Talk:Battle of Mogadishu (1993)/Archive 3

"Capture of Intend(ed) Targets" fun extravaganza
Capture of Intend Targets

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Capture of Intended Targets

ONLY this very Wikipedia article, including this:

"Ah, thank you! A good example of why people should be wary of Wikipedia."

As you see, not even a real phrase at all (and actually people comment about how wrong this is). Good bye :) --HanzoHattori 15:12, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and also. Let's see:

"Consequences of the operation Chalk Four Ranger returns to base after a mission in Somalia, 1993.In a national security policy review session held in the White House on October 6, 1993, President Clinton directed the acting chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral David E. Jeremiah, to stop all actions by U.S. forces against Aidid except those required in self-defense. He also reappointed Ambassador Robert B. Oakley as special envoy to Somalia in an attempt to broker a peace settlement and then announced that all U.S. Forces would withdraw from Somalia no later than March 31, 1994. On December 15, 1993, Secretary of Defense Les Aspin stepped down, taking much of the blame for President Clinton in what was deemed a failed policy. For all intents and purposes, President Clinton was now determined to militarily disengage from Somalia as quickly as possible. Most of the American troops were out of Somalia by March 25, 1994. A few hundred Marines remained offshore to assist with any noncombatant evacuation mission that might occur regarding the 1,000-plus U.S. civilians and military advisers remaining as part of the U.S. liaison mission. All U.S. personnel were finally withdrawn by March 1995.

The Battle of Mogadishu led to a profound shift in American foreign policy, as the Clinton administration became increasingly reluctant to use military intervention in Third World conflicts, (such as failing to halt the machete-hacking deaths of an estimated 1,000,000 civilians by Hutu militia groups in Rwanda in 1994), and affected America's actions in the Balkans during the later half of the 1990s. President Clinton preferred to use the "air power alone" tactic and hesitated to use U.S. ground troops in fighting Serbian military and para-military ground forces in Bosnia in 1995 and in Kosovo in 1999, out of fear of losing American soldiers in combat, as well as fear of repeating what happened in Mogadishu in 1993."

I guess they all shared fear of Capturing the Intended Targets? :) --HanzoHattori 15:17, 10 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Those are conseuences of the total Operation Gothic Serpent this specfic operation captures the targets that the missions was sortied to capture. PPGMD 15:59, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

You INVENTED THE TERM and NO ONE USES IT. While a victory, stategically the operation was a disaster for the US forces and source of a major trauma for years to come. Read what Phyrric victory means <- here. --HanzoHattori 16:55, 10 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Invented the term? The wording yes, it was the most succient way of putting that the operation did what it intended, I didn't just copy it word for word from another source. Phyrric Victory would be best applied or perhaps explained in the text somewhere. The direct result of this operation of that the targets that they set out to capture that night, were captured. PPGMD 17:01, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Jesus. What "captured that night", they attacked at day! That's how bad everything went. So bad the ENTIRE US WAR AGAINST AIDID was lost in instant. Somalis also "Captured Target" (1 US POW, but so much more valuable). Tactically a foreign victory (mostly managed to survive, and inflicted much greater casaulties - even if the plans were entirelly different and the best done would be without one shot). But strategically - a TOTAL disaster. If it went worse then that, the outcome still couldn't be worse. And these prisoners? Were released (unimportant). --HanzoHattori 17:59, 10 October 2006 (UTC)


 * The Operation started during the day and ending the next morning, I refer to it as an overnight operation because a majority of the Operation time wise occured during the night. The operation that was invovled directly with the Battle of Mogadishu was an operation to capture 2 teir 1 targets, both targets were captured in addition to others attending the meeting that weren't as important. It's all listed in this report PDF page 61. Yes the prisoners were released, but this particular operation, code worded Irene, that occured Oct, 3-4 1993 captured it's targets. PPGMD 18:20, 10 October 2006 (UTC)


 * PPGMD is right HanzoHattori. The mission's goal was to capture the two lieutenants. They were captured. Yes, there was a massive firefight, now famous, but the mission was considered a success. The shift in the US policy did not directly occur because of the battle, it occured because of the National Security Council's reaction to the destabilized situation. Phyrric victory is certainly not the case: The US army did not cease to become an effective fighting force because of their victory. Sorry, but you're wrong. &rArr;    SWAT Jester    Ready    Aim    Fire!  20:25, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

