From Mogadishu to California

Bush, Biden, Trump, and the US Marines’ history and current timesThe Empire at Sea and AshoreIn December 1992, 1800 U.S. Marines waded ashore on the scorched beaches of Mogadishu under the banner of Operation Restore Hope. They were sent not to fight an enemy, but to battle famine and anarchy—humanitarian soldiers from the world’s only superpower, bearing MREs and automatic weapons in equal measure.This week, 2000 Marines have again been deployed—but not to distant shores. They now stand on the streets of California. In fact, some arrived twice.The first group, 500 strong, came quietly in spring, during the Palasades fires ordered by the Biden administration to help with wildfire containment, infrastructure breakdown, and climate-induced displacement. Sabrina Singh "As announced by the president, 500 active-duty personnel currently stationed at Camp Pendleton, California, are preparing to support requests from federal and state authorities with route clearance, commodity distribution, search and rescue, rotary wing, airlift and general support, as requested. Those 500 active-duty personnel are from the Marine Corps, she saidBut now, for reasons very much unclear, former President Donald Trump—once again a frontrunner and shadow executive, has orchestrated an unauthorized deployment in support of ICE.This move, legally dubious and politically incendiary, has reignited a national debate: What does it mean when the same military we once sent abroad to save others is now used, extralegally, to police ourselves?From Humanitarian Theater to Homeland SiegeLet us revisit Somalia, 1992.Operation Restore Hope was sold as a humanitarian mission. And it was—partly. The mission offered starving civilians a brief reprieve from death and disorder, but it also revealed the pitfalls of nation-building through force. The U.S. underestimated the complexity of clan loyalties, local resentments, and its own image as foreign occupier. The tragedy culminated in 1993’s “Black Hawk Down” incident—a symbolic failure of post-Cold War idealism.Still, the motivations, however flawed, were internationalist in spirit. They presumed a global responsibility, however arrogantly wielded.Now compare that to 2025.Today’s deployments to California—first by Biden, now by Trump—signal not internationalist duty but national fragmentation. Biden’s Defense Department sent additional assets to California to assist with the massive wildfire spreading across Los Angeles and the southern part of the state in Jan 2025.Biden Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters in January the U.S. was sending 10 Navy helicopters with water buckets. They are ostensibly fighting fires and assisting FEMA in the overwhelmed Central Valley. Trump’s Marines, reportedly drawn from reserve units and National Guard loyalists, are being deployed in conjunction with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Their orders: to detain, disrupt, and deport—without coordination with state authorities.The contrast could not be more damning. In 1992, we sent troops to protect the vulnerable from warlords. In 2025, a former U.S. president sends troops to round up migrants in a sanctuary state, openly defying both federal law and the Constitution’s Posse Comitatus clause.A Tale of Two CaliforniasThe symbolic terrain of California matters. It is both America’s dream factory and its cautionary tale—home to tech billionaires and displaced families, to fires that never end and skies that glow orange.The Biden deployment, while constitutionally sound, was that of a triage: a federal attempt to stabilize a natural disaster where FEMA, CAL FIRE, and local law enforcement were not enough to contain the effects of global warming. Think of it as Operation Contain Mother Nature.Trump’s deployment is something else entirely. It is not a response to disaster, but to demographics. His ICE-supported Marine presence is intended to confront the “great replacement” fantasy that animates his base—a militarized crackdown on immigration dressed up as law enforcement. That Trump’s faction could muster troops and deploy them domestically without legal sanction is a chilling sign of America’s fragility.Where Biden’s troops bear water hoses and satellite radios, Trump’s come with zip ties and body armor. Where one attempts to preserve order, the other seeks to impose it through fear.The Thin Green LineIn both 1992 and 2025, the Marine Corps finds itself between worlds.In Somalia, the mission was to impose order without empire—an impossibility. The Marines found themselves patrolling streets they didn’t understand, fighting battles that weren’t theirs, dying for a cause no one could explain after the fact.Now they are in California, facing a similar crisis of clarity. Who commands them? What is the scope of their duty? Are they firefighters, aid workers, immigration officers, or symbols of creeping martial law? I think the answer is obvious, seeing Mother Nature is at rest currently. For the Marines themselves, trained to obey and improvise, this ambiguity is nothing new. But for the country they serve, the stakes are higher. When troops are deployed to domestic soil under disputed authority, the republic enters dangerous terrain.The Empire Comes HomeHistory is not linear; it loops.Operation Restore Hope was an attempt to civilize the periphery. But today, the periphery is the core. America’s internal contradictions—economic inequality, climate collapse, nativist panic, and institutional decay—have returned home like a tide.The Marines now walk streets not so different from Mogadishu’s: gridlocked, degraded, and ruled by the improvisations of strongmen—both official and rogue. Biden's Marines set out to hold the line. Trump's Marines want to redraw it.This is not simply a constitutional crisis. It is an identity crisis. Who are we when our military becomes the first responder to both flood and fascism?Conclusion: Restore Hope, AgainThere is bitter poetry in the echo of these deployments. In 1992, we thought we could fix the world. In 2025, we’re trying to fix ourselves, but we don’t agree on what “fixed” even looks like.Perhaps the lesson of Somalia was never fully absorbed: that militaries are poor instruments for solving political problems. And yet here we are again, deploying troops to chase lies, fear, and phantoms in the streets of the republic itself.The question now is not whether the empire will collapse. It’s whether it will do so quietly, or with the thunder of boots on broken pavement.Carl’s Mind Chimes Magazine is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindchimesmagazine.substack.com/subscribe