The Reality of Forever Wars

The president's half rally, half national address on the fourth of July was evacuated, delayed, but eventually delivered just before the clock struck fifth of July. He talked about communism so much it felt like nineteen fifty four out there on the national mall. America will never be a communist country. won't happen. He talked at length about some of the nation's past military glories And he spoke briefly about some of his recent interventions. A recent victory by sinking the entire Iranian Navy, one hundred and fifty nine ships? too the bottom of the sea, all gone and just A moment' time. I did not mention that he still hasn't really managed to end his war in Iran. You look at Iran, we wiped it out. And the President made zero mention of the nation's longest ongoing military intervention. He seldom talks about a few people in Washington do The President Trump has been quietly ratcheting up airirstrikes in Somalia, so we are going to talk about that on todayoday Explain from Vox The FIFA World Cup is here and you can now feel the thrill of the pitch in FIFA World Cup laaunch Eedition on Netflix, a fast and fluid football game where your phone is the controller and the TV is the stadium. Play for your country in sixteen different stadiums with up to four friends. all included in your membership. sccroll to the games tab on your TV and play FIFA World Cup Launch Eedition, now, only on Netflix Here's something most wellness influencers won't tell you. Obsessing over supplements, powders, cold plunges, wearables, and hacks, that's going to undermine your goals. I call it majoring in the minors, and it is one of the five mistakes I see people make most on their wellness journeys. I'm Rabid Ason, VPN headad instructor at Peloton, and this week on my podcast Project Swagger, I'm sharing all of those mistakes and what I want to see you do instead Follow Projectser now wherever you get your podcasts This is todayoday Explained If you want to hear more about what's going on in Somalia, it's best to head to Somalia, so we reached out to journalist Mohammed Gabobee in Mogadishu Somalia, as you know, has been plagued two decades by an ongoing Islamist insurgency. Al Shabab was formed in two thousand two and came to prominence in two thousand six. their targets citizens, government officials, and diplomats in southern and central Somalia. But the conflict in Somalia is not just between the government and the insurgents It also includes international actors, namely the United States of America. The United States has at least five hundred soldiers in this country But it's trained and paid for Somali troops to form the Danub unit or lightightning force. In addition to training, U.S. troops provide critical support to the Somali troops, including surveillance from overhead drones and airirstrikes. The U.S. has been carrying out airirstrikes in Somalia for two decades In it itss heightening, or I should say even worsen under the Trump administration. So far, there's been one hundred and ninety six airirstrikes in Somalia since the Trump administration took the helms of the White House This is compared to two hundred and nineteen during his first term So in essence, what you have is a very upscale and escalating US air warar in Somalia at the moment And who's being attacked Who's dying The insurgents are being attacked, as they say, but unfortunately, civilians are getting caught up in the mist in these airstrikes The reason being is Oftentimes in a place like Somalia, it's difficult to differentiate between a civilian and Shabaab, right? The insurgents live amongst the local population, they're embedded in the local population, and they are a fabric of the society. So oftentimes as a Somali for me, for example, it's hard for me to differentiate between insurgents and a civilian. So how is the US government going to do it but had drone hundreds of miles away You know, so that's what's happening So let's talk about each of those groups. First, let's talk about the insurgents What is going on with the insurgents? and does that have anything to do with the United States, the presresident of the United States, namely escalating his attacks in Somalia Yes, Somalia is plagued by multiple insurgencies. The most relevant one is Ali Shabab This is enaged in a two decade in surgey against the Somali government and it's the international coalition Even though they've been pushed out of most major cities, they still control large swaths of territory in Somalia. United Nations experts say the threat of Al Shab remains the greatest immediate threat to Somalia and the East Africa region, especially Kenya The al Qaeda link group controls significant parts of southern and central Somalia. Despite sustained military pressure from Somali and international forces, the Al Qeda linked group AS retained its capacity to carry out complex asometric attacks, including high profile operations in Mogadi shot They've been able to create a parallel government and even a de facto state within Somali's borders. They pretty much have a monopoly on the use of force in the areas they control. So they are a factor in Somalia The U. S. determined to battle them and weaken them on behalf of their allies, which is the Somali federal government But at the same time, w decades of airstrikes, tens of thousands of foreign forces, and yet the insurgency is still fighting, they're still going, if not strengthening in my