Lost the Battle, Lose the War?

                 The movie Black Hawk Down tells the story of the Battle of Mogadishu, which was considered a huge military failure.  According to Military History Online ,  “Expecting a two-hour daylight mission, the Rangers ignored Murphy's Law, ‘Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.’ Leaving behind night vision devices (NVD's), body armor and even water, they opted to carry extra ammunition. This decision proved fatal to many.” Over assumptions of victory made this mission seem like a complete failure.  In the end two black hawk helicopters went down and nineteen American soldiers lost their lives. However, the mission was actually a success in some ways.  Mickey Kaus states in his article What Black Hawk Leaves Out, “The Rangers in fact succeeded in snatching and imprisoning the two Somali clan officials they were after.” This fact is often overlooked due to American casualties being so much higher than expected

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0265086/

    

            The press used this battle as a catalyst for pulling America out of the war in Somalia. Newspapers printed pictures of soldier’s bodies being mutilated and dragged through the streets.  Dominic Tierney from the The Atlantic reported, “Press coverage was dominated by visceral images of mutilated American corpses. Journalists sometimes ignored the bigger picture, including pro-American demonstrations in Somalia, and successful efforts to save lives and restore order outside of the capital.” These pictures infuriated the nation and made people question why we were even in Somalia. Because of the negative view of The Battle of Mogadishu, Washington pulled soldiers out of Somalia.

        

           The way Americans viewed the war in Somalia affected our involvement in other countries. The book, Black Hawk Down Mogadishu 1993 makes the statement, “After the Mogadishu raid, America withdrew largely from Africa and became more skeptical of direct involvement in unstable nations. The fight for Mogadishu literally changed American foreign policy, especially in Africa, for years.” Somalia was used as an example for what could happen when military was sent into unknown countries. America continues to second guess interfering in other countries wars.

Before the Battle of Mogadishu the war in Somalia was going well. Tierney continued to testify that soldiers were achieving their goals of ending the famine. They were training local police and building and repairing public places. The Battle of Mogadishu destroyed all hopes of the humanitarian efforts in Somalia. After one lost battle soldiers were pulled out and Somalia was left to figure things out on their own. Somalia would also continue to be a reference for future America involvement in other countries.