dictator? Barré was removed, and, for the first time since colonial imperialists from 19th Century Europe had invaded, the Somali people were free to go back to their old ways of clan leadership and the rule of clan elders.
The absence of a consolidated central government was upsetting to the UN and the bankers who control it. To properly reflect the traditional governments of Somali peoples, the UN should recognize dozens of sovereign national territories. Each Somali clan which has a territory, a population, and control of its borders has a legitimate claim to sovereign nationality. These nations have actually existed for hundreds of years. Awdal, for example, was a widely recognized nation as early as 900 A.D. (about 300 in the Islamic calendar).
Would the UN provide seats in its General Assembly for several dozen Somali nations? It would not. Consider who controls the UN in fact. The veto powers in the Security Council are held by North American, European, and Asian powers: Britain, France, Russia (which may be accounted European or Asian), China and the regime which controls the USA. These powers are also significantly influenced by or directly under the control of banking cartel interests. Would the UN provide a permanent Security Council seat with veto power to any Somali nation? It would not. Indeed, no former colony in Central or South America, in Africa, in the Middle East or in Southeast Asia has ever been considered for veto authority. Why not? Many of these countries, demonstrably India and Pakistan, are nuclear capable nations. Yet, they will continue to be treated by the UN as second class nations because they continue to be viewed by the banking interests as colonies.
The UN continues to represent the best interests of European bankers. To a very large degree, the veto authority of the USA, England, France, and Russia are all within the control of the same banking cartel, which exerts considerable influence on the government of China, as well. The UN represents a "New World Order" philosophy which has deep roots in the Illuminati, the Order of the Garter, the Skull and Bones society, and various occult organizations which practice rites of witchcraft and Satanism. A detailed analysis of these groups is available from Tim Cohen and Prophecy House books under the title The AntiChrist and a Cup of Tea.
Operation Restore Hope Begins
Faced with the prospect of replacing one Somali ambassador to the UN with several dozen, Boutros-Ghali balked. Perhaps he could entice the Somali people back into slavery to a consolidated central government with promises of food and medicine.
Years of war had been terrible. War is always awful, and is only an improvement over continuing to live under a dictatorship. Fighting for freedom costs lives, it costs treasure, it destroys houses, it interrupts educations, it creates wounded people, and it is often accompanied by disease. Yet, freedom is preferable to slavery or tyranny. The Somali people fought a hard war for their freedom.
Some fighting was still going on in 1992, as the territories of the various clans were negotiated by diplomacy and by battle. So, the promise of international relief groups bringing food and medicine was most welcome. So, too, was the apparent recognition that the Somali people had freed themselves from a tyrant.
Had the truth of affairs in Iraq been better known at the time, the prospect of all this "multilateral" aid and good will might have been viewed with greater skepticism. But the Americans and the UN came with food and medicine. Somalis have a warm heart and a great tradition of hospitality. They welcomed these guests into their homeland.
In April 1993, while Somalis were enjoying the food and medicine brought by these UN sponsored groups, the banking cartel's new puppet, Clinton, was brutally suppressing religious freedom in Texas. A Branch Davidian church at Mount Carmel, Texas, near Waco, was destroyed. Seven dozen Texans, including two dozen children, were brutally murdered. Later, Texans would learn that Combat Applications Group personnel, also known as Delta Force "operators" had been used to exteriminate freedom in Texas. These top secret fascist storm troopers would be used in Mogadishu in October 1993 to carry out the plans of the banking cartel. Meanwhile, Texans began to consider their own sovereign freedom as a precious commodity, one they would now have to fight for, the last vestiges of the settlement of 1876 known as the Posse Commitatus Act having been finally destroyed by the open use of USA military forces in Texas.
Little did the Somali people know in April 1993 what fate the UN had in mind for them. Had the truth of the unconstitutional attack on the church at Waco been known worldwide, had the truth of Clinton's using internationally banned chemical weapons on Texas civilians been understood, perhaps the Somalis would have anticipated the Day of the Rangers (Ma-alinti Rangers) and taken steps sooner to prevent it.
Alas, the truth was kept from people in Texas, in the United States, and in Mogadishu, for many years.
The Mission Changes
The UN mission changed in late Spring 1993. Boutros-Ghali and the UN began to perceive a pattern. While they had been made welcome as guests, and their gifts of food and medicine accepted with sincere gratitude, their hopes of enticing the Somali people into slavery under another dictatorial central government were faltering. No guests should expect to order the host to send his family into slavery for the guest, but here was the UN insisting that a consolidated central government was "essential to the future of Somalia."
Somalis have a cultural tradition against dictators. Somalis in Mogadishu had recent experience with a bad one. They wanted no part of a corrupt central government. Years later, when Mohamed Farrah Aideed would propose a central government with himself as dictator and a national legislature, he, too, would find the reception of Somalis less than enthusiastic. His own clansmen would hunt him down and execute him for attempting to set up a consolidated central government.
