HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: alt.current-events.somalia
From: liuyh@vis.toronto.edu (Yuanhui Liu)
Subject: Re: Somalia
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto
Date: 16 Dec 92 16:12:35 GMT

In article <28325@optima.cs.arizona.edu> hogue@cs.arizona.edu (Justin C. Hogue) writes:
>>>>Once again, the entire world turns its collective eyes towards the United
>>>>States of America to solve the worlds problems.  We are the only nation
>>>>who is able to do it, and has the balls to do it.  God bless the U.S. and
>>>>may God bless the men and women of our armed forces.
>[stuff deleted]
>>	If you want to hear the answers, it's the US that created the whole
>>mess in Somalia, it's that guilty concessions and possibly seeking advantage
>[more stuff deleted]
>WAITWAITWAIT---where the hell did you get this info?  Since when was America
>the only country in the world selling weapons?  Aren't warlords doing all 
>this killing?  American corporations MAY be to blame (assuming you are right
>that these weapons we so obviously militiously placed there are ours) for the
>weapons, but I don't see where you got that idea.  Boy, people like to blame
>the good ol' US for everything.
>--Jowfus


according the Toronto Star from a couple of days go, before the Marines
landed, in Somalian weapons market an AK-47 sells around $165, and
a M-16 sells around $95, the prices had since been dropped drasticly
after the US Marines landed since nobody wanted to buy weapons anymore.

I guess they either considered M-16s an inferior rifle or there's just
tons more M-16s than Ak-47s over there.
From: HADCRJAM@admin.uh.edu (MILLER, JIMMY A.)
Newsgroups: alt.current-events.somalia
Subject: Re: Somalia
Date: 11 Dec 1992 22:19:09 GMT
Organization: University of Houston Administrative Computing
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: uhad2.admin.uh.edu
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.20

In <1992Dec11.205358.1658@lynx.dac.northeastern.edu> awells@lynx.dac.northeastern.edu writes:

> Here's some more fan mail I've gotten from those lovely people who
> are in love with war, because it is mass-murder they can cheerlead for:
[all deleted because it was about Desert Storm/Shield and belongs in that group]
>                                    andy wells

  This is just a comment -- why do you post e-mail about Desert Storm to this
newsgroup?  Do like to hear yourself talk or something?  Yes, I am being de-
liberately snide.

  At least you set the followups to alt.desert-storm.  Of course, you could
have just put it there to start with, and informed your opponent to go there
instead of putting it here for *our* edification.


semper fi,

Jammer Jim Miller 
Texas A&M University '89 and '91
********************************************************************************
* Speak for my employers?  They don't even know I exist!		       *
*"Become one with the Student Billing System. *BE* the Student Billing System."*
* "Power finds its way to those who take a stand.  Stand up, Ordinary Man."    *
*      ---Rik Emmet, Gil Moore, Mike Levine: Triumph 		               *
********************************************************************************
From: smithmc@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Lost Boy)
Subject: Skirmish in Somalia; one dead
Organization: Purdue University Computing Center
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 20:58:34 GMT


This is not to comment on the politics of Somalia; however I would like
to still get this news out for those who have not heard, and get some
feedback to see where we stand on this whole thing.

Recently there was a shooting in Somalia. Two US Cobra copters spotted three
armored vehicles near a camp near the capital. The occupants of the copters
waved at the occupants of the vehicles. The vehicle occupants did not
respond. Later, as the Chicago Tribune reports, the copter crew observed
muzzle-flashes from the weapon barrels of the vehicles. The copters returned
fire with their 20mm cannon, destroying all three vehicles and killing one
person. Apparently the vehicles were armed with .50 machine guns and 106mm
recoiless rifles. 

There are some things I'd like to mention. Firstly, we don't know if this
report is accurate, since after all the Pentagon has to clear most media
reports on millitary actions and this *could* be simple propoganda. At
the same time this report contained an awful lot of detail (where the 
skirmish took place, who was involved, etc.) which would tell me that
this whole thing happened as told. As skeptical as I am of the media and
George Bush, I am rather impressed by how the United States millitary
handled this situation. From what I understand, they let four Somalis
simply leave the vehicles.

