25 April 2015

For Military Operations From Somalia to Saudi Arabia, Hope Is a 4-Letter Word

APRIL 22, 2015

Having “achieved its military goals” in a four-week bombing campaign in Yemen, Saudi Arabia has announced it would begin a new phase of its war there and pledged to halt airstrikes against rebels. The new phase of that war also has a new name — Operation Restore Hope — and if that sounds familiar, you don’t have to travel far from Yemen to locate the site of another military intervention, one whose legacy Saudi Arabia probably isn’t eager to recall.

In December 1992, the United Nations Security Council authorized a U.S.-led coalition to launch operations in Somalia aimed at restoring access for humanitarian relief operations. Clan warfare had left much of Somalia’s agriculture industry destroyed, and the resulting famine had left some 500,000 dead. The U.S. task was to provide the necessary security to allow for food to be delivered to needy Somalis. The mission was christened “Operation Restoring Hope.”

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