Nothing embodies the monumental klutziness of George Bush so much as his manner of leaving office: bringing us a December surprise! Only a George Bush could get us into a war after he has safely lost his election. With luck, indeed, this "foreign policy" president might have us fighting in no less than three wars by the time he leaves office: Somalia, Bosnia-Kosovo, and Iraq. The media have been writing of Bush's possible cleverness in sticking Clinton with two and possibly three quagmires as he takes office. The heck with Clinton; what about the legacy that this preppy Trilateralist boob is bequeathing to us? At the end, in an allegedly major speech, Bush specifically tried to reverse the wise advice of George Washington's Farewell "ddress, and to keep us fighting in foreign entanglements forever. The vaunted "graciousness" of the Bushes during the interregnum completes the package, as the average Americano is supposed to be reassured by the perception that both the incoming and the outgoing elites are virtually the same, Clinton only a younger Bush with a hoarse Arkansas accent. To top it off, Ronnie left the confines of his Santa Barbara ranch to call for a permanent UN army to police the world, while that other conservative icon, Maggie Thatcher, keeps yowling for the immediate carpet bombing of the Serbs. It is high time for conservatives to rethink their recent history, to jettison the Reagans and Thatchers and Goldwaters, and return to the older tradition of the Tafts and Brickers and Wherrys. Catch any of them calling for a UN army!

The Somalia intervention is a genuine horror, for it is an intervention that possesses not a single shred of national self-interest: strategic, military, resource, or whatever. Hence, of all U.S. coercive actions since World War II, this one is beloved of the entire "anti-war" and "pacifist" left. For the first time in a half-century, veteran anti-war leaders such as the Rev. Henry Sloane Coffin, and the troubadour Pete Seeger, have signed up in a U.S. war. The veteran left-liberal and ex-Communist Murray Kempton, sounding for all the world like a villain in an Ayn Rand novel, writes that the wonderful thing about the Somalian intervention is precisely that the U.S. has no "selfish" interest in the war: that it is pure "humanitarian" altruism. And he is seconded in this monstrous analysis by none other than veteran "conservative" leader, William F. Buckley, Jr.

The idea of marching out with gun and missile to end starvation in the world, carrying machine-gun in one hand and CARE package in the other, is perhaps the most repellent vision of foreign policy ever concocted. The United States and the Western world in general have not escaped mass starvation out of sheer good luck or by "exploiting" the impoverished Third World. On the contrary: the natural lot of mankind, at least since our expulsion from Eden, is mass starvation – starvation that can only be overcome by steady hard work, by productive capital investment, and by creating the conditions and social institutions guaranteeing private property free of depredation. In that way, people will be able to keep and exchange the fruits of their hard-won labor. These conditions do not exist in the Third World, especially in areas such as Somalia. The United States is not wealthy enough, and hopefully not masochistic enough, to strip ourselves to the bone in order to feed the entire world, a world that is starving only because their social order has broken down, and because they are not guaranteeing private-property rights.

The end of the year is the time to make awards, and surely the Horselaugh Award for 1992 goes to whichever joker in Washington promised that the U.S. troops would be out of Somalia by January 20. Yeah, sure. Somalia is a land of "criminal anarchy" – the sort of country that gives anarchism a bad name, a land where, instead of peacefully competing defense agencies, there is no settled government, certainly no effective peace-keeping agency, and warring bands are trying to steal from each other and from the general populace. In short, sort of like Harlem, only worse. But a land without a settled government, whether criminally anarchic or anarcho-capitalist, is almost impossible for an external power to occupy and govern. For there is no political infrastructure, no settled government to whom the occupying imperial power can transmit orders. How was little Britain, in the old days, able to occupy the vast and far more populous lands of the British Empire, e.g., India? British forces could conquer the Rajahs, and then settle down to transmit orders to the Rajahs, who in turn would govern the indigenous population. But in areas where there was no indigenous political authority – the Ibos, in West Africa, for example, who were also devoid of political authority – the British found it almost impossible to occupy and govern. Similarly in Somalia. Lands without government are peculiarly porous; sure, the American soldiers came ashore, brandished guns, and were met with little resistance at first; but soon we will find that we are only occupying the actual small territory our troops are walking on; the rest of the country – that is, all the areas not physically occupied by our troops – will remain ungoverned and beyond our ken.

