Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: Firefight to remember

Thursday, Jan. 17, 2002 | 8:33 a.m.

Bowden, with no prior military experience, didn't write about the firefight until almost three years after it happened in the Somalia city of Mogadishu. The author did an excellent job of getting the facts and feel of what took place Oct. 3, 1993. During the next 24 hours, 18 of America's finest troops died and 75 were wounded. When it ended, their target, warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid, had escaped unharmed. It was a time of heroism and hurt for the few Americans involved, but typical of infantry combat in close quarters.

Today, American troops, in much greater numbers in a larger area, are searching for terrorist Osama bin Laden and his Taliban host Mullah Muhammad Omar in and around Afghanistan. Heavy and accurate use of airstrikes have kept our casualties down, but at the time of this writing, neither of the scoundrels have been caught. Are they dead or alive? I don't know, and the Pentagon doesn't have the answer.

Even as our military forces continue operations in Afghanistan, there has been serious discussions about Somalia being a hiding place for the terrorists loyal to bin Laden. This has encouraged some experts to look at that country becoming a target of our forces. Somalia and Afghanistan both have a population made up of tribes or clans run by warlords. The big difference is that Somalia has no central government while Afghanistan had the Taliban government running the show. Fighting with several clans with no central power center is much like chewing bubble gum as it continually changes its shape.

"Black Hawk Down" has a paragraph that every policymaker looking at Somalia as a target, and hoping to establish a civil government in Afghanistan to replace the Taliban, should read. Bowden wrote; " 'It was a watershed,' says one State Department official, who asked not to be named because his insight runs so counter to our current foreign policy agenda. 'The idea used to be that terrible countries were terrible because good, decent, innocent people were being oppressed by evil, thuggish leaders. Somalia changed that. Here you have a country where just about everybody is caught up in hatred and fighting. You stop an old lady on the street and ask her if she wants peace, and she'll say, yes, of course, I pray for it daily. All the things you'd expect her to say. Then ask her if she would be willing for her clan to share power with another in order to have that peace, and she'll say, 'With those murderers and thieves? I'd die first.' People in these countries -- Bosnia is a mor! e recent example -- don't want peace. They want victory. They want power. Men, women, old and young. Somalia was the experience that taught us that people in these places bear much of the responsibility for things being the way they are. The hatred and the killing continue because they want it to. Or because they don't want peace enough to stop it.' "

Since we have broken the back of the Taliban, reports are coming out of Afghanistan that many warlords have returned to running their own corrupt fiefdoms. We have also watched some of them welcome former Taliban soldiers and leaders back into their clans. Is it possible that some of them also looked the other way when Omar and bin Laden were fleeing from U.S. soldiers?

About the only chance people in Afghanistan will have for a good life lies in the hands of the proposed central government. This government can't be left to survive by itself, it will need heavy U.S. and United Nations help in rebuilding. This aid can't be delayed or left to chance. Money spent on good government at this time can save the world money, pain and lives in future years. If Somalia does become our next target we can only succeed if our military and civilian planners have learned not to repeat past errors. All of them should read "Black Hawk Down." Allow me to add, every American interested in our military and foreign policy should read Bowden's work.