It began as a humanitarian mission and now it’s a head hunt. We are supposed to be the good guys and now the people we are there to help drag our tied up soliders around in the dirt. Something has gone arwy and maybe we should bring our soldiers home.

Ten months ago former President Bush sent American soldiers on what was billed as a humanitarian mission to Somalia. There was a civil war going on over there and we thought we could help feed some of the starving people who had been cut off from food due to the fighting.

As it turned out, feeding the hungry was not as simple as handing out rations and soon incidents between warlord factions and American soldiers began.

Since then things have escalated and now in the past two days 14 American soldiers have been killed due to fighting in Somalia. Fighting? The original objective of American involvement in Somalia was to feed starving Somalis who were not receiving food due to that country’s civil war. Now after almost a year of involvement it seems the US objective has been changed to fighting the warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid. With this new objective comes the increase of American casualties. But for what cause?

What interest does America have with staying in Somalia when its initial humanitarian objective has been, for all intents and purposes, squelched? How can we worry about how to feed hungry Somalis when all our time there is spent hunting down Aidid in hopes of getting revenge and saving face?

Now Clinton has announced that he will send 1,500 to 2,000 more soldiers over to Somalia with a rumor that all troops will be withdrawn within six months. Well let’s hope that this is the case.

More soldiers only means more opportunity for them to be killed and with that more possibility that in six months our government might find it reasonable to upgrade our involvement even more.

In six months what do we hope to accomplish? Surely we are not staying there another six months to feed hungry Somalis. What is our new objective? If it is to get Aidid then what happens when he is captured or killed? When does our time there end?

How many lives must be lost before we say that it’s too many and let them come back home?