- You are very welcome.
I just wanted to get that out of the way
because, this week,
I'm doing something a little bit different.
In addition to your regular Monday, Tuesday,
Wednesday, Thursday Philip DeFranco Show
that comes out around five p.m. Eastern, two p.m. Pacific,
you'll also be getting one of these,
a morning news video
into a very interesting news story
so I can help all you beautiful bastards
get started with your day,
and then come back a few hours later
and watch the full show.
And so with that, I gotta say,
this morning, we gotta talk about what has Matt Gaetz
and Ilhan Omar on the same side?
Because that is an incredibly rare thing.
But at the end of last month,
those two lawmakers found a small piece of common ground,
and it was found in Africa.
All right, so Gaetz forced a vote in the House
on a resolution to direct President Biden
to remove all US troops from Somalia within a year,
except for a handful who would guard the embassy,
with him calling US involvement there a costly
and mostly fruitless endeavor that has no end in sight.
Now if you're hearing this,
and you're thinking, "Wait,
"the military that my tax dollars are funding is where,"
you're not alone because,
unbeknownst to many Americans,
the US has been meddling in Somalia
in one way or another for decades
with troops stationed there since around 2007.
And there, they've been propping up
a flimsy local government
while fighting the Islamic militant group Al-Shabaab,
as well as other smaller groups.
But right before he very reluctantly left office,
Trump ordered nearly all troops, about 700 at the time,
out of the country.
But don't get confused, right?
This wasn't some kind of progressive anti-war move.
Most of the soldiers were just simply redeployed
to Kenya or Djibouti,
where they continued their work in Somalia,
just from across the border.
Plus, even before that,
Trump loosened controls on airstrikes
and significantly escalated combat activity.
But even still, Biden reversed that decision
a few months after he got in,
putting about 500 troops back in Somalia.
And that came as an absolute surprise to many observers
because he was stressing the need
to end such wars on the campaign trail,
and even reiterating that a few months later
during the Afghan withdrawal.
- American troops shouldn't be used as a bargaining chip
between warring parties in other countries.
It is time to end the Forever War.
- So when the Times asked a White House official
why Biden pulled out of Afghanistan,
but did the exact opposite in Somalia,
they gave two reasons.
First, saying the Taliban had not expressed any intention
of attacking the United States.
And second, saying other militant groups in Afghanistan
did not control significant enclaves of territory
from which to operate and plan.
But that second point is actually contradicted
by the intel documents that were recently leaked on Discord,
those notably including a Pentagon assessment
that warns that Afghanistan
has become a significant staging ground for terrorist groups
and the Islamic State reportedly planning attacks
across Europe and Asia and conducting, quote,
"aspirational plotting" against the United States.
Whatever its practical reasons are,
the White House cites the 2001 Authorization
for Use of Military Force, or AUMF,
to justify its presence in Somalia,
with that being a law signed after 9/11
that authorized the executive branch
to pursue Al-Qaeda and the Taliban except, there,
the wording was so broad that you had critics saying
that it was going to be used as a blank check
to wage the global war on terror.
And in fact, the past four presidents have cited it
for at least 41 military operations
in at least 19 different countries,
often against groups that didn't even exist
when the Twin Towers fell.
When looking back at the past two decades,
critics argue we don't have much to show for it.
In 2002 and 2003,
the State Department counted a grand total
of nine terror attacks
across the entire continent of Africa.
But now, that number
is actually several thousand every year.
Moreover, the African Center for Strategic Studies,
a Pentagon research institute,
reported last year that, quote,
"Militant Islamist group violence in Africa
"has risen inexorably over the past decade,
"expanding by 300% during this time."
And in Somalia, you see the same trend,
with Al-Shabaab attacks increasing 60% since 2017,
as well as fatalities linked to Al-Shabaab jumping
from just over 2,600 in 2021
to over 6,200 last year.
And that's despite the US
spending billions of dollars at minimum
on operations in the country,
though the total actual number is unknown,
as well as executing more than 275
airstrikes and commando raids,
not to mention the nearly 20,000 troops and helicopters
provided by the African Union
to reinforce its Somali military.
So all of that raises the question of,
where have we gone wrong?
And there's actually many different answers.
But one of them comes
from Brown University's Cost of War project,
which argues that the US presence
is actually stirring up conflict, not eliminating it,
with them saying that the US spends more
on counterterrorism in Somalia each year
than the federal Somali government earns in tax revenue,
flooding Somalia with funding
for militarized counterterrorism
and thereby diverting resources away
from real conflict resolution solutions.
Also arguing that the Americans' top-down approach
to favoring the centralized government
just can't work in Somalia,
where local dynamics like clan allegiances
dictate the political arena,
meaning that the central government
just has limited influence outside the capital,
and people in the rest of the country
just feel alienated from it and the United States.
