PEOPLE DIED IN SOMALIA, including a personal friend of mine. They were all somebody's son, brother, and friend [snip] my oldest son's LAR recon/black unit had been stood down for Somalia, gear turned in, etc. ... how do you think the all the families with sons, husbands, lovers, siblings, etc. felt with the spectacle of a dead
Sorry to hear about your friend, and I'm glad your son got back. A friend of mine lives in Somalia about half the time, except when his wife's tribe's over in Ethiopia. They've been through years of civil war, in a society that until the colonialists took over was extremely free and relatively peaceful (for a bunch of semi-nomadic cattle herders armed to the teeth like pre-industrial Swiss; they tend to have occasional short armed squabbles when the normal social structures for peacefully resolving differences fail) and the wars for control of the post-colonial government have made it impossible for their economy to do well during drought. Michael's friends were quite pleased at kicking the UN's butts, and at kicking the US Army's butts, but they thought that even if there hadn't been a civil war going on, the idea of trying to disarm Somalis is blatantly foolish - you'd have better luck trying to disarm an NRA convention, where people carry guns for fun rather than to protect their families and livestock like Somalis. After all, most NRA members believe in Nations and Governments; Somalis believe in their families and tribes and the Law, and any "leader" who expects blind obedience from his followers quickly finds out that nobody's following him. ...
absolutely. misplaced criticism and a personal offense to me as well as all other servicemen.
Sending US soldiers in to do a fool's errand like that should offend you even more. And telling a free people that they should give up the guns they protect their families with because the UN will take care of protecting them is an offense to them. Thanks! Bill Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639