Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - *PREVIEW* The Battle of Checkpoint Pasta

Episode Date: December 17, 2025

The Italian military suffers its first combat casualties since WWI while engaged in a stupid, quixotic, and self-sabotaging "peacekeeping mission" in Somalia c. 1993. And the battle took place in an abandoned Barilla pasta factory. Yes. Get the whole episode on Patreon here! https://www.patreon.com/posts/146061189 30% off all merch on our site until January 1! Check it out here: https://www.llbdpodcast.com/ BIBLIOGRAPHY: Biddle, Stephen "The Somali National Alliance in Somalia, 1992–94". Nonstate Warfare: The Military Methods of Guerillas, Warlords, and Militia Tripodi, Paolo (2 August 1999). The Colonial Legacy in Somalia: Rome and Mogadishu: from Colonial Administration to Operation Restore Hope. https://www.repubblica.it/esteri/2013/07/05/news/somalia_anniversario_battaglia_check-point_pasta-62413996/ https://brigatafolgore.net/en/2-july-1993-the-battle-of-the-check-point-pasta/ https://www.ilfaroonline.it/2018/07/02/2-luglio-1993-attacco-mogadiscio-ceckpoint-pasta/228435/ https://www.military.com/history/battle-of-checkpoint-pasta-italys-black-hawk-down-moment-somalia.html

This is not to absolve the U.S. and the U.N. for their various wrongdoings, but it should be said that nobody that earns the title of warlord does it without themselves being a dick. You know, nobody involved at the top of any part of the situation is a good person. You can't become a warlord practicing radical tenderness. I'm the tender warlord. I'm the empath warlord. We're sitting around in a circle and talking about their. needs and her feelings. Oh, fuck. That, that's my, like, 2010's SoundCloud emo rap name, the tender warlord. That was just Young Lean in 2012. It's the paradox, isn't it, Joe, we're talking about,

you know, like, no, no, no warlord is simply a warlord. They are equally a politician, and it's always a mix of the two things. And the point is that, like, for a war, for all warlords, in any kind of conflict, it's like, well, of course I would like, eventually for this to be resolved and for there to be a political leader who restabilizes the country. That then has to be set against the thing that it should be me. Yeah, exactly. It should be me and my lot with all the guns. Specifically, I think it'll be better for everyone if it was me. And I believe that so strongly, I am going to continue being a warlord until you all agree with me. Muhammad Adide like just single-handedly ruling Somalia with 100,000 AK-47s and a single copy of bellhooks the will to change.

There's so many separate group chats being set up as the guests negotiations continually break down Muhammad Faradid sitting down his foe Muhammad and I'd be like listen I believe in something called radical honesty

and I feel like we really need to talk about this as he's surrounded by dudes and Toyota's doing donuts with machine cuts Muhammad Farah adide is just like too busy sub-tweeting Ali Mahdi Muhammad Oh, is there another warlord group chat? Because this one seems kind of dead.

Warlord J.D. Vance. Muhammad J.D. Vance. Mohamed Faradid being really sad, putting on little peep because nobody's talking to him anymore. Nobody's joining the Discord voice chat channel anymore. What the fuck is up, guys? Messaging into the warlord group chat being, I guess I'll just go kill myself there. You just go silent. The U.N. new phone, who this?

Putting out disappearing messages. Adid wasn't alone in this. He was just the most public, front-facing figure doing it, while at the same time, he and other warlords were negotiating their own alliances. Eventually, Adid, who was

at this point calling himself the president of the country, which was officially rejected by the UN, who was instead recognizing Ali Mahdi Muhammad as president, demanded the peacekeepers leave. Don't matter, baby. Just manifest.

You're the president now. Mohammed Fah, Adid, has avoided detachment style to the presidency. You know, when all of my dudes gather around me and call me present, I really get imposter syndrome. The imposter syndrome warlord. I just look at, I don't know if I'm, you know, qualified to be commanding all of these dudes with guns and trucks.

But are they really my fellas? Well, they're the ones that answer in the, in the WhatsApp chat of like, hey, who wants to gather around and steal some. food. Who wants to get technical? Eventually, USOM 1 turns into Unisome 2, and with that in 1993, came an Italian paratrooper brigade, as well as others, under the command of General Bruno Loy. They brought with them a contingent of tanks, which were American-made M-60s, the VCC1, Armored Personnel carriers, which are kind of like an Italian version of the American M-1-1-3, and even some Centario

tank destroyers. The Italians came in heavy. The tank destroyer is just like a giant piece of rigatoni with a rocket inside it. If there's one thing that history teaches us, it's that one thing that always goes well is a bunch of Italians going to East Africa, all guns blazing, with something to prove. Yeah, there was certainly some political wrangling here. Like, is it really like, because like the UN has this weird rule that they never follow, but it's technically at the books where they try not to send former colonial overlord forces to their former colonies? Just like the entire fucking Italian military just lying on the couch for fucking years before I've been like, I've got to get my fucking shit together, man.

They see the shit kicking off in Somalia. They're like, yeah, it's my fucking time. Just like dusting the chips off of their fucking shirt and stuff. As they get up, like, yeah, fuck it. It's my time. I'm back. I'm back on top, baby. Greg, that's pretty much the story of like any time the modern Italian state attempts

to start an empire. Well, everybody else is getting in on it. I have to go to East Africa. Just the kind of imposter syndrome commander of the Italian forces. Just in the back of his mind, he has the ghost of Mussolini screaming forza Italia

while he's watching the TV. The reason for this kind of muscle, the kind that the UNN was really missing in UNISOM 1, was because UNISOM 2 was switching gears to actively attempting to counter the warlords, they saw as being outside the law and unaligned with the recognized government. That's not like warlords. It doesn't seem like something they would do.