The worst inciter in this mess is Boutros Boutros-Ghali, probably the peskiest and most dangerous UN Secretary-General to date, who keeps whooping it up for us to do more, more, to occupy, stay there forever, and, most outlandish of all, disarm every Somalian. Yeah, great; Boutros-Ghali wants us to fight to the last dollar and the last soldier. Liberal gun-control in Somalia? Disarm the "thugs" in Mogadishu when we don't seem able to disarm them in Harlem or Washington, D.C.?

The United States, pestered continually by Boutros-Ghali, and understandably reluctant to disarm all of East Africa, decided on a silly compromise: OK, we would disarm or confiscate the dreaded "vehicles" – the jeeps with mounted weapons that were the main tools of battle and power for the various clashing tribes and sub-tribes in southern Somalia. (Oops, you're supposed to say clans, not tribes since the masters of PC have decided that "tribe" has a "racist" connotation.) Well, we started to disarm and confiscate the vehicles in Mogadishu, much to our satisfaction, when lo and behold! we found that at least the vehicles had been imposing some sort of power structure in the city, since only the largest and best-financed "thugs" could afford them. But now, without the vehicles, everyone is down to his own Kalashnikov, and armed conflict in the town is fiercer and more anarchic than ever. Typical example of government creating more problems than it solves!

Have you ever wondered, by the way, why all the turmoil and hence starvation is in southern Somalia, while northern Somalia remains peaceful and relatively well-fed? It's because there's only one tribe in northern Somalia, instead of the clashing welter, the glorious "diversity," the gorgeous mosaic, of the tribes in the benighted South.

Some truly loony-tunes ideas have come out of Washington for solving the Somalian crime problem. One is for the U.S. to buy all the guns from the Somalis. Right. The U.S. taxpayers pay a steep price to bring the guns in, the Somalis take the money and buy still more guns, as this "solution" – happy for Somali warriors, disastrous for the U.S. taxpayers, spirals out of control. An even nuttier proposal states that the United States should literally swamp southern Somalia with food, so much food that gluts will occur, and the price will be driven downward toward zero, so that no one will bother stealing it. Brilliant! But what would prevent the Somali warriors from buying all this cheap food, and reselling it at a higher price out of town or out of the country, thereby reaping ever-higher profits at U.S. taxpayers expense, while the Somali population continues to starve? Or do these Washington geniuses think that food never travels from one spot of earth to another, or perhaps they think they can glut the entire world?

And so we can predict that our short-term feeding will solve no longer-run problems in Somalia, and that criminal anarchy will continue to reign outside the physical presence of U.S. troops. The United States, therefore, will quickly be presented with a critical choice: either declare victory and get the blazes out of Somalia, or send in ten million American troops, occupy every square inch of that besotted land, pick some "pro-American" puppet, hold "free elections," and the rest of the trappings, and then be prepared to maintain Somalia as a U.S. ward in perpetuity. And if so, when and where will it all end?

And by the way, if the left strongly opposes all U.S. wars against Communism, but endorses (all?) other interventions, what does it say about the quality of their alleged opposition either to war or to U.S. imperialism? And what does it say about their own political ideology?

There are some other fascinating problems attending the Somalian caper. One is the accelerating castration of the American armed forces, which are already in the process of being weakened by feminization and gayization. I am no great fan of militarism, but if the military is to have any role at all – it's got to be really military; tough, purposive, disciplined, generally John Wayne or Clint Eastwood-like. But our entire left-liberal culture detests nothing more than John Wayneish "macho" heroes, and it has assiduously been trying to transform the American military, perhaps successfully. It was therefore chilling to read of the Marines distributing food in Mogadishu happily burbling "now, I feel that it's right to be a soldier." Ohhh?

This odious theme of the humanitarian-with-the-gun is strongly reminiscent of one of the great essays in political philosophy, the chapter "The Humanitarian with the Guillotine" from The God of the Machine (1943), by the marvelous Old Right novelist and literary critic Isabel Paterson. The "humanitarian," writes Paterson, makes it the primary purpose of his life to help others, even though of course he himself hasn't the funds to do so. But "if the primary objective of the philanthropist, his justification for living, is to help others, his ultimate good requires that others shall be in want. His happiness is the obverse of their misery...The humanitarian wishes to be a prime mover in the lives of others. He cannot admit either the divine or the natural order, by which men have the power to help themselves."

