If there’s one thing the far-right hates (and science has proven they hate a lot of things), it’s Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota). Radical conservatives have mastered the art of taking her words out of context or just twisting and reinterpreting what she said to leave behind a dark, ulterior meaning.
In this information economy, everything seems to have two meanings. There’s what words actually say, and then there’s this other version that propaganda architects superimpose over the original. The words are still there, but divorced from meaning.
With Omar, this has happened several times already. For instance, earlier this month, far-right conservatives took four of her words out of context to suggest she had minimized the gravity of 9/11. After President Donald Trump posted a propaganda video about the quote, Omar began to receive death threats.
The latest iteration of this started with a post on a questionable far-right site. Last week, writer John Rossomando of The Investigative Project on Terrorism mined Omar’s Twitter account until he found this post from 2017. A Minnesotan had referred to the Battle of Mogadishu (the 1993 incident better known in the United States as the “Black Hawk Down” incident) as the worst terrorist attack in Somalia’s history. Omar responded: “In his selective memory, he forgets to also mention the thousands of Somalis killed by the American forces that day!”
That’s literally all she said – that a certain number of Somalis died in the conflict. However, Rossomando wrote that Omar’s statement had “slammed” U.S. soldiers and tremendously exaggerated the number of Somalis who died. She “missed the point” of the battle, Rossomando wrote, claiming that “the point” was the United States’ humanitarian efforts in Somalia.
That isn’t true, though, because at this point in the conflict, the U.S. had shifted from a humanitarian focus to trying to restore the government of Somalia. That battle itself had started as a special ops raid, not an effort to feed starving Somalis.
What happened next
After Rossomando’s piece was published, radical conservatives began circulating Omar’s Tweet. They repeated the idea that by saying a certain number of Somalis had died in the Battle of Mogadishu, Omar had attacked the military. Large accounts began to pile on. The president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., retweeted Omar’s comment and added, “Is the media going to ask every Democrat if they agree with Ilhan Omar that American troops are killers?!?” His Tweet was reposted more than 10,000 times.
Far-right Fox News host Tucker Carlson focused on Omar’s statement in an interview with retired Sgt. Major Kyle Lamb, who fought in the Battle of Mogadishu. Lamb also said Omar had exaggerated the Somali death toll, adding, “I mean, we wished we could have done that much damage, but that didn’t happen as far as I know.” (That statement is pretty dark, especially considering that the battle had started as a raid to arrest two people but then went terribly awry. A high number of casualties was not exactly the United States’ goal.)
Over the next few days, publications like The Hill and New York Post covered the far right’s reaction to Omar’s statement in a way that repeated the criticisms against her without acknowledging who had started the conversation (a questionable far-right website) and that the criticism itself was overreaching in order to fit the narrative of Omar as an anti-Semite and, to top it off, a bad American.
Factchecking casualties is like trying to eff the ineffable
The response to Omar’s statement surprised me, especially given The Investigative Project on Terrorism’s apparent level of journalistic quality of (i.e. not much). It was obvious that Omar had not directly “slammed” the troops, but I wanted to know if Rossomando and Lamb (who, sidenote, was identified as Kyle Lame in The Hill’s story) were right to say that she had exaggerated the number of Somalis who had died in the Battle of Mogadishu.
As a journalist, I like to think that numbers are these solid things that must remain standing under scrutiny. If they fall, they aren’t true, and that’s that. Attempting to factcheck the Somali death toll at Mogadishu reminded me that numbers aren’t perfect – because, of course, people come up with them, and people aren’t perfect, either.
I’m not exactly a war correspondent, but I didn’t realize that the way casualties are calculated would be so opaque. I thought I’d be able to land on a solid number, but that’s not what happened.
What I found (Or what I didn’t find)
Americans first entered Somalia at the end of President George H.W. Bush’s presidency as part of a humanitarian effort to deliver food to civil war victims. That evolved into attempts to restore the Somalia government until the Battle of Mogadishu, which killed 18 Americans and injured 73 more. The conflict, which started as a raid to make two arrests in Mogadishu, was the United States’ deadliest firefight since Vietnam, and it led the United States to leave Somalia.
