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 tonight's News Summary we have a debate on the changing U.S. role in Somalia, then Part 2 of Charles Krause's look at Muslim life in America. Finally, Correspondent Elizabeth Brackett goes back to people she visited in the Midwest floods to report on their recovery. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MacNeil: Defense Sec. Les Aspin said today that U.S. combat troops would not leave Somalia until security is restored to the country's capital, Mogadishu. Some 400 elite army ranges have been arriving there over the last two days. They're reinforcing 1400 members of a U.S. quick reaction force already in Somalia. Pentagon officials did not deny reports that some were members of Delta Force, a counterterrorism unit. But they said they were not a hit squad sent for warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid, as had been reported. Aidid's followers have been blamed for killing four U.S. peacekeeping troops earlier this month and twenty-four Pakistanis in June. Hundreds of Somali women and children took to the streets today to protest the U.S. troop presence. In Washington, Sec. Aspin spoke about the new mission.

LES ASPIN, Secretary of Defense: The danger now is that unless we return security to south Mogadishu, political chaos will follow any U.N. withdrawal. Other warlords would follow Aidid's example, fighting between the warlords would ensue, and that, of course, i what brought the famine to massive proportions in the first place.

MR. MacNeil: We'll have more on the U.S. involvement in Somalia after the News Summary. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: The United Nations Security Council suspended economic sanctions against Haiti today. The vote lifts an oil and weapons embargo imposed after the 1990 military coup which ousted President Jean Bertrande Aristide. Aristide is expected to return to power by October 30th under a U.N.-brokered agreement. Businessman Robert Malvalle is scheduled to be sworn in as Haiti's new prime minister on Monday. He was chosen by Aristide, and he was in Washington today meeting with State Department officials. China formally protested new U.S. sanctions today and threatened to top abiding by an international arms control agreement. The protest was delivered to the U.S. ambassador in Beijing. The State Department Wednesday accused China of selling missile technology to Pakistan. It banned the sale of certain high technology equipment to the Chinese, defense, and aerospace ministries for two years.

MR. MacNeil: A U.N. aid convoy and about 150 peacekeepers remain stranded today in the southern Bosnian city of Mostar. They have been prevented from leaving by Muslim refugees afraid of renewed Croat attacks. But as Jim Buchanan of Independent Television News reports from Mostar, several wounded children were allowed to go after a British nurse intervened on their behalf. A word of caution: Buchanan's report contains graphic pictures.

MR. BUCHANAN: Sally Becker comforting three of the children she brought out of Mostar today, upstaging the U.N., who can't persuade the Muslim authorities to allow their aid convoy to leave. Among them, a boy and his sister horribly injured by a mortar attack.

[CHILD MOTIONING AT HOW SHE GOT INJURED BY MORTAR FIRE]

MR. BUCHANAN: But the U.N. was furious Sally was leaving without the convoy. They'd hoped to use her mission as a lever for the lorries to get out too.

SPOKESPERSON: I have only got my cease-fire till 1 o'clock. After that I have no position.

MR. BUCHANAN: Increasingly, it seems, the U.N. has been a victim of a Muslim plan to provide a human shield against further Croat attacks. The food it brought has been left untouched in the warehouse, and there's little evidence of the imminent starvation predicted by the U.N. Civilians, who block the road every time the convoy tries to leave, get at least one meal a day. But there's no doubt life is very hard for the Muslims. Snipers are active at the town's famous old bridge where water has been collected straight from the river. People are sleeping 30 to a room in basements to protect them against nightly shelling, and every day the latest casualties of the war ready for burial with swiftly prepared headstones. Sally drove her children out of the misery that is Mostar, leaving the convoy still stranded. But the children's places have already been taken in the town's hospital. These two were brought in this morning after another mortar attack.

MR. MacNeil: Separate assemblies of Muslims and Serbs today debated the latest proposed peace plan for Bosnia. The country's Muslim president predicted his parliament would vote to amend the plan which was proposed by international mediators in Geneva. Bosnian Serb leaders were said to be pressuring deputies in their assembly to accept the plan. It would divide Bosnia into three ethnic states, with Serbs getting more than half of the republic.

MR. LEHRER: The U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles will appeal the sentences given two policemen convicted in the Rodney King beating case. Today's announcement said the government will attempt to lengthen the two and a half year terms given Sgt. Stacey Koon and Officer Lawrence Powell. They could have received up to ten years, but the judge said the lighter sentence was justified because King provoked the officers. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the Somalia dilemma, Part 2 of Muslims in America, and an update on some people who fought the flood. FOCUS - MUSLIMS IN AMERICA

MR. LEHRER: We go first tonight to Part 2 of our Muslims in America series. Last night, Correspondent Charles Krause reported on the terrorist elements that exist within the larger, growing Muslim community. Tonight he looks at how American Muslims struggle to maintain their identities here.

