Jeffrey Clark

"The drama of military intervention and the media's fixation on looters and 'warlords' now threaten to obscure the fact that, prior to late 1992, the international response to Somalia's long agony was indeed abject failure." Bungled, halfhearted efforts by U.N. diplomats, relief agencies and Security Council members contributed to the very circumstances of anarchy and violence that prompted the invasion by 21,000 U.S. Marines of the famine- and war-riven nation. International success in Somalia now depends on fashioning a more forceful U.N. presence and a lasting peace.