Episode 94 LIVE: Why Are We In Somalia? – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz
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Thank you.
Matt Gaetz was one of the very few members in the entire Congress who bothered to stand up against permanent Washington on behalf of his constituents.
Matt Gaetz right now, he's a problem for the Democratic Party.
He could cause a lot of hiccups in passing applause.
So we're going to keep running those stories to keep hurting him.
If you stand for the flag and kneel in prayer, if you want to build America up and not burn her to the ground, then welcome, my fellow patriots!
You are in the right place!
This is the movement for you!
You ever watch this guy on television?
It's like a machine.
Matt Gaetz.
I'm a canceled man in some corners of the internet.
Many days I'm a marked man in Congress, a wanted man by the deep state.
They aren't really coming for me.
They're coming for you.
I'm just in the way.
Welcome back to Firebrand.
We are broadcasting live out of room 2021 of the Rayburn House Office Building on the Capitol Complex in Washington, D.C. And I want to start with a discussion about Somalia.
First on Fox News was the headline today, Matt Gaetz introduces Somalia war powers resolution forcing vote That's right.
I want to bring our troops home from Somalia.
So in Congress, a War Powers Resolution is a privileged motion.
And privileged motions were restored under the House rules package that I and a handful of other Republicans demanded as a feature of allowing Kevin McCarthy to ascend to the speakership.
So the whole reason we're able to do this is because we're actually back to empowering the members.
This means that the resolution on whether to withdraw U.S. troops from Somalia will skip committee and be brought to the House floor within 18 legislative days.
That is how my legislation to withdraw troops from Syria was able to make it to the floor so quickly as well.
You notice a trend.
I am going to make these neocons in both parties vote to defend each and every place where we have troops, where we should not, where the goals are unclear, and where we are largely wasting time The efforts of our military families and our service members,
not because of anything they're doing wrong, but because the decision makers in Washington have far too often Just delegated authority to the executive to decide where we engage in these misadventures and skirmishes all over the world.
So why Somalia now?
Well, the situation in Somalia is actually quite familiar.
It's one more front in the globalist American empire's lineup of forever wars.
For the past 16 years, think about that.
16 years in Somalia.
But for a little break with President Trump.
But I'll get to that.
So for 16 years, the United States has been involved in an advise and assist mission in Somalia.
And throughout the mission that we've carried out, we've seen numerous operations and airstrikes within the country.
Staying on brand for the warmongers of our time, former President Barack Obama utilized the 2001 authorization for force against Afghanistan to target al-Shabaab in Somalia.
These strikes have been quietly conducted under the nose of the American public.
By August 2022, a civilian harm watchdog group estimated that between 78 and 153 civilians had been killed by US airstrikes in Somalia since 2007. It includes 20 to 23 children.
The problem is, even under the best of intentions and the most focused of work of our brave service members, when we are killing civilians, we are not fighting terrorism.
We are creating more terrorists.
I noticed there's some disagreement with my perspective on Somalia on Facebook.
Jeffrey said, well, there's ISIS in Somalia, so we have to be there.
But the reality is, It's really an unsettled question whether or not us being there creates a downward pressure on terrorism or whether it is a recruiting tool for more terrorists.
The hundreds of people we may have killed in Somalia who are innocent probably had family members and I certainly hope we didn't radicalize those through misadventures.
So sadly, our country's involvement in this war-torn country is not new.
The lives of our troops have been carelessly gambled in Somalia for close to 30 years now, actually.
So let's start from the beginning.
If the average person heard the term, the Battle of Mogadishu, It might conjure up images of warring nomadic tribes throwing spears at each other.
But if you say Black Hawk Down, Then people likely will know what you're talking about.
In 1992, U.S. soldiers were tasked with restoring order in Somalia during one of the many seemingly ongoing endless Somali civil wars.
The Battle of Mogadishu, also known as the Black Hawk Down Incident, was a U.S. military operation that took place there on October 3, 1993. The mission was to capture two top lieutenants for some warlord, Mohammed Farah Adid.
The troops, including Army Rangers and Delta Force operators, were attacked by Adid's militia and other Somali fighters during their mission.