What? Who ever said the US Army was destroyed? :) It was "just" the Somalia special forces group who got decimated (and stopped to be "an effective fighting force", yes). The original Phyrric victory was "Another such victory over the Romans and we are undone." That was exactly what happened in Mogadishu, as the shocked US leadership decided they can't have any more victories like this, must stop this intervention now, get out all the forces (fast) - and even to avoid any major ground combat anywhere in the future. Because - it was a disaster. It was a disaster for the militia too, but in the end they won the war against the foreigners in this very battle. And the Somali prisoners taken? Totally lost any and all importance and were released, as the pilot captured in this battle was MUCH more important for the Americans. --HanzoHattori 02:04, 11 October 2006 (UTC)


 * That would be a conclusion that would have to be discussed on the page and sourced, that Capture of Intended Targets is already sourced and sums up the sum total of this particular part of the operation. To discuss long term consequences it should be on the Operation Gothic Serpent page. PPGMD 02:12, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

And I think these two articles should be merged. --HanzoHattori 02:18, 11 October 2006 (UTC)


 * We decided otherwise, one article about the Battle of Mogadishu that goes more indepth on the combat and fighting, along with another that covers the operations leading up to it, the history and the conseqences. Regardless you are still in violation of the WP:3RR are you going to revert it or not? PPGMD 02:20, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

No, I guess you'd have to revert it again (eight time or so, but shhh). Sorry, but I think use of a real, well-known terms is better than of a make-believe one. Now you can go to, say, Battle of Vukovar and change it to "Capture of Intended City" ;) --HanzoHattori 02:28, 11 October 2006 (UTC)


 * It's a real term, just because we used a different wording to describe the same results doesn't mean it's made up. Refute the fact that the targets that they went out for weren't captured. Anyways I gave you a warning, it was your choice. PPGMD 02:40, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

You're apparently not understanding the concept of a Phyrric victory: It's one where the "victorious" army achieve's its victory at such a cost to itself that it either ceases to become an effective fighting force, or that the benefits of victory are far outweighed by the cost of the casualties. Are you seriously going to tell me that 18 US Casualties make a phyrric victory? Because by that logic, nearly every war ever fought by the US army would count as such. Capture of intended city is a correct term, Phyrric victory does not adequately describe this battle. Sorry but as one who has served in combat in the US military, I can say the general consensus is that you're wrong &rArr;    SWAT Jester    Ready    Aim    Fire!

google results for Phyrric victory
http://www.google.com/search?q=Operation+Gothic+Serpent+Phyrric+Victory&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official Operation Gothic Serpent Phyrric Victory gets 1 Ghit, which is unrelated. http://www.google.com/search?hs=zzV&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=Battle+of+Mogadishu+Phyrric+Victory&btnG=Search Battle of Mogadishu Phyrric Victory gets only 18 unique Ghits. Not a single one states the battle of Mogadishu was a phyrric victory. Go ahead and look, I searched through every single link on there. There are articles about a japanese phyrric victory, a couple news hits about a nun killed in north mogadishu, a band called phyrric victory, and not a single one of those is about the battle of mogadishu.

So no, you're actually wrong Hanzo. &rArr;   SWAT Jester    Ready    Aim    Fire!  05:17, 11 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I think you're using too-specific search criteria for your Google search (plus, you both seem to have spelled pyrrhic incorrectly. Mark Bowden himself called in a pyrrhic victory in his initial Philadelphia Inquirer piece.  As did the Journal of Battlefield Technology, Combat Studies Instutute Press, Washington Monthly, and the Centre for Security in International Society just to name a few.  The reason you're not seeing this phrase in print is not because it does not apply, but because it's not a common saying.  In fact, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a source that says this battle was absolutely not a pyrrhic victory.  I would like to see it.  I don't say this to denigrate the bravery of those soldiers, and I understand that the mission objectives were accomplished...but this was done at far too high of a cost, and the consequence was the US Army abandoning the mission in Mogadishu.  To reiterate, yes, the battle was a victory, but far too much was lost for it to be considered anything but a pyrrhic victory. --ColorOfSuffering 17:24, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

From the article "A Pyrrhic victory (pronounced pirric) is a victory which comes at devastating cost to the victor. "....18 soldiers out of over a million.....while a devastating PERSONAL loss, you'd be hard pressed to convince someone that militarily it was a pyrrhic victory. &rArr;   SWAT Jester    Ready    Aim    Fire!  08:26, 26 October 2006 (UTC)


