From: silva@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Holly Silva)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.usa
Subject: Re: SOMALIA INVASION?
Date: 14 Dec 1992 00:54:56 GMT
Organization: Stanford Univ. Earth Sciences
NNTP-Posting-Host: pangea.stanford.edu

In article <1992Dec11.195215.1@nickel.laurentian.ca> s1400070@nickel.laurentian.ca writes:
>     Perhaps I should apologize for the quality of my earlier posting:
>CANADIAN FORCES ARE BETTER.  I had some trouble with my mailer and much of
>what I wrote was cut out somehow.  I hope that doesn't occur this time.
>     What I wanted to say in that posting is that you Yanks, in general,
>do not want to give any credit to any other nation in international 
>affairs.  You conveniently leave out reference to the help provided to 
>your army by several nations, Canada included.  

	This is true. A myopic approach to this sort of international
intervention is characteristic of Americans because it is characteristic 
of our newsmedia. As best I can tell, the US media is staffed by people
who are inexcusably ignorant of the people and places they 'cover'.

>    My concern with the actions that you have taken in Somalia is the fact that
>you are stressing the military side of the operation rather than the 
>humanitarian side.  30,000 troops???  What the hell for.  And what is it 
>with this bullshit storming the beach head.  Geeze, couldn't you arrive

	Look I heard this same shit when we massed troops at the Iraqi
border 2 years ago. "It's overkill." "There's no need for this nasty,
brutish, typically American show of force.....". One result of this 
nasty, brutish, typically American show of force was astonishingly
low casualties across-the-board for the international coalition troops.
They just fucking rolled into Iraqi like a well-oiled steamroller.
	So I've got a question for you: Why the hell not? If it saves
even ten lives -- either soldiers or civilians it's been worth the
'over-kill'. If we can go in like a steamroller, we damn well should
go in like a steamroller; it saves lives to do so. And, just as 
importantly, it saves face for the Somali fighters. They've been 
carefully presented with an overwhelming show of force --- no one
could conceivably say they were less than brave men for backing out,
backing down, and retiring their weapons. So I've got another question
for you: why present these fighting men with anything less than an
overwhelming show of force? Should we discount them, and slight them
in order to pander to the delicate sensibilities of the Western 
intelligentsia?

>like any other nation ie.discreetly.  What ticks me, though, is that the
>pentaggon gives shit to CNN for covering the "invasion" live when it
>was damn well in their power to stop them from doing so in the first place.
>Its just that this show of bravado may actually do more harm than good in that
>focus has shifted from the humanitarian issue to the military invasion.
>     
>                                         John
>
	The military _was_ upset primarily because of the bad PR, but
frankly the newsmedia also had the power to refrain from turning the
landing into a circus. Their absolute lack of self-control in this and 
other situations is commonly defended (by them) with talk of free 
press and the need to 'allow' this sort of overkill --- but frankly
this sort of circus has never in my experience led to incisive, intelligent
or truly critical reporting.
	In regards to the military 'overkill' of the landing, again:
Why should the US Marines slight the Somali fighters with a public
under-estimation of their fighting spirit and ability? And why should 
even one soldier's life be endangered through an inadequate show of
force? To pander to your overbred sensibilities?


--
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|| Holly Silva			I have nothing terribly clever to say||
|| Applied Earth Sciences	today.  You're in luck.		     ||
|| Stanford University						     ||