Humanitarian Smokescreen

seeing as how the United States was there for purely humanitarian reasons

I keep seeing this “purely humanitarian” phrase a lot. To be eminently Machiavellian, very little the US ever does is purely humanitarian – it’s never been noted as one of the UN’s major soft asset suppliers. Generally, the US intervenes when it has significant strategic or military objectives.

Like the Afghan adventure, Somalia is primarily about oil, and access to oil. Somalia’s former Barre regime struck significant deals with US oil interests, leasing nearly two-thirds of Somalia to four huge American oil companies: Conoco, Chevron, Phillips, and Amoco. This required the input of around $50m annually in aid to Barre’s regime, and the elimination of any opposition. Rather similar to Saudi Arabia, and the late 90s support of the Taliban central regime in Afghanistan.

Unfortunately, in the power vacuum after Barre’s removal, there was no central authority to guarantee US oil company access to the promising Somalian fields. The country descende d into factionalism, and led to an interruption of food supplies.

The initial phase of the UN engagement in Somalia, safeguarding food warehouses and convoys, was a qualified success. But the US’s increasing involvement in “nation building” led to allegations that it was in fact creating a nation aligned with US interests. This is of course understandable if you own those soldiers, but very far from the remit of the UN. But it’s very far from “purely humanitarian“.

The fact that the US-friendly Boutros Ghali had been a Barre supporter and had opposed Aideed and was now Sec Gen in the UN also pissed off the Aideed-aligned factions greatly. Excluding Aideed-aligned factions from settlements did nothing to alievate this situation.

Finally, the extraordinary racism displayed by many of the UN troops (not just US troops) led to Congressional enquiries, the disemboweling of heavy-handed Pakistani troops, and the trial of several Canadian and Belgian soldiers.