{"id":364994,"date":"2018-06-11T10:45:35","date_gmt":"2018-06-11T09:45:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/this-week-in-history-june-11-17\/"},"modified":"2018-06-11T10:45:35","modified_gmt":"2018-06-11T09:45:35","slug":"this-week-in-history-june-11-17","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/this-week-in-history-june-11-17\/","title":{"rendered":"This week in history: June 11-17"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"content\">\n<h3 class=\"nomargin\">\u00a0<\/h3>\n<h2>This week in history: June 11-17<\/h2>\n<h5>\n<p>    11 June 2018<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n<h4>25 years ago: US military slaughters Somali civilians<\/h4>\n<p>On June 11, 1993, six months after US troops landed in Somalia for the supposed purpose of feeding starving people, US warplanes reduced large parts of the capital city, Mogadishu, to rubble, while United Nations troops carried out house-to-house raids and cold-blooded massacres.<\/p>\n<p>US AC-130H gunships attacked targets throughout Mogadishu with 105mm computer-guided howitzers capable of firing enormously destructive shells with overwhelming rapidity. Hundreds of Somalis were killed and many more wounded in a week of one-sided bloodshed.<\/p>\n<p>The action was the first major military operation of the Clinton administration, which had taken office in January. It was purportedly in retaliation for the death of 23 Pakistani soldiers in a clash with Somalis on June 5. These \u201cpeacekeeping troops\u201d\u2014mercenaries sent by the military dictatorship in Islamabad\u2014died in a battle in which they killed at least three times as many Somalis, after a raid in which the UN troops sought to seize control of a radio station which had broadcast statements opposing the foreign occupation.<\/p>\n<div class=\"imageFull\" style=\"width:480px; oveflow:hidden;\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/asset\/dc4559cd-9d5c-4c2c-a9af-d5e0d68b2f9M\/image.jpg?rendition=image480\" srcset=\"\/asset\/dc4559cd-9d5c-4c2c-a9af-d5e0d68b2f9M\/image.jpg?rendition=image960 2x\" width=\"480\" style=\"width:480px;\" \/><span>US troops in Somalia in 1992<\/span><\/div>\n<p>The work of food relief agencies, the supposed aim of Operation Restore Hope, ground to a halt. An official of the CARE relief agency told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation: \u201cThe UN is now regarded as the enemy, not someone who came to help.\u201d The US attacks were highly destructive, he explained: \u201cThe targets are specific, but the weaponry is enormous and the damage is huge.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>President Clinton described the US mission as \u201copening up the country again to the beginnings of civilization.\u201d The onetime protester against the Vietnam War was now embracing gunboat diplomacy with&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2018\/06\/11\/twih-j11.html\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 This week in history: June 11-17 11 June 2018 25 years ago: US military slaughters Somali civilians On June 11, 1993, six months after US troops landed in Somalia for the supposed purpose of feeding starving people, US warplanes reduced large parts of the capital city, Mogadishu, to rubble, while United Nations troops carried [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2526,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-364994","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2526"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364994\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}