Black Hawk Downer

Working for Change ^ | 1/11/02 | Laura Flanders

[Zviadist]

Hi!

[Sally II]

Does anyone else's head spin when they read progressive propiganda? I mean, when there is a problem they clearly name conservative leaders like the Bushes or Reagan, etc. But they seem to rarely put clear blame on Clinton. Now that we have a Republican in the highest office, they are complaining about all the "atrocities" commited during Clinton's term. Am I missing something? I don't remember hearing so much anti-government speak during Clinton's 8 years --not from the Left anyhow.

Another oddity about the Progressives is that they can publish an article on day that paints the United Nations as an evil force in the world. Like here, US military might is "used" by the UN for it's underhanded political purposes. Yet I've been on many forums where diehard progressives talk about the UN as if it is some kind of great force of righteousness in the universe and that the USA, in all it's evil, had better watch out that the mighty UN does not pass judgement on us. Is it just me? Or are these people a really schizoid?

[silmaril]

For whatever reason the producers accepted DOD assistence, knowing full well that there were strings attached.

This paragraph is essentially a restating of your previous statements on the subject; so my previous response stands.

The mission, as Colonel Hackworth has pointed out, was suffering from "creep". The initial mission, famine relief, was problematical as the dought was abiding yet the people were reluctant to leave the feeding camps because free food is better than having to scratch it out from the soil.

This is again not germaine to what Flanders was saying -- which I took to be that the effect of the humanitarian mission was unquantifiable. You are discussing effects of that mission, which is well and good; I am disputing Flanders in that the causes of those effects are indeed knowable.

We were supporting Said Barre militarily because he wasn't Ethiopia. After he was overthrown, the local warlords were a factor in starving memebers of the opposing tribes.

How does our support for Siad Barre make us complicit in the tactics of his squabbling successors?

You don't consider the size of Conoco's headquarters in Mogadishu physical evidence of their interest in Somalia?

Conoco being interested in Somalia does not automatically translate into "any mission in Somalia must be for oil purposes." Where's the evidence that US policy was crafted toward this end?

I gather you don't consider it necessary to start first with yourself,

At what point did the idea enter our culture that self-criticism equated to self-neutering? Why must reflection engender inaction?

i.e., you will condemn the Somalis for ambushing the US miliary but ignore the atrocities committed by UN forces against them.

I already addressed this. Yes, we did many things wrong in Somalia that we bear moral culpability for. But to suggest a broad moral equivalent between the two sides is wholly false.

[185JHP]

I won't regret killimg 100,000 Somalis if they're harboring terrorist organizations.