"But," Isabel Paterson goes on, "he is confronted by two awkward facts: first, that the competent do not need his assistance; and second, that the majority of people, if unperverted, positively do not want to be 'done good' by the humanitarian....Of course, what the humanitarian actually proposes is that he shall do what he thinks is good for everybody. It is at this point that the humanitarian sets up the guillotine."

"What kind of a world," Paterson concludes "does the humanitarian contemplate as affording him full scope? It could only be a world filled with breadlines and hospitals, in which nobody retained the natural power of a human being to help himself or to resist having things done to him. And that is precisely the world that the humanitarian arranges when he gets his way...Hence the humanitarian feels the utmost gratification when he visits or hears of a country in which everyone is restricted to ration cards. Where subsistence is doled out, the desideratum has been achieved, of general want and a superior power to 'relieve' it. The humanitarian in theory is the terrorist in action." (Paterson, God of the Machine, pp. 241-42)

Another grave problem confronting us in the Somalia caper is yet one more demonstration of the tremendous power of the TV media to make foreign policy. It's policy made not by thought, but by instant visual emotion. Consider: (1) TV cameras come to Somalia; (2) TV cameras show horrible shots of emaciated and diseased children, surrounded by flies; (3) shots are carefully arranged for maximum emotional impact upon the American viewer (American soldiers were stunned to find, when they invaded Somalia, many areas of productive farms and happy, well-fed farmers – they, of course, were not shown on TV); (4) the American masses, stampeded by shots of starving Third World kids, bombard Washington for calls to do something – anything – to save the situation; (5) America sends troops, despite all Pentagon or cost-benefit warnings. The fact that the intervention will not stop starvation or will likely prove counter-productive, means nothing: for long-run starvation, or superior alternative use of resources cannot be shown on television. This is foreign policy – in fact, public policy in general – made by images cleverly selected by TV. All that is needed to get the U.S. to send troops anywhere is for TV cameras to show starving children – and there are plenty available at a moment's notice: Zaire, southern Sudan, Haiti, Afghanistan, are just a few of the numerous places crying for TV attention. There is no hope for any rational public policy in America so long as we continue to have rule-by-TV camera. What can be done about it? I don't know, but it is a question that needs serious consideration. When Lew Rockwell, in response to the doctored Rodney King-tape, humorously suggested outlawing camcorders, he was deluged by protests from dimwit and serioso libertarians. But he was the first person to raise a serious concern that must be dealt with.

And then there is Bosnia. George Bush is obviously itching to get heavily involved against the Serbs. Well, you gotta hand it to the Serbs: they are a proud and gutsy people. In mid-1992, the U.S. accepted a deal in which Serbian-American California millionaire Milan Panic went back to his Serbian childhood home as Prime Minister of the rump of old Yugoslavia, a rump consisting only of Serbia and its sister Serb republic of Montenegro. Panic was arbitrarily exempted by the State Department from the law requiring loss of citizenship by any American who presumes to take foreign political office. Serbian President Slobodan ("Slobo") Milosevic offered the deal expecting it would get U.S. and UN sanctions off his back. But when Bush wouldn't go for eliminating sanctions, and Panic kept urging peace upon the Serbs, then launching a bitter political struggle against Slobo, the Serbs got fed up, understandably and perhaps correctly denouncing Panic as a tool of U.S. imperialism and of the CIA.

Finally, in December elections, the conflict came to a head: Milosevic vs. Panic for election as President of Serbia. In addition to suspicions of American manipulation, the Serbs couldn't cotton to Panic as a person: he has a strong American accent, he waves his arms around on the stump – more like a Serbian-American than like a Serbian-Serb, apparently – he cracks jokes, is a former champion bicycle racer, and in general impressed the Serbs as more American than Serb.

At this juncture, the U.S. and other Western nations made it very clear that they wanted Milosevic out, and they threatened invasion and even war-crimes trials if the Serbs dared to reelect Slobo. It was a dumb as well as repellently arrogant move by the U.S.; for the Serbs are not the sort of people to cave in to threats of force, even from the mighty United States. The Serbs, bless them, responded with an overwhelming victory by Milosevic, about 55 percent to 36 percent to his nearest rival, Panic. It was a resounding repudiation of U.S. intervention, current and prospective.