MR. KRAUSE: Where do you find Muslims in America? Today, almost anywhere you choose to look for them. In a New Jersey steel plant, where Ali Jaber is a valued worker, yet despite more than 20 years in the United States he remains so close to his Palestinian roots he didn't even bother to become an American citizen until last year. Muslims also live in suburban America, Long Island, where Doctors Faroque and Arfa Khan say outwardly their lives are no different from those of their affluent neighbors. Yet, the Khans say they struggle every day to maintain a footing in two cultures. By any definition, Muslims in America are diverse and vibrant. There are no agreed upon statistics, but it's estimated there are now 47 million Muslims in the United States. And today, Islam is probably the fastest growing religion in the country. At least a third of the country's Muslims are black, converts from Christianity. Many others are recent immigrants from Jordan, Turkey, Syria, Pakistan, the West Bank, and other Muslim countries around the globe. Filled with promise and paradox, Muslims in the United States are united by religion but often torn by politics and tradition. Today, they're a community struggling to adapt and to find a place in America. Vince Parrillo is a sociologist who studied the large Muslim community in northern New Jersey.

VINCENT PARRILLO, Sociologist, William Patterson College: Obviously, Americanization occurs, first of all, because when people give up, as I said before, those old dreams and old traditions and come here to the United States, they don't come to join nothing. They come to join something. And so they learn our language, they learn our ways, and they do try to fit in. But at the same time there is this recognition that you are what you are in terms of your roots and your heritage. And so it's a blend.

MR. KRAUSE: This is the Islamic Center of Long Island, nestled among split level homes half an hour from Kennedy Airport. It's a good example of the kind of mosque starting to appear in affluent, suburban neighborhoods alongside the churches and synagogues that have existed for generations. The new mosque, just finished this year, was built from scratch at a cost of $2 million, all of it paid in cash, because the Islamic faith prohibits interest payments. One recent morning there were services for Idal Piter, a major holiday celebrating the end of fasting for the month of Ramadan. So the crowds were bigger than usual, and the dress more traditional.

[SERVICE]

MR. KRAUSE: The setting may have been Long Island, but the faithful hear share many of the same ancient beliefs as Muslims from Casablanca to Caraci to Mecca, itself, home of the grand mosque, the city where Islam began 1300 years ago. All pious Muslims are expected to make a pilgrimage, called a haj, to Mecca at least once during their lifetimes if they can. That's one of the five central pillars of the faith. Another is prayer. Practicing Muslims are commanded to pray five times a day, although not necessarily in a mosque. Even so, it's difficult in western countries. Many Muslims are torn between their need to pray and their busy lives and work schedules. At the Long Island Islamic Center and many other mosques in America prayers are in Arabic, sermons in English.

SPEAKER: So you exercise this control. You exercise this discipline on yourself.

MR. KRAUSE: Leading the prayer is an imam, often formally trained in religion but not always. This imam also works as a physicist. By tradition, only men are allowed in the main prayer hall. Women must worship in a separate section of the mosque. In Long Island, the service is broadcast by loud speaker. Other mosques use video. Because this was a holiday, people lingered after services. There was food, and they met with friends. Many of the younger worshippers had just finished fasting for Ramadan while keeping up a full schedule in high school. That's another example of something most American Muslims share, a need and a desire to adapt their beliefs and practices to normal, everyday life in the United States, sports, for example, how to reconcile the Islamic tradition of modest dress for women with American softball. In Patterson, New Jersey, we found that some Muslim girls play in long pants, despite the heat. Others, especially younger girls, still wear shorts. They're all American citizens born in the United States, but most of their parents are Palestinians born in the Middle East.

MR. KRAUSE: What do you like about baseball?

Muslim Girl: It's fun. You bat and you play. You catch the ball. You throw the ball, do anything you want.

FATIMA AREKAT, 6th Grade: Thecoaches are very nice to us. Every time we miss they like cheer us up and stuff. They say come on, you can do better, and then instead of just us trying out, they help us.

MR. KRAUSE: What happened though during Ramadan? Do you all fast?

GIRLS: Yes.

MR. KRAUSE: Were you able to play sports?

GIRLS: Yes.

MR. KRAUSE: It didn't bother you?

RAWIDA JABER, 8th Grade: No. That's how we have to do. The only reason why we fast for Ramadan is, is that because we have to feel like what the people in Palestine are feeling when they don't have no food.

YOUNG GIRL: The homeless people, how they're feeling. They want to take to feel what they're feeling.

RAWIDA JABER: So you shouldn't be mad about it or nothing. Just you have to do it.

MR. KRAUSE: Rawida Jaber lives in a three-story house across the street from one of Patterson's aging factories like the one where her father has worked ever since he came to Patterson from the Israeli-occupied West Bank many years ago. Ali Jaber never bothered to become an American citizen until last year when he needed a passport to visit his mother in a hospital back home. Like many other first generation immigrants, Jaber has resisted assimilating the life in the United States.

MR. KRAUSE: We met your daughter playing softball. She looks like just any other American kid.

