Mike Durant

I mean, you think about it, we're right on the heels of Desert Storm.

And this is kind of how I explain this from a Somali perspective.

And I mean, we kicked the shit out of Saddam Hussein in 100 hours, you know.

And so the Somalis are looking at this as, we can't win this.

This is, we got to figure out some other way, turn it more into an insurgency, which is essentially what they did.

And the initial phase of this operation is,

I don't want to say it's a cakewalk, it never is when you enter into a country like that, but it goes really well.

Security's provided, relief organizations got protection, food's getting to people who need it.

Mission's over, right?

Well, we have an election back here and we put a different administration in the White House, Bill Clinton, and they don't know shit about foreign policy.

I mean, they just don't.

They're very naive.

in thinking that, well, you know, we went there to provide security, but maybe we could help them kind of turn things around and, you know, build their economy back and get a government put back in place and all those things that sound really great, but go try freaking doing it.

You know, I mean, it's very, very difficult to do.

But that's the mission.

So the mission transitions from security only to trying to gain control of the city so that a provisional government can be stood up into power.

Because right now it's just warlords and warring clans got a rule on their roost.

And in any change scenario like this, the person who's got the most to lose is going to resist the most.

I mean, if you're a deed and you have 60% of the support of the people and the Haber-Getter clan is controlling the majority of Mogadishu, you don't want to see change.

You got what you want.