This resulted in the deaths of 18 U.S. soldiers.
Two Black Hawk helicopters were shot down by rocket-propelled grenades in the attack, and an American pilot was captured and publicly executed.
It seems we may not have learned from the past.
The US military war machine continues to throw troops and money into dangerous situations for unclear gain.
I'm all about using our military to protect our country, but do we really fear some activity in Somalia as a threat to our homeland?
If you think that was long ago, let's return to the present.
Those who subscribe to Firebrand, and in fact have notifications turned on, which you should all do, were the first to know last week that the House Armed Services Committee invited General Michael Langley, the commander of U.S. forces in Africa, to testify on, quote, the U.S. military posture and national security challenges in the greater Middle East and Africa, close quote.
Among others, I asked a simple question.
What percentage of African soldiers trained by the U.S. military have later led coups against their own governments?
Because Colonel Mamadee Dumbuya, pictured here at the U.S. Embassy posing with our service members, led a coup in Guinea in 2001, just months after this photo was taken.
He was, in fact, trained by the U.S. military.
But General Langley had no clue who Colonel Dumbuya was when I showed him that photo.
Colonel Dumbuya runs the country now.
So you would think that the commander of AFRICOM would know that Dumbuya was in charge of the country, that he's there because he was trained by America and led a military coup, and that we were involved.
So take a listen to my line of questioning here.
This is Colonel Mamaday Dumbuya, and this is a photo of him.
Did we train and equip him in Guinea?
By name, I cannot identify that.
Well, that guy in the middle with the big red hat, Colonel Mamaday Dumbuya, that's him with a bunch of U.S. service members outside of our embassy.
And just months after this photo was taken in 2021, he led a coup in Guinea.
And throughout the leader.
Does that concern you?
Congressman, core values is what we start off with in IMA programs.
Do we share core values with Colonel Dumbuya?
Core values.
I will repeat that.
Core values, respect for humanity.
Do we share those values with Colonel Dumbuya?
Absolutely, in our curriculum.
We do.
Okay, that's a very telling answer.
Telling indeed.
Citizen D on Getter asks, why there is no oversight into these missions?
And frankly, the limited time we get to question these generals is part of the oversight structure.
Also, what we authorize, what we spend money on, and the wars that we authorize.
And so to me, forcing a vote on Somalia is central to the oversight strategy because if people don't vote for or against each of these individual conflicts, they're not necessarily vested in the risks associated with them.
At times I feel like I have to remind listeners, that was a four-star general you just heard, hired by Joe Biden.
Go figure.
The American people have extremely low confidence in our military leaders and their ability to assess their own efficacy.
How do they expect Americans to believe their justification for occupying Somalia when they can't even determine who in their own training programs will lead a violent coup afterwards?
Seems like a pretty baseline thing.
Instead of distancing ourselves from Somalia, we have decided to continue to add fuel to that fire.
It was reported earlier this year that on February 27th, 346 recruits will join a Somali military unit that was trained by our very own government.
Will they overthrow theirs?
Defect to some terrorist organization?
Dessert?
Who knows?
Certainly General Langley doesn't, and neither does Lloyd Austin, by the way.
What I do know is that one U.S. service member has already been injured by an attack inspired by Al-Shabaab.
That was in 2020, while U.S. and Somali forces were conducting one of these advise and assist and accompany missions.
Al-Shabaab attacked using a vehicle employed as an IED and mortar fire.
Maybe if we weren't distracted with proxy wars in foreign countries, then our service members wouldn't sustain such injuries.
President Trump tried to fix this problem when President Trump pulled our 700 troops out of Somalia.
But Joe Biden, in his infinite wisdom or whatever state of decline he's in, he decided to put 500 back in Somalia.
So we're back in at higher levels because of Joe Biden when Trump was moving the other direction.
I wonder who House Republicans will side with.
The Biden view on Somalia or the Trump view?
So the executive clearly isn't planning on doing anything about this issue.
But frankly, I'm not all that optimistic that Congress will fix it either.
Sadly, even the progressives in Congress don't have the stomach to vote to end many of these forever wars.
I called them out during a House Armed Services Committee hearing recently.
Take a listen.