ALI JABER: She might look, yes, but if you ask her anything, she will tell you no. That's what my parents are, and what I am.

MR. KRAUSE: Ali Jaber's marriage was arranged by his parents many years ago, and his wife still wears the traditional head scarf called a hijab. Like many other first generation women in the neighborhood, she was shy and didn't want to talk much. The Jabers' cousins, Anwar and Omar Khalil, on the other hand, were more comfortable with our visit. Omar's a baker, and Anwar stays at home with their new baby. The day we first met them they were packing to move to a larger apartment. Despite their more open attitude, the Khalil's marriage was also worked out, though not exactly arranged, by their parents.

MR. KRAUSE: How did you and Omar meet? How did you get together?

ANWAR KHALIL: We didn't meet.

OMAR KHALIL: My father, he called here on the phone and asked for her. Then she --

ANWAR KHALIL: He talked to my father.

OMAR KHALIL: Then she came and her father told her, if you like him, you get married, and if you don't like him --

ANWAR KHALIL: You come back.

OMAR KHALIL: -- you come back.

MR. KRAUSE: So you went back to --

ANWAR KHALIL: Palestine. They paid for my ticket, and I went with my mother and some cousins. I didn't want to like the first week, and then they talked me into it, and then I went overseas, and I met him. Actually, as soon as I met him, I liked him, and in the two years we went out with each other, we liked each other more and more, and then we got married. If I didn't, if we didn't, you know, like each other or didn't agree with each other, we would have not gotten married.

MR. KRAUSE: The Jabers and the Khalils live just 16 miles from the glitter of Manhattan, yet, here in south Patterson, the large and growing Muslim community has begun to make its presence felt in once was once an Irish and Jewish neighborhood. Within just a few blocks of Main Street, there are now a dozen or so mosques located in converted churches, converted synagogues, storefronts, and even a converted factory. The Muslim population is heavily Palestinian with a smattering of Turks, big enough to keep the production lines humming at Patal Brothers' Pita factory. Patal's began as a neighborhood bakery, then expanded as Muslims by the tens of thousands moved to northern New Jersey. With its rich mixture of ethnic restaurants and shops, south Patterson is a classic, urban, ethnic neighborhood. It's also a place where you can watch immigrant and American ways meeting and adapting, or partly adapting, or not adapting at all. Here, for example, outside PSI-9, which serves the neighborhood, it's one of the most Islamic public schools in the country, 48 percent Muslim. It provides a glimpse of what other U.S. schools may face if the Islamic population in this country continues to grow.

MR. KRAUSE: Do you feel like you're an American or you're a Palestinian?

CHILD: Palestinian.

OTHER CHILD: I feel like I'm Turkish.

SMALL CHILD: Palestinian.

CHILD: Both.

VINCENT PARRILLO: I'm not surprised by their response at all. Their ethnicity is an everyday real event in terms of language and foods and religion and values and customs and so forth. All of them are acculturating, but they feel themselves as strangers in a strange land, really identifying themselves as outsiders right now.

MR. KRAUSE: To help them make the transition, P.S. 9 conducts regular classes using English as the second language. But there's more being taught than just English and math. The teacher, Scott Beirum, is also a Muslim, the daughter of an early generation of Turkish emigres. She left a career in advertising to teach at P.S. 9, because she hopes to be a role model for this new generation of immigrant children who've come to Patterson. But it sometimes seems as if P.S. 9, itself, has had to assimilate as much as the students.

TEACHER: [teaching class] And what religion are the Serbs? Christians right. And what religion are the Croatians? They're Christians also.

MR. KRAUSE: The school has had to adapt, for example, the teaching geography and social studies to students who often know more about certain parts of the world than their teachers do.

MR. KRAUSE: So have you actually lived in Palestine?

MAJDI AWWAD, 5th Grade: Yes.

MR. KRAUSE: And what happened to you there? Did you see soldiers?

MAJDI AWWAD: Yeah.

MR. KRAUSE: Did you hear gunfire and --

MAJDI AWWAD: Bombs.

MR. KRAUSE: Bombs too.

MAJDI AWWAD: Every day we go to school soldiers come to school and start hitting bullets.

MR. KRAUSE: At P.S. 9, the principal, Margaret Dalton, has to deal with problems most educators never see, like the complicated feelings many of her students had during the Gulf War.

MARGARET DALTON, Principal, P.S. 9: Before school opened we kind of tried to think through what would be some of the actions the youngsters may take, and of course, one of them would be not standing for the flag salute in the morning. We had two youngsters who just didn't stand. They couldn't do it. And so we brought them down to the office, into the counselor's office, and she interacted with them and began, and so we simply asked them to consider just standing and not have to do the salute, itself, which has solved the problem.

