“We’re not in Mogadishu anymore, Toto:
American’s Return to an Ideology of Warfare”
(Part IV of Richard Koenigsberg’s paper, Love of War, appears below.
Click here for the complete paper with references.)
The paper presented here is adopted from a keynote address presented by Dr. Koenigsberg at the United World College of the American West.
After September 11, the U. S. abandoned its policy of casualty aversion—and reaffirmed the ideology of warfare. Attacking both Afghanistan and Iraq, President Bush insisted that America would return to her true character—that of a courageous, heroic people willing to wage war in the name of a just cause. Just as Middle Eastern warriors were killing and dying for Allah, so young Americans would sacrifice their lives in the name of freedom and democracy.
The United States attacked Afghanistan on October 7, 2001. In light of the policy of casualty aversion that had dominated the United States for ten years, a question arose in the minds of commentators. What would happen when American soldiers began to die in battle? Would the United States retreat? Would Americans turn against the war when dead soldiers began returning in body bags?

Charles Krauthammer’s column of January 18, 2002, was entitled, “Can America Take Casualties?” Citing Bin Laden’s assertion that the US had left Mogadishu humiliated and defeated, Krauthammer suggested that Bin Laden believed he had set a trap in Afghanistan, calculating that Americans would arrive in force, take a few casualties and then flee.

Krauthammer declared that Bin Laden had it wrong: The war on terror was different. When attacked or engaged in an “existential struggle,” America is not only fierce, “it is stoic.” The columnist concluded that no one should underestimate “America’s capacity to sustain casualties in such wars.”

A column by Ben Shapiro appeared on April 9, 2003—after the Iraq war had begun on March 18—with the headline, “We’re not in Mogadishu anymore, Toto.” Shapiro insisted that not only would America take casualties in order to achieve their mission, but that it would overcome its reluctance to inflicting civilian casualties.

American foreign policy during the 1990s had been dominated by the desire to avoid American military casualties as well as civilian casualties. Because of this policy, Shapiro suggested, the first President Bush & Bill Clinton never got the United States deeply involved in any military conflict. This pattern, Shapiro claims, led Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden to peg the US as a “weak horse.”

The early stages of the Iraq War, Shapiro says, were characterized by a high regard for civilians. April 7, 2003, represented a turning point: the US military learned that Saddam Hussein and senior officials were meeting beneath a restaurant in a commercial block in Baghdad. An Air Force bomber dropped four satellite-guided one-ton bombs— leaving a crater 60 feet deep, flattening the restaurant and three nearby houses, and killing 14 civilians.

The Washington Times wrote that Saddam Hussein may have picked the meeting spot precisely because Americans had stated that their objective was to avoid civilian casualties. Hussein did not believe the United States would bomb a commercial block. Columnist Ben Shapiro exulted: “Saddam didn’t realize: the Mogadishu days are over.”

A few days later, another incident confirmed this strategic change. From the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, Iraqi snipers fired small arms and rocket-propelled grenades on an incoming United States tank. The tank targeted the hotel, the base of operations for most international journalists, firing one round and hitting the 15th floor, which housed the Reuters news agency. Two journalists were killed and another three wounded.

Army Col. David Perkins told media that the military regretted the incident, but blamed Saddam Hussein’s forces for militarizing civilian areas. Shapiro wrote that the attack on the Palestine Hotel sent a message to enemies of the United States: They could no longer find safety by hiding behind civilians—even journalists.

Shapiro concluded that the United States had achieved an important step in the war against terror: “Overcoming our aversion to civilian casualties in order achieve victory.” The attacks, Shapiro says, pushed our military policy in a new direction, “away from Mogadishu.”

References to Bin Laden’s statements about the abrupt withdrawal of American forces from Mogadishu appeared again and again in the writings of columnists during the first years of the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars. They frequently cited Bin Laden’s assertion that the withdrawal of the United States from Somalia proved America was weak and cowardly.

These columns by Krauthammer and Shapiro—along with many like them—insisted that America had overcome its “Mogadishu syndrome.” No longer would the United States be afraid to suffer casualties, nor hesitate to inflict casualties. Never again would America enter a battle and then “cut and run.”

After September 11, the United States abandoned its policy of casualty aversion and reaffirmed the ideology of warfare. Attacking both Afghanistan and Iraq, President Bush insisted that America would return to her true character—that of a courageous, heroic people willing to wage war in the name of a just cause. Just as Middle Eastern warriors were killing and dying for Allah, so young Americans would sacrifice their lives in the name of freedom and democracy.