We learned through a New York Times leak last night that America is going to re-engage in the war in Somalia.
This as we are sleepwalking into a war with Ukraine.
And the authorization to go into Somalia is presumably linked back to the 2001 AUMF. And it just seems crazy to me that we would have a re-engagement of hostilities in Somalia after the Trump administration Withdrew us from that conflict, not just without a congressional vote, but without even really a clear statement from the administration as to our goals.
But through New York Times leaks now, are we starting wars through New York Times leaks?
I think there are fewer members of Al-Shabaab than there were like viewers of CNN Plus And yet, here we are re-engaging.
We are at a briefing, I understand, on the Army's military modernization.
Sadly, despite the good and needed efforts here, the Army that we've modernized the most is the Taliban's during this administration.
It's probably not even close.
I used to be able to count on progressives in the Congress, Who joined me in opposing a war in Yemen, who joined me in pushing back against presidential war powers with Iran, who agreed that it would be crazy to start World War III over the Kurds.
But on the issue of Ukraine, the progressives are signed up for the $40 billion-plus to fund the war.
We didn't hear a peep from them on Somalia.
Progressives in the House were anti-war, On matters that related to the Middle East, but presumably not on similar matters that relate to Europe and Africa.
And so I know it's not particularly pertinent to the modernization of the Army, but we are having to make zero-sum funding decisions.
I think many of the projects we've been briefed on today are critically important to preserve our ability to fight our pacing adversaries.
And when we get into these, like, skirmishes and sand dunes all across the world, I think that it deviates from the important work that the subcommittee is being briefed on today.
We are back live.
Maureen on Instagram says we need to take care of our own country.
I could not agree more.
She references the southern border as a critical point of weakness.
But actually, Maureen, it's the northern border too now.
We are getting troubling reports that Thugs and criminals all over the world have realized that America is no longer serious about securing any border and we are really being invaded in the South and we are vulnerable in the North as well.
So we do need that greater focus on our own country.
And John on Instagram says that I need to talk about China Joe.
Isn't it interesting that with a little Republican oversight, we now have the bank records showing where cut-out, pass-through companies that were really fake companies just existed to deliver Chinese cash to the Biden family, to Hallie Biden, Hunter Biden, every grifter you could imagine.
And because we have the bank records, we can prove it.
And guess what?
The result is not just that they're compromised and corrupt.
They actually have taken action, the Biden administration has, to help China.
Most notably, they dissolved President Trump's China initiative at the Department of Justice that had a focused effort on some of the academicians and political leaders and business leaders targeted by the CCP, sometimes turned by the CCP. It's interesting, if you had a specialized group of prosecutors targeting you, one of the first things you'd want from your dog on a leash, Joe Biden, would be for him to end that entity.
And that is precisely what happened.
And we hear Democrats tell us that somehow we've got a post up in Africa, in Somalia, as a deterrent to China.
We've got a first family that's compromised by China.
And it's just an excuse to keep U.S. troops where we're funding the war machine and we're not doing what's right for our country and our interests.
And the Democrat dove has actually proven to be an endangered species in this paradigm.
Our military involvement in Somalia has resulted in deaths of innocent civilians, has not been successful in addressing any ongoing terrorist threat, And has no clear objective.
We cannot continue to put American lives at risk for an uncertain cause.
Somalia may never have peace, but if it does, it will be won by the Somali people.
And the best thing we can do in some cases is get out of the way.
Now, as Americans at home become more aware of our country's military misadventures abroad, the calls to end forever wars and forever occupations are growing.
While the congressional war machine has decided to rage on in Syria after I forced them to take a vote on that, they will now have to explain continuing presence in Somalia and how that best serves the interests of our country.
And if they can't, it is incumbent upon Congress to bring our troops home from Somalia.
That is exactly what we need to do, and that is exactly the vote that I intend to force.
Speaking of votes that are coming up that will be forced, you all know we're dealing with this debt limit issue and budget issues and appropriations issues.
For the rest of the show, I want to talk about fiscal policy.
There was a press conference today in the House of Representatives regarding a new plan That takes 507 pieces of legislation to cut the woke and weaponized government, and we put that plan forward.