MR. KRAUSE: But it doesn't take a war to set off inner battles. Dr. Faroque Khan and his family seem to have adapted brilliantly to life in the United States. Both he and his wife were born into privileged families in Kashmir, then came to the United States to be educated. Dr. Arfa Khan now practices medicine at Long Island Jewish Hospital, where she pioneered a new technique for diagnosing breast cancer. Her husband is now chief of medicine at nearby Nasa County Medical Center. Yet, despite their many years in the United States, the Khans say they're still adjusting.

DR. FAROQUE KHAN: We have a Jihad every day. Jihad means struggle, struggle for improvement. We have been planted from one culture into another culture. To maintain that culture, to continue with that is a struggle for us on a day to day basis, social interaction, political, and all kinds of interaction. So I think most of the immigrants you'll feel have a sense of that belonging, of having lost their roots, of having lost their connection, the social ambiance.

MR. KRAUSE: The subtle drama of accommodation works itself out differently in different situations. The Khans, for example, helped raise cash to build the new Long Island Islamic Center because they didn't think it would be appropriate to borrow money and pay interest to build the mosque. But they worked out a different solution when it came time to buy their own home.

DR. FAROQUE KHAN: Now, if I had the means and I had the cash up front, I would have purchased this house with cash down, but I didn't have it so I had to make that adjustment. So for this house, we took a loan, took a mortgage, and we're paying it off like millions of other Americans. But for the mosque, now that's the house of God. We decided that we will not do that, we will chip in extra and buy it, and pay for it up front.

MR. KRAUSE: But that seems like a perfectly reasonable compromise, but a compromise, nonetheless, between what the religion says and the society that you're living in.

DR. FAROQUE KHAN: On the other hand, I know a number of Muslim brothers and sisters who have decided they will not make that compromise, they will stay in rented apartments, rented homes, and will not move and take the mortgage and take the interest.

MR. KRAUSE: Erum Naqui turned the real drama of accommodation she faces every day in the theater. When she joined her high school improv group she helped write a sketch about the problems of wearing a head scarf.

ERUM NAQUI, 10th Grade: Just because a Muslim is accused of bombing the World Trade Center does not mean that all Muslims are, are terrorists, okay?

MR. KRAUSE: Erum used to live in the Midwest, where she never wore a scarf. Yet, as she grew into her teens on Long Island, her identity as a Muslim began to take shape.

ERUM NAQUI: My mom doesn't even really care. She doesn't even, she doesn't even expect me to wear my scarf. She doesn't wear it herself, but she's just a normal American doctor like any other doctor, and she's, she just like, she goes to work in normal American clothes. She doesn't wear scarves.

MR. KRAUSE: But why did you decide just a few months ago to cover your hair?

ERUM NAQUI: I wanted to prove to people that I'm related, but that's the reason that I wore it. I wore it also because there are people in my school who would be like annoying me and making fun of me and just like, it was like a little harassment. It was just not -- they used to make fun of me all of the time and you know, like pull my hair or something, so I thought it was really important, so I started wearing the scarf.

MR. KRAUSE: Erum's ploy was an unusual approach, but the problem it addresses isn't. The hijab has become a symbol of the complex and controversial role of Muslim women in America. Although changing traditionally by western standards, Muslim women are subservient and often discriminated against. In south Patterson's traditional community, the head scarf is barely noticed, but for other Muslim women the hijab is a "take it or leave it" option worn only on special occasions.

MR. KRAUSE: Do Muslim men ever comment about the fact that you don't cover your head?

DR. ARFA KHAN: Well, you know, in the mosque, you know, in the mosque I cover my head out of respect because the mosque you're supposed to cover, and once a man asked me, he said, "How come you don't cover your head?" And I said to him, "How come you don't have a beard and you don't wear that turban and the long gown, because that is Islamic too?"

DR. FAROQUE KHAN: This question is rather an interesting one. If I put this like this, it becomes a controversy. If I put it like this, it becomes fashion. [demonstrating with Arfa's scarf she's wearing]

MR. KRAUSE: But unfortunately, problems of adjustment can't always be turned aside with a joke. Until recently, Muslim communities in America were known to have especially low crime rates. But a year ago in Patterson two Muslim teenagers were charged with the fatal beating of a local fireman outside a tavern on Main Street. The strains of adjustment have also shown up for the Jabers. Rawida, the softball player, is an honor student, but her older brother, Riad, was shot a year ago in a fight over money with a Hispanic youth, a fight that took place just a few blocks from their home. And this spring, Patterson police raided Ali Jaber's house, overturning furniture and tearing out walls and ceilings in a futile effort to find weapons they thought Riad had hidden in the home.

ALI JABER: You don't believe how much we have, we put pressure on them, on the kids. Hey, I don't want you to go out, I don't want you to hang around on 8th Street, I don't want you to hang around here, I don't want you to hang around this guy. Still, sometimes they listen.

ANWAR KHALIL: I think if the Muslim kids that are here now were overseas it would be different though.