observations And meanwhile, it sounds like The United States is killing civilians. Yes, overver the years, there' been numerous incidents of these civilians dying in U.S. airstrikes going back to Bush all the way to now under Tp second term, but it's worse than under fromrum second term And the reason for that is For example, when Biden O Obama were in the White House, there were certain levels of, I would say, transparency So when the US wanted to carry an airirstrike in Somalia The commanders would have to inform, let's say, for example, their superiors Those su peers would have to inform the Pentagon. The Pentagon would inform, let's say the CIA or the White House. Every department had to sign on of it before the airstrike was conducted. This was made to be sure who is being targeted is actually the person who should be targeted in reference to avoiding civilian casualties Since Trump took over the White House, that doesn't exist no moreore. Low level or mid level commanders on the ground are giving the green light to do as they please. So there's less transparency, and this is why a lot of civilians are dying, unfortunately And you wrote for the Guardian One story, a particularly tragic story about civilian death in Somalayia, could you Tell us what happened? So this story was about a U.S. airstrike We getting another Shaba controlled farming town called Jamama, deep in southern Somaria When that airstrike happened The US killed twelve civilians including eight children so many things happen honestly because there are so many victims, but if I can give you like a generenal breakdown of what happened is one lady, three of her underage children were wounded in the airstrike. She lived in the town of Johammed. The timing of the attack concurs with an airstrike claimed by US Africa commommand together with the federal government. Africom, alongside the federal government of Somalia and Somalia Armed forces continues to take actions to degrade Al Shab's ability to threaten the U.S. homeland, our forces, and our citizens abroad. A big explosion happened outside. They didn't know what it was then, but it were later be found out to be a missile All of my children were lying on the ground covered in blood. When I tried to tend to them, shells began falling everywhere. Every direction you turned, there were shells and missiles raining everywhere. The Guardian, june twenty twenty six Eventually, she carried her wounded children and fled into the bushes deep in the countryside outside of town. The reason for that, she says is because the drones were still hovering ahead. So she feared if she came out of the bushes, she would get hit in another airirstrike When she came to Magishu She's trying to get help for her son, which she hasn't gotten yet. They told me if the shrapnel isn't removed from his body, it could affect his ability to continue walking But I don't have a thousand dollars needed for the operation to remove the shrapnel from my son's body. What's worse than being a mother who can't do anything for her wounded children? Guardian june twenty twenty six Another man lost four of his grandchildren. They were ripped to pieces. When he tried to pick them up from the floor, he couldn't even pick them up because they were ripped to so many pieces and they were so small. So these are some of the things, you know? these people went through. And then for the U.S to release a statement or say Africa and say we targeted Al Shab to degrade them, this and that. I mean, you might have targeted them, but you didn't get your target. You know, this is who you harmed What is the U.S. government's relationship with the Somali government like? Is the Somali government okay with these airstrikes? A they aiding the United States in executing these airstrikes? Yeah, I would say so because US. is here on behalf of supporting the smallali federal government in counter tterrorism, state building, even humanitarianism Before US aid was discarded about a year ago, they were the biggest fundnder of projects and support in Somalia So I would say the U.S. has played a big role in supporting Somalia, but there's a misconception When I say they support Somali, they don't support ordinary Somalis. They support the Somali government, right? So they support the ministries, the security services the civil society, the NGOs, things like that they don't support the average, you know, Joe Shimo walking down the street. so U, and especially when it comes to these airirstrikes, I think The Somali government needs them because they're fighting a more aggressive and some can even argue more powerful vote What do the people want in Somalia? Do they want the Somali government coording with the United States to fight Al Shab Or do they want the United States to get out of their business It depends who you ask. but based on my observation, I think it's better to look at it from the perspective of What do Somalis want in reference to their country and the state of their nation and where things are heading I think most Somalis just want to be left alone I think most Somalis want to be a position where they can dictate and choose the you know the the fate and the rout and just rule on their own accord, you know? I pick their own leaders, live how they want inststead of the international community always intervening I think that's the biggest problem The international community has done a lot for Somali, but I think it's done more damage than