To get an idea of the number of Somalis killed in the conflict that day, I started reading other, credible news stories. A National Public Radio report from 2013 said that estimates ranged from hundreds to thousands of Somalis killed – meaning Omar could have been right – but the story didn’t name a source for that information.
I searched for reports from the U.S. government on this number and either missed them or they don’t exist. The sources that Rossomando cited seemed questionable as hell. So, I kept slogging through news reports looking for numbers and an explanation of where they came from.
Aside from the NPR report, I found a report from PBS’ Frontline that said 350 to 1,000 Somalis were killed with no source for the information and a Smithsonian Magazine story that said hundreds were killed, again with no source cited. Some stories about the conflict didn’t address Somali casualties at all.
So, what gives?
Getting frustrated, I read reports from 1993 right after the incident took place. The New York Times didn’t mention Somali casualties until toward the end of its story, which said relief officials estimated at least 300 Somalis had been killed and more than 700 had been wounded. The Washington Post also waited until late into its report to mention Somali casualties, writing, “Casualties on the Somali side were said to be heavy but American military officials, in keeping with their usual policy, declined to estimate the number of Somalis killed and wounded.”
The report also said that the Red Cross reported 500 Somalis had been wounded (200 less than the Times reported) and that the Somali National Alliance militia had said 30 Somalis were killed (270 less than the Times reported), with “many women and children caught in the cross-fire.”
“We had taken off the gloves,” U.S. Army Maj. David Stockwell told the Post at the time. “That is not to suggest that anyone was irresponsible. … We did the right thing.”
Yesterday, having sunk enough time trying to find this number on my own, I sent some emails. A Department of Defense spokesperson recommended I check with the government of Somalia and said they would look for the numbers. I haven’t heard back since. A United Nations spokesman also said they may not have the numbers but would look, and I haven’t heard back from them, either. The Red Cross and Somalia didn’t respond to my emails.
Again, I’m not a war correspondent, but I was disappointed that I couldn’t find a correct number on my own. I definitely think some of the numbers Rossomando cited were incorrect, especially because they fell below the original death toll that relief officials reported to the Times. But I have no way of proving or disproving Omar’s statement – and no way of proving or disproving Rossomando’s numbers, despite the propaganda-heavy vibe of The Investigative Project on Terrorism.
Here’s the takeaway
The issues with who is responsible for calculating battle casualties and how those numbers are estimated appear serious (and troubling), but all of that unfortunately lies outside the scope of what we can do here with Big If True.
Rossomando and other far-right critics believe that Omar attacked the military by addressing Somali casualties in the Battle of Mogadishu. If her number were correct, would they still think she’d insulted the military by bringing up the unfortunate reality of casualties from war?
And what if Omar is wrong about the number killed? Rossomando floated multiple possible casualty numbers in his post, ranging from 133 to 1,000 Somali deaths. What if the absolute minimum, that 133 number, is correct?
That wouldn’t rid Rossomando’s criticism of the morbid subtext that even 133 Somali deaths are unequal to the deaths of 18 Americans. The idea that thousands of Somalis died? Impossible – and still unequal to the sacrifice of 18 Americans.
Comparing death tolls and assigning them different values is a vile sort of pissing contest that’s disgusting to witness. But the bottom line is that Rossomando and his publication were more than able to get away with this – and to receive attention for doing so without a drop of skepticism from mainstream conservative journalism organizations like Fox News, as well as The Hill and the New York Post.
Parties like Rossomando thrive when their propaganda falls into factually gray areas like the one I found here. I’m not sure what the solution is, but I know what it isn’t. Publications like The Hill, the New York Post and even far-right poster child Tucker Carlson shouldn’t have repeated Rossomando’s claims without context and without the same level of scrutiny we’d expect from the least experienced journalist out there. Instead, large media outlets seem content to spread nonsense and give misinformation pushers their day in the sun.
Contact Mollie Bryant at 405-990-0988 or bryant@bigiftrue.org. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.
An excerpt from this piece also will run in our newsletter, Hard Reset. Sign up for Hard Reset here.
If this is the product of your “research” you would be well advised to revisit the meaning of the word.
That personal attack is silly, Mark, and only reflects badly on you.