Please send replies to alt.current-events.somalia

Lost Boy
Newsgroups: alt.current-events.somalia
From: cbrooks@afit.af.mil (Christopher L Brooks)
Subject: Re: somalia
Keywords: no reply
Organization: Air Force Institute of Technology
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 13:17:05 GMT

awells@lynx.dac.northeastern.edu (Andrew V. Wells) writes:

>(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? 

It was my understanding that Bush's intent was to rid Kuwait
of Hussein; he was succesful in this endeavor.  Would you have
preferred a massacre in Baghdad to seek and destroy Hussein?

--Chris

Newsgroups: alt.current-events.somalia,alt.politics.org.un,alt.president.clinton,talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.bush
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: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 17:20:01 GMT

In article <1992Dec18.162700.5164@linus.mitre.org> m23364@mwunix (James Meritt) writes:
>In article <1992Dec18.021642.5453@newsgate.sps.mot.com> carlson@viking.sps.mot.com (Brett Carlson) writes:
>
>[Irrelevant  and often inaccurate mutterings deleted]
>
>}--brett, no clever 
>
>[irrelevant mutterings deleted]
>
>'nuff said.
>

Hi, James.  This group has so far been spared from overt flame-war over
600 posts (a Usenet record?).  Let's keep it that way, OK?




--
The insane fear of socialism throws the bourgeois headlong into the
arms of despotism.
			-- Tocqueville, 1852
From: yarvin@cs.yale.edu (Norman Yarvin)
Newsgroups: alt.current-events.somalia
Subject: Re: U.S. Is Not Going to War in Somalia for any Good Reasons
Date: 17 Dec 1992 00:01:32 -0500
Organization: Yale Computer Science Department
NNTP-Posting-Host: cathy.na.cs.yale.edu

egl1@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Elizabeth G. Levy) writes:
>In article <1go3qmINNp22@CATHY.NA.CS.YALE.EDU> yarvin@cs.yale.edu (Norman Yarvin) writes:
>>A communist rebellion is only suited for producing a communist state as the
>>end product.
>
>This is true in a sort of tautological way.

If you are going to respond, kindly respond to my full argument, rather than
to the one sentence whose only function was to introduce it.

>  The thing about
>Marxism/Leninism is that it provides a ready-made model and system to
>revolt and fill in power vacuums.  It is generally easier to follow or
>modify Lenin's notions of party leadership and social order than to
>invent your own.

But it is little easier than importing them from a western country.

>  This is true for insurgents that are left out of a
>nation's power structure, and must reinvent the social order if they
>win

Why would anybody reinvent the social order?  Such enterprises are doomed to
disaster anyway.  Humans are, intellectually, rather slow-moving creatures;
one cannot change their entire supporting social system in the blink of an
eye and still expect them to function well.

>>To say that a person turned to communism because he was anti-American is
>>like saying someone turned to cannibalism because his job was miserable: it
>>may in a way be true, but that does not justify it.
>
>Perhaps not justify it, but it's possible to understand their
>thinking.

It's possible to understand everything.  Even the minds of communists.

>  Imagine yourself rebelling against a Western-sponsored
>government in the 1960s, be it a relic of colonialism or something
>more recent.  You're out of the power structure.  Leninism provides a
>do-it-yourself blueprint for insurrection and for replacing the
>existing power structure.  Further, to declare yourself a Communist
>will get you military aid from the USSR or China, making things easier

No, I wouldn't just have to declare myself a communist to get aid from
them.  I'd have to send people for indoctrination in Russia, and I'd
probably have to go there to be "educated" myself.  My troops would have to
be instructed in Communist ideology too.  I'd probably have to let the
Russians come over to my country to control, or at the very least observe my
operation.  The Russians were not naive.  It was not possible to trick them
into supporting a noncommunist revolution.