 * This is almost like the "Battle of The Battle of Mogadishu" :-) I think the cause for the different points of view is that we have a successful operation on the one hand (capture of Aidid lt.s), but a resultant battle – which was not part of the mission plan – which negatively impacted the overall mission in Somalia and hence "A victory won at too great a cost" (pyrrhic victory) with cost not always being specifically human lives. Remember that Somali's also claim victory (also then a pyrrhic victory), because to them it was a battle, regardless of the TFR mission objectives. This is not a typical battle – or part of a typical war – so perhaps we could be forgiven for a more wordy "Result" field including both views, either using footnotes or perhaps the "notes" field in this info box. I will knock up something and then we can trim it down to reflect both – valid – outcome descriptions. --Deon Steyn 10:52, 26 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Okay done. Perhaps the "notes" field is overkill and we can remove it and perhaps we can play around with the bold'ing in the Results field or maybe add more/different references, but apart from that I think this best captures the contradictory natures of the mission and battle outcomes. --Deon Steyn 11:21, 26 October 2006 (UTC)


 * The results field should concentrate on the military objectives of the operation. Political fall out should not be there, having the notes field you can put the political fallout there. PPGMD 13:14, 26 October 2006 (UTC)


 * That seems to be a fine compromise for now, though any pyrrhic victory can really be described in such terms -- the British succeded in their "Capture of intended hills" during the Battle of Bunker Hill, the Germans "Captured intended island" in the Battle of Crete during WWII, even good ol' Pyrrhus "Captured intended battlefield" at Asculum. But this seems to be the precedent set for many of the controversial modern battles where the outcome could be viewed as pyrrhic; the Tet Offensive has a similarly "confused" outcome.  It's as if the only battles with a clear outcome are the battles fought in antiquity.  To me it does not seem NPOV, because it tends toward a nationalistic bias.  But, like I said, the current compromise does at least hint that there was some negative aspects to come from the outcome of this battle for the memebers of Operation Gothic Serpent, rather than the ambiguous "capture of intended targets." --ColorOfSuffering 15:27, 26 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree with you PPGMD, but the article (and the actual event) was partly about this mission and then turned into something else and article is called battle of mogadishu not TFR operation Irene and this is where the ambiguity lies and why we have to make a compromise where the neutral stance is to reflect both points of view. I agree that it was a little messy and you tidied it up, but if we have to leave only one word then it should be "ambiguous" or "indecisive"? --Deon Steyn 06:25, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

presence / absence of AH-1 Cobra
the article said that AH-1 Cobra supported ground troops. As far I know, 10th MD's AH-1F Cobras were NOT used during the battle, although they were present on the Mog' Airport.


 * Probably an error on the result of someone reading the history section and adding it in. PPGMD 13:41, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

No Mention of Drought
I have done a lot of reading into the Battle of Mogadishu and am fascinated by it. One problem with the article here is that there is no mention of the drought that occured in the 1980s. There a famine that existed the previous decade and the civil war only enhanced that famine. I am not arguing with the fact that some agriculture was destroyed, but the drought was the primary reason behind the famine, not the destruction of the agriculture.

Not this crap again
The editors involved in this page discussed this out last time and found that the current info box sums it up appropriately. It shows that the aggressor force succeeded in it's objectives, but with a note that on the political level they were later pulled out. PPGMD 19:54, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Show me in the ENTIRE INTERNET 1 (one) use of the non-existing term you invented. (edit: not by you elsewhere) --HanzoHattori 19:58, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Also, you should see definition of tactical victory in Wikipedia (a success in battle without substantive or long-lasting gain). Maybe you should add definition for "Capture of Intended Targets"? ;) --HanzoHattori 20:09, 10 November 2006 (UTC)


 * You don't need a dictionary to define it, it was an attempt to sum up the operation in 4 words, Capture (ie they secured them) of the Intended (ie the what they planned to get) targets. Originally it was Capture of targets when I started editting this article, but a number of editors came (confusing the battle's goals with the operations objectives) and said "But Aidid was never captured." So the Intended was added to clarify that the page is for this single Battle not the opertion as a whole. If you really have some time on your hands, why don't you expand the Operation Gothic Serpent page, it could really use more information on the aftermath of this battle, in particular President Clinton's response. PPGMD 20:43, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I see you didn't understand me, so let me repeat: I need you to show me ANYONE ANYWHERE using this "real" term while not quoting this very article. (Also, as a secondary objective: tell me Why Are You Using Capital Letters without reason all the time.) --HanzoHattori 20:58, 10 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Black Hawk Down: "...Task Force Ranger dropped into a teeming in the heart of Mogadishu in the middle of a Sunday afternoon to surprise and arrest two lieutenants of warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid. It was a complex, difficult, and dangerous assignment, and despite terrible setbacks and losses, and against overwhelming odds, the mission was accomplished." He doesn't use those exact 4 words, but the jist of it is, that TFR went in an captured the targets that they were sent into to capture. Originally it was "Capture of Targets," before I started editing it. To stop the almost weekly "but Aidid was never captured," intended was added into it. PPGMD 21:13, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Ranking terminology
Can we change the ranks to the correct short terms? In the Army, the are WO1, CW2, CW3, CW3, and CW5. Durant was in the Army, not the Navy, so he was not a CWO3, he was a CW3. -cplradar

