From: awells@lynx.dac.northeastern.edu (Andrew V. Wells)
Subject: somalia
Keywords: no reply
Organization: Northeastern University
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 18:09:23 GMT

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

U.S. military chief reveals Pentagon plan for new wars

By Brian Becker

The massive U.S. military intervention into Somalia is the result
of a new military doctrine developed to justify the Pentagon's
bloated $300 billion annual budget. The bloat continues in spite
of the end of the so-called Cold War and the collapse of Soviet
military power.

Many reporters at a Dec. 4 news briefing were astonished when
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Colin Powell bragged that the
upcoming Operation Restore Hope would be a "paid political
advertisement" that would showcase U.S. military "capabilities
and usefulness."

Powell also used the briefing to counter those who seek a massive
cut in military spending to increase funding for health care,
housing, jobs, education and other social needs.

In an article written for Foreign Affairs magazine just before
the U.S. invasion of Somalia, Powell outlined the new doctrine.
He pushed it as the reason to maintain staggering levels of
military spending even though poverty is deepening throughout the
United States.

"The new national military strategy is an unclassified document.
Anyone can read it," Powell wrote. "The central idea in the
strategy is the change from a focus on global war-fighting to a
focus on regional contingencies ... In the fall of 1992 we are
fine-tuning that strategy, restructuring our armed forces so that
they are ideally suited to executing it."

Powell argued that significant reductions in the military machine
would threaten the viability of this doctrine. He argued that
"over the past three years the U.S. armed forces have been used
repeatedly to defend our interests and to achieve our political
interests."

Powell is referring to the brutal invasion of Panama in 1989, the
aerial destruction of Iraq, and lesser-known interventions in the
Philippines, Liberia, and elsewhere.

PUBLICITY TO PUSH PENTAGON

In the Foreign Affairs article, Powell made it clear that the
Somalia intervention has little to do with bringing much-needed
relief to a suffering population. It is instead a publicity stunt
to highlight the importance of the new military doctrine and the
continuing importance of the Pentagon itself.

"Because of the need to accomplish a wide range of missions, our
new armed forces will be *capabilities-oriented* as
well as *threat-oriented* ... what sorts of missions
can we envision? I believe that peacekeeping and humanitarian
operations are a given ..." (Emphasis in original)

Powell represents the view of the vast military-industrial
complex that ties the Pentagon establishment with 70,000 military
contractors and sub-contractors. He argues the case that U.S.
imperialism, which has slipped economically relative to other
capitalist powers like Germany and Japan, can still dominate the
world based on its military prowess.

"We cannot lead without our armed forces. Economic power is
essential; political and diplomatic skills are needed ...but the
presence of our arms to buttress these other elements is critical
to us," he asserted in the article.

                               -30-

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