And you know what?
If we pass this, if we clawed back the COVID funds, if we did the right thing, we wouldn't even have to raise the debt limit.
Here were my comments earlier today.
The message from House Republicans to President Biden is clear.
There will be no increase in the debt limit in the absence of significant and meaningful spending cuts.
I am very proud that House Republicans ran against the inflation that has crushed American families.
And this today represents the most specific detail in our plan to stop that inflation.
The American people know that inflation is often induced by excessive government spending.
And so we have laid out a plan represented in this body of legislative work.
That doesn't cut Social Security, that doesn't cut Medicare, but that attacks a woke and weaponized government that the American people should not continue to have to fund at the expense of their own economic security and the economic security of future generations.
Inflation is still stubbornly high, spending is rising, we have banks failing, and we've reached the debt limit.
It seems like a perfect time to assess the things that are no longer necessary for us to spend funds on.
I am particularly pleased That in this plan, in the messaging from the House Freedom Caucus, and even in Speaker McCarthy's letter to President Biden today, I see reflected my call for work requirements on Medicaid and on a number of the social safety net programs where we have able-bodied, childless adults who could go to work and they choose not to.
Well, I don't think hardworking Americans should be paying for all of the social services for people who could make a broader contribution and instead are couch potatoes.
So thank you, Chairman Biggs, for this exquisite detail.
Thank you to my colleagues for laying out these cuts.
And I would turn the mic over to my colleague Eli Crane from Arizona.
Before we get to Eli's comments, and we will, my colleague Chip Roy of Texas made really good points regarding the overall spending levels.
So the way the appropriations process works is that you set a budget cap.
And within that, the appropriations committees go in and allocate funds based on what's been authorized.
So Chip Roy talked about what it would mean to bring our government back to pre-COVID spending levels.
He made a lot of great points.
Take a listen.
Congressman Chip Roy.
This president is talking about 0.6% economic growth.
Literally.
Everybody here, is that what you want for yourself, for your kids, your grandkids, 0.6% economic growth?
Or do you want the 3.5%, 4%, 4.5% kind of growth we had under Reagan and, frankly, under Clinton when you had a Republican House and they were all working together to figure out how to do their jobs?
We're here to say that the time for continuing business as usual in Washington is over.
We believe we should shrink Washington and grow America.
We should return the bureaucratic spending to pre-COVID levels.
We're not asking for anything wild-eyed.
We're just simply asking to take that spending back to pre-COVID levels.
You let the president come out and say, oh, the wailing and gnashing of teeth about what that means.
Do you think the government was really efficient and effective in 2019?
You don't think we can survive on the 2019 size of government?
Bull.
Of course we can.
We are back live and on the Rumble live chat.
Royal says, Gates, we are behind you.
Let the haters hate, but I stand with Gates.
Thank you so much for your support.
Make sure you're subscribed.
Notifications turned on.
Congressman Bob Good of Virginia also is a part of this group.
And the reason we brought this team together to make this point is it's a lot of the McCarthy holdouts.
It's a lot of the people who made specific demands on spending.
And McCarthy is...
Really adhering to a lot of the direction that he is receiving from the conference, and particularly this group of folks who you saw so active at the beginning of January.
One of those great patriots, Bob Good of Virginia.
Take a listen to his comments.
I'm on the Budget Committee, and I had the opportunity this past week to talk to the Biden Budget Director, Ms. Shalanda Young.
And it's funny to think about the Biden administration if it weren't so sad having a Budget Director, because the Budget Director doesn't understand anything about spending our national debt or our budget.
I asked Director Young if he knew how much the national debt was.
She tried to say it was $24 trillion instead of $32 trillion.
I corrected her that it was actually $32 trillion.
I asked her if she understood how much that was per American citizen.
She had no idea, so I helped her with the math.
Again, the budget director, that it was about $100,000 per citizen.
I asked her if she knew what the debt to GDP was.
She tried to say it was 90-something percent.
I said, no, it's about 125 percent.
I asked her, did she know when the last time in our history that it was about 125%?
She did not know.
So I helped her to recognize that it was 90 years ago or 80 years ago during World War II. And I asked her, what has led to it today versus what led to it 80 years ago?