As usual, when they don't like the results, our vociferous champions of democracy reacted by threatening to shoot the winners of a democratic election. They claim that the election was stolen, and for a while the Panic forces were demanding another vote. But soon the feebleness of their case forced the Panic people to shut up. Good Lord! Five percent of the voters were not registered, and so their votes were lost! Well so what, that's about the number of fraudulent voters, or fraudulent non-voters, in any given election in Las Vegas! The international election observers couldn't find much fraud either. Then, the grumblers had to fall back on the charge that Milosevic was able to use the State-owned media to his own advantage. Yes, but you see this argument cuts a bit close to the "democratic" bone. Media bias? You mean unlike the good old USA – where the media were virtually pushing Clinton across the line with every move they made, every word they uttered? Come on, guys! Eventually, then, the "Democrats" had to shut up, and accept the overwhelming nature of the Milosevic victory, Panic was then kicked out by Parliament as Prime Minister.

But isn't Milosevic a damned Commie? Yes, but his popularity is not due to his Communism, but to the fact that he quickly seized the torch of Serbian nationalism. Commie, shmommie, he's a Serb! More interesting than Slobo in the Serbian picture, and a comer for the future, is the Serbian Radical Party, second only to the Slobo Socialists, and headed by Vojislav Seselj. The "Radical" name deliberately harkens back to the old Radical party of pre-World War II Serbia, the classic party of royalism, right-wing nationalism, and Greater Serbianism. It is Seselj and the Radicals, and not Slobo, who is in communion with the Serb guerrillas in Krajina (Croatia), Bosnia, and presumptively, in Kosovo, now represented in the Yugoslav Parliament by their legendary leader (thug/Freedom Fighter) "Arkan."

Meanwhile, the U.S. continues to try to inflict pain on the Serbs by maintaining sanctions against any inflow of arms, material, manufactured goods, indeed everything except food. But the Serbian border is like a sieve, and all manner of vital goods are getting through all the time. In their frustration, the U.S. has finally found a violator of the sanctions to crack down on: beleaguered American chess wizard Bobby Fischer, who played a chess match in two spots in Serbia; a resort hotel on an island off the Montenegrin coast, and then in Belgrade itself. For defying U.S.BUN warnings, the U.S. is pressing charges against Bobby, threatening him with: confiscation of Bobby's $3.6 million winnings, an extra $200,000 fine, and several years in jail. This for playing chess! I would like the U.S. authorities to explain something to me: just exactly how did Bobby Fischer's chess transaction aid the Serb economy, much less provide them with the sinews of war against the Serbs' ethnic enemies? Bobby played chess in Serbia, in return for which a Serb millionaire paid Bobby $3.5 million plus expenses. The Serbs find themselves with $3.5 million dollars less to spend on sinews, while their enjoyment of chess scarcely helps build one more plane or one more military base. How wackily vindictive can the U.S. government get? Bobby of course is not going to return to the U.S. to face the indictment, so the latest is U.S. threats of extradition. Hey! Get that dangerous chess player!

Once again, Triple R raises the cry which we pioneered last year: Free Bobby Fischer and all Political Prisoners!

The latest noise from Washington on the Serbian question is that the U.S. may not send troops against the Serbs unless the Serbs "carry their aggression" to Kosovo. But that is arrant nonsense; the Serbs have no need to "extend" aggression to Kosovo; they are already governing it. A couple of years ago, Slobo ended the autonomy of Kosovo (south of Serbia) within the Serbian Republic, and imposed Serb rule. The problem is that only 10 percent of Kosovo is Serb; no less than 90 percent are Albanian! So there will be no conflict with Kosovo unless and until the Albanians will rise up and try to claim national self-rule, something the Kosovo Albanians so far seem incapable of doing. Then there is the specter of Albania itself intervening on behalf of their ethnic comrades in Kosovo (on its northeast border); but Albania, just recently out from under a long-term super-Maoist regime, seems in no condition to intervene against anyone. A special fillip to this ethnic conflict is the religious factor: the fact that the vast majority of Albanians are Muslims, adding, as in Bosnia a special Christian vs. Muslim Holy War ingredient to the seething Balkan cauldron. There is also a special historical twist: the Christians in the Balkans rightly suspect the original conversions by the Bosnian Slavs (ethnically mainly Serb) and by the Albanians to Islam to have been motivated not so much by sincere religious conviction as by the opportunity to escape taxes under the Ottoman Empire. History always heavy, especially among history's losers.

So thanks a lot for your rotten legacy, George, in foreign as well as domestic affairs! The most appropriate song with which to pipe George out of office and back to Kennebunkport is the old ditty we used to sing in camp:

We hate to see you go We hate to see you go We hope to Hell you never come back We hate to see you go.

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