benefit in my opinion, you know so many foreign interventions, so many international resolutions being passed And it weakens the country even more that I really believe most Somalis are bothered by. It's a foreign interference in the foreign subjugation more than anything If they're left alone, I think Somali can fix their own problemsough Is that to say that the United States isn't helping Yeah, I actually personally based on my observation and research, I think they're doing more harm than good. becausecause there's no way that you're going to defeat Al Shaba airirstrikes. It's been going on for two decades. There's no tangible results. They're even more powerful Today, they run a parallel government in Somalia They have a de facto state within Somali's borders. So with the U.S. carry not airirstrikes propping up counter insurgency operations, I just feel like they want to fight with Shab They're doing more har Because you have to bear in mind every time a bomb or a missile falls from the sky, it forces more young people to take up arms and join the insurgency So Buttinglish sm my observation. Mohamed Gaboe in the Guardian at Al Jazea, all over. He's a freelance journalist based in Mogadishu. When we're back on today explained, we're gonna ask a colleague of ours at Vox Why we don't hear much about this war of ours stateside Support for today explained comes from Vanta. everyvery new tool your team signs up for, every vendor that turns on AI features, every new integration, has a chance for something to go wrong, and most security programs weren't built for AI's pace of growth. Enter Vanta. 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That's QuNcE dot com slash explained for free shipping and three hundred sixty five day returns quins dot com Slash explained This is Today Explained Josh Keating, senior correspondent at Vox covering foreign policy national security, I want to ask you a question that you yourself asked in a piece you wrote for Vox earlier this year. Why is the United States bombing Somalia so much? and why isn't anyone talking about it Well, I'll take the first part of that first. There are really two reasons One is that Somalia is an increasingly important country when it comes to the global ISIS network. Since ISIS has been sort of degraded and lost its territorial control in Syria and Iraq, a lot of the sort of focus of the leadership has shifted to Somalia and actually there are some senior officials who say that the global caliph, the head of ISIS is actually located in Somalia now. Africa remains a nexus theatater from which The United States cannot shifip this gaze ISIS controls our global network from Somoia It was the Islamic state's new stronghold From this village in Northern Somalia Jihadas sought to expand the group's influence worldwide and finance other factions across the continent. That doesn't fully answer the question though, because there are other countries where there are ISIS and Al Qaeda cells operating where the U. S. is not conducting as many airstrikes And the US is also launching strikes against Al Shab, which doesn't really pose as direct a threat to the U.S. homelands. Basically the conclusion I've come to is that to a certain extent, the war on terrorism works on autopilot, that these strikes just continue to happen unless somebody takes a step to stop them. You know I think the reason we saw strikes go down when Joe Biden was president is they put these new targeting rules into place where basically the military had to get approval from the White House to launch a counter tterrorism strike against you know, one of these senior ISIS or al Shab terrorists. When Trump returned to the White House, he got rid of those rules. So now basically Africom, the U S. Africa commommand, has much more authority to launch strikes as its ees fit. and that's exactly what it's doing. So you're saying basically that The United States military can execute strikes on Somali territory without running it by president the White House and because of that, we're doing it a bunch and in some cases, even killing civilians. Yeah, I mean, you can look at a speech that Sebastian Gorka, the White House counterterrorism coordinator gave last summer at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, where basically his interpretation of is when you know, the Trump administration got back in office He says that officials were telling him that they they weren't allowed to go after the bad guys. The Biden administration had this insane system whereby any strike against a high value target had to be sent to the White House threw Jake Sullivan to the president for a green light in ane And, you know, when Trump and Gorka came back in, you know, according to their narrative, they took the shackles off. less than thirty hours later I was back in the sit room under the West Wing, watching on the giant screens this leading ISIS jihadi walk around this compound and then get turned into red mist. Since that time, we are stacking them like cordwood And so tell us how much more the United States is going after them than they maybe were under President Biden, Obama before him, Bush before him. Right, so in twenty twenty five last year, the U.S carried out one hundred twenty five airirstrikes and one ground raid in Somalia and this year there have already been seventy Now to put that into context, the both of those individual years are more than the number of operations that Joe Biden