The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer in Washington.

MR. MacNeil: And I'm Robert MacNeil in New York. After the News Summary tonight, Charlayne Hunter-Gault continues her Somalia Diary, then six religious leaders discuss how situations like Somalia are altering thinking about the morality of using military force. And essayist Anne Taylor Fleming thinks optimistically about the economy. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MacNeil: One American was killed and three wounded today in Somalia when their truck ran over a land mine. The person killed was a civilian employee of the army. The wounded men worked for the State Department. They were the first U.S. casualties of Operation Restore Hope. It happened near Bardera, a town not yet secured by the U.S.-led coalition. Marine spokesman Fred Peck spoke to reporters in Mogadishu about the incident.

COL. FRED PECK, Marine Spokesman: They were engaged in the mission in preparation for operations in Bardera. The four were the only occupants of the vehicle, and there were no other personnel involved in the incident. The victims were transported to the USS Tripoli, the U.S. Marine Corps helicopter, for medical treatment. One is in critical condition, but stable condition, and the other two are in serious but stable condition.

MR. MacNeil: A U.S. convoy left Mogadishu for Bardera before the incident. Col. Peck said the troops would continue to the town as planned, but he said they would use a different route and would be preceded by mine sweepers. The mines are left over from Somalia's civil war, which effectively ended earlier this year. Charlayne Hunter-Gault will have another report from Somalia just after the News Summary. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Orders for durable goods in the U.S. fell 1.9 percent in November. The Commerce Department report said a big drop in demand for commercial aircraft was the reason. In another report, the Commerce Department said personal spending rose .5 percent last month. Personal incomes rose .2 percent.

MR. MacNeil: Lebanon today rejected a United Nations appeal to allow humanitarian aid to go to Palestinians deported by Israel. The men are in a makeshift camp just outside Israel's security zone in south Lebanon. Meanwhile, in the Gaza Strip, at least two Palestinians were killed in related unrest. Geoffrey Archer of Independent Television News reports.

MR. ARCHER: The eruption of fighting in Gaza followed the partial lifting of a 16-day long curfew. Palestinians say the two men shot dead by Israeli soldiers were brothers. About 300,000 Gazans remain under curfew. Youths threw stones and petrol bombs. Israeli troops retaliated with gunfire. Over 40 Palestinians are said to have been injured in the skirmishes. The protests were over the continued detention in southern Lebanon of the 415 alleged Muslim extremists Israel deported last week. While they made the best of uncomfortable circumstances, moderate Palestinian peace negotiators warned the Israeli government's tactics could sabotage the talks.

FAISAL AL-HUSSEINI, Palestinian Representative: We are on the edge. We hope that someone will do something that will allow to give a chance for this dying peace process.

MR. ARCHER: The Israeli cabinet, however, believes Arab countries will keep negotiating. SIMON PERES, Foreign Minister, Israel: President Mubarak called upon the parties to continue the peace talks. Syria has indicated that she will continue the peace talks, so we do not have any indications that the peace talks are in danger.

MR. ARCHER: The Palestinians hope the U.N. will press Israel to withdraw its deportation order on the men in Lebanon, but resisting such pressure is something that Israeli governments are well accustomed to.

MR. LEHRER: Three white police officers today were ordered to stand trial in Detroit for the beating death of a black man. A local judge there said two would be tried for second degree murder and one for assault. The incident occurred November 5th when 35- year-old Malice Green was stopped for a traffic violation. A jury in Houston today recommended a $25 million damage award in a silicon gel breast implant case. The 45-year-old woman plaintiff claimed her implants ruptured, causing her to have a partial mastectomy and to develop an autoimmune disease. Lawyers for the manufacturer and its parent company, Bristol Myer Squibb said they would appeal.

MR. MacNeil: That's our summary of the news. Now it's on to Charlayne Hunter-Gault's Somalia Diary, religious leaders on the morality of force in Somalia, and an Anne Taylor Fleming essay. FOCUS - SOMALIA DIARY

MR. LEHRER: Charlayne Hunter-Gault's Somalia Diary is first tonight. It is her account of one woman's attempt to make a difference in the town of Baidoa.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Out of a dusty back alley in Baidoa, Michele Mackin emerges to confront another day, but most of her days have a way of confronting her in the most unexpected ways. Michele is a 26-year-old nurse, maybe the farthest away she has ever been from her home in Belfast, Ireland. She runs this special therapeutic feeding center for children up to 15-years-old. It's a long-term care program set up to bring children like these back from the brink of starvation, incapacitating disease, and sometimes, but not always, death. Michele volunteered for this job a little over a month ago, joining up with the Irish aid agency CONCERN. She came with the idea of helping in any way she could. Today, after five weeks, she is finding that the need for that help often challenges even her capacity to imagine it.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Michele, you told you've been a nurse since 1988.

MICHELE MACKIN, CONCERN: Yes.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Have you ever seen anything like this, or had any experience that's comparable?

MICHELE MACKIN: I was in Romania in the orphanages working there. I thought it would have prepared me for coming here, but it's totally different.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How?