MR. KRAUSE: Despite generational tension, sometimes the old ways and the new ways do coexist peacefully. The parents of these kids are descended from the Kutachai, a Turkic ethnic group that was once part of the Ottoman Empire. Many Kutachai emigres wound up in Patterson, so they recently imported a professional dance teacher from Turkey to help keep the ethnic traditions alive.

[CHILDREN DANCING]

MR. KRAUSE: Lura Kedo didn't want to go at first. She already knew ballet and jazz and tap. But her mother was one of the organizers of the dance group, so it was hard to resist. Tradition and family authority pulled her one way. The outside pulled another. That's the way it often is for Muslim families in America today. Devout Muslims are not allowed to drink alcohol. Nor are Muslim women allowed to date or even go out alone with a man before marriage. So the dance class at P.S. 9 served an unstated purpose. Besides keeping old traditions alive, it was also a place where Muslim boys and girls could be together under adult supervision. So far, Muslim life in America has been largely defined by just such strategies, to deal with the everyday problems of adjustment and assimilation. But the next phase for Muslims in America may be far more difficult. Since the World Trade Center bombing last February, Muslims across the country have been forced to battle the fears and suspicions of their neighbors. Many of them didn't want to believe that Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman might have sanctioned terrorism in the United States. But his indictment on charges of terrorist violence will undoubtedly deepen the suspicions of many Americans. Yet, while some Muslims make headlines, others quietly continue the process of Americanization. During the same weeks that the case against Sheik Rahman was being prepared, the girls' softball team at P.S. 9 in Patterson, New Jersey, won the city championship.

MR. LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, the U.S. role in Somalia, and some people who fought the floodwaters. FOCUS - REASSESSING THE MISSION

MR. MacNeil: Next, we focus on the changing U.S. mission in Somalia. President Bush sent 26,000 U.S. troops there last year to restore order and ensure that millions of Somalis were fed. That force was reduced to 4,000 Americans as part of a United Nations force. In June, the nature of the U.N. role changed when the forces of warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. U.S. troops and helicopters led a retaliatory strike on Aidid but failed to catch or kill him. In recent weeks, Aidid forces have killed and wounded more U.N. troops, including Americans. Yesterday, a force of 400 U.S. rangers began arriving in Mogadishu, apparently to be used to neutralize Aidid. Today, Defense Sec. Les Aspin gave a fresh definition of the U.S. purpose and commitment.

LES ASPIN, Secretary of Defense: The food emergency that galvanized international efforts on behalf of the Somali people effectively is over. As direct result of the United Nations humanitarian effort, catastrophic mass starvation was averted. This year's agriculture production is good. There are still pockets of hunger, but reports we received from Mogadishu say there is more than enough food to feed the Somali people. U.N. officials on the scene feel confident enough to bring the emergency food supply effort to a close. Emergency food deliveries, all emergency food deliveries are scheduled to end this month. So on food, very good results. On economics and on the political reconstruction of the country, some progress has been made, but more work needs to be done. Some small shops are reopening. Some schools and orphanages have reopened, and in central Somalia, former government employees are back on the job providing health and education services to the population. Overall, however, economic conditions remain dire, and progress towards political reconciliation has been stalled by the deteriorating security situation in the southern part of the capital. Clearly, UNOSOM has to establish reasonable security in south Mogadishu, but it doesn't end there. Real progress must be made in reducing the heavy weapons in the hands of warlords and effective police forces must be created. The overall effect must be so that no group of armed Somalis should be able to take over the country by force, or to impose their political will and loot the markets, make sure that no political entity, no warlords can do that. When these three conditions are met, south Mogadishu, heavy weapons, police forces in the major unit -- in the major population centers, then I believe that the U.S. quick reaction forces can come back. And we should also note that the most important element of any lasting solution in Somalia must be the Somali people. Just as the International Community has invested greatly in creating conditions for political and economic growth in Somalia, so too must the people of Somalia invest themselves in the reconstruction of their own country. In the meantime, President Clinton has given us clear direction to stay the course with other nations to help Somalia once again provide for its people. This is what the new world asks of American leadership and American partnership.

MR. MacNeil: The evolving U.S. role has prompted a new debate at home, and we sample it now. Andrew Natsios formerly oversaw the U.S. aid effort in Somalia. He's now vice presidentof World Vision US and executive director of World Vision Relief and Development. Said Samatar is a Somali who's a professor at Rutgers University. He's the managing editor of the Horn of Africa Journal. Mr. Natsios, what do you think of Les Aspin's rational for the U.S. presence there now?

MR. NATSIOS: Well, I think his rational was appropriate. The problem is I think he's beginning to forget, as some people are in the U.N. system, the original purpose behind the mission, which was not to take sides politically in Somalia. We are there to be neutral policemen until such time as security is restored and the country is moving again. What's happening now is we are becoming a political force in the country which is very inappropriate. If the Somali people don't want Gen. Aidid, then they could vote against him at some point in the future when elections are held, but simply going after him the way we have since June I think -- we think at World Vision is inappropriate. I might add, we supported the initial intervention, and we supported the response in June to Gen. Aidid's massacre of those Pakistanis. There has to be in every U.N. peacekeeping operation a quick and strong reaction when police forces under the U.N.'s control are attacked. But to go one step further and say we're going to eliminate Gen. Aidid and his clan, which is what is implied by the sending of those rangers is I think very inappropriate and misses the purpose behind the mission in the first place.

