In 1993 a US Army helicopter pilot was shot down, his crew killed, his rescuers killed, and he was captured. The Clinton Administration and Al Queda leaders later claimed that it was Bin Laden's forces that shot the helicopter down. Recently declassified documents and captured documents from Saddam's regime as well as multiple prisoner interrogations confirm that Iraqi Intelligence Forces were involved as well. The pilot, Mike Durant, was beaten and badly wounded. Throughout the night and subsequent days his fellow pilots from his squadron flew over the city of Mogadishu with speakers mounted on their helicopters. They broadcast encouragement to their friend by promising that he would not be left behind. After he was later released, the US left Somalia, and left the people behind as it had in Vietnam, Beirut, and just a year earlier when half a million Iraqis were encouraged to rise up against Saddam, promised American support, and then equally left behind. This pattern of abandonment is what Osama Bin Laden claims convinced him that the US is a paper tiger, and it is about to repeat itself again in Iraq.

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