Re flags, on my way to the shop after 9-11 I counted on cars, 60 flags; now
a few--it's passe man and just as well since the constant attention to such
a defeat is moribund and self defeating.
At 04:27 PM 1/30/02 -0500, you wrote:
>     The only people held responsible are the Somalis who will soon taste
>US vengeance for their "crimes".
>     Medals all around in the good ol' USA.
>
>     Larry (who is NOT flying a flag from his car antenna)
>
>Jon Davies wrote:
>
> > This article in yesterdays Guardian in the UK brought out much
> > information that i hadn't heard about.
> >
> > Does anyone have any other info about the background to this
> > incident?
> >
> > <snip>
> > Far from resolving the conflict between the clans, the US accidentally
> > enhanced it
> >
> > GM seems to indicate that the US where the authors of their own
> > misfortune.  Was anyone held responsible?
> >
> > Cheers
> >
> > Jon
> >
> > http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4344998,00.html
> >
> > Both saviour and victim
> >
> >  Black Hawk Down creates a new and dangerous myth
> > of American nationhood
> >
> > George Monbiot
> > Guardian
> >
> > Tuesday January 29, 2002
> >
> > The more powerful a nation becomes, the more it asserts its
> >  victimhood. In contemporary British eyes, the greatest atrocities
> > of the 18th and 19th centuries were those perpetrated on
> > compatriots in the Black Hole of Calcutta or during the Indian
> >  mutiny and the siege of Khartoum. The extreme manifestations
> > of the white man's burden, these events came to symbolise the
> > barbarism and ingratitude of the savage races the British had
> >  sought to rescue from their darkness.
> >
> > Today the attack on New York is discussed as if it were the
> > worst thing to have happened to any nation in recent times. Few
> > would deny that it was a major atrocity, but we are required to
> > offer the American people a unique and exclusive sympathy.
> > Now that demand is being extended to earlier American losses.
> >
> > Black Hawk Down looks set to become one of the bestselling
> > movies of all time. Like all the films the British-born director
> > Ridley Scott has made, it is gripping, intense and beautifully
> > shot. It is also a stunning misrepresentation of what happened in
> > Somalia.
> >
> > In 1992 the United States walked into Somalia with good
> > intentions. George Bush senior announced that America had
> > come to do "God's work" in a nation devastated by clan warfare
> > and famine. But, as Scott Peterson's firsthand account Me
> > Against My Brother shows, the mission was doomed by
> > intelligence failures, partisan deployments and, ultimately, the
> > belief that you can bomb a nation into peace and prosperity.
> >
> >  Before the US government handed over the administration of
> > Somalia to the United Nations in 1993, it had already made
> > several fundamental mistakes. It had backed the clan chiefs
> > Mohamed Farah Aideed and Ali Mahdi against another warlord,
> > shoring up their power just as it had started to collapse. It had
> > failed to recognise that the competing clan chiefs were ready to
> > accept large-scale disarmament, if it were carried out
> > impartially. Far from resolving the conflict between the clans, the
> > US accidentally enhanced it.
> >
> > After the handover, the UN's Pakistani peacekeepers tried to
> > seize Aideed's radio station, which was broadcasting anti-UN
> > propaganda. The raid was bungled, and 25 of the soldiers were
> > killed by Aideed's supporters. A few days later, Pakistani troops
> > fired on an unarmed crowd, killing women and children. The
> > United Nations force, commanded by a US admiral, was drawn
> > into a blood feud with Aideed's militia.
> >
> > As the feud escalated, US special forces were brought in to deal
> > with the man now described by American intelligence as "the
> > Hitler of Somalia". Aideed, who was certainly a ruthless and
> > dangerous man but also just one of several clan leaders
> > competing for power in the country, was blamed for all Somalia's
> > troubles. The UN's peacekeeping mission had been transformed
> > into a partisan war.
> >
> > The special forces, over-confident and hopelessly ill-informed,
> > raided, in quick succession, the headquarters of the UN
> > development programme, the charity World Concern and the
> > offices of Midecins sans Frontieres. They managed to capture,
> > among scores of innocent civilians and aid workers, the chief of
> > the UN's police force. But farce was soon repeated as tragedy.
> > When some of the most senior members of Aideed's clan
> > gathered in a building in Mogadishu to discuss a peace
> > agreement with the United Nations, the US forces, misinformed
> > as ever, blew them up, killing 54 people. Thus they succeeded
> > in making enemies of all the Somalis. The special forces were
> > harried by gunmen from all sides. In return, US troops in the UN
> > compound began firing missiles at residential areas.
> >
> > So the raid on one of Aideed's buildings on October 3 1993,
> > which led to the destruction of two Black Hawk helicopters and
> > the deaths of 18 American soldiers, was just another round of
> > America's grudge match with the warlord. The troops who
> > captured Aideed's officials were attacked by everyone: gunmen
> > came even from the rival militias to avenge the deaths of the
> > civilians the Americans had killed. The US special forces, with
> > an understandable but ruthless regard for their own safety,
> > locked Somali women and children into the house in which they
> > were besieged.
> >
> > Ridley Scott says that he came to the project without politics,
> > which is what people often say when they subscribe to the
> > dominant point of view. The story he relates (with the help of the
> > US department of defence and the former chairman of the joint
> > chiefs of staff) is the story the American people need to tell
> > themselves.
> >
> > The purpose of the raid on October 3, Black Hawk Down
> > suggests, was to prevent Aideed's murderous forces from
> > starving Somalia to death. No hint is given of the feuding
> > between him and the UN, other than the initial attack on the
> > Pakistani peacekeepers. There is no recognition that the worst
> > of the famine had passed, or that the US troops had long
> > ceased to be part of the solution. The US hostage-taking, even
> > the crucial role played by Malaysian soldiers in the Rangers'
> > rescue, have been excised from the record. Instead - and since
> > September 11 this has become a familiar theme - the attempt to
> > capture Aideed's lieutenants was a battle between good and evil,
> > civilisation and barbarism.
> >
> > The Somalis in Black Hawk Down speak only to condemn
> > themselves. They display no emotions other than greed and the
> > lust for blood. Their appearances are accompanied by sinister
> > Arab techno, while the US forces are trailed by violins, oboes
> > and vocals inspired by Enya. The American troops display
> > horrific wounds. They clutch photos of their loved ones and ask
> > to be remembered to their parents or their children as they die.
> > The Somalis drop like flies, killed cleanly, dispensable,
> > unmourned.
> >
> > Some people have compared Black Hawk Down to the British
> > film Zulu. There is some justice in the comparison, but the
> > Somalis here offer a far more compelling personification of evil
> > than the blundering, belligerent Zulus. They are sinister, deceitful
> > and inscrutable; more like the British caricature of the Chinese
> > during the opium wars.
> >
> > What we are witnessing in both Black Hawk Down and the
> > current war against terrorism is the creation of a new myth of
> > nationhood. America is casting itself simultaneously as the
> > world's saviour and the world's victim; a sacrificial messiah, on a
> > mission to deliver the world from evil. This myth contains
> > incalculable dangers for everyone else on earth.
> >
> > To discharge its sense of unique grievance, the US government
> > has hinted at what may become an asymmetric world war. It is
> > no coincidence that Somalia comes close to the top of the list of
> > nations it may be prepared to attack. This war, if it materialises,
> > will be led not by the generals in their bunkers, but by the
> > people who construct the story the nation chooses to believe.