MR. MacNeil: You are not disturbed by this turn of events, Mr. Samatar?

MR. SAMATAR: Well, I give this move qualified support. First of all, it's news to me that the Americans have taken sides. I don't believe the Americans have taken sides. It is quite clear that Gen. Aidid has forced the hand of the United Nations and the hand of the American troops when he deliberately massacred peacekeeping troops. As to the question of whether the Somali people want Gen. Aidid or not, Gen. Aidid is an armed warlord, and he has never known to abide by political elections.

MR. MacNeil: Let me just clarify something. You have some history, personal history with Aidid, yourself. You have some reason for animus with him yourself, right?

MR. SAMATAR: Well, I wouldn't call it animus. I would call it a kind of Sunday type quarrel. Gen. Aidid at one time didn't like the broadcasts that I was making from this show and sort of threatened my life, and I had to leave the country. So it is true that Aidid and I are not personal friends. And even then I left in a book of mine which I autographed and said to him that I prayed that chance will allow us to meet in some better circumstances someday.

MR. MacNeil: All right. Just so I understood that. Now, should Aidid be left alone to exert his political influence now in Mogadishu, as Mr. Natsios suggests?

MR. SAMATAR: It depends on the terms by which he is left alone. If Aidid can be persuaded to just stay in the country like an ordinary Somali, participate in the political process, and, indeed, as Mr. Natsios suggested, run for office in a fair election, that's fine, and to the good. But if Gen. Aidid's ambition is to impose himself on the Somali people by force, then that would be counterproductive.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Natsios.

MR. NATSIOS: I don't disagree with Prof. Samatar. The problem is the action that was recently taken, it seems to me, goes far beyond that by suggesting that we were going to either shoot him, which is what's been suggested by the U.N. now for several months, they're going to catch him and put him on trial, or they're going to, they're going to kill him, we are involving ourselves in the political process in Somalia. And I think we're becoming actors when we're supposed to be neutral peacekeepers. When I say "we," I mean the International Community, and we in World Vision and I think other PBOs are nervous that we're going to ruin the very favorable initial model that was created by our -- the intervention of the International Community earlier.

MR. MacNeil: What is the alternative to neutralizing Aidid now, whether he's killed or captured or sent into exile, which is a third alternative I've seen mentioned, what's the alternative to doing that, when his men, according to the United Nations and the U.S. personnel there are out every day, attacking, setting, laying bombs, or exploding delayed action bombs under U.N. vehicles, and killing U.N. peacekeepers?

MR. NATSIOS: Well, the first thing is catching Gen. Aidid is not going to stop that activity. It's going to continue. The problem is the U.N. stopped talking to Aidid somewhere around March or April. I was there in April, and I was disturbed by reports that the U.N. officials were not talking to him any longer as they were other political leaders. Now he's not an easy man to deal with. The warlords are not our favorite people, believe me, but the fact is he is a, a figure of some power, and he needed to be dealt with. By refusing to deal with him essentially what was happening was we gave him no option but to use violence. And that's, that's what's happening. That's what we're seeing the consequences of now.

MR. MacNeil: What do you say to that?

MR. SAMATAR: First, Mr. Natsios has put the problem on his finger, conception of, but I didn't agree with the conclusion he's arrived at. My understanding is Gen. Aidid has been welcomed to participate in the political process, and he was not satisfied with that. He wanted the U.N. and world intervention in Somalia to be a means for him establishing himself in power in the country as a dictator.

MR. MacNeil: Which he feels entitled, he feels entitled to take power, because he was the one that led the forces that overthrew the previous dictator, Siad Bari.

MR. SAMATAR: As a matter of fact, he feels that the country belongs to him by right of conquest even though historically, in fact, he has not run Siad Bari out of town. It was other -- it was general uprising that really ran Siad Bari out of town. Gen. Aidid, himself, came in about a week later.

MR. MacNeil: But then Mr. Natsios, the U.N. gives the impression now, all the statements and the U.S. has gone along with this even though the Defense Department has not said the rangers are there specifically to get him, although the way they're trained might suggest that's what their mission was, that there is no alternative to getting rid of him now, because, well, you heard Aspin say it again, that until the security situation in the south of Mogadishu is settled, there is a danger of the situation just deteriorating to what it was before the U.S. troops went in a year ago.

MR. NATSIOS: Well, first, I think any time U.N. troops are attacked from the United States or from any other country, there needs to be a response. And the notion that we should just sit there and let them shoot at us, as they do in Bosnia and in Cambodia before the elections, is nonsense! I think we need to respond. But we also need to keep open the political negotiating process, which so far as I could tell has been compromised by the attempt of the U.N. to intervene militarily. I don't think we're putting enough emphasis. I might also add --

MR. MacNeil: I just want to make something clear. In saying you approve of the retaliation after the murder, ambush and murder of the 24 Pakistanis, you're not joining that group of people who say that that was aggression, that that response was aggression.