Basically, the argument is
that the challenge in Somalia is a political one,
not a military one,
and thus the solution won't be found on the battlefield,
which was also the conclusion reached
in the 2008 study by the Rand corporation,
with that looking at 648 historical cases
of militant groups,
and finding that only seven percent
were defeated through military efforts,
whereas over 80% of groups ended
either because they joined the political process,
or key members were arrested or killed
by local police and intelligence.
But others also argue that,
regardless of the data or the local dynamics,
the US shouldn't be in Somalia just because it helped
create the terrorism there to begin with.
All right, to be sure,
that country's been ripped apart by warring clans
since even before America put its boots on the ground,
with the government collapsing in 1991
and the Pentagon sending troops in the next year
to provide humanitarian support,
and then pulling back out almost as fast as it arrived
after militants shot down two Black Hawk helicopters,
killing 18 American soldiers.
But then in 2006, something massive happened.
An Islamic group quickly ousted
the most heavily entrenched warlords,
and within six months accomplished
what nobody had been able to do for 15 years before
and in more than 15 years since.
They formed a stable government
that centralized political power
over 90% of the Somali countryside,
with them also providing essential services
like schools, hospitals, and courts,
which gave them their name, the Islamic Courts Union,
and their military wing,
going by a more familiar name, Al-Shabaab.
So it actually looked like a civil war
might finally come to an end.
But then, the US backed a three-year-long Ethiopian invasion
that toppled the ICU.
So then, with their civilian wing all of a sudden cut off,
Al-Shabaab's commanders
became a more extreme jihadist insurgence,
even welcoming a host of foreign fighters into their ranks.
And then in 2012,
the group pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda,
giving the White House all the excuse it needed
to carry on bombing the country.
And then in 2016, an Islamic State affiliate emerged,
where it continues to cause havoc to this day.
But counterterrorism also isn't the only reason
Washington has its eye on the Horn of Africa.
Some, like AfriCom Commander General Michael Langley,
argue we need troops there to maintain access
to a strategic oil shipping route,
with Somalia's proximity to it also the reason
you hear so much about Somali pirates,
as well as movies like "Captain Phillips".
So Langley and others argue that, if the US pulls out,
it'll leave a power vacuum
that might be filled by Russia or China.
But because Beijing already
has a military base in Djibouti though,
it's the only one abroad,
and the US has one there as well.
Then you also have some who argue
that we can still support the Somali government
without having American soldiers directly stationed there.
And actually, to an extent,
we've already been doing that
with the CIA and Special Forces
organizing local proxy fighters
to conduct low-profile operations.
So even that has its drawbacks, right?
Some proxies like the Danab Brigade have been implicated
in the abuse and arbitrary arrest of civilians.
And Somali political elites
have reportedly used US-trained forces
to persecute their own political opponents.
So that's not what we'd call new
for the Pentagon in Africa.
Since 2008, US-trained officers have succeeded
in at least eight coups across five West African countries.
Nor is our covert support for proxies new to Africa.
According to the Brennan Center for Justice,
the US has fought so-called secret wars
in more than a dozen countries over the past two decades.
And these including many in Africa,
like Egypt, Cameroon, Kenya, Libya, Mali,
Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, and Tunisia,
where American commandos and advisors
trained, funded, and employed local proxies
to fight US targets,
often with minimal Congressional oversight.
So to bring us back, Matt Gaetz's bill last month
to get US troops out of Somalia is just the first step
in winding down American involvement there
and barely puts a dent in the global war on terror.
Yet when the House actually voted on it,
321 lawmakers shot it down,
with the 102 in favor being roughly split
between far-right Republicans
and far-left or progressive democrats,
which is why, during the Florida debate,
you saw something that's rare in DC nowadays:
lawmakers detracting from others within their own party
and reaching out to back some across the aisle.
- And to the extent
that foreign influences could be helpful,
I would argue that the African Union
is far better positioned to build a stronger sense
of national identity and national unity
among clans that have been warring
in Somalia for generations
than US troops.
- And this idea that we're gonna play
this terrorist whack-a-mole,
where, every time one pops up, we send a new force,
does nothing to actually try and help with stabilization.
You can't point to a single agenda,
whether it was Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia,
whether it was Libyan support.
You can't point to a single one
where our presence has actually led to greater stability.
- I would make the case that,
because we have forces all around the world,
we have been a safer place.
- There is another group of adversaries
to keep in mind as well.
Russia and the Communist Party of China
would like nothing more
than to see the US take a foreign policy of isolationism.
- And this may not be over,
with Gaetz suggesting that his next resolution
might be to order US troops out of Niger.
And his last one early in 2022
tried to withdraw 900 troops from Syria,
but that was voted down as well.
So at least for now, it seems like the war machine
is just gonna keep on keepin' on,
which is why I'm gonna leave you with two final things.
One, I'd absolutely love to know your thoughts
on this news story and this whole situation
in those comments down below.
And two, thank you for watching the first
of this week's new morning videos.
And remember, later today or in just a few hours,
depending on when you're watching this,
you're still getting that brand new,
full Philip DeFranco Show.
So make sure you're subscribed,
and I'll see you in a little bit.