The UN, however, would not take "no" for an answer in June 1993. Not satisfied with the open and free debate of these matters, the UN sent troops to seize a radio and television station in Mogadishu. While the UN later prevaricated by claiming it had no such purpose, its more recent attacks (Spring 2000) on free newspapers in UN controlled Kosovo should be a clear indication of their lack of commitment to a free press.
Somalis rushed to defend their radio station and access to information. How dare the UN censor their freedom of information? How dare the UN, guests of the Somali people, tell their hosts to shut up? The Somalis were outraged. When the UN troops holding the station would not surrender their position and restore freedom of speech, they were attacked. Two dozen UN troops from Pakistan met the fate of all tools of dictators. Score one for freedom.
The UN released slanted versions of this story through the banking cartel's media interests in Europe and the USA. An outraged world demanded justice without pausing to consider the propaganda they were being fed. Without a trial, without consideration for the proper treatment of accused persons, without any opportunity to confront the witnesses against him or to carry out a defense against these accusations, the UN convicted Mohamed Farrah Aideed of the killing of the Pakistani troops. Aideed was proclaimed to be an outlaw, and Task Force Ranger was sent to Mogadishu to capture him.
What followed, from July to October was a series of outrages. Helicopters from the US military fired 16 TOW missiles into a residence in Mogadishu, killing dozens of Habr Gidr clan leaders, including a 90 year old elder and many others who were never accused of any crime. Suddenly, open warfare by the Darod clan enthusiast Boutros-Ghali had been declared against the Habr Gidr. All of the Habr Gidr clan were presumed guilty, merely by association with Aideed, on the strength of mere proclamations of his involvement in the attack on the Pakistani troops, without any trial. A travesty of justice was being prosecuted by the UN.
Within weeks, the UN was dismayed to find Task Force Ranger had surrounded a group of UN employees with piles of black market contraband goods and arrested them. Task Force Ranger was quickly told to release these black marketeers who were working on behalf of banking cartel interests. The task force itself was called "Keystone Kops" in reference to an early cinema comedy series by the banking cartel's media in the USA and Europe.
Five or six missions were conducted by Task Force Ranger to capture leaders of the Habr Gidr clan. These leaders were imprisoned on an island off the coast of Kismayo in Lower Jubaland. Task Force Ranger used highly mobile Humvees, trucks, and helicopters to move its forces into and out of Habr Gidr held territory in the heart of Mogadishu. Among the forces involved were some of the same hated Combat Applications Group or Delta Force personnel who had used shaped charges to demolish the church vault at the Branch Davidian church, executing dozens of women and children without regard for their non-combatant status.
The Tide Turns
In late September, a small victory was won when a Somali fired a rocket propelled grenade (RPG) into the tail of a USA helicopter, bringing it down. That result was followed up in October when no fewer than 5 USA helicopters were attacked successfully with RPGs, crippling three and bringing two to the ground.
Little wonder, then, that the Task Force Ranger personnel, including a battalion strength deployment of Delta Force operators and US Army Rangers (black berets) were quickly surrounded and cut off on 3 October 1993. The people of Mogadishu had more than enough of these ruffians. Habr Gidr militia and others with megaphones shouted "Kasoobaxa guryha oo iska celsa cadowga! (Come out and defend your homes!)" and the people of Mogadishu responded by the thousands.
Very quickly, the rules of engagement which were supposed to avoid the killing of women, children, and non-combatants were dropped. The Rangers and the Delta Force operators began to "go cyclic" and execute anyone within range of their automatic weapons. Having invaded a private residence to seize about two dozen captives, these troops then began to organize for their own withdrawal. During that time, the first RPG attack on a USA helicopter was successful, bringing it down in a neighborhood nearby.
Task Force Ranger was prepared for the possibility of one helicopter being shot down. They quickly dropped in a rescue team. Another helicopter was brought in to replace the one shot down, and continue the execution of civilians from the air. It, too, was brought down by an RPG minutes later, crashing in another neighborhood further South. The technological wizards of the USA had never dreamed that a people committed to freedom could bring down two helicopters, and were unable to provide a separate rescue team. Two Delta Force operators were dropped in to defend the second helicopter, but they were quickly overwhelmed and killed in combat.
It should be understood that the Somalis did not kill USA non-combatants. The pilot of the second helicopter shot many Somalis with various weapons after his crash landing, but ultimately surrendered, placing his empty weapon on his chest and crossing his arms over it. He was taken prisoner by militia forces on the scene, though some members of the crowd were understandably upset with him and tried to hurt him in revenge for the killing he had brought to their neighborhood. He was later released without conditions by the Habr Gidr clan.
Meanwhile, the USA military forces took their convoy of vehicles away from the private residence they had invaded with their captives. These vehicles were misdirected for about half an hour all over that part of Mogadishu by incompetent commanders in an attempt to link them up with the rescue forces surrounding the first crashed helicopter. Eventually disgusted with this wandering from one Somali crossfire to another, the commander of the convoy returned to base. The Somalis had been successful in inflicting a 50% casualty rate on the troops in that convoy, in spite of being badly outgunned and without any air forces at all.