MICHELE MACKIN: Well, these children here are starving, and it's more, and sickness.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: When you first got here and confronted this, did you have to talk to yourself?

MICHELE MACKIN: I went home and I cried. The first day in here I just went home and just cried.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Indeed, Michele Mackin seems irrepressible as she moves around in the close, dark room, heavy with the smell of sickness and disease. Some of the children are lucky enough to have a parent at their side, but often they are alone, except for Michele and her staff of Somalia caretakers who believe that the first and most effective step in giving these youngsters a fighting chance is feeding them.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Now, the rest of the children in here, these kids are on the mend, is that right?

MICHELE MACKIN: Yes, some of them are. Some of them are not still so good, not great.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What kind of problems are you dealing with?

MICHELE MACKIN: Mostly chest infections, TB, I think, a lot of them have, but haven't got means to test for that, so I'm only going on what I assume, but mostly, mostly chest complaints, malaria as well. A lot of them tend to get that as well.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And the --

MICHELE MACKIN: This little boy here's got malaria.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Which one?

MICHELE MACKIN: This one here in the corner. He's very bad.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: He's got it?

MICHELE MACKIN: Yeah.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: So what do you do?

MICHELE MACKIN: Well, I treat him with anti-malaria tablets and chloroquine. If that doesn't do, I usually try phanzidare after that, and parsitamon for his fever and again just cool water.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What's your rate of success with cases like this?

MICHELE MACKIN: Malaria. Mostly they do get better, but again it reappears, as I'm sure you're aware of that, but if it's cerebral malaria, we've lost a few who've died from that.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What kind?

MICHELE MACKIN: It's more in their brain and it's very, very serious.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What's it called?

MICHELE MACKIN: Cerebral malaria. They tend to fit.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Where does that come from?

MICHELE MACKIN: Again from mosquitoes.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And most of these children in here, as you say, have no --

MICHELE MACKIN: No, they don't.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: -- no parents.

MICHELE MACKIN: No.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Nobody to care for them.

MICHELE MACKIN: No.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How are they -- how do they hold up?

MICHELE MACKIN: I don't know how. It's amazing. It amazes me every day. When I hear the stories, you know, I had a man in just about last week and he was saying that he had lost seven children and his wife, and his seventh child just died there and then, and he was telling me that he was a good, respectable man. He had camels. He had a nice farm. His family lived well, and then people came and they looted everything. They stole his camels and they had to travel in to get food, and it was after that the children became very sick, and they all died, including his wife. And I -- to think that that could happen to somebody like yourself or me or something that you know, I just couldn't imagine how they could cope. This poor man, he was absolutely heartbroken. He was heartbroken.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What did you say to him?

MICHELE MACKIN: I just said I was very sorry. There's not much we can say to someone to make them feel better in those circumstances, but I had a chat with him.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You said, you told me also a story of a family that was coming here and the father.

MICHELE MACKIN: Yes.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What happened? Tell me that story again.

MICHELE MACKIN: The family, again, came from the forest, and the same situation. They had nothing left. It was stolen, and they decided they were getting very hungry and malnourished, they decided to come to Baidoa for food, and on the way, the father took so sick that he lay down to sleep under a tree, and a wild hyena ate him, killed him, and hunted the children and his wife, and they all made it eventually to my therapeutic center. They all had measles, and the mother died here, along with two of the other children. They all died from measles. And I have three left.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Three of them.

MICHELE MACKIN: A 13-year-old, the oldest one, who looks after the other two, and she's able to tell me all what happened. Quite sad.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: I mean, there surely is a psychic trauma. You can treat the --

MICHELE MACKIN: Yes.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: -- maybe the physical problems.

MICHELE MACKIN: Yes.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But what about the psychic damage?

MICHELE MACKIN: I don't know. I don't know. I don't know where they're going to begin. I don't think these children, the older ones who will remember I think will carry it with them the rest of their lives. They're bound to, especially they've lost so much. They've lost everything, everything. It's so sad. It just breaks my heart.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And heartbreak is one of the constants that Michele confronts as she has to watch a child like this die before her very eyes, especially one that she could have restored to health if he had gotten here in time.

MICHELE MACKIN: Yesterday I transferred him to the surgeon at an IMC hospital, and he drained the leg for me, but unfortunately, today he came to see me and he told me that the little boy is just going to die. The leg will be gangerous and infection is so bad.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: So this is a decision that you have to make, whether to remove his leg or leave him in peace.

MICHELE MACKIN: Yes.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How much time does the doctor give him?

MICHELE MACKIN: Well, it's very hard to tell. I mean, he could have a very long and very painful death, or else he could just go very quickly.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And there's nothing you can do?

MICHELE MACKIN: I can only just give him pain relief.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Any day now Michele fears that she will come and find this young man dead, but what is worse, she dreads arriving to find him lying outside under a tree that has come to stand for death.

MICHELE MACKIN: We call it the death tree, well, I do. It's my name for it because when anyone dies within one of the centers or round about, they wrap them in cloth and they just lie them all along around the tree, and the truck comes along about 9 o'clock in the morning and just throws everyone into the back, no identification or anything at all, and they are just gone, buried somewhere.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Every morning.