Poorly Planned
The article should mention, there was no reserve force prepared. It was a big and not understandable mistake for those generals. And where was the F18s? They had aircraft carriers, why not send some F18s to help rangers? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lynxlea (talk • contribs) 16:59, 28 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I fail to see why hypothesis should be included in this article. A reference to requests made by General Garisson for certain resources, which were denied, may be appropriate. G0ggy (talk) 09:03, 22 June 2009 (UTC)


 * For that raid, there was a Quick Reaction Force (QRF) for contingencies, which was provided by 10th Mountain Div and was ready that day and went into action during the battle. For air support, if several air assets were engaged simultaneously, deconfliction should have been made to avoid accidental "blue on blue", and thus only one asset (choppers or an AC-130 or fast-movers) would have provided CAS at a time. So if you have only one asset at a time, let's take the best suited for urban close air support (CAS), which were AH-6 "Little Birds" first, the AC-130s only second and fast-movers such as the F/A-18s the very last. That's why Garrison never requested AC-130s for his force, relying only on its AH-6s. Its only mistake in my opinion was to not consider that the raid may go that bad and end up with fights in several separated places (convoy + 2 crash sites). The four AH-6s were good to support only one ground force (a flight of two in support while two other refuelling/rearming to provide non-stop support), but not enough for the two crash sites, and for the last rescue convoy, 10th MD used its AH-1 Cobras if I remember correctly. Rob1bureau (talk) 19:04, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Listing of Military/Civillian deaths
I've reorganized the killed/wounded section to provide equla emphasis to civillian and military casualties, and also, I've taken the liberty of moving the exhaustive list of U.S. casualites to a separate table. From an international perspective, there's no reason that U.S. fatalities should deserve more "ink" than Somali or Malyasian. --Whiskey Pete, 24 November 2006 17:29 (UTC)


 * The US got more ink then Malaysian dead simply because there were more dead. Somali dead because there simply wasn't a list to be printed. The US list should be brought back into the article, forks are only for topics that are too long for the main article, and are likely to expand further. The US causality list is highly unlikely to expand. PPGMD 16:33, 23 November 2006 (UTC).

Okay, let's have a vote on all the relevant issues, then. --Whiskey Pete

Is there a way to ease into the American table so that it doesn't seem like we're giving undue emphasis to the 20 or so American dead as compared to the several hundred Somali deaths? I can't think of a lead-in phrase that wouldn't seem awkward. Actually, it's gaudy and heavy...PPGMD's justification of the seeming emphasis as due to the nonexistence of a Somali composite list seems like an insufficient counterargument. I am just overall uneasy about that table. Why not just remove it and replace it with a paragraph summary? In the context of the article I see its function as a pedestal... But I don't know. Is there a policy for situations such as this? I am equally uneasy about reducing an amount of available information, even in the name of objectiveness. Any opinions here?SébastienGM (talk) 11:57, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Have Italians taken part in this battle ? I deleted what Alex96lucca did 3 days ago (a bit late to discover some new casualties in a battle). My changes were removed. Grindipo (talk) 21:38, 22 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Nope, or else it's strangely forgotten in all accounts of this fight I have read yet. Rob1bureau (talk) 22:03, 22 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Ok, I remove it from the english and italian wiki (I hope i can speak french or english there) Grindipo (talk) 15:14, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Proposal #1: List of U.S. personnel killed should be moved to separate table

 * ''See the proposed page providing a list of U.S. Military Personnel Killed in the Battle of Mogadishu as a separate table


 * Yes, because having the table on the same page is distracting visually, and gives undue emphasis to military deaths over civillian deaths, and to US dead over the dead of other nations. Also, per PPGMD's criterion, the main page will start to look awfully crowded once things even out in Mogadishu, and authorities get around to compiling full lists of civillians killed/wounded, and (for military personnel) militia memership, posthumous rank, and medals awarded. --Whiskey Pete, 24 November 2006 18:15 (UTC)

How to order mention of those killed/wounded

 * Note that by Paksistani, I'm refering to the 2 personnel wounded on October 3-4, not the 24 soldiers killed on June 5, 2003.

