Food Aid Ends Somalia Famine
False Assumption: Delivering food shipments protected by international peacekeepers will feed Somalia's starving children and resolve the famine.
Written by FARAgent on February 10, 2026
Somalia fell into chaos in 1991 after dictator Siad Barre fled. Clan militias fought with guns, mortars, and cannons. Mogadishu crumbled. Famine followed. The US and UN invoked the moral call to feed the hungry. Troops landed in December 1992 to secure aid delivery.
P.J. O'Rourke arrived in Mogadishu then. He saw guns everywhere. US guns. UN guns. Somali guns. No starving children appeared. They died offsite, driven away by gunmen. Donated rice sold in markets. Flies covered meat. Qat flew in daily by the ton. Journalists bunkered with mercenaries. Aid fed fighters, not victims.
Troops clashed with clans. A friendly chief turned foe. Black Hawk Down ensued. Mission collapsed. Thousands died. The West pulled back. Now the flop stands as textbook overreach into tribal war.
People Involved
- Siad Barre held power in Somalia for twenty-two years as a dictator. He kept clan feuds in check until 1991, when he fled and left the country in anarchy. [1] An unnamed clan chief eyed an alliance with American forces at first. He turned against them soon enough. This shift fueled the Black Hawk Down clash in 1993. He acted as a local warlord who twisted the intervention to his gain. [1]
▶ Supporting Quotes (2)
“Previously Somalia had been held together by the loathsome but stable twenty-two-year reign of dictator Siad Barre. But Barre gained loathsomeness and lost stability, and when he took a walkout powder in January 1991, all and sundry began fighting each other with rifles, machine guns, mortars, cannons, and—to judge by the look of the town—wads of filth.”— P.J. O'Rourke on Somalis
“when the U.S. military brought food relief and wound up fighting the Black Hawk Down incident with a clan chief who had wanted to be on our side.”— P.J. O'Rourke on Somalis
Organizations Involved
The United States military sent troops to Mogadishu in late 1992. They aimed to guard food shipments and end the famine. This move backed the idea that armed escorts could deliver relief without fail. [1] The United Nations followed suit with peacekeepers from around the world. They pushed the effort as a clear win for humanity. Both groups enforced the assumption through boots on the ground and public claims of success. [1]
▶ Supporting Quotes (2)
“I went there in December 1992, shortly after U.S. troops had landed in Mogadishu.”— P.J. O'Rourke on Somalis
“Food was being shipped to the country and international peacekeepers were being sent to deliver the food.”— P.J. O'Rourke on Somalis
The Foundation
The assumption rested on a simple moral rule: feed the hungry. It looked obvious and promised quick fixes. Experts ignored the gunmen who grabbed the aid and sold it off. [1] Another prop came from romantic views of primitives. Thinkers invoked Rousseau's noble savage, untouched by civilization and full of virtue. Somalis fit the bill as the least civilized. They turned out to be violent looters instead. This fantasy justified the compassion but blinded planners to the facts. [1]
▶ Supporting Quotes (2)
““Feed the hungry” is one of the first principles of morality. Here it was in operation. So where were the starving children of Mogadishu? … What I met with instead were guns.”— P.J. O'Rourke on Somalis
“Nonetheless, for someone who has been to Somalia, Mr. Cohen’s views sail precariously close to Romantic primitivism. Mogadishu is no place to argue in favor of Rousseau’s ideas about “natural man.” Attribute superior virtues to simple natives, if you will, but the Somalis are about as untainted by civilization as they could be, and no one who’s met the Somalis is calling them noble savages.”— P.J. O'Rourke on Somalis
How It Spread
Aid groups and news outlets pumped up the story. They focused on starving victims and called for mercy. Reports skipped the armed chaos that made delivery impossible. [1] This selective telling spread the assumption far and wide. It built pressure for action while hiding the risks. Dissent got buried under waves of sympathy. [1]
▶ Supporting Quotes (1)
“It’s easier to advertise our compassion for innocents in misery than it is to face up to what happened in a place like Somalia.”— P.J. O'Rourke on Somalis
Resulting Policies
In December 1992, the US launched Operation Restore Hope. Troops hit the beaches to shield food convoys. The plan assumed protection would get aid to children and stop the famine cold. [1] Peacekeepers enforced this with patrols and checkpoints. They treated the operation as a straightforward rescue. No one planned for the clans that saw aid as loot. [1]
▶ Supporting Quotes (1)
“And in Somalia the good intentions that professional worriers forever profess were being combined with—how rare this mixture is—good deeds. Food was being shipped to the country and international peacekeepers were being sent to deliver the food.”— P.J. O'Rourke on Somalis
Harm Caused
Children starved in the countryside, chased away by armed gangs. No one saw them die. Mogadishu lay in ruins, without water or electricity. Every building stood wrecked. [1] The Black Hawk Down fight killed eighteen American soldiers and hundreds of Somalis. Donated food hit the markets, sold by thieves. Gunmen ran the show and turned relief into profit. [1]
▶ Supporting Quotes (2)
“I spent two weeks in Somalia and never saw a starving child, not because they didn’t exist but because they were off somewhere dying, pushed into marginal spaces and territories by people with guns. Going to Somalia was like visiting the scene of a crime and finding that the murderer was still there but the body had fled.”— P.J. O'Rourke on Somalis
“what was for sale was mostly food that had been donated to Somalia’s famine victims, CONTRIBUÉ PAR LES ENFANTS DE FRANCE said the stenciled letters on all the rice sacks.”— P.J. O'Rourke on Somalis
Downfall
The assumption crumbled on the ground in Somalia. Guns ruled over hungry mouths. Aid vanished into looters' hands for resale. Qat chewers got their drug without guards, but wheat needed Marines and still sparked battles. Clans fought back hard. [1] P.J. O'Rourke went there and wrote it up. He found armed madness, not noble victims. His reports showed the aid as a joke under clan control. This exposure proved the whole idea wrong. [1]
▶ Supporting Quotes (2)
“But it takes U.S. Marines to deliver a sack of wheat. …”— P.J. O'Rourke on Somalis
“Arrayed around the landing strip were U.S. guns, UN guns, guns from around the world. Trucks full of Somalis with guns came to get the luggage. These were my guns, hired to protect me from the other Somalis with guns, and they all had them.”— P.J. O'Rourke on Somalis
Sources
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[1]
P.J. O'Rourke on Somalisreputable_journalism