From: paulf@umunhum.stanford.edu (Paul Flaherty)
Subject: Re: somalia
Keywords: no reply
Organization: The Three Packeteers
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 22:49:48 GMT

In article <1992Dec14.222021.20433@lynx.dac.northeastern.edu> awells@lynx.dac.northeastern.edu (Andrew V. Wells) writes:
>(1) Iraq was "defeated" in less than six
>weeks; and (2) very few US military personel were killed. 

The swiftness with which war is executed is irrelevant to its morality.  Are
you saying that it would have been more moral if planning and execution 
were bungled, resulting in a drawn out conflict?

>(1) Bush originally claimed that they were fighting 
>this "war" to get rid of Hussein, but he is still in power
>even after the US declared "victory". So just what were
>Bush's true motivations then? 

If the President wanted Hussein dead, he'd be feeding worms by now.  The
UN resolution, which the US drafted, said nothing about toppling Hussein.
And, most importantly, the US stuck to the LETTER OF THE RESOLUTION.

>(2)  Hussein was an ally
>of the US for about 10 years prior to the Gulf "war,"
>receiving all kinds of trade credits and bank loans
>(on a very large scale- billions of dollars worth)
>to buy military hardware and other stuff from the US.

Sorry to disappoint you, but a recent inquiry into the matter labelled
such claims as being clearly fradulant.  If you have knowledge of specific
military weapons sold to Iraq by the US in the last ten years, post it.

>(3)  There is apparently one other thing we disagree on. You
>say the majority of people in the US supported US actions
>in the Gulf "war".  But this support was very very thin.
>There were polls taken that said that if a thousand or more
>US military personel were killed, people would no longer
>support the action.

You've just contradicted yourself.  First, you claim that the war was
obviously unjust because of the low Allied casualty rate.  Now, you're 
claiming that support was thin because of the expected high casualty rate.
You can't have it both ways.

> In addition, opposition to the war
>was very strong and obvious before the bombing started
>(Dec.90 to early Jan. 91).

That was the opposition of the wacko "peace at any price" crowd, which
became increasingly more violent as at became more and more apparrent that
they wouldn't get their way.

> But even if most people did
>support it, that doesn't justify it. If people are
>profoundly misinformed, they can be made to support just 
>about anything.

Most "Just War" theologians agree that the debate that preceeded the Gulf War
was exhaustive in extent.  So it's pretty clear that the public had the
necessary information.  The public debate culminated in a Congressional vote
which authorized the action.  That's how a democracy works.

> One thing we probably agree on is that
>you can't trust the mass media because of its bias. So
>why should we trust the mass media when it was so
>obviously in favor of the Gulf "war"?  And since the
>mass media was so obviously biased in favor of the gulf
>war, it must follow that they were consciously misinforming
>the public to get them to support it also.

This is, of course, the same "mass media" which told us that the Gulf War
would be another Vietnam, a prolonged conflict against the third or forth
largest military in the world, with veterans seasoned from the Iran - Iraq
wars.  And, this was the same "mass media" which had a presense that was
more than 100x as large as that in Vietnam during the Tet Offensive.  The
same "mass media" that brought us the Baby Milk Factory fiasco.

>(4)  I read recently that US troops in Somalia have been
>ordered to "shoot at anything they want to."  This 
>is certainly not consistent with a supposed humanitarian
>mission.

A half truth.  The precise order is "Shoot if threatened".  This is in
contrast to orders during the Lebanon action, in which the soldiers weren't
even issued ammunition.  The change is clearly called for, as the real
mission is to protect food shipments from armed bandits, which have 
effectively destroyed the food distribution system, as well as prior UN
efforts at resupply.

> And just how much food aid was the US sending
>to Somalia since the famine began many months ago? Very
>little, in fact. Why does Bush only become concerned
>about humanitarian causes when he decides to deploy 
>troops?

The problem was not with the amount of aid; rather, that the UN aid shipments
were being stolen by armed bandits.  The net result was that less than 10%
of the aid was received where needed.

>  Why didn't he start a big campaign to send
>food aid over there a long time ago?

MATS (the US Military Air Transport System) has been flying aid shipments into
Mogudishu for over six months now, as part of the UN aid campaign.

> And is he
>really sending large amounts food now? And why should
>a foreign occupying army (the US army) be able to
>more effectively distribute food, when the main
>effect of sending troops there is to greatly
>escalate the military conflict?

Again, the problem is with theft of food shipments by the warring factions,
not the amount.   Thus the only solution is to protect the food shipments
from theft, and given the amount of military hardware in the hands of
the bandits, a military solution is called for.

> There's no question
>that whatever local military forces are already in 
>Somalia are going to react to the newly arriving US
>troops in a hostile way, escalating the
>conflict.

So far, the only reaction from the warring factions has been just the 
opposite; the two largest factions have agreed to a settlement,  and
the aid distributions are now reaching the hardest hit areas.  The open
question is what will happen after the US troops are replaced by a regular
UN peacekeeping force, but our only mission at the moment is to make sure
the aid goes where it's needed.

Sorry, but Somalia isn't the Gulf War, and the Gulf War wasn't Vietnam.

--
-=Paul Flaherty, N9FZX/5W1JX  | "Just name a hero, and I'll prove he's a bum."
->paulf@Stanford.EDU          |  -- Col. Gregory "Pappy" Boyington, USMC (ret)