carried out during his entire presidency in the country, that would be fifty one. You know, this is also a much larger ation than you know, say the US campaign against alleged drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, which has gotten a lot more attention. And I think up until you know epic Fury, the US warar in Iran, you could say, you, this was the Trump administration's largest war. And you know when's the last time you saw any sort of public debate about what the U.S. is doing in Somalia. It's very rare that President Trump even talks about what we're doing in Somalia I mean, this is the second part of the question that you posed in your piece. Why aren't we talking about it? What's the reason? Do we just except this ongoing incursion because it's been going on so long I think that's part of it. I mean, Somalia has been in effectively a state of civil war since the early nineteen nineties and the US has been involved almost since the beginning. You know, the Black Cckdown incident was nineteen ninety three. This is Super six one moments after it was hit by a rocket propelled grenade Spinning out of control. before it's torn apart on impact. An American helicopter pilot taken prisoner in Somalia, one of six U. S. soldiers listed as missing in the heaviest fighting yet in Mogadishu Twelve American soldiers killed, seventy eight wounded someome of the dead dragged through the streets by jeering Somalis. And I think that, you know, Somalia is just a country that doesn't get a lot of attention in general. And I think that the fact that, you know U. S. troops aren't in harm's way is a big part of the toooth. But I think one thing that the military has the US military has learned since nine eleven is that when U.S. troops aren't in harm's way and when there aren't large numbers of casualties, people just don't pay that much attention to it President Trump doesn't talk much about what the United States military is doing in Somalia, but he certainly does sometimes talk about Somali immigrants in, you know, a racist sort of way. I don't want them in our country. Their country is no good for a reason The country sts. Somalia is Considered by many to be the worst country on earth I don't know I haven't been there. I won't be there anytime soon Does his feelings about the Somali people, especially in the United States color. the way he's conducting our military operations in the country? I don't think that the two are directly coordinated, but I think you have to you can't ignore that context either And it's important to remember, these strikes are being conducted in cooperation with the Somali government. We're not at war with the nation of Somalia. So I don't think, you know it's too simplistic to say The reason We are bombing Somalias because Trump has this antipathy towards Somalis that he's called them low IQ people or any of the terrible things he said about them The way he talks about it is if he's not that involved or as if he's just sort of finding out about it from, you know, articles on Fox News that come across his social media feed it's not as if u you know, he seems to be taking a sort of daily operational supervision of it. So, you know, in his mind that Somalia is in this state of chaos, that there is this ongoing violence there, that there is humanitarian crisis there. That's all the more reason to be keeping Somalis out of the United States. So I think I think in that respect the two are connected even though I don't think hisis antipathy or feelings about Somalis are the reason that we're conducting this campaign Things gotten any better? I mean, the United States has been at this for so long. You mentioned Blackhawk downown, which feels like a lifetime ago I think that the Somali government is not currently at risk of falling to these groups, which is something you could not necessarily say at various points over the last twenty years. But you Al Shabaab and ISIS to a lesser extent, do control territory. outside of the major cities in Somalia And you know, let's remember this is a country in the grips of a Humanitarian crisis too, you know the World Food Pgram is whereried has warned that it's on the verge of famine, and that's been exacerbated by the cutbacks in aid that we've seen primarily from the United States as well as the increase in global food and fuel prices caused by the recent war in Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. You know, this is a security crisis of a humanitarian crisis, and those two are interrelated because one thing we've seen in the past is the way that armed groups in countries like Somalia can weaponize food insecurity both for recruitment and as actually using food and famine as a weapon. so You know, the situation in Somalia remains dire, remains very serious you know, even though thanks in part to American air power, you know, I don't think that the government in Mogadishu itself is in sort of direct danger of collapsing anytime soon. and in some respects is more stable than it's been in a long time So for all the talk of forever wars in this country and ending them and not getting involved in military interventions that have no you know, End game We are literally involved in one in Somalia and there's no sign of It's stopping. Yeah, I mean, I'll give you a quote from last fall from when Trump gathered that group of U. S. military leaders together at Quantico to talk about the new vision for the U.S. military. He said