MICHELE MACKIN: All of them, including my children in here.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You mean, when they die here, they just wrap them and --

MICHELE MACKIN: Yes, just put them out there, and when I drive in in the morning I always look at the tree first thing in the morning because I always think, I wonder if any of those are mine.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: That's a hard way to begin aday.

MICHELE MACKIN: It is, it is.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And it doesn't get any better.

MICHELE MACKIN: Over to the side here, there's loads of bodies buried there, a lot of shallow graves, and it sort of worries me, you know, that the kids are all about here, and infection's going to be, you know, got from that. And if they start digging and the rains come, especially when heavy rains like the other night, a very, very bad rain, I sort of think God, you know, these children, what is going to be displayed, and they will eventually, there's so many people buried everywhere.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Just shallow graves.

MICHELE MACKIN: Yeah, just shallow graves.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But in the meantime, people are just all over the top of them.

MICHELE MACKIN: Yes, they do, yes.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And you can get disease from that.

MICHELE MACKIN: Of course, you can, of course, you can.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, let's go inside. I personally feel that I am intruding. I mean, how do you feel about all of this attention? Is it a good thing.

MICHELE MACKIN: It is a good thing to let the world know exactly what's going on. I mean, if it wasn't for TV camera, nobody probably would have known in the world, would have been seeing this. But, yes, I think as time goes on, you know, it does become an intrusion to people. I mean, we don't, we have to ask their permission, you know, do they want to be filmed, do they want to be seen, you know, at this very low stage in their life. It's so hard.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: It's hard for me, you know.

MICHELE MACKIN: Yes, I can imagine.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, I guess we just have to hope that this will be meaningful to someone and that the good news is that you're making some difference, you're having an effect, an impact.

MICHELE MACKIN: I hope so. I think I am. But they have an impact on me as well.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Yes, on all of us.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Sadness comes all too easily in this place, but there is reason not to despair.

MICHELE MACKIN: This one has done so well. When she came here, she was just pure skin and bones and very sick. She came from the villages.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Is she an orphan?

MICHELE MACKIN: She has I think relatives back in the village, but I don't think she has any parents there, and she doesn't want to go back. She wants to stay here, because she says we have food for her and there's no food in the villages.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But she's healthier now.

MICHELE MACKIN: She's great. She's getting fat. I'm going to bring her a pair of shoes tomorrow. I promised her, and I got her clothes.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Oh. What's her name?

MICHELE MACKIN: Magaba.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Magaba. Muslimo. There's also one in here you keep taking to the orphanage, and he keeps coming back. Where is he?

MICHELE MACKIN: This one. He was very malnourished as well, and very, very sick. He had an infection, but he's great now. He's just fabulous. We try to explain to him, through my translator, that, you know, he needs to go to the orphanage because they need education there to teach them, you know, their alphabet. They teach them things. Whereas if he stays here, he's not going to get taught anything, but we feed him more here, so I think --

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But how does he get back here?

MICHELE MACKIN: He walks himself. He comes. It's several blocks away. Oh, it's no problem. He's done it that many times, five times, five times.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: This child was skin and bones when he came.

MICHELE MACKIN: Yes. He's gained an awful lot of weight, but he steals food as well. And he also sells the cloth we give him.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: He sells the cloth?

MICHELE MACKIN: Yes.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You mean he's a five-year-old entrepreneur?

MICHELE MACKIN: Yes.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Amazing.

MICHELE MACKIN: Isn't it just?

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Do you know where he comes from?

MICHELE MACKIN: No.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: While Michele is at the heart of this operation, its soul is in the kitchen. Somali women volunteer here, preparing the massive amounts of food it takes to execute the center's therapeutic feeding regimen. The children are fed at least six times a day in an effort to combat malnutrition, the main reason these children have such a hard time fighting off even common childhood diseases like measles and colds.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Do you think this period of peace now is going to make it easier to treat -- I mean, are most of these things treatable? Do you have access to the people and they have access to the medicine? Could you have a healthy population that's stable?

MICHELE MACKIN: Yes.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: It's not outside the --

MICHELE MACKIN: No, it's not outside of us. Nothing's impossible. You know, if you've got the means and you've got the people there to do it. Of course, we will have a certain amount of failure, but we'll see a lot of progress probably a lot quicker than we think.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Michele's vision might not come as easily to a stranger unused to seeing such relentless misery and suffering, but seeing it through her eyes makes all the difference. FOCUS - GOD'S WORK?

MR. MacNeil: Eighteen days after President Bush launched Operation Restore Hope in Somalia, the military operation appears overwhelmingly supported by the American people. It's also supported by American religious leaders of different faiths. In fact, a month before Mr. Bush acted, Protestant, Catholic, Jewish and Muslim groups had jointly demanded more forceful U.S. action in Somalia and Bosnia. For some religious Americans who have opposed the use of force in the past, Somalia marks a moral watershed, and that's what we discuss tonight. We begin with the way the President framed the issue in addressing the nation on December 4th.

