From: ray@cs.rochester.edu (Ray Frank)
Newsgroups: alt.president.clinton,alt.politics.bush
Subject: Re: Somalia
Date: 18 Dec 92 13:44:37 GMT
Organization: University of Rochester

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:
>> 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:
>> 
>> 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.
>
>Admittedly, that is true.  But we wouldn't *need* a base there if the Somalian  
>government (oxymoron??  at this point anyway...) were a hegemonic wing of the  
>US State Department.  The point is, Somalia is *on* the main shipping route for  
>cheap oil en route to the US and Europe.  If it were not, the Marines would not  
>be involved in their internal unrest.

You sound like an Americanphobe.  Your type of people will always find fault
with anything the US does.  It makes no sense to try and reason with
such people since their minds are cast in cement.


>This is a moot point, but do you think bush *wanted* to emphasize domestic  
>issues??  A popular war over feeding the starving masses in Somalia might have  
>been just the diversion that George Bush would have needed to get  
>reelected..... 
>

Uh, Bush already lost the election when he sent troops to Somolia.  Or didn't
you hear?


>And Bush will be blamed just like Eisenhower was blamed for Vietnam, right??  

I blame John Kennedy for the Viet Nam war.

>> >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!

What do you want the troops to do, get off boats with pea shooters?  These
armed thugs/bandits/assholes who roam the country side stealing food while
millions of their countrymen starve to death will shoot an American soldier
to death without blinking an eyelid and not think anything of 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.

This WAS a last resort.  Of course there are those who would say the last
resort didn't occur until there were no more people alive to starve to death 
in Somolia.

>I'm inclined to agree.   If we *are* going to invade Somalia, why aren't the  
>french, british, and chinese armies involved??  Isn't that the idea of a UN  
>action??  

Invade????
Yes, why aren't these armchair quarterbacks involved or are they content to
just sit back and do nothing?  The latter is too often the case.

>but the fact that the operation *is* strictly a US sort of thing (with a few  
>token forces from other nations, granted) tells me that we are protecting US  
>interests, not the interests of the UN or the human race.

The US is protecting nothing of interest to itself.  They are protecting
or at least trying to protect starving people from those roving gangs of
armed assholes who steal food by the tons.  The reason the US contingent is
so large is because the other countrys are always reluctant to do anything
about world affairs.  It's been that way since WW2 when the then world
leaders made such a mess of things that the world erupted in war and killed
100 million people.  There was a mandate for change, you slick Willy folks 
will like that phrase, and the US was the only viable power in the world
that could work such a change and help rebuild and protect a world that
got so messed up by the previous world leaders.


>> 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".

You know what I say, fuck Clinton, fuck Bush, and fuck all the other people
who want to play politics and let's feed those starving Somolians.


>Which, from what I hear, will be the next country that Bush will overrun before  
>he leaves office.  I haven't been able to gather facts on this yet (being at  
>work all day), so I'll leave that topic to another discussion.....

Please, don't gather YOUR facts for us, it only clouds the issues.

>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!
>
>--brett

I and most others disagree so that is enough reason to support the actions
of the military humanitarian effort.

ray