Task Force Ranger was the 1993 military effort ordered by President Bill Clinton to capture Aidid and his lieutenants so the U.N. could deliver food and medical aid without fear of being attacked or killed by Aidid’s forces. The American soldiers Omar attacked in her tweet — the men of Task Force Ranger –weren’t sent to Somalia for fame or fortune. They weren’t there because of a deep desire to visit the God-forsaken nation of Somalia. They were deployed to support peacekeepers who were desperate to rescue the country from starvation and the ravages of civil war. To do that, they had to capture the men responsible for it.What gets forgotten, is that the original intention - to feed and protect the starving masses gets lost in the stories of those "saved" - thus Rep. Omar seems to know only the tales told by her elders who fled Somalia, who repeat the stories of violence, some of it by "invaders" and not the tales of UN forces and US forces coming with food and medicine. Her bitterness seems largely second hand.
She doesn't seem to know that some of the first pirating of vessel off the Somali coast was done to ships carrying relief supplies and that those hijacked supplies were used to increase the power and wealth of some of same warlords who caused many of the problems in Somalia as it turned into a failed state.
Bitterness toward rescuers is not unusual in this world. Something about "biting the hand that feeds you."
Well said.
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