AN EXCERPT FROM: "Winning CNN Wars: Media Coverage and Public Perception"

Complete Article as published in "Cry Havoc!" (info below)

Foreign policy experts were harsh in their assessments of President Clinton's quick shift of US Somalia policy after the broadcast of images from the Rangers' fight in Mogadishu. Clinton's willingness to negotiate, rather than continue efforts to capture the warlord Aidid, was criticized as weakness, sending the wrong signals. "We have no interest in denying anybody access to playing a role in Somalia's political future," the President was quoted the week after the attack on the Rangers. That shift was exactly wrong, commented former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who argued that failing to strike back virtually guaranteed that the wrong lesson would be learned. The world's other mischief-makers will have no fear, Kissinger warned, unless the United States reduces Aidid's "power base so that it's apparent that when you tackle the US in the brutal way in which it has been done there is a penalty." [Michael Kramer, "The Political Interest: It's All Foreign to Clinton," Time, 18 October 1993, p. 75.]

The complete article from "Cry Havoc!" appears in MagWeb.com http://www.MagWeb.com (Magazine Web). "Cry Havoc!" is the official publication of the Military History Special Interest Group of American Mensa, Ltd. E-MAIL: dtschanz@sahara.com.sa