From: HADCRJAM@admin.uh.edu (MILLER, JIMMY A.)
Newsgroups: alt.current-events.somalia
Subject: Really about the Gulf (was re: Somalia)
Date: 15 Dec 1992 15:06:45 GMT
Organization: University of Houston Administrative Computing
Distribution: world
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In <1992Dec14.222021.20433@lynx.dac.northeastern.edu> awells@lynx.dac.northeastern.edu writes:

> This is a more detailed rebuttal to those who are trying to
> claim that the US was justified in what it did in the
> Gulf "war" just under two years ago, and what it is doing
> now, the military occupation of Somalia.
> 
> Yes, I do think that war is profoundly immoral. However, I do believe
> that people have the right to defend themselves against an aggressor,
> and perhaps you agree with this also. So the basic disagreement
> we have is: was the US defending itself against a dangerous
> aggressor in the gulf war (and in Somalia), or was 
> (and is) something else going on? 

  Actually, in the Gulf, the US was defending/liberating KUWAIT from an agres-
sor force.  No one has claimed the the Somali warlords represent any sort of 
threat to US security.

>    Let's examine the assumption that Iraq was in fact a 
> dangerous aggressor, bent on taking over the whole
> Mid East. There are two facts on which I'm 
> sure we both agree that bare on this assumption: 
> (1) Iraq was "defeated" in less than six
> weeks; and 

  Heard of the Six-Day War?  Little donneybrook between Isreal, Egypt, Syria,
and (I think) Jordan.  A conflict need not be long and drawn-out to be real.

(2) very few US military personel were killed. 
> Moreover, Schwartzkopt himself characterized the action
> as a "Turkey Shoot," apparently refering to the ease with
> which they "defeated" Iraq. So if Iraq was really so dangerous, 
> as dangerous as Nazi Germany like the mass media and Bush claimed,
> then why was it so easy to "defeat" Iraq? It took the 
> combined powers of the US Britain and Soviet Union 4 years
> to defeat Nazi Germany, not six weeks!

  Well, for one thing, Germany was lead by more competent people than Iraq.
If Saddam had not been quite stupid from a military point of view, things
would have been a lot more bloody, and a lot less easy.  Iraq allowed the
Coalition to have total control of the air.  Air power cannot win a war all by
itself, but it can certainly be decisive, especially in a desert.  Ask the
Isrealis.

>   I don't claim to have all the answers, but I do have
> plenty of questions:
>      
> (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? 

  Actually, the stated goal was always the liberation of Kuwait.  Most agreed
the unstated goal was getting rid of Saddam.  Just a clarification.

> (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.
> Both Reagan and Bush fought Congress hard to allow Hussein
> to do this from 1980-90. Given this, don't the Reagan 
> and Bush administrations bare at least some responsibility 
> for Hussein's invasion of Kuwait?

  Then Bush cleaned up his mess by freeing the Kuwaitis and smashing many of 
the weapons.  BTW, Iraq had almost no US hardware, most of it was from the
Soviet Union and France -- though admittedly some was bought thanks to US help.

  And arming someone against one enemy (Iran) does not generally include carte
blanche to use the gear on someone your supplier is freinds with...

[support was thin, media was biased to get support, etc.]

  Personally, I thought the media was biased against the war, but never mind.
All polls I saw generally supported the war, and the margins got bigger as time
wore on.  In short, Bush convinced folks of the need.  His opponents failed to
convince people otherwise.  That's what they call democracy.

> (4)  I read recently that US troops in Somalia have been
> ordered to "shoot at anything they want to."

  Read where?  I just love lines like this...

> 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?

  Because the local warlords will have a hader time stealing from Marines and
tanks than they do from unarmed and semi-armed civilian relief organizations.
Are you being deliberately obtuse here?  Why do you think the UN was asking for
military intervention in the first place?

> 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. And even if more fighting doesn't take
> place, the presence of a large foreign army certainly
> increases tensions to an extreme degree. All of
> this makes it even MORE difficult to distribute
> food. And as a long term solution, the Somalians
> need a situation in which they can feed themselves,
> and escalating the military confrontation makes 
> this even more impossible.

  As long as the warlords had no reason to sit and make peace, the situation
would continue.  Now they have been given an impetus to do so.  It is a rough
rule -- put down your weapons or be shot -- but I suspect it is the only one
likely to get their attention.  If these fellows were truly interested in help-
ing their nation instead of themselves, we wouldn't have things the way they 
are there now.  Frankly, I find your arguments to be lacking much of an under-
standing of the situation in Somalia, or even of the way things seem to work
in the world.

  So far, events in Mogadishu do NOT bear out your beliefs.  The water treat-
ment plant was given up by a warlord just the other day in exchange for *job
training*.  Before, they wanted food and/or cash.  I wonder what suddenly
made them so damn altruistic?  Maybe the idea that they no longer can terrorize
unarmed civvies, that they face the prospect of REAL troops coming and and
forcing the issue?  I wonder.


semper fi,

Jammer Jim Miller 
Texas A&M University '89 and '91
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