US troops sent to Somalia

I think that when George Bush senior sent troops to Somalia it was the intentional work of a lame duck president to hand over a cluster f~ck to his heir presumptive.

It's terrible that Bush senior would have played with the lives of American service men like that.

If I remember the invasion correctly - I think he sent in troops to try to show Afro Americans that US Foreign Policy was evenhanded and not limited to countries which were Western or Oil Rich.

At the time the US had come in for critisism both at home and abroad for not intervening in Rwanda prior to the genocide there.

Of course once the troops were landed they found out just what a mess the country was in and quickly realised there wasn't much they could do.

In the end the US had no other option than to withdraw troops.

I'm not a big fan of Bush Snr but I dont think he can be blamed for that one.