From: egl1@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Elizabeth G. Levy)
Subject: Re: Somalia
Reply-To: egl1@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Elizabeth G. Levy)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 05:51:59 GMT

In article <1992Dec15.014713.13065@mogate.sps.mot.com> carlson@viking.sps.mot.com (Brett Carlson) writes:
>egl1@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Elizabeth G. Levy) writes:
>
>> Unlikely: Somalia has no ports worth squat (the main one handles at
>> most two ships at once), and only 2 airports capable of receiving
>> large cargo planes. 
>
>Yet....But if our government were to establish a hegemonic state in Somalia,  
>maybe they would let us build our own sea and air ports??
>
>Somalia is on the main shipping path for cheap oil.  Since Reagan/Bush policies  
>made it financially undesireable to use American oil serveral years ago, the  
>oil companies will stop at no end to make sure that they control all access to  
>the oil fields in the middle east.  

Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean, is a much better (already built) base.
We do not have the financial resources to build military out of whole
cloth any more.  Also, bases in Saudia Arabia would serve interdiction
purposes much better.

>
>> [Of course, this is an argument for the post-Cold War world.  Back
>> during the CW, anyplace, no matter how insignificant, that the Soviets
>> showed interest in would draw instant US attention.  Somalia was such
>> a place during the '80s, of course, which is one reason why there are
>> all these guns, both AK-47s and M-16s.  Hell, probably the best way to
>> get foreign aid for your country would be to announce to the US
>> ambassador that there were Communist insurgents wandering around in
>> the jungle.]
>
>Or that you wanted to set up a military dictatorship (see also:  idi amin,  
>pinochet, duvalier, polpot, or pre-bush Noriega, all of which came into power  
>with US economic and military support.)

Quite true.

>
>> More likely, the US is there for humanitarian reasons.  The reason the
>> Administration didn't act early was probably because there was not
>> much pressure to act.  TV images of starving Somalis created this
>> pressure.  
>
>Sally Struthers has been showing us TV images of starving kids in Africa for  
>20+ years, and warlords have been stealing food from starving africans for 20+  
>years.  Why is it that the problem only now requires military intervention??

Partially the end of the Cold War.  We can put the military where we
want to, because we're no longer afraid of noises from the Russians.
Someone proposed that the military is seeking new missions, also,
and perhaps petitioned for this operation.  This is plausible.

>> Also, Bush probably wants to
>> leave on a positive note ("Gonna save some lil' brown ones.  Wouldn't
>> be prudent na ta."), and this is an excellent opportunity for this.
>> Bosnia would not be a good candidate.  As I believe a policy guy in
>> D.C. said, Somalia is easy, Bosnia isn't.
>
>This I mildly agree with....but if Bush is so concerned about his image, why  
>didn't he invade three months ago when he was so far behind in the election  
>polls??  If he is trying to build popularity, why didn't he do it when it could  
>have gotten him reelected??   Could he be deliberately leaving Clinton with a  
>Vietnam for the 90s??  Nah, he wouldn't do that.......

If Bush had sent in the troops a couple of months ago (when the famine
was worse, in terms of daily body count), it would have been seen as a
politically calculated move.  Also, the campaign emphasized domestic
issues.  A new foreign adventure wouldn't be, uh, prudent.

I don't think Bush is leaving Clinton with a mess, politically.  If
disaster strikes, and US troops are in Somalia for years, Clinton can
say that Bush started it.

> 
>> Now, this perhaps creates an interesting precedent.  I'm all for using
>> the US military for humanitarian reasons.  
>
>Wait a minute here!!  what kind of orwellian double-speak is this when we can  
>send in 50,000 trained killers armed with automatic weapons and with the  
>support of heavy artillery and advanced combat aircraft to fight off a bunch of  
>Somalian hillbillies carrying shotguns and riding around in pickup trucks while  
>calling the action "humanitarian"??!?!?!?  I don't get it!

I sympathsize with this position, since I tend to be somewhat leary
about exercising military options.  Sending in troops should be a last
resort, after all.  It's just that I favor a human rights-based
foreign policy, as opposed to the bloodless calculus of realpolitik.
At this time, however, we do not have the organizations to accomplish
policy goals.  That's why I've argued for a somewhat more muscular UN,
since the UN peacekeeping forces in Somalia have failed miserably so
far.

>
>> I'm not happy about _how_ Somalia was chosen.  Surely, there are
>> better, more philosophically grounded criteria than the whim of CNN.
>> We'll see what happens with Clinton.
>
>This brings up an interesting point:  Clinton has this thing handed to him by  
>no choice of his own.  He *will* have to deal with American troops stationed  
>overseas, even though he didn't place them there.  So what are his options??   
>He can leave the troops there for years until a puppet hegemonic government is  
>established, which would make him look bad....or, he can pull the troops out  
>early and let the warlords come back, which would make him look bad.  No matter  
>what happens, Clinton cannot win from this situation.

He would have had to deal with troops overseas, no matter what.  In a
sense, Somalia is not a test case for a new paradigm in American
foreign policy: it's relatively easy, and the political costs are
minimal (so far).  A real test case would be Bosnia.

As said, Clinton can win this situation by laying the responsibility
on Bush, for not clearly thinking out the implications of intervention.
This would be a political win, and not necessarily one for the nation.

He perhaps can go along with the UN General Secretary's proposal, and
begin to disarm the factions.  This perhaps would be the best case.
(I'd argue that we would not want to set up any puppet regime.  These
are Cold War relics, and we are no longer willing to bear the costs of
upholding them.)  In the long term, and for other situations, a beefed
up UN would perhaps work.  We certainly should not pull out only to
let the factions restart the fighting: any effort we've made to secure
food shipments would be in vain.

>
>> Also, the judgement of policy accomplishments through TV perhaps tends
>> towards short-term, shallow solutions.  Somalia's problems don't go
>> away once CNN is able to broadcast the smiling faces of well-fed
>> children.  I worry about the possible lack of followthrough.  All of
>> this will be for nothing if the UN forces get overwhelmed once the US
>> leaves.  TV, I don't think, conveys any urgency to come up with long
>> term structural solutions to policy problems.  We will have to see
>> what happens.
>
>I agree that american public policy should not be dictated by CNN's marketing  
>department, but this brings up another interesting point:  what exactly is our  
>mission in somalia??  Feed the people and leave so that they can starve next  
>month??  Open the roads and leave so that the warlords can come back next  
>month??  Kill the warlords and leave??  If our purpose is to open the roads and  
>then leave so the UN can handle the warlords, then why didn't the UN just do  
>the job themselves in the first place??  

I'd argue that the UN does not have the means to accomplish this.  Ad
hoc troop commitments and hand-to-mouth financing of this organization
(the US is quite behind in membership fees, for instance) does not
give its policy goals any credibility.  The 500 Pakistani troops the
UN committed to secure food shipments were outguuned by the Somalis,
so much so that only 100 could be deployed.

>Our purpose in somalia is american  
>hegemony, pure and simple.   It's just a different flavor of the same old New  
>World Order, and it still tastes like bullshit.

Again, I disagree that this is a case of American hegemony.  There is
nothing of strategic value there, and the time of puppet regimes is
over, as the American empire contracts.

What this probably is is an example of the dominance of the media
in the post-Cold War world, with perhaps a touch of Pentagon
mission-seeking.



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