What is the crisis that led to us having this amount of debt?
And of course, she had no answer.
And I said, how could we ever handle or absorb a crisis on the level of World War II when we came into it With the same amount of debt to percent to GDP that we exited World War II some 80 years ago.
Dean on Rumble says, we need to stop spending money on foreign countries.
The establishment politicians skim the proceeds to line their pockets while pulling more money out of the pockets of hardworking Americans.
Brilliant comment, Dean.
And on Getter, David says, if you're cutting funding for agencies, don't stop at the Department of Education and ATF. Frankly, the Department of Education and the ATF make such a compelling case for their dissolution that we do focus a lot on them.
So I'm going to play the Eli Crane clip in a second, but here's your homework assignment.
If you're watching live now, I want you to propose the spending cuts in the comments that you believe.
Is it abolishing the Department of Labor, the EPA? Are there specific woke and weaponized programs that you're aware of?
We'll make this a little live homework assignment.
On our live stream, and if you're listening to this on one of our listening platforms, I'm sorry about the sound from that press conference.
Not something we could control with this show that came through the House of Representatives.
But leave in the comments what you think we should cut, and now take a listen to Eli Crane.
Thank you guys for coming today.
You know, I'm not going to try and get into the details like some of my colleagues did and just be redundant in that.
They did a great job.
I'm honored to be here.
As a freshman member, I often get asked by my constituents and just other people around the country, what has been the biggest disappointment since you got up to Washington, D.C.? And there's a lot of them, quite honestly.
There's a lot of them.
The fact that, you know, a lot of my colleagues campaign and talk about cutting, you know, all the out-of-control spending in Washington and then we get opportunities to cut it, seem to be, get a little light-hearted and sometimes seem to lack the backbone.
That's really disappointing.
I'll tell you that.
But the number one thing that has been the most disappointing to me It's to listen to individuals that I've listened to and watched on TV, conservative media talking heads, who talk about this swampy town, who talk about the establishment, who talk about the fact that Republicans never fight or they never do anything.
And the moment we do, and you guys saw this in January, the moment we do, did they have our backs?
No, they didn't.
Well, it's time for them.
We're going to give them an opportunity to redeem themselves.
Because you know for a fact, you don't make cuts in this town without there being some retribution.
You don't make cuts to some of these programs without a lot of crying and gnashing of teeth.
That's just not how this town works.
I have a feeling that this is going it's going to get intense at some point and I'm asking Republican conservative talking heads in the media to actually do the right thing and to help us out get our backs you guys see it's concrete right here we are talking about real cuts but we need your help because half of this is messaging to the American people who have jobs who have kids who have lives who are busy And often time this town and the media here finds
a way to spend it to make Republicans and conservatives who are actually trying to be fiscally responsible for our kids and our grandkids, boogeymen.
And it's nonsense.
It's nonsense.
And we need your help.
So you have a chance, and you know who you are.
We know who you are.
You have a chance to redeem yourself and help us out so that we can make sure that our kids and our grandkids have a chance at some of the economic opportunities that we grew up with.
Mahana on Instagram says, we love Eli Crane.
I could not agree more.
We've got to get Eli back on firebrand.
There is a sense of moral clarity with his vision that I hope will bring more and more of our colleagues along to the correct way of thinking to save the country.
Doing the necessary work to save the country is going to be really hard.
And Eli Crane has done hard work in the past and he knows what he's doing.
And he's already a big-time leader in the House of Representatives.
A lot of good ideas what to cut.
We saw FBI, NPR, PBS, NEA. I assume that's the National Endowment for the Arts.
Ukraine.
Somebody wants to abolish the Fed and the funding for the 87,000 IRS agents.
Good ideas.
And you know what?
There are a lot of areas where...
The spending has just been completely unchecked.
And if Republicans are unwilling to put downward pressure on that spending as a consequence of the debt limit increase, then we have not fulfilled our obligation to our constituents.
And that is exactly why we're here in Washington, to ensure fidelity to the American people, to the American economy, to the American Constitution, and the American way of life.
Thank you all so much for joining us on Firebrand today.
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