From: carlson@viking.sps.mot.com (Brett Carlson)
Subject: Re: Somalia
Organization: sps
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 23:40:25 GMT

In article <1992Dec16.025244.9038@news.columbia.edu>  
egl1@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Elizabeth G. Levy) writes:
> In article <1992Dec16.011312.19839@mogate.sps.mot.com>  
carlson@viking.sps.mot.com (Brett Carlson) writes:
> >In article <1992Dec15.055159.25224@news.columbia.edu>  
> >egl1@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Elizabeth G. Levy) writes:
> 
> Brett, can you limit yourself to around 70 characters/line?  It  
makes follow-ups neater.  Thanks.

No problem......I hadn't figured that this would go through five  
generations of replies, but i guess I should have known better!  :-)

> Er, what do you mean we wouldn't need a base "there" if Somalia was
> controlled by the US?  If "there" means Somalia, certainly we would
> need a base to interdict shipping lanes.  After all, where would  
the
> ships park?  If you mean Diego Garcia, you might be right: one  
reason
> DG was chosen was because Somalia was not available, Somalia having
> Soviet leanings at the time.  Of course, the Soviets never  
developed
> the ports there....

we're getting majorly off of the intended subject here...What I'm  
saying is that our government is concerned about a stable, pro-US  
government on the cheap-oil shipping route. I agree that (while the  
US would probably *like* a military base in Somalia), they do not  
currently have the resources to build one.

Again: **the point is**, if somalia were not strategically located,  
the US would not be involved there.  If this is not true, then why  
did the US not help any of the other starving African nations when  
*they* were plagued by unstable governments and warring factions,  
even after the cold war and before the election??  Bush *could* have  
helped out the starving masses after desert storm, or anytime before  
the Democratic convention...that would have allowed him to continue  
on his wave of popularity and to divert attention from our own  
domestic situation.....

> >so we get to be the world's policeman now??  And the Somalian (and  
Iraqi, btw)  
> >populations get to be Rodney King??  
> 
> Famine is not a pleasant thing, especially if it is partially  
caused
> by political calculation on part of local warlords. 

and two superpowers (only one of them still in existance) passing out  
guns several years ago in order to extend spheres of inflouence.    
Again, where do you think the warlords got all those M-16s from??  

> I'm not arguing
> that we should be the world's policeman, intervening everywhere  
there
> might be a problem.  I do say, however, that we cannot simply just  
sit
> back and watch the spectacle of famine and genocide each and every
> time it happens.  We may be the only nation with the logistical
> capability to intervene in this case.

I read this as "we shouldn't intervene when there's a problem, but we  
have to help out when there's a problem."   there's a lot of famine  
and genocide in the world, as there has been for many years (SE Asia,  
many african nations, many south american nations...)  And in fact  
the US caused a large portion of it.  

Where do you draw the line??  We help Somalia today....we help  
ethiopia tomorrow...we help bosnia the day after that....and the  
sudan the day after that....meanwhile, homelessness in this nation is  
at an all-time high.  We need to stop being the world's  
policeman/landlord.


> To do otherwise would be the
> moral equivalent of locking up the lifevests while people are
> drowning.

but we don't need to jump out of our own boat to deliver the lifevest  
to them.  maybe we should have stopped passing out warships a couple  
of years ago, and then we wouldn't have so many sinking boats???

> The 12/28 New Republic, which I just got today, puts forth the case
> far more eloquently and persuasively than I can.  Take a gander.

Aw geez, now i have to take off work and go to the library.  :-)

I will try to check out the article, however

> 
> Re: profit margins.  Iffy: it may be more profitable in the  
long-run
> to go into the civil sector.  

An american defense contractor with an eye on the future??  

that's a new one!  ;-)

> The main problem is that change and
> retooling will be painful, to say the least.  In the short-run,
> continuing military expenditures is more comfortable.

I couldn't have said it better myself.  but they can't justify  
continuing military expenditures if the military isn't being used.

> Yes, I feel he wanted to emphasize domestic issues, but didn't know
> how.  Bush is a creature of the opinion polls.  Look at how GOP
> strategy shifted weekly, as focus groups came back and said they
> didn't like the smear-du-jour.  Glancing at the polls, he (and his
> handlers) would have noticed that the voters would not have  
tolerated
> a foreign adventure.

they're tolerating it now, two months later.  (and buying into the  
american jingoism with great zeal, i might add...)

again, this is a moot point....it didn't happen two months ago, and  
now Bill Clinton gets to play cleanup boy....

> 
> LBJ, not JFK, not Eisenhower, is the one who authorized main line
> combat troops to go to Vietnam.  The main troop commitment in  
Somalia
> will be completed by 1/21.  The main problem will be peole blaming
> Clinton for bungling a successful operation.  We'll see what  
happens.

exactly what i've been saying for the past couple of days.  Clinton  
is in serious danger of being blamed for bungling a successful  
operation.  (i defer to Slade the Leveller for further comment)


> French troops are involved (after all, it was French legionaires,  
with
> US Marines, that took first blood in Somalia), as are British (in
> fact, RAF pilots will be in Somalia for the long haul, or so the  
NYT
> tells me).  A third of the foreign troops to be deployed in Somalia
                                            ^^^^^
> are not American.  

So the US does the combat, and then the rest of the world comes in  
after the dirty work is done.  OK, so the French foreign legion is  
involved.  The fact of the matter is, the US has committed 50,000  
troops, plus air support, leadership, and artillery.  A couple of RAF  
jets and a few token forces from other nations do not make this  
anything less than a US, not a UN,  endeavor.

> >> He (Clinton) would have had to deal with troops overseas, no  
matter what.  
> >
> >Yes, but he wouldn't have had to deal with overseas troops in a  
combat  
> >situation had bush not handed him the "opportunity".
> 
> No.  He would have had to deal with either Somalia or the Sudan  
sooner
> or later. CNN happened to arrive at the former first, so we're  
there
> now.  He will have to deal eventually with Serbia, especially if
> Milosevic turns south towards Kosovo.  This may draw Turkey into a
> general Balkan war, which in turn would draw in Western Europe, if
> only to control the refugee flow, NATO be damned.

and the US has no choice but to play miliary policeman in *all* these  
locations?? damn, I wish we could go back to detante when at least we  
didn't have the marines running all over the world.....

**a bunch of stuff where we both agreed to wait and see what happens  
deleted**

> >
> >So you agree, then, that the cause of the war is something other  
than  
> >humanitarianism??  That to me is enough reason to oppose the  
action right  
> >there!
> 
> Oy.  As said, some of the motivations for this action does not  
change
> its primary character.  Ultimately, the US is in a place without
> strategic significance, doing something other than installing an
> authoritarian regime.

whatever.  even if the purpose is *not* hegemony (which i'm willing  
to concede if for no other reason than i'm tired of arguing it), it  
is not humanitarianism.  The war is popular -- it gets people all  
fired up over american jingoism and allows us to continue to justify  
defense spending.  As Slade the Leveller said, it's "operation  
sweepsweek".  Our government *is* reacting to the polls.  We're dumb  
enough to support humanitarianism through combat, so they continue to  
feed it to us.

more in another message.....

--brett
 
> --
> The insane fear of socialism throws the bourgeois headlong into the
> arms of despotism.
> 			-- Tocqueville, 1852

 **I can't come up with a better quote for my .sig, so I won't**
Newsgroups: alt.current-events.somalia,alt.activism