From: carlson@viking.sps.mot.com (Brett Carlson)
Subject: Re: Somalia
Organization: sps
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 01:13:12 GMT

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.
 
> >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.

so we get to be the world's policeman now??  And the Somalian (and Iraqi, btw)  
populations get to be Rodney King??  

> Someone proposed that the military is seeking new missions, also,
> and perhaps petitioned for this operation.  This is plausible.

This is very plausible, and also very frightening.  There are a lot of people  
making a lot of money off of the war industry in this country;  if we just let  
our military sit idle, their profit margins are in jeopardy.

> >> 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.

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..... 

I'm sure that some would have seen it as a political move (which it is -- even  
coming after the election).  But I think that Bush's popularity ratings needed  
a diversion from economic issues, which Somalia would have provided. 

> 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.

And Bush will be blamed just like Eisenhower was blamed for Vietnam, right??  
The thing that scares me is that Somalia is so popular right now;  American  
jingoism is at its highest since the gulf war.  If this whole operation ends  
badly, which i think it will (read on...), Clinton gets to take the blame for  
ruining a supposedly perfect situation that Bush set up for him....


> >> 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 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??  

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.


> 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".

> 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.

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.....

> 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.

Merely taking away the guns is not going to stop factions who have been  
fighting for years from killing each other.  The only permanent solution to the  
Somalian problem is a stable government.  Does the US want to stick around that  
long??  Do we have any choice??

That's a big part of why this operation scares me.  If the US pulls out before  
real stability is established, the Clinton administration will be criticized  
for abandoning the Somali people.  But establishing a government could take  
*years*, and the Clinton admistration will be criticized for not getting this  
thing settled.....

I hope I'm wrong.  I hope that this thing ends in the next few months, and all  
the Somalians drop their shotguns and go home.  But I don't think that will  
happen.

***bunch of stuff on hegemony deleted***

> 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.

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


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