From: gtao@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Greg )
Subject:  Somalia Question
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 15:27:46 GMT

m23364@mwunix (James Meritt) writes:

>In article <1992Dec16.004429.9163@news.acns.nwu.edu> tjewald@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Timothy Ewald) writes:
>}Recently, a student from Columbia stated that Clinton is in no danger of
>}taking the fall if and when things start to go bad in Somolia.  Her logic was
>}that since President George got us involved, Clinton can always point the
>}finger at him.  I must disagree.

>concur.  Remember Vietnam?

I was wondering what all you people who are worried about the possibility
of the situation in Somalia deteriorating from our standpoint are
worried about?

Maybe I just don't know all that much about the Somalia situation, but
there just doesn't seem to be that much threat to US troops there.

Somalia, besides having no functioning government, has no air force that I
am aware of.  Even if it did, I'm sure it would be no more formidable than
Iraq's.  What about heavy stuff like tanks...do they own a single one? 

What I would be worried about in this situation would be the UN getting to
headstrong over it's ability to police trouble-spots, and then deciding
to get involved in the Balkans with a full-blown ground commitment.  THIS
is the area where you should worry about a VIETNAM-like quagmire.

A few weeks ago, I saw Sen. George Mitchel on "This Week With David Brinkley"
He said something that scared the hell of me.  I don't want to misquote him,
so this may not his exact words, but he said something like "We should be
doing EVERYTHING short of military intervention...".  He was referring to
the situation in the former Yugoslavia.  Now, sometimes it may be dangerous
to take something that someone says at face value, but what he said sounds
absolutely silly in the sense that when you intend to stop "just short of"
something, you run the very real risk of doing that something.  

I don't mean to downplay the situation in the Balkans, but it is an ethnic 
dispute.  The conflict that is raging can be directly traced back 400 years,
longer if you want to extrapolate.  Military intervention in the Balkans
would inevitably involve choosing a side.  There is no right side in this
conflict.  Both sides have committed countless attrocities.  Our top
military leaders view US ground involvement as a "No Win" situation.  The
only people calling for intervention seem to be political types...remember,
Vietnam was not a military failure (on the contrary, we won every battle)...
it was a political failure.

It pains me to see the bloodshed in the Balkans, but sometimes you have to 
realize that there are limitations to what we can do.  

Oh yeah, I didn't explain why Senator Mitchel's statement scared me so much.
Ever since Desert Shield/Storm, there have been countless claims that the
Gulf War was a "war for oil".  I'd hate to see the new administration get
involved in the Balkans because it would be some sorta "morally pure"
indeavor.  Don't get me wrong, I believe Bill Clinton has good intentions,
it's just that he is under a lot of pressure from lots of people.

Well, I mus be going.


*******************************************************************************
* Gregory Tao                      | E-mail to:  gt38091@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu     * 
* Univ. of IL at Urbana-Champaign  |        OR      gtao@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu     *
* Department of Computer Science   |        OR      gtao@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu     *
* --------------------------------------------------------------------------- *
*                                                                             *
*  	``Change, suddenly, is everywhere we look, sweeping empires and       *
*    ideologies before it, shaping a new era even as we watch. Such moments   *
*    are rare. Today we stand at such a moment.''                             * 
*                                                                             *
* --------------------------------------------------------------------------- *
* DISCLAIMER:  My opinions do not necessarily reflect those of CCSO or the    *
*              University of Illinois.					      *
*******************************************************************************

Newsgroups: alt.current-events.somalia