--
Norman Yarvin						yarvin@cs.yale.edu
 "Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of
  principles.  The conduct of public affairs for private advantage."
	-- Ambrose Bierce, _The Devil's Dictionary_
Newsgroups: alt.current-events.somalia,alt.politics.org.un,alt.president.clinton,talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.bush
From: b645zaw@utarlg.uta.edu (General Boycott)
Subject: Re: Defense Contractors (was Re: Somalia)
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: The University of Texas at Arlington
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 09:57:00 GMT

In article <BzFnKx.DvF@ns1.nodak.edu>, 
green@plains.NoDak.edu (Brad Green) writes...

>Clinton whines about IBM losing 25,000 jobs, but even CNN and other news
>groups admit that IBM hasn't kept up with the competition.  What's he want
>us to do, subsidize an unprofitable business?  It's a shame to lose the jobs,
>but that's the way it works, you don't stay competitive, you lose.  I wonder
>if that's why Scully is hanging on to Slick's coattails.

Dunno, but I used to be intrigued with the Newton and PDA's.
I'll be takin' my business elsewhere than apple or even taligent now
as long as scully is around. 


-= the hazards of mixing business and politics =-

Xref: sparky alt.current-events.somalia:457 alt.politics.org.un:137 talk.politics.misc:64087 alt.politics.british:450
From: jos@and.nl (Jos Horsmeier)
Newsgroups: alt.current-events.somalia
Subject: Re: Somalia
Date: 15 Dec 92 16:48:45 GMT
Organization: AND Software BV Rotterdam

In article <BzADG1.3nF@techbook.com> merlyn@techbook.com (Randal Schwartz) writes:
|In article <1992Dec9.134524.4649@nntp.hut.fi> jkp@cs.HUT.FI (Jyrki Kuoppala) writes:
||In article <Byusn6.6F8@mail.boi.hp.com>, hypes@boi (Gary Hypes) writes:
||>The fact is, (a) we are the only superpower still in existence; (b) we
||>are the only government with a moral imperative with regard to the rest
||>of the world.
||
||"The fact"?  Sounds more like the megalomaniac illusions that jihads
||are made of.
||
||I suggest you seriously consider whether your "moral imperative" is to
||keep running around the world shooting people according to your own
||peculiar "moral principles" (can you say Noriega or the kidnapping of
||someone in Mexico) or to try to diminish the tensions in USA (can you
||say Rodney King/LA) before you're in a serious civil war.
||
||//Jyrki
|
|DREAM ON, FINISH FOOL

I beg to differ here. the US is not a superpower, the US lives next to
bankruptcy, the national debt is a humongous pile of billions of dollars.
Things get worse and worse there. The term `moral imperative' brings
up associations as `imperialism' ... Sorry, I don't see it any other
way: who are the US that they can be `moral imperative'? Leave me alone,
I can manage, and I can manage better than you could ever have suspected.

I don't want to be insultive, otherwise I could have said things like: 
`lack of humanity, lack of culture', but I'm not gonna say it, and I haven't
said it either. I _do_ agree that intervention is necessary in Somalia, but
don't claim that the US are the only ones being there, trying to solve all
the misery there. And please, don't turn this into a flame war, but
realize that there's more to the world than just the US. pleeeeez?

Europeans (in general) don't look upon the US as the Americans do, and
(I think) that's where the reply of Mr/Mrs Kuoppala came from: a different
view on how the world turns, not looking down upon the US, just a different
view. That's all ...

regards,

Jos aka jos@and.nl
From: HADCRJAM@admin.uh.edu (MILLER, JIMMY A.)
Newsgroups: alt.current-events.somalia
Subject: Re: It's Blood for Oil, again. (yeah right...)
Date: 13 Dec 1992 05:00:01 GMT
Organization: University of Houston Administrative Computing
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: uhad2.admin.uh.edu
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.20

In <Bz4D4t.JHE@apollo.hp.com> goykhman_a@apollo.hp.com writes:

>     The relief mission is over, and it failed miserably I might add.