Proposal #2a: Participating nations should listed in alphabetical order

 * This would mean the list goes: Malaysian, Pakistani, US, Somali


 * Yes. From am international perspective, there's no reason that US dead are of greater interest than Malyasian or Somali. One death cannot be compared with that of another, and an alphabetical listing seems to avoid pointless debates about who "sacrificed" more. --Whiskey Pete, 24 November 2006 18:04 (UTC)

Proposal #2b: Participating nations should listed by number of killed

 * This would mean the list goes: Somali, US, Malaysian, Pakistani 


 * Weaker Yes. At least it'd be objective criterion. -- Whiskey Pete, 24 November 2006 18:05 (UTC)

Proposal #2c: Casualties of intervening nations should be listed first; then Somali casualties

 * Any takers for this option?

Outline and structure

 * I just reverted your edits because there were WAY too many misspellings to correct. Also the Consequences section should be above the Book and movie discussions and the list of the dead because it is much more relavent to the article then those sections.PPGMD 17:43, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
 * What are you talking about, man? I made a couple of typos at 17:37, and corrected them by 17:40. The diff of your rv (at 17:41) over mine of 17:40 does not show any misspellings corrected. BTW: 'noteable'; capitalizations of 'Consequences', 'Book'; 'then' => 'than', etc. --Whiskey Pete


 * There are hardly enough active editors in this article for a vote. I kept your ordering, I only removed the seperate civilian section because there would be too much cross over and added the US dead back in. Short of doing residue anaylsis of the persons cloths and hands it would be hard to tell a militiaman from a civilian if they didn't have a gun in their hands. I agree that this article is cluttered, I think that a lot of the background should be moved to Operation Gothic Serpent and Restore Hope articles. In the highly unlikly event that authorties are able to build a list of Somali dead then I believe the entire section should be forked out, not just the US section.PPGMD 17:36, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
 * The 3 year-old daughter of Maria Osman was presumably not carrying a gun when a Black Hawk fell on the Osman family house, so by your criteria, I've added her to the list of civilian deaths. --Whiskey Pete
 * Thats one death compared to 1000-2000 possible dead. Wounded are of no conseqences and are mentioned. It's a list of the dead, since wounded are already mentioned in a section above. PPGMD 01:05, 24 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Also I removed references to the wounded in that section. Only the dead are notable, if you really wanted to we can add the 73 US wounded, but I don't think that is nearly as notable as a list of the dead. PPGMD 17:46, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Objectives again
We know what TFR's objectives were and they accomplished them (we have citations from several places that show this). The SNA objectives, if they had any, are unknown, so how exactly can we sum up their result? That entry is Original Research without a citation to point out what the objectives of the SNA. The only know results are the Military result of TFR, and the political result in the US from the media coverage. On a military level we can cite that TFR achieved it's objectives. Can we cite that the SNA achieved theirs, if they had any in the first place? They certainly didn't prevent Aidid's men from being captured. PPGMD 17:10, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Links with UBL
Can someone provide a source for the assertation that UBL's group provided funding and the know how to rework the RPGs? PPGMD 17:59, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Links with Al-Qaeda - impossible timeline?
Reading the overall article the following paragraph appears to have a timeline inconsistency:

"Four and one half years after the Battle of Mogadishu, in an interview in May 1998 [2], bin Laden disparaged the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Somalia, after eighteen American soldiers were killed and two of them had their bodies dragged through the streets. Some interpret his statements to mean that these events inspired his elaboration of later large-scale terrorist actions such as the first bombing of the World Trade Center, the bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, Khobar Towers, USS Cole, and the 9/11 attacks."

The interpretation that the events in Mogadishu in some way influenced the later "first bombing of the World Trade Centre" cannot be true if the dates in the article are correct. Battle for Mogadishu occurred in October 1993 and the first WTC bombing occurred on February 26 1993, with planning said to have started in 1991.

The other events are post BoM, and therefore are relevant to the article, however I believe the reference to the first bombing of the WTC is incorrect and should be removed.

--purchasea 08:35, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the reference to the first bombing of the world Trade Center because it's anachronistic. I haven't touched the rest of that section, though.

List of casualties
Hi all. I've removed this section as per What Wikipedia is not, which explicitly states that Wikipedia is not a memorial. I hope you understand. Proto :: ►  13:38, 9 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Listing the names of those that died in the operation (including known dead from the Somali side) is not a memorial, it's simply a list of those that died. PPGMD 17:19, 9 January 2007 (UTC)