U.S. Marines in Somalia

Images televised from Somalia don’t look all that dissimilar from those I’ve seen after the riots in South-Central Los Angeles. The circumstances aren’t much different either: lawlessness, armed teen-agers on drugs, gang warlords who have divided the cities into turf, and, of course, the lack of hope.

Isn’t it time a United Nations-type alliance of federal, state and local government agencies “landed” in America’s inner cities and began to take control of our own urban anarchy by employing some of the same tactics we are implementing in Somalia? Shouldn’t the news media begin showing us our own graphic versions of hopelessness, hunger and violence?

While helping Somalia surely is one of the world’s responsibilities, it would seem to me that helping our own urban poor regain their lost lives with the same sort of force should be an even higher priority.

KEITH H. KARPE

San Clemente