MR. NATSIOS: No. We at World Vision endorsed the initial response. What happened was that response went on, and for a month and a half, which we thought was quite excessive. There were attacks against Gen. Aidid's supporters in, in late July. So they kept this war up. Now they did end that part of the combat operation sometime in late July, but I think they went too far, and they created the clear impression that the U.N. was now no longer a neutral force but had taken sides and was opposing not just Gen. Aidid but the Habigadir clan, which he is one of the leaders of. And I think that's where the U.N. is getting into trouble. And if we start doing it in other complex emergencies around the world, of which there are 17 now, the U.N. is not going to be able to function, because we're going to have our soldiers shot at constantly.

MR. MacNeil: You, I presume, Mr. Samatar, agree with Sec. Aspin that unless Aidid -- he didn't say this -- but he said that unless the security situation in south Mogadishu is, is settled, other warlords would follow Aidid's example, you believe that to be the case, and that the situation would deteriorate again.

MR. SAMATAR: Absolutely. In fact, a great deal is riding on the success. First of all, on the question of success, I have seen a lot of people who are claiming that the U.N. mission in Somalia has been a failure. In fact, I would say that the U.N. intervention in Somalia is a success story, and if you want to know proof of that, one ought to visit Baidoa, the city that I called last year, the city of death, today. Farmers are, have crops. Life has returned to normal all over Somalia. It is a small, it is a small low country in southern Mogadishu that is the problem. Now, if the U.N. cannot deal effectively with a single warlord, how are they going to deal with more complicated problems like Bosnia?

MR. MacNeil: But what about Mr. Natsios' point, that if they do, they will be perceived as taking sides politically and they will compromise similar U.N. roles in the future and other places?

MR. SAMATAR: I don't believe so, because Gen. Aidid and, for example, the Habigadir clan are not one and the same. My information is that many of the Habigadir people do not, in fact, support him, and that he has terrorized many of them. He has killed even some of the leaders of that clan. So the point on which I would disagree with respect to the situation with Mr. Natsios is that were Gen. Aidid to be removed, the Habigadir clan would keep on fighting. I doubt it.

MR. MacNeil: Well, we have a disagreement on that, whether the U.N. is taking sides are not. What about this aspect now? Mr. Aspin says and the President says the U.S. quick reaction troops should stay there until the three conditions he laid out are met. What is your advice to the administration, Mr. Natsios, to pull them out?

MR. NATSIOS: I don't think they should have sent them in the first place. I mean, I have great regard for the U.S. military. I've been in the U.S. reserves for 20 years now. But sending a Delta force in is an extraordinary symbol. I mean, they are among the toughest troops we have in the United States military. If you want to run a peacekeeping operation, send in the military police or strengthen the police force, Somali police force, whichwe started to set up in March. That should have been increased. They should have been armed. They're one of the best police forces even under Siad Bari in Africa, one of the most honest and best disciplined and best trained. That's where the emphasis should be placed. The other point is I think this operation is making Gen. Aidid into a hero or a martyr. If they kill him, he'll be a martyr. If they don't capture him, they'll look, the U.N. operation will look ineffective. So no matter what consequence or what conclusion takes place to this whole thing I think we're going to fail. We're going to look bad. Now, I would agree with Prof. Samatar. Not the critics of the intervention but the U.N. intervention has been successful up to this point. But what's happening now is we're entering a new stage, and it is the new stage that we are disputing. We think they're going too far. The violence is going to escalate now, rather than diminish, and we're making him into a larger political force than he really is. He is, Prof. Samatar is correct that in south Mogadishu, that is where the area of concern is.

MR. MacNeil: Yeah.

MR. NATSIOS: The countryside is improving. It's one of the bumper crops, the best bumper crops the country has had in years that's being harvested right now. Food security is improving.

MR. MacNeil: Let me just ask Mr. Samatar, do you, what's your reaction to Mr. Natsios, that it's wrong to send this Delta force?

MR. SAMATAR: I think, first, his idea that Gen. Aidid is going to become a hero for Somalis is laughable. Aidid is detested by most Somalis, and I think it is quite clear that, from the fact that he can't even visit other regions of the country because he fears for his life. Secondly, if he would pull out now, I think that the outcome could be a nightmarish situation because Gen. Aidid, since he's still the most powerful because he has inherited practically 75 percent of the armaments that belong to the Somalia army, he's going to use that equipment to terrorize Mogadishu and to then march on against the region, and you will have the return of the humanitarian nightmare.

MR. NATSIOS: Let me add, we don't support the withdrawal of U.N. troops right now.

MR. MacNeil: Okay.