  It has in fact barely gotten started.  No one but the most starry-eyed
expected 1800 marines to pacify the whole country.

>     What we have is a military intervention in Somalian internal affairs
>     in order to re-establish the colonial rule there.  Boutros Ghali calls
>     it "transitional authority" and, most recently, "UN protectorate".

  The first part is very accurate, but whose colony is Somalia going to be?
All they have that the US might want is a strategic location...and one that 
would require a hideous effort to create and maintain a base of any size
large enough to be of any real use.

  Somalia, as a nation-state, has all but ceased to exist.  No one (native) 
group has enough power to do much more than control thier immediate area.
Leaving things alone is likely to protract that country's troubles, not force
them to come to terms faster.  I disagree with you contention (made in another
post under this same subject) that the present situation has been excacerbated
by international aid -- the power-hungry would simply have found other food
sources than the relief workers and continued to fight.  Such is the nature of
these things. 


semper fi,

Jammer Jim Miller 
Texas A&M University '89 and '91
********************************************************************************
* Speak for my employers?  They don't even know I exist!		       *
*"Become one with the Student Billing System. *BE* the Student Billing System."*
* "Power finds its way to those who take a stand.  Stand up, Ordinary Man."    *
*      ---Rik Emmet, Gil Moore, Mike Levine: Triumph 		               *
********************************************************************************
From: ppjc@igc.apc.org (Peninsula Peace and Justice Center)
Newsgroups: alt.current-events.somalia
Subject: The "inside scoop" on Somalia
Date: 12 Dec 92 00:35:00 GMT
Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1766500002:000:2766
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!ppjc    Dec 11 16:35:00 1992


(The following is the full text of an article from the
magazine Navy Times, 12/14/92. *Reprinted without
permission...*)

U.S. INTERVENTION ALSO SERVES GEOPOLITICAL INTERESTS

by William Matthews - Times staff writer

WASHINGTON - Although the Bush administration describes
it as purely humanitarian, intervention in Somalia
serves U.S. strategic and political interests in Africa
and the Middle East as well, according to a Defense
Department expert on Africa.
  "Somalia as a country is not worth much, but its
geography is priceless," said David Winterford, a
national security affairs professor at the Naval
Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif.
  Whoever controls Somalia could control the southern
entrance to the Red Sea and thus the Suez Canal,
Winterford said.  And whoever controls Somalia is 200
miles from Yemen and 400 miles from Saudi Arabia, a
prime location from which to influence the political
stability of the Middle East.
  Middle East stability is dear to the United States and
other Western nations whose economies run on low-priced
Middle Eastern oil, he said.
  Somalia and the whole of northeast Africa were
strategically important to the United States during the
Cold War, when the United States and the Soviet Union
vied for clients in the region.  U.S. attention focused
on Somalia after 1977, when the United States was ousted
from neighboring Ethiopia.
  The Ethiopian government signed cooperation accords
with the Soviet Union and imported Soviet military
advisers and Cuban troops to fight a war against
Somalian forces.
  With the Cold War's end, U.S. interest in Somalia
waned.  But it has begun to revive recently amid
indications that Iran may be interested in including
Somalia in its sphere of influence, Winterford said.
  Iran, which is busily arming itself with bombers,
submarines and other weapons from the former Soviet
inventory, "may be discovering Africa," he said.  And
the collapse of any semblance of government in Somalia
made it a likely target for Iranian influence.
  The chaos in Somalia was "unnerving to Saudi Arabia
and others as well," he said.  And what makes the oil
producers nervous makes the United States nervous.
  "I was surprised how fast things have moved" since the
Bush administration first publicly offered to send
troops to Somalia, Winterford said.
  The first troops were to land in less than a week
after the State Department said publicly the United
States would be willing to use military force to restore
order in Somalia.
  "The humanitarian mission is there," he said.  "But
there are lots of instances of starvation around the
world" that receive little or no official notice from
the U.S. government.  "Here, we can see geostrategic
reasons."

