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Fight Bad Policy

Dedicated to steering our nation back to its Constitutional glory by identifying and attacking bad policy.

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Location: Lake Charles, Louisiana, United States

I graduated from Drew University with an MFA in Poetry and from McNeese State University with an MA in English Literature. I also have a Bachelor of General Studies with a minor in Psychology and a BA in Sociology from McNeese. Currently, I'm working on a doctorate in English with a concentration in composition-rhetoric at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

The Pit that is Somalia

I want to play a thought game concerning Somalia. First, I was in the Ranger Indoctrination Program at Fort Benning, GA, in October 1993. The incident in Mogadishu occurred. I was, afterward, part of a detail that actually lined B CO's rucksacks on the basketball court in their quad for IG inspection when they returned. Then, I attended the memorial at Building 4 on Fort Benning's main post for the fallen Rangers when I was assigned to C CO., 3/75. Consequently, I am somewhat familiar with events. We are getting involved with Somalia again: supporting one rival over another and transfering arms and equipment as it appears to suit our interests. We seem to only know that over there we do not want a Taliban-like regime. We cannot purport to want stability there since there is no stability to be had. A regime of any caliber must have the capacity to instill and maintain stability for there to be stability. No such regime in Somalia exists. Somalia is, then, a containment problem. It is like the issue that should not even be discussed; like a bad taste in everyone's mouth that noone wants to admit is there. It would be nice to saturate the place with half a million soldiers but no such manpower or public will exists, and there are more important things going on in the world. The place might as well have walls. It is a closed society. The United States could not get human sources past generations of families growing up together, sharing tribal traditions. Who speaks the language anyway? Half a million soldiers seems to overcome all these obstacles... or other African nations that might be willing to interfere for the price of American arms and money. The Chinese, growing wealthy off the African continent, will not even bother with Somalia. Although our interest is geo-political where the Chinese is economic, we might follow the dragon's tail just this once. We might keep our predator drones in the sky and the occasional missile on the ground, but our Americans out of Somalia.

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