From: HADCRJAM@admin.uh.edu (MILLER, JIMMY A.)
Newsgroups: alt.current-events.somalia
Subject: Re: Really about the Gulf (was re: Somalia)
Date: 15 Dec 1992 19:31:05 GMT
Organization: University of Houston Administrative Computing
Distribution: world
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In <1992Dec15.161542.11470@lynx.dac.northeastern.edu> awells@lynx.dac.northeastern.edu writes:

> In article <1gksa5INNijn@menudo.uh.edu>, HADCRJAM@admin.uh.edu (MILLER, JIMMY A.) writes:
> > 
> >   Actually, in the Gulf, the US was defending/liberating KUWAIT from an agres-
> > sor force.  
> 
>          Liberating Kuwait!!!!!! Right, to restore their legitimate
>          dictator, the emir!!! (Who puts his petro billions in US
>          banks, thus propping up the US economy.)

  Well, I never claimed Kuwait was democratic.  Just that they were buddies
of the US.  And I must admit, those ordinary folks on the streets looked aw-
fully happy to see the Saudis and US troops coming up the road.  But it is
nice to see you've dropped the notion that the US claimed Iraq was going to
invade it or something.

> >No one has claimed the the Somali warlords represent any sort of 
> > threat to US security.
>  
>     Then since arms should only be used in self-defense,
>     the US has no right to be there. Just as it has no right to have
>     military bases anywhere else in the world. 

  Mr. Wells, I cannot help but feel you have a very naive view of the
world beyond the notion that the US will use force to support its interests.
Many (if not all) overseas US bases were put there to defend US friends and
allies from various real and percieved threats, usually related to the the
now-defunct Soviet Union (though not always, and the threats, I will agree,
sometimes included groups with a more legitimate claim to power than the
actual rulers, but I digress). 

  You seem to be laboring under the notion that if nation A is not directly 
under attack by nation B, then nation A has no right to act to defend the
much smaller nation C, currently being attacked by nation B.  Let me describe
it another way:  A large bully is beating on your wife, may even kill her.
By your reasoning, you have no right to even restrain this attacker, much
less consider using lethal force.  Do get the point yet, Mr. Wells?

  Was it immoral of the US to support Great Britain and the USSR against 
Germany in WWII, before Pearl Harbor?

>     Or, if you don't
>     agree with this reasoning, then perhaps we should allow Britain
>     or Germany to have military bases in the US, right?

  Well, I have no problem with the Brits or Germans putting a base in.  Good
for the economy, and all that.  But I'll be hanged if I can see why they'd
need any here.

>          Moreover, the 'somali warlords' no doubt buy there arms
>     on an international market which is overwhelmingly dominated 
>     by the US. 

  Major arms suppliers include the US, France, China, and the ex-USSR.  In
Somalia's case. most of the gear is cast off US and USSR gear from when
both countries supported rival factions.  I'm not sure why that has anything
to do with it.  Hell, if anything, it suggests that the US has a responsibility
to go in and clean up the mess it had a hand in creating.

> >   Well, for one thing, Germany was lead by more competent people than Iraq.
> 
>   Well, if this were true, it would support my argument that Iraq
>   was never the threat that they claimed it was.

  Iraq was in *indirect* threat to the US.  It was a direct threat to US 
friends (the Saudis and the Kuwaitis).   See my "defending your wife" argument
above.  You may not like the notion that the US gov. has considered these
countries friendly, but there you are.  Certainly Saudi Arabia could not have
done more than slowed down the Iraqi Army.

> >   Then Bush cleaned up his mess by freeing the Kuwaitis and smashing many of 
>               ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^             
> > the weapons.  
> 
>        Oh, so then you freely admit that Bush did what he did to cover 
>        his own ass? "Cleaned up his mess" sounds a little like "ethnic
>        cleansing" to me, and like Schwartzkopf's "turkey shoot." More
>        euphemisms for mass slaughter of innocent people.

  Sigh.  I was merely responding to your argument about how Bush "created"
Saddam, and how that does not represent a valid reason against the war.  I
freely submit that there were plently of other reasons (oil, percieved threat
to US interests, Scuds pointed at Isreal, etc.) that drove the Bush administra-
tion to go to war.  But there were other, perfectly noble and also valid ones
as well, that would do quite well on thier own, without needing the ulterior
motives to justify the action.

> >   And arming someone against one enemy (Iran) does not generally include 
> > carte blanche to use the gear on someone your supplier is freinds with...
> 
>   Isn't this amazingly naive coming from someone who gives Bush a
>   carte blanche?

  You overstep yourself, sir.  I have *never* given Bush carte blanche.  I was
a vociferous opponent of his policy WRT China, esp. after Tiannemen(sp) Square.


semper fi,

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