MR. NATSIOS: It would be a disaster. We're talking about those 400 Delta troops that send a terrible message.

MR. MacNeil: Okay. I take your point, both of you gentlemen. Thank you very much for joining us.

MR. NATSIOS: Thank you. UPDATE - GOOD SAMARITANS

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight, last month, the NewsHour reported on the plight of the parishioners of the Grace Baptist Church in St. Louis County, Missouri, as they tried to save their homes and church from the summer floods. Tonight, Correspondent Elizabeth Brackett reports on their progress and the people who have come to help them rebuild their lives.

MS. BRACKETT: The water is down along much of the Mississippi, and what is behind is not pretty, $12 billion in damage and dirty, smelly, sticky mud. Homes where the battle to hold back the river was lost looked like this three weeks ago. Today, they look like this. In St. Louis County, Missouri, Virginia Cato surveys her home.

VIRGINIA CATO: This was my dining area right here. I had a couch setting there. I had two chairs over here by the table with a lamp, you know, one of the lamps with a little table around it. I had my TV right in the middle down there, and I had a chair back in that corner.

MS. BRACKETT: And what color were the walls?

VIRGINIA CATO: This was all white.

MS. BRACKETT: White?

VIRGINIA CATO: Mm hm.

MS. BRACKETT: So you had a nice view out the window towards the - -

VIRGINIA CATO: Right, right. Green grass back there. And we could see the deer come back across there.

MS. BRACKETT: Cato shared this once beautiful view of fruit trees and vegetable gardens for three generations. Her daughter and son- in-law, Tom and Betty Scott, live next door. Their son's family is on the other side. Just to the north of the Scott family compound sits the Grace Baptist Church. Last month, the Scotts, church members, and hundreds of volunteers waged a terrific fight to try and save the neighborhood. They built a wall of sandbags nine feet tall and six feet wide.

[CHURCH SERVICE]

MS. BRACKETT: In church, they asked for help.

REVEREND: They're looking at maybe another foot, and -- we need to pray.

MS. BRACKETT: But that afternoon, with millions of gallons of water threatening to burst through the makeshift wall, the fire marshall called the sandbaggers off. A week later, the river was flowing over the wall and through the homes. The church, on slightly higher ground, stayed dry. Standing in his ruined yard where two weeks ago the water would have been over his head, the pain of the loss is still fresh in Tom Scott's mind.

TOM SCOTT: To try to save so hard as we did to save and worked hard to save it and then lose it, that's what was the most frustrating part. All the people really helped you put it together, and they was just as sad and aggravated as we was when they walked away.

MS. BRACKETT: And did you know that it would look this bad if you couldn't save it?

TOM SCOTT: God, no. I didn't think it'd look nothin' like this. The thing of it is that is sad about a flood I've found out, when everybody helps you sandbag it's like a big party. Everybody gets and you got a purpose to accomplish. When it's over with, it's over with, you know. Not sayin' that these people were not comin' back to help you do this and that, but it's, it's, the flood's over with. The news is gone. The flood is history they say and it's not, when you turn the TV on every night and what's goin' to break and whatever, so you don't have the 200 people out here now. And I'm not complainin' -- don't get me wrong -- but the excitement and charisma, whatever, is not here now. It's, it's a cleanup time.

MS. BRACKETT: Excitement or not, 900 miles away in Brookhaven, Pennsylvania, members of the Faith Baptist Church who had seen the coverage of the Scotts' battle to save the neighborhood, felt called upon to organize a group to help with the cleanup.

SPOKESMAN: We just thank you, Lord, that we're all here for one reason, and that's to help somebody in need. We just pray that you would watch over us as we travel, Lord.

MS. BRACKETT: So last Saturday, 38 volunteers, ranging in age from 15 to 73, lined up the vans and took off for St. Louis County. By Monday, they were sweating in the 90-degree heat as they began the backbreaking cleanup work. Tom Scott's daughter-in-law, Jill, was grateful for the help. She and her family had made progress, but the amount of work was staggering. Trying to cope with her year old son also slowed her down.

JILL: [talking to baby] Want to come back again?

SPOKESPERSON: [talking to Jill] He wants down.

JILL: Yeah. You see, you can't get down, sweetheart. It's too dirty around here.

MS. BRACKETT: Inside Jill and Tom Scott, Jr.'s house, the Pennsylvania volunteers helped tear out the wall board and seam insulation, a necessary step in bringing back a flooded house. The next day, the marketing director for a New York investment firm, mans the power scrubber, cleaning the last bits of mud that clung to the frame of the house. A tired Jack Muller said he was glad to help.

JACK MULLER: I think hearing the story of the house, I think being able to be in it and do a little to bring it back, you know, this really seemed like a battle, this house, and then being told that now's the time to give up, and I know they didn't want to give up at that point, you get that sense strong. And we talked about it up at the church, and the pastor up there told us a little about the whole adventure down here, and you would start feeling for them at that point.

MS. BRACKETT: What will you remