NEWS From the Libertarian Party Shadow Cabinet
1528 Pennsylvania Avenue SE
Washington DC 20003

For immediate release: July 26, 1993

For additional information:
Bill Winter, Director of Communications
(202) 543-1988
Leon Hadar
(202) 362-0411


Foreign Affairs Expert Warns: Leave Somalia Before "We're Hated by Everyone"

WASHINGTON DC -- As violence escalates in Somalia, and tension increases 
between the countries supplying U.N. peace-keeping troops to that strife-torn 
area,  Libertarian Party Shadow Cabinet Secretary of State Leon T. Hadar today
called for the United States to withdraw its soldiers before "we find 
ourselves hated by everyone."
"There is no strategic, military, or national interest in our continued 
presence in Somalia," he charged. "These are simply tribal wars, going back 
hundreds or thousands of years. There is no way anyone -- including the United
States -- can solve these problems."
His comments followed renewed criticism this weekend by the Italian government
that the U.S. military command in Somalia had a penchant to "use force rather 
than diplomacy" in dealing with security concerns. 
Hadar likened the U.S. strategy in Somalia to a "policy of trying to be half 
pregnant."
"We don't want to invade countries and totally impose our will, so we just go 
around, sending in a few brigades, dropping a few bombs, then depart . . . 
leaving these places worse than when we started. We find ourselves in the end 
hated by everybody," he said.
In the last two months, 35 U.N. soldiers have been killed in fighting in 
Somalia, and more than 100, including two Americans this weekend, have been 
wounded.
Hadar said his chief concern is that the United States is being "pushed and 
pulled into these foreign engagements" -- becoming the "sheriff of the world" 
-- without any public discussion.
"Will this be another Vietnam?" he asked. "Will the American public wake up 
and find out that thousands of U.S. troops are involved, and getting killed?"
U.S. troops are serving in U.N. operations in eight locations around the 
world, noted Hadar: Somalia, Macedonia, Croatia, Cambodia, the Western Sahara,
the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, and Mozambique.
"We're creating precedents," warned Hadar. "If we're in Macedonia today, why 
not Serbia? If we're in Somalia today, why not the Golan Heights?"
Hadar dismissed the argument that America has a moral obligation to help other
nations. 
"Morally, it should be up to individuals to help, economically or militarily,"
he said. "If individuals want to send aid, or even go and fight, they should 
be allowed to."
Hadar said this viewpoint, articulated frequently by the Libertarian Party, is
not "isolationist." 
"If anything, the Libertarian Party is internationalist," he argued. 
"Libertarians are just opposed to sending troops to bomb and kill people. They
believe in free trade, open cultural exchange, free immigration, and think the
United States should act as a role model for liberty."
Hadar is a Professorial Lecturer at the American University School of 
International Service in Washington DC, and the author of the book Quagmire: 
America In the Middle East. He was the United Nations bureau chief for The 
Jerusalem Post and the Washington DC bureau chief for Singapore's Business 
Times.
The Libertarian Party Platform calls for the United States government to end 
"entangling alliances, abstaining totally from foreign quarrels. We support 
the withdrawal of the United States government from, and an end to its 
financial support for, the United Nations."
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