--- end of text from Navy Times ---
Newsgroups: alt.current-events.somalia,alt.activism
From: meyer@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Don Meyer)
Subject: Re: Rules of Engagement
Organization: UIUC College of Agriculture
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 22:13:54 GMT

harp@netcom.com (Gregory O. Harp) writes:
>meyer@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Don Meyer) writes:

>>The warning shots were at the airport, not at the beach where the lights were.
>>Actually, I think a few warning shots at the beach would have been quite 
>>appropriate, given the situation.  (Into the beach, not into the air, though.)

>Yeah, but warning shots have to land somewhere.  In that case,
>shooting over the heads of the reporters towards the airport and
>downtown Mogadishu would be a Bad Thing (TM).  When you fire warning
>shots you want them to either end up somewhere where people aren't or
>you want them to strike some inanimate barrier.

>Firing straight up isn't a good idea, either.  Watch your local news
>for reports of injuries and damage on New Years Day because people
>indiscriminantly fire into the air at midnight.

Greg,  you really should read more carefully -- I'm the one arguing against
the warning shots, one reason being exactly what you mention.  (See above, 
'Into the beach, not into the air".)  Also, I'm a certified firearm safety
instructor - the last thing you'll catch me endorsing is firing anywhere
where the shooter is not positive of the backstop.

Don 
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Don Meyer     Network Manager, UIUC College of Ag Microcomputer Facility
internet:     dlmeyer@uiuc.edu		
member:       NRA, ISSC, IL Farm Bureau	 "Don't blame me, I voted Libertarian!"
					    Nancy Lord in '96!

"Clinton/Gore -- The American people deserve what they voted for!"
Newsgroups: alt.current-events.somalia
From: chrisb@seachg.uucp (Chris Blask)
Subject: Re: Really about the Gulf (was re: Somalia)
Reply-To: chrisb@seachg.UUCP (Chris Blask)
Organization: Sea Change Corporation, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 92 14:26:19 GMT

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

Well, other than the fact that the locals danced in the streets and made
gestures of peace.  But I'm sorry, I didn't mean to distract from this
useful discourse by inserting references to Reality.

>> And even if more fighting doesn't take
>> place, the presence of a large foreign army certainly

Waitwaitwait  "There is no question that whatever..."
			^^ ^^^^^^^^
>> 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.
>

I agree heartily with the last.  The Somalis need a situation in which they
can feed themselves, and escalating the military confrontation won't help.

You've never tried to breakup a playground brawl, have you?  I can just see
it...


"If you two boys would please see reason and open your hearts to the good
of human fellowship..."

Yeah right.


I'm a pacifist, I've never struch a person in anger in my life, I abhor war
over all else.  I also can distinguish reality from Utopia.

-chris blask


Newsgroups: alt.current-events.somalia
From: m23364@mwunix (James Meritt)
Subject: Re: somalia
Followup-To: alt.flame
Keywords: no reply
Organization: MITRE Corporation, McLean VA
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 13:31:40 GMT

In article <1992Dec15.131705.14947@afit.af.mil> cbrooks@afit.af.mil (Christopher L Brooks) writes:
}awells@lynx.dac.northeastern.edu (Andrew V. Wells) writes:
}
}>(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? 
}
}It was my understanding that Bush's intent was to rid Kuwait
}of Hussein; he was succesful in this endeavor.  Would you have
}preferred a massacre in Baghdad to seek and destroy Hussein?

Don't confuse Andrew with reality.  Don't think that the minor detail that what was
claimed as the goals BEFORE the action and what was done BY the action match each
other and don't match his misconceptions will get in the way of the truth.  He
(apparently) much prefers anti-US (no matter what) and has intense paranoid
delusions.  Not to worry.  Except for his doctors.


Newsgroups: alt.current-events.somalia,alt.politics.org.un,alt.president.clinton,talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.bush