From: roelle@uars_mag.jhuapl.edu (Curtis Roelle)
Subject: Re: Behind Pentagon's Move Into Somalia
Organization: Johns Hopkins University
Date: 18 Dec 92 18:46:48 GMT

nyt@nyxfer.UUCP writes:


>Subject: Behind Pentagon's Move Into Somalia
>From: nyxfer!nyt (NY Transfer News)

>Via The NY Transfer News Service * All the News that Doesn't Fit


>BEHIND THE PENTAGON'S MOVE INTO AFRICA

>By Brian Becker

>What's the real reason the Bush administration suddenly decided,
>just before leaving office, to reverse its do-nothing policy on
>Somalia? Why opt for a massive occupation of this country in the
>Horn of Africa now?

Because there is no government in Somalia capable of restoring order
and its African neighbors are either unwilling or impotent in terms
of intervention.

>Bush says U.S. troops were urgently needed because Somalia was
>slipping into total "anarchy." The famine was supposedly spreading
>and could kill millions. Both assertions are false.

[etc. -- deleted]

>Today, according to former Africa Watch Director Rakiya Omaar, "the
>famine and the war are limited to the southwest region. ... The
>famine is waning. Markets in all the main towns are awash with
>cheap food because of the looting.  Acute malnutrition exists in
 ^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^^ 
>scattered rural pockets." (The Guardian of Britain, Dec. 5)

So there's no anarchy, only looting.  And thus it happens that thanks
to looting, things are working out.  What is wrong here? 

>The New York Times reported Dec. 14, "The rains in the past months,
>unlike the arid seasons of the previous two years, have been good
>in the grain-growing central and southern regions of Somalia,
>leading to hopes of some crops early in the new year."

Next year's crops do not feed this year's starving population.

>The Times' Jane Perlez reported: "A plan for the 200 marines at
>[an] airstrip to give 30 bags of rice to community elders in the
>nearby town in exchange for weapons fizzled. The elders turned up
>without the weapons and asked for jobs instead of food. They seemed
>uninterested in the rice, which is inexpensive in the markets now."
>(Dec. 14)

>How can rice be cheap in Somalia? Supply must be plentiful enough
>to exceed demand.

The writer asks a question he has already given the answer to above:
Looting works.

>Perlez also reported Somali farmers have stopped planting corn and
>other basic foods "because there was no market because of all the
>rice in the kitchens and the dry food distributions by the
>humanitarian agencies in Mogadishu."

I thought the new rains were going to help next year's crops.  But
now we find that these crops aren't being planted.  Huh?  Are we 
being told here that Somalia expects to just go on welfare?

[ etc. deleted]

>Clark says Bush put the "Marines in there to give them time to form
>a government that will be subservient" to the United States. He
>also believes the Bush administration and the Pentagon are trying
>to dominate the new Clinton administration's foreign policy agenda
>by making a series of long-term commitments now.

Clinton has stated that he approves the action in Somalia.  The support
is bipartisan.

[etc. deleted]

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