They seem very understanding. And I should put out, this is the U.N. recognized government, specifically. Like, nobody else really sees them as a government. They're not functioning as one at all. Greg, are we considering this maybe a kind of a state of exception? Very possibly so. And one in which force determines power. Very possibly so.

We'll leave that to the warlords and see what they think about it. Listen to blood work. An Italian commander shaking like lasagna noodles in both hands, screaming might makes right, but an Italian. Imagining the UN just walking into the room and just being like, no, no, no, no, I have to recognize you. No, stop. You haven't been recognized. He's doing bicep curls with fusili in the background. He's like, I'm so fucking ready for this.

The rocky training montage of like stirring a giant pot of pasta. I need to bring up the Wikipedia page for pasta shaped because I'm fucking really slipping in my game here And we should have sent you the notes Study the shape of pasta But spoiler alert for both of you They were not so fucking ready for this That woman was so ready to fuck that piece of pasta

It was a weird sequel But you know, it was good It was tasteful The idea was understandable If very, very, very flawed The idea was that the UN could only create an environment where they could be able to effectively deploy aid if they restored not only safety,

but something that looked like kind of Somali state capacity. Now, as those words leave my mouth, you can see all of the problems they're going to come from this. It always looks so easy on paper, doesn't it? Like, that sounds exactly like Hillary Clinton's plan for Syria or whatever it was during the 2016 election.

You remember? Yeah, it's simple. We just neutralize al-Qaeda, stabilize the country, get in aid. It's like, okay, cool. Simple. I stabilize the country. I play a lot of total war

and a lot of my provinces keep rebelling. You know what I do? I stabilize those provinces. Vote for me, baby. But part of this had to do with having all the warlords come to an agreement to put a limit on the fighting by putting down their heavy weapons

and store them at designated points which were subject to UN inspection. The factions all agreed to this. Some of them followed it. Some of them didn't. This is really a degrees situation here. Though, surprise, the UN was mostly failing.

For example, Idid's faction, the Smalley National Alliance, controlled Mogadishu's main radio station, where they used to broadcast to most of the capital. This is a very popular radio show. He was a content creator. Rather than urging people to attack the UN

or anything like that, though, this station was by all accounts pretty moderate when you think of it. Like, they broadcasted political critiques of the UN. but we've said worse things on this show already than what IDD was doing. And I'm not even talking about the woman who possibly fucked pasta. I'm saying politically.

Hey guys. Come with me to this hidden gem in Mogadishu. Yeah, we have to go through seven military checkpoints, but their food is incredible. It's, it's, it was like NPR Somalia. Like nothing that. Somali, Ira class. Like nothing that ID's radio station, that was, that they were broadcasting.

was objectionable, they made very moderate critiques of the UN, like saying that a lot of the ways they function is pretty much neo-colonialism, and they're taking it advantage of exploited Africans, all of which is true. He's literally not saying anything that's that's outlandish. Again, he's a warlord with imposter syndrome. He sat there and might be like, but what if I don't sound convincing? I'll keep it moderate. I'll keep it light. I'll go with stuff. I'll keep the crowd on side. I'll go with things I know that they'll agree with. But the fact that Ideed had control of the largest radio station in Mogadishu pissed off Mohammed, who, remember, was supposed to be president. It also pissed off several American diplomats because Ideed was, you know, saying critiques of the Americans as well.

And the American diplomat said, you know, we need to take down this radio station by force. We need to neutralize Somali NPR. Which is kind of ironic when you think of our Rwandan general. series where nobody want to get involved to stop the Rwandan genocide machine and the radio station at all. Not that the radio is that important. Again, go back, listen to the series. It's the Twitter files all over again. Well, except one was real. Yeah, there is that. My bad. But there was another little wrinkle with the radio station. And that was, it happened to be one of those designated weapons storage places for Adid's men.

So with rumors flying around that the U.N. was going to seize the radio station, the U.N. sent a notice of inspection to Adid's second command, a guy named Abdi Awale, telling them that, hey, we're going to swing on by for an inspection. The problem was Awali did not have the authorization to accept this notice. Only Adid could do that. And since it was Friday, Adid was at the mosque. He was like, he was like, look, just come back later. Adid will be here. But to the U.N. Awale was high. enough ranking to be considered good enough to them for the inspection notification process. Awali warned the U.N. that, no, I'm not, you have to talk to ID'd. So the U.N. ignored him. And on June 5th, 1993, a Pakistani contingent of UN forces along with three American Special Forces radio technicians, were tasked with doing the inspection as a cover for disabling the radio station. They pulled up and the guards over the radio station were like, there's no weapons here. Crazy. Dave's not here.

man. And, you know, they didn't want to believe him because, you know, that's another one of fundamental problems with these weapon inspection. You give them prior notice, they're just going to move their shit. They just find loads of bootleg copies of Nirvana's, never mind. That's been smuggled into the country. Were they trying to manipulate me specifically? I was like four years old, guys. I wasn't involved in this stupid deployment of American forces. So that wouldn't come for decades.