The cost was very high. Already, hundreds of Somali men, women, and children had been gunned down while defending their homes. Attempts to carry these wounded to hospitals and to bury the dead before sundown as required by Islamic law were met with gunfire in many cases, wounding and killing more Somalis. One attempt to bury the dead was met with repeated helicopter assaults in a graveyard until about 3 a.m. when the burial was finally accomplished.
About 99 troops who were near the first helicopter's crash site including 3 survivors of the crash were cut off when the convoy left the scene. Another convoy of vehicles was quickly sent out by Task Force Ranger, including a number of cooks and other poorly trained personnel. It was prevented from reaching either crash site by road blocks set up by the Somalis who were determined to keep their homes safe. A third convoy from the "Quick Reaction Force" consisting of US Army regular troops in the 10th Mountain Division was also sent out during the day on 3 October and was also unable to link up with either crash site.
Evening turned to nightfall. Somalis continued to try to remove these 99 invaders from their city. The firefight gradually turned into a standoff when the Rangers and Delta Force operators occupied several private residences around the first crash site. They found families in each residence they occupied, and kidnapped these people. They also stole some water they found in one home.
Attempts to dislodge these invaders were unsuccessful, but continued through midnight. After midnight, another rescue convoy was sent forth, this time including Pakistani-driven tanks and Malaysian-driven armored personnel carriers. This brigade strength column of armored vehicles, Humvees, and trucks was quickly understood to be a renewed UN offensive against the people of Mogadishu. Many of the forces surrounding the invaders near the helicopter crash site were withdrawn to address these other forces.
More Assassinations
Unfortunately, neither the USA nor the Somali militia maintained a cordon around the neighborhood where the invaders were located. Sadly, a number of Somali men found the neighborhood quiet early on the morning of 4 October and attempted to walk through the neighborhood to return home. Delta Force operators assassinated these unarmed noncombatants without any attempt to warn them off.
While these gutless assassins were killing noncombatants near the first crash site, the armored brigade reached its closest point of approach to the second crash site. Somalis were successful in keeping the vehicles from moving into that neighborhood, although a small team of Delta Force operators and Rangers entered on foot and destroyed "sensitive" equipment aboard the helicopter before rejoining the convoy.
Finally, the armored brigade was able to reach the invaders holed up near the crash site, though not without sustaining casualties and the loss of several armored vehicles to RPG fire. The link up quickly resulted in the moving of wounded, dead, and living USA forces into the convoy. A delay of 20 minutes ensued while the body of the pilot of the first helicopter was retrieved. Then the convoy moved out, through continued resistance, and eventually reached a base of operations in a football (soccer) stadium. To the horror of some involved, the convoy left before all the Rangers were loaded, and some had to follow on foot to a nearby checkpoint before finally being picked up and loaded aboard.
End of the Battle
The Battle of Mogadishu ended after daybreak on 4 October 1993. Eighteen Rangers and Delta Force operators were killed. Over six dozen were wounded, many of them critically. As many as five hundred Somalis died with over a thousand injured.
Within days, a successful mortar attack had killed another Delta Force assassin and injured others. Soon, Clinton sent in enough troops and armor to bring the USA forces to division strength. However, no counter-attack was forthcoming. Having failed with both carrot and stick, the UN withdrew.
In recent years, the UN has sent "teams" in to assess the damage they did, to write slanted articles for the banking cartel controlled media, and to examine the prospects for enticing the Somalis back into slavery under a consolidated central government. From time to time, military forces have been sent in. These troops have been opposed and defeated, often wiped out. The efforts to entice with "humanitarian" assistance have also failed. The Somali people remain free.
The price has been high. Thousands died in the war to overthrow Siad Barré and at least 3,000 died in the war to defeat the UN. But, the Somali people have won their freedom and independence. Each clan is and of right ought to be free and independent. They have assumed, among the powers of the Earth, the equal and separate station to which the laws of God (Allah) entitle them.
All free people should commemorate 3 October from 3 p.m until 4 October at 7 a.m. as a solemn memorial to the fallen dead. All free people should commemorate this occasion as a celebration of the victory over the forces of evil who would subvert a free people's hard won liberty. The vaunted USA military machine has been beaten. The much-ballyhooed UN has been shown for the viper that it is. We should rejoice in the freedom bought, and remember the blood of patriots and tyrants shed to buy that freedom.
Copyright © 2000 by Jim Davidson, All Rights Reserved.
Awdal Roads Company Awdal Economic Forum
Recently, I was contacted by a Navy Seal by e-mail who insisted that nobody should hold, form, or express an opinion on the USA military actions in Mogadishu without first consulting several members of the Delta Force for permission. In my response, I directed that he read the USA constitution which he swore to uphold and defend.
More information about the Day of the Rangers is available in Mark Bowden's very good book Black Hawk Down. See it now.