PRESIDENT BUSH: The people of Somalia, especially the children of Somalia, need our help. We are able to ease their suffering. We must help them live. We must give them hope. America must act. In taking this action, I want to emphasize that I understand the United States alone cannot right the world's wrongs, but we also know that some crises in the world cannot be resolved without American involvement, that American action is often necessary as a catalyst for broader involvement of the community of nations, and so to every sailor, soldier, airman and Marine who's involved in this mission, let me say, you're doing God's work. We will not fail. Thank you, and may God bless the United States of America.

MR. MacNeil: This afternoon, six religious leaders joined me to discuss whether new circumstances are making the use of force God's work. Bishop Orris Walker heads up the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island, New York, which includes Brooklyn and Queens. Rabbi Alexander Schindler is the president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the main organization representing reform Judaism. Rabbi Schindler fled Nazi, Germany as a young man. Dr. Richard Land is the executive director of the Christian Life Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. Dr. Land is a scholar of the Just War doctrine. Joe Volk, a Quaker, is the executive secretary of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, a group that supports conscientious objectors to military service. Mr. Volk became a pacifist when he refused to serve in Vietnam. Camille D'Arienzo, a sister of Mercy, is a member of Pax Christi, a Roman Catholic anti-war organization. Sister Camille teaches mass media at Brooklyn College in New York. Finally, Al Haj Ghazi Khankan is president of the National Council on Islamic Affairs, an organization of Islamic American religious leaders and intellectuals. Haj Ghazi is also the producer of Voice of Islam Broadcasting. Born in Syria, Haj Ghazi has been living in the United States for 38 years. Starting with you, Rabbi Schindler, let's go round briefly and ask, in Mr. Bush's terms, is using U.S. military force in Somalia God's work?

RABBI SCHINDLER: Yes, because it's for humanitarian purposes. This, incidentally, doesn't represent some kind of metamorphosis or change in my thoughts. There were wars I supported. There were wars I opposed. I was for the Gulf War. I opposed the Vietnam War, would probably have refused to serve in it, and I was a soldier during World War II, and oddly enough, the same division that was sent to Somalia, the 10th Mountain Division, I was a ski trooper in those days before I became a rabbi. Also I believe that there are just wars. Judaism is not a religion of, which offers an absolute pacificism. We believe that the use of force is at times justified, at others times must be opposed.

MR. MacNeil: We'll come back to some of those instances. Mr. Volk, representing an organization that is pacifist, the Quakers, is this God's work, to use military forces in Somalia?

MR. VOLK: I believe there are good intentions but I think the road of U.S. military action in Somalia is a road paved with good intentions, but it won't result in good. I think you can do God's work with a sword or a gun.

MR. MacNeil: Even if you are -- prevent -- using your swords or guns to prevent other people with swords or guns who are stealing food from starving people?

MR. VOLK: Yes, that's right. I think you cannot, and I think if we look at the particulars of the case, we will probably see that many of the aid workers on the ground in Somalia feel that this is a very risky situation. I want to say that Friends Committee on National Legislation and the American Friends Service Committee, another Quaker organization that does work there, want this to work out, but we don't believe it will, and we think it may compound the problems and make it work.

MR. MacNeil: Dr. Land, God's work in Somalia?

DR. LAND: Oh, I believe so. I think that the American and other nations that have intervened under U.N. authority in Somalia meet every one of the criteria of just war theory, just intent, last resort -- if this did not take place, there would literally be hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, who would starve. What you have in that country is a collapse of order, and you have people with guns, a lot of guns. I heard the other day 20 years' worth of ammunition. We're not dealing with a, a tablaroso. We have a situation where Somalia was a tug of war, was a rope in a tug of war of the Cold War, with Soviet arms and American arms, and now those arms are there and they're being used for illicit purposes and people were starving. And I think that the President is absolutely right that we have legitimate authority under the United Nations. We are not there as aggressors. We are there with other nations of the world that are manifesting concern, and it is an unfortunate fact of life that in the year of our Lord, 1992, that unfortunately, these kinds of situations must be led by the United States, or they don't take place. We can't do it by ourselves. I would be opposed to our doing it by ourselves, but under legitimate United Nations authority, the doctrine of proportionality is being met, the doctrine of legitimacy is being met, the doctrine of last resort is being met. This would meet every one of the criteria of Catholic and Protestant just war theory.

MR. MacNeil: Sister Camille, how do you feel about it, and thisevening representing Pax Christi?

SISTER CAMILLE D'ARIENZO: I don't believe that death is ever the work of God who creates and gives life. I believe that the young men and women who are going to Somalia to a difficult place far from home, who are bringing food to the poor, starving people are doing God's work in that effort. I believe in sacrificing their lives and their security, they're doing God's work, but I think if we, if we just agree that the use of military force, of this violence, justified in the name of God, while these young men and women were in their mother's arms, their mother's breast, American and Soviet policy was laying the tragedy that we are now trying to intercept and deflect, so I think it's too easy to say that we are doing God's work. This may have some elements of God's work in it, but the evil that has preceded it and the evil that will follow, by showing the world again that we can solve the problem of violence by killing some more people seems to me to be incompatible with the work of God who loves and creates.

MR. MacNeil: How would you answer that, Bishop Walker? I know that in this particular case you, you are for this use of American military force? How would you answer Sister Camille's concern about that?

BISHOP WALKER: Well, I can certainly buy into what everyone has said. I would approach it that the situation really shows how the divine initiative works. God brings order out of chaos, and what I see in Somalia is a chaotic situation that has been described before as something that was created by the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War, so we have a lot of armament, a lot of it paid for by U.S. tax dollars now in the hands of people who have been classified as thugs, so that we have a breakdown of civilization in that area. Now the problem I find is that you have two kinds of peace that is being sought. I think that there is a deep desire for the peace, which I understand is shalom, which is a gift which comes from God, and I hear a lot of people in the religious community talking about that, but I'm also looking at the peace that comes from the Roman concept of, of establishing law and order so that civilization can go on. I think there's a conflict between these two root terms of the word, of peace, and this is a dilemma we're going to have to work through. There's no easy answer. I think this is a creative use of an organized force of men and women who come in to address a situation that I don't think can be addressed in any other way. We discovered during the last hurricane that we don't have a mechanism even here on the domestic scene that can produce the results that the armed forces can. So hopefully, this may be the beginning of a new way of using an organized force of individuals who are coming in to deliver humanitarian service as opposed to brutal force.

MR. MacNeil: How do you feel about it as a Muslim, Mr. Khankan?

MR. KHANKAN: The Muslim approach is found in prophet Mohammed who said that if you see a wrong deed, then you correct it with your hands; if you cannot correct it with your hands, then with your speech or with your talking about it, and that, if is not possible, then by praying that it be corrected, and that is the weakest belief, therefore, I believe that there is a wrong thing happening in Somalia, and, therefore, going there to help the starving people is a humanitarian gesture. It should not be done only by the United States. It should be done as it is in conjunction with the United Nations, and we are not going there as a war. We are not going there to fight. We're going there to distribute food, medicine, that is my hope, that we will not be involved in a shooting war. And after food and medicine has been delivered, United States forces I believe should be withdrawn and leave a U.N. peacekeeping force that would bring together the country and recreate the infrastructure so that it would not look as if we are imposing our will on that African Muslim country.

MR. MacNeil: Sister Camille, another member of your organization, the Pax Christi, Ann McArthies, a Benedictine nun, told the New York Times the other day that Somalia and Yugoslavia are bringing new questions to the peace movement that we didn't deal with during the Cold War. Do you agree with her on that, and just talk about -- are your feelings -- are you hovering at all at this point? Is it giving you problems?

SISTER CAMILLE D'ARIENZO: I have to say it's giving me problems because I certainly have been as effected by anyone by the pictures of starving people in Somalia and terribly abused and broken, persecuted people in Bosnia, but I, I am very strong that the use of force is something that we are perhaps being really forced into. Why did we wait so long to know what was going on there, to see what was going on there? What about the 20 years before this, when the policies led to war and to a dictator, a tyrant whom we supported? And why now are we so pressed to say if we don't do something, then something terrible will happen? Something terrible has happened. I know that if we don't intercede to be a presence that provides food and comfort now, we will lose our soul as a nation. I'm not saying we should not be there, but I want to hear from the people themselves. They're more than crazy warlords, and, as we were led to believe in the beginning of this, drugged soldiers. They're more than that. What about the elders? What about the women in the communities? There was something, I believe, maybe it was in Newsweek just recently, a 70-year-old shepherd woman said that there were two things that they needed: to take away the guns and to establish some kind of government. Now, I don't know that you have to shoot people to do that.

MR. MacNeil: How do you, how would you comfort Sister Camille if she came to you, Rabbi?

RABBI SCHINDLER: I agree that taking away the guns is absolutely essentially, but I know that guns cannot most of the time be taken away without guns. I've seen it myself. Look, I know the horror of war, myself. I've served in World War II. I know about maimed bodies and torn limbs and burned flesh and the whole dark butchery, but I also know, knew then even that if this act to stop aggression had had happened much sooner the sacrifice would not have been as great. This is true in Somalia. You just told us. There was a whole history here. If we had stopped sooner, if we had intervened sooner, these sacrifices would not have been necessary. Even while we are talking here, people are dying. They're dying in Bosnia. I feel very strongly about that. Once again my personal history evokes bitter memories when I see the face of a little child in a bus frightened because it's under attack, when I see the gaunt face of a man, starved, with his rib cages showing behind barbed wire, or when I hear of box cars laden with human cargo to extermination, and above all, when I hear of "ethnic cleansing," that brings back the memories, horror, of horror and of the darkest ages of Nazism.

MR. LEHRER: Let's have Mr. Volk come in and then we'll pick up the question of Bosnia in a moment.

MR. VOLK: I want to say to my friend, whom I respect very much, who's lived a very rich life contributing to social justice work and peace work, war is a false promise in this regard. Let's take Somalia and the example you gave about taking away the guns. What are you going to do to take away the guns? Invade the houses, go in and search every house in Somalia? The guns have disappeared with the movement of U.S. troops, but as soon as the troops withdraw, those weapons are going to come back out.

MR. MacNeil: In fact, it's not officially part of the U.S. mission, although the U.N. would like it to be, but so far Mr. Bush and the others --

MR. VOLK: You can take away guns; in this situation in Somalia without guns it would be a very practical matter that Somalis, themselves, could design with outside support to create employment and development incentives so that people would return in exchange for participation in employment and development projects. All of Somalia is not at war. Many regions of Somalia are at peace. Many regions of Somalia could be the place where these things could be staged.

MR. MacNeil: How would you answer that, Dr. Land?

DR. LAND: Well, I would answer it by saying that there are some very creative ways that can be used to help voluntarily disarm the population as long as there is in place a sufficient deterrent either at this point an international deterrent, hopefully at some point in the future a Somali, functioning Somali police force, an armed police force that will maintain order and make certain that the thugs do not take away that which is given in exchange for the guns. And to use the analogy that Rabbi Schindler used earlier, you know, I think that if there was ever a just war, it was World War II against Nazi Germany, and if there had been a willingness to use force earlier, instead of abject appeasement, millions of people that died would not have died, and I must confess that if anything in the world is more horrendous than what is going on in Somalia, it's what's going on in Bosnia and Herzegovina, because in Somalia you have through selfishness and through the breakdown of order and through people who are taking unto themselves the resources, people who are starving, but you have the grossest kind of barbarism and savagery going on based upon ethnic origin, and based upon religious preference. Really, there's nothing like it in Europe anyway since the end of World War II, and I think we must -- the international community must do something. We've been calling for months for something to be done to stop what is, in effect, genocide. The only difference between what's going on in Bosnia-Herzegovina and what went on in Nazi, Germany is scale.

MR. MacNeil: Well, but to pick up -- if those of you who approve at the moment the use of force in Somalia, does it follow Bosnia, does it follow, Mr. Khankan?

MR. KHANKAN: Naturally, the sad story that it is too late, that three-quarters of Bosnia has gone under Serbian occupation, more than two million Bosnians have been made refugees, over a hundred thousand have been killed, fifty thousand women have been raped on a daily basis. Where are we? As if we are not in the 20th century anymore, as if we're way back in the Dark Ages; and that I believe is due because many parts of the world have deviated away from God's teaching.

MR. MacNeil: You think President Clinton coming in would be justified in joining with the world community in using some military force in Bosnia?

MR. KHANKAN: Definitely, and talking about the President, I believe that President Bush would have won if he had gone directly in Somalia and to Bosnia to prove that his position is not just for oil, as he did in Kuwait, but it is for human rights.

MR. MacNeil: What do you feel about Bosnia, Sister Camille?

SISTER CAMILLE D'ARIENZO: Well, I read that op ed piece in the New York Times that was a first person account by numerous women of their experience of extensive and brutal violation, and what I have found is that it is a nation, or at least representatives of a nation, people who acted without any sense of the sacredness of the human person. I am not convinced that an increase of violence will in an way affect that. It is a crisis of the spirit. It is what I just heard you saying, my friend, a failure to carry God's laws, love in their hearts. Now I don't mean to just speak out some saccharine sweet woman words here, but I am speaking for women and I am speaking for children. I remember what happened in the glorious conquest that was the Persian Gulf War, which I consider an aberration and atrocity. And I speak for the women and the children who remain dying, dead, victims of that war still without electricity and water because of our policies. We did a wonderful media show then and we'll do a wonderful media show now. But I'm not sure that we're going to spread peace in any lasting portion. You cannot impose peace upon a person, a single person, let alone a nation. Why aren't we doing it in our drug areas in the United States? Why don't we go there with guns and take away their guns and drugs? Because we know it won't work.

MR. MacNeil: Bishop Walker, there are obviously people -- we have two of them here -- who this new cozy feeling about the humanitarian use of U.S. forces is not convincing. What would you say to Sister Camille in the Bosnian situation?

BISHOP WALKER: I think she's right. It's interesting. Look at the use of force that we have employed. We have used in our nation force against people of color. We did it in Grenada. We did it in Panama. We did it in the Persian Gulf, but we seem to be very reluctant to do it in Europe. Earlier requests were made in Europe and Hungary when an earlier rebellion against the Soviet Union occurred, and we were asked to come in and there was this reluctance. Now we're beginning --

MR. MacNeil: The reluctance there was justified because of the prospect of triggering a thermonuclear war which was -- that was the reason given at the time.

BISHOP WALKER: Yes, but you see one of the things that's very interesting, as we begin to get more and more information about decisions that were made in the past, we also get a clearer view of history. I'm not sure that that would have happened. We, we didn't have an all out conflict around the Cuba situation.

MR. MacNeil: So would you intervene, would you advise President Bush in his last month or President Clinton coming in to intervene in Bosnia?

BISHOP WALKER: I think we need an international force to go in to stop the violence and to halt things and to say, enough is enough, this kind of activity is not appropriate at this stage of human development, and the world says enough.

MR. MacNeil: How is that different from sending U.S. forces leading an international contingent in Iraq to repel what was a more traditional cause of war, direct aggression across a national border?

BISHOP WALKER: Well, you didn't ask me about that. My position on it is that I don't think we exhausted the diplomatic channels. I thought that we went into there rather quickly, and I was never convinced that we exhausted the diplomatic channels to avoid thatkind of conflict, and I stand very strongly on that, so I think it was a colossal waste of money, and you don't hear anybody talk about it now.

MR. KHANKAN: We could have gone in and liberated Kuwait, but we didn't have to bombard all of Iraq and destroyed one of the world's civilization and caused all that tragedy.

MR. MacNeil: I see. Okay. I take your point. I come to Mr. Volk -- we keep looking forward on the Bosnian situation -- we have at least four gentlemen here, I think, who all agree that President Bush or especially President Clinton should organize some military intervention in Bosnia with others.

MR. VOLK: I think my response is one where I want to assure listeners and my friends here at the table that I feel the same level of compassion and urgency that they feel about the situation, and I recognize that there is a clear imperative for the international community to do something to act on this. Clarity about the need to act doesn't translate for me as clarity that military action is the thing to do. I talked with the former commander of NATO logistics, recently retired, just this fall about this situation. He's convinced that military action in the former Yugoslavia would result in killing of more civilians and probably in extended quagmire, rather than doing what all of us want, which is help. What's the alternative? I think one of the big problems we have is with the end of the Cold War the world lost a military order that told everybody how things worked. In the absence of that, many of our policy makers are frantically running around, trying to figure out, well, how can we apply the old pillars of the Cold War to the new world, rather than saying, what is it new that we can do instead of reimposing another military order? We are being told let's go because it's humanitarian, because it's good - - let's go to Pax Americana.

MR. MacNeil: And we have the forces left over from the cold war, you mean, and needing some justification in the new order.

MR. VOLK: Right. Let's take the money, the resources, and give it to civilians who know culturally and in terms of the practice of humanitarian aid, who know how to get it to people without killing people.

DR. LAND: I think that's the wrong analogy. I think that we had a situation where too often in the past American military power and NATO military power and ally military power was used in supposedly in the defense of freedom, at least in defense of our freedom, but was used vis-a-vis the Soviet Union, and there is not the humanitarian level of urgency when our national self interest is not directly affected. I find offensive the sort of Kissingeresque real politique, in which, you know, nations have interests instead of causes, America is first, foremost and always a cause. They are the first new nation, and we don't believe just Americans have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We believe every single human being who is created in the image of God has that right, and what's going on in, in Bosnia is vicious, it is evil. It is a resurrection of the worst forms of racism, and we are sitting on a powder keg because of the collapse of the former Soviet Union. The kind of conflict that is going on between the Serbs and the Bosnians is just the tip of the iceberg, and if it is seen that the international community will not insist on basic civilized standards of protection of basic human rights and be willing to put forces into maintain those, multinational forces, then we're going to see a rapid escalation of this kind of behavior, and we're going to see atrocities that many of us had hoped were in the human past, not in the human future.

MR. MacNeil: I assume being a Muslim, so many Muslims are victims in Bosnia, you would agree with that.

MR. KHANKAN: Definitely I do, and there is another third tragedy which we have not addressed yet. These are the Palestinian people who are under Israeli rule. We have seen recently the 415 Muslims expelled and before that thousands and thousands have been expelled, and nobody has come to their aid. They are being given names of terrorists and this and that without being given the due process of law to be examined where they are or not, and to just get rid of them and Christians and Muslims are being expropriated, they have been kicked out, and the whole world for the last 40 years had been silent about it.

MR. MacNeil: As a Jew, do you have enough --

RABBI SCHINDLER: Certainly. I mean, I find the analogy to be outrageous -- and you'll forgive me for saying so -- almost obscene. There are not artillery shells trained, Israeli artillery shells trained, heavy artillery trained on --

MR. KHANKAN: Bones are being broken inside the occupied territories by the solders.

RABBI SCHINDLER: No Israeli -- I listened to you, my friend, listen to me -- no Israeli soldier has ever raped an Arab woman on the ground, not the way it is being done. The people who were provided, they are not denying, the Israelis are not denying the Palestinian Arabs food or electricity or heat, as it is being done in Bosnia. On the contrary, the standard of living of the Palestinian Arabs is better than the standard of living of the Palestinian Arabs in most Arab countries, so to say that --

MR. MacNeil: Excuse me. This is an issue we've argued or debated on the program, and we will again, but just to conclude this on the, on the issue in which we began, do you think that -- Bishop Walker, do you think that the Somalia experience is going to change the attitude -- a lot of you here have objected to other uses of American force in other circumstances -- do you think this is going to change the attitude of the American people to the use of force, and it's going to, it's going to set a new set of principles, or criteria?

BISHOP WALKER: Well, it's an opportunity to offer a new model, a rescue model, how we could use, taking mechanized force, move it into an area, and address a serious problem. That would be a new use of that kind of force. I think to withdraw without having a second stage of the program, in terms of dealing with the economic problems, of dealing with how do you have a country like Somalia survive through the period of drought, how to teach them water management, how do we share technological advances in terms of being able to use sea water for farming, there are lots of things that we could share to ensure a better quality of life, and the problem is who can do that. Now we have people who are in the military who have committed themselves to a certain period of time. I would rather see the military used in the police, in the best word of police as opposed to armed, another set of armed thugs coming in, because I would agree with you it's not going to solve the problem. What I see in Somalia right now is that there needs to be a restoration of order and then have the international community come in and really do humanitarian work.

MR. MacNeil: Let me go to one of our two opponents of this situation and, and just ask you, do you see, whether you approve of it or not, do you see this providing a new model for American military behavior?

SISTER CAMILLE D'ARIENZO: I think it's potential is magnificent. In a season when we long so for peace and to comfort the afflicted, wouldn't it be wonderful if we -- we must have a police action because perhaps the events have propelled us and our ignorance has propelled us into that moment -- but wouldn't it be wonderful if we had at the same time a force that provided agrarian help, economic help? Why not have grandmothers along to hold the abandoned, orphaned children?

MR. MacNeil: A grandmothers peace corps.

SISTER CAMILLE D'ARIENZO: A grandmothers peace corps. Why not involve -- I think my greatest concern is that we are once again imposing from outside a force that came from the land of G.I. Joe, of the toys which are games, and we don't know any other way. We don't plan for peace, and we don't have a program for peace. We only have a program for war.

MR. MacNeil: I'm sorry to --

RABBI SCHINDLER: The solution is the United Nations.

MR. MacNeil: All right. I'm sorry to end it there, but we have used up our time. I'd like to thank you all very much. Thank you. ESSAY - COCKEYED OPTIMISM

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight, an upbeat look at the economy by essayist Anne Taylor Fleming.

ANNE TAYLOR FLEMING: If you'll put your toe out into the pre- Christmas melee, you've not doubt sensed it, smelled it almost. There is among us again a definite aroma of optimism, as if some giant national atomizer had doused us all with hope, not giddy, crazed, throw-caution-to-the-wind and big-bucks-at-the-retailers hope, just a delicate but determined whiff of optimism. Last year at this time there was a decidedly heavy feeling in the air. It felt more like nighttime in America than morning. Store after store had huge pre-Christmas sales signs, unnerving as you moved around, conscious of everyone else's fiscal timidity. Clearly, the country after its brief post Gulf War high was back in a depressive mode. Poll after poll showed that consumer confidence was down and Americans were decidedly gloomy about the future. That's changed now for many reasons, but two obvious ones: The economy may, in fact, be coming out of its long lethargy. Unemployment is down from its highs. Factories are livelier, and consumers are measurably cheerier. On the other hand, it's not hard to find economists who point to gloomier facts: unemployment is still high, poor car and truck sales, a million and a half jobs gone forever. Regardless, out and about, you can hear people talk about their renewed optimism. Gee, it feels good, they say, trying on the optimistic mood as if it were an attractive new item of apparel. The second obvious reason for the mood change is the election of a new young President, the first baby boomer to steer the ship of state, a big self-confident, touchy, feely guy has come to lead us in our slide towards the 21st century, and people are clearly responding. Clinton's charisma is a little more down home, more McDonald's than that say of John F. Kennedy with his elegant bride and New England wit, but he's generating adoring mobs just the same, hundreds of thousands of whom are expected to descend on Washington for his inauguration, two to three times as many folk as watched Bush take his oath four years ago. Clearly, they're an interlocking duo, the economy and the President-elect aiding and abetting each other, and the general sense of hope out here in the malls where the potent combo of national sentiment and mercantilism is working its holiday magic. We've never had much trouble balancing the two. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and the Christ Child, Barbie dolls and Virgin Marys, it's all part of the American dream, the American self-image that allows this delicate balancing act between religious sentiment and acquisitiveness. We give thanks for what we can buy. It was no wonder then that Bill Clinton came to this mall in Glendale, California, to work the symbolism. He gets it. He's the new Santa Claus radiating optimism back to the consumer crowds. But there is something else in this upturn of economy and mood, and maybe it is a little closer to the Christian bone. Along with the fledgling recovery, there finally is tangible hope for an end to starvation and anarchy in Somalia. There is increasing pressure to do something about the ethnic cleansing and murder in Bosnia, serious actions and real talk of putting our moral weight on the line again in places where hunger and hatred are holding court. Despite our desire to focus on our own domestic needs, the world keeps force itself upon us, reminding us that we cannot be the world's leader and turn our back on its pain. I like to think that outward turning, that sense of compassion, is fueling and being fueled by our renewed sense of optimism as if we were being reacquainted with the lost part of our better selves, but underneath it all, we all know that national optimism is as sparkly and as fragile as the Christmas ornaments we hang on our trees. I'm Anne Taylor Fleming. RECAP

MR. MacNeil: Again, the major stories of this Wednesday, a civilian employee of the U.S. Army was killed and three State Department workers wounded when their jeep hit a land mine in Somalia. They're the first American casualties in Operation Restore Hope. Lebanon rejected a United Nations appeal to allow humanitarian aid for Palestinians deported by Israel. Three white Detroit police officers will stand trial for the beating death of a black motorist. Good night, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Good night, Robin. We'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.