U.S. Military Aid to Somalia

For Bush, Somalia is a win-win situation. If he wraps it up in his remaining lame-duck Administration, he has another Desert Storm illusionary victory for the history books. If the incursion fails, Bush has saddled Clinton with a quagmire that will stymie his domestic efforts the same way the Republicans’ calculated cries in the ‘60s that Johnson was soft on communism kept him preoccupied with Vietnam, undercutting the funding of his Great Society programs.

History will not judge Bush’s decision, at this late date, to be a humanitarian effort to save the starving Somalians but rather an intentional political move. After all, the situation has existed for over a year and nothing was done.

The people of this country have elected a new President and the ball should be in Clinton’s court. Had not the Founding Fathers needed the months to count the popular vote in the early colonies, which took time, and to vote in the electoral college, the time between the general election and the inauguration wouldn’t be 2 1/2 months which, in our technological society, gives the outgoing President too much time in which to create mischief for the incoming Administration and thus dictate the agenda for the new President.

DANIEL SEGAL

Malibu