| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"maff" |
| Date: |
11 Jan 2006 06:03:56 PM |
| Object: |
OT: A Lesson From Somalia |
A Lesson From Somalia
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/10/AR2006011001180.html
http://forums.delphiforums.com/atheistrefuge/messages?msg=1791.7756
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Wednesday, January 11, 2006; Page A21
"You can only help people if you have sufficient resources and they
have sufficient political unity and will to be helped," declared
Anthony Cordesman, the well-known military analyst. "And we should not
risk American lives without far better planning, intelligence and
understanding of exactly what it is we're trying to do and of the
risks."
Fairness in the Alito Hearings
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/11/opinion/11wed1.html
http://forums.delphiforums.com/atheistrefuge/messages?msg=1786.9947
The biggest concern in Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr.'s confirmation
proceedings is not whether they will be fair to him, but whether they
will be fair to the American people.
The Road to Riches
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.atheism/msg/5ba95f4634dec9cd
and thread
The Road to Riches
http://tinyurl.com/55nzo
A Blueprint for the Future
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.atheism/msg/59c28cd6dfe6f60f
.
|
|
| User: "stoney" |
|
| Title: Re: OT: A Lesson From Somalia |
12 Jan 2006 03:29:49 PM |
|
|
On 11 Jan 2006 16:03:56 -0800, "maff" <maff91@yahoo.com> wrote in
alt.atheism
A Lesson From Somalia
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/10/AR2006011001180.html
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Wednesday, January 11, 2006; Page A21
"You can only help people if you have sufficient resources and they
have sufficient political unity and will to be helped," declared
Anthony Cordesman, the well-known military analyst. "And we should not
risk American lives without far better planning, intelligence and
understanding of exactly what it is we're trying to do and of the
risks."
One prominent senator declared: "If the Congress voted right now, we
would vote to pull our troops out." Another warned against "a vague,
open-ended, humanitarian mission, gradually taking sides against an
urban guerrilla force, having no exit strategy before you go in, having
troops on the ground before you've defined their mission, and a series
of ad hoc decisions."
But the president insisted that we should "finish the work we set out to
do," and he won praise from an official on the ground who declared: "It
would be a disaster if the United States pulled out now."
All these eerily contemporary comments came from an Oct. 10, 1993,
broadcast of ABC's "This Week With David Brinkley." The participants
were reflecting on administration policy in Somalia a week after a Black
Hawk helicopter was shot down by rebel forces. Eighteen Americans died
in the incident. The senators were Phil Gramm and Bill Bradley, the
president was Bill Clinton, and the supportive comments came from Adm.
Jonathan Howe, the U.N. special envoy to Somalia.
There are many flaws in comparisons between Somalia and Iraq, but one
similarity should not be forgotten. If the United States is not careful,
our troops will find themselves in the middle of a full-blown Iraqi
civil war. This could make President Bush's talk about "victory" -- he
used the word at least 13 times in his speech on the war yesterday --
seem hollow.
No one is more aware of this than our military commanders, which is why
attention must be paid to comments last week by Lt. Gen. John R. Vines
to the New York Times, and to an important news story by Jonathan Finer
in the Jan. 4 Post.
Vines praised the large turnout in Iraq's Dec. 15 election but noted
that the "vote is reported to be primarily along sectarian lines, which
is not particularly heartening." The new government, he said, "must be a
government by and for Iraqis, not sects." He added: "As the government
forms, if we see indicators that there are purges of competent people to
be replaced with ideologues in the security ministries, that would be
disturbing. If competent commanders were to be replaced by those whose
main qualification is an allegiance to a sect, that would be of concern
to us."
The importance of that last sentence was brought home by Finer's Post
report: "Over the strong objections of U.S. commanders in Baghdad, the
Iraqi government has nominated a new leader for a brigade that is set to
assume control over some of the capital's most sensitive areas."
Why was the American choice cast aside? "U.S. commanders," Finer wrote,
"are concerned that the rejection of a qualified Sunni Muslim candidate
by a government that is dominated by the rival Shiite Muslim majority
will fuel perceptions of Iraq's security forces as sectarian
institutions, particularly in Sunni regions where sympathy for the
insurgency runs deep."
The potential for a full-scale civil war is closer than ever. The
administration presumably knows this, but the Bush team's record for
anticipating bad news is not encouraging. Paul Bremer, who led the U.S.
civilian authority in Iraq after the invasion, admitted on NBC's
"Dateline" that "we really didn't see the insurgency coming." If they
missed that, what else can they miss?
Bush's election-year attacks yesterday on "partisan critics" and
"defeatists" don't give much hope he's open to any advice from the
opposition. But he ought to listen to Sen. Carl Levin, a Michigan
Democrat who opposed the war but keeps trying to help Bush out of this
mess. Levin argues that the United States' priority is not simply to
create a broad coalition government in Iraq. America must use its
influence to push the Shiite majority to change provisions in the
recently adopted constitution in ways that will give the minority Sunnis
a bigger stake in the future. "There's no military solution in Iraq
unless there is a political coming together in Iraq," Levin said during
an interview, offering words that should be framed and hung somewhere in
Bush's office. Without constitutional changes, he added, "there will be
a civil war regardless of how many troops we have there."
Maybe Bush, who yesterday reminded the Shiites and the Kurds of the
importance of protecting minority rights "against the tyranny of the
majority," is listening. Somalia offers a sobering lesson of what can
happen to American forces when our government blunders into the middle
of a civil war. We dare not do it again. And we had better see the
warning signs.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
--
Fundies and trolls are cordially invited to
shove a wooden cross up their arses and rotate
at a high rate of speed. I trust you'll
be 'blessed' with a cornucopia of splinters.
.
|
|
|
|
|
Related Articles |
|
|
