Beyond Black Hawk Down: U.S. involvement in Somalia

A donor’s conference for Somalia is underway today in Brussels. The United Nations hopes to raise more than $250 million to improve security in the anarchic nation. This comes on the heels of United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, has said it is too dangerous to send UN peacekeepers to Somalia and that it could exacerbate the armed conflict there. Also attending the donor’s conference is Somali President Sheikh Sharif, a former Islamist rebel leader elected in January at U.N.-brokered talks and widely seen as the best hope for restoring stability. While Somali gangs have made headlines seizing ships in the Indian Ocean, U.S. involvement in Somalia goes beyond our recent adventures with Somali pirates on the high seas.

The Takeaway is taking a deeper look at U.S. interests in Somalia with Bronwyn Bruton, a Somalia expert with the Council on Foreign Relations and with the BBC’s Mike Wooldrige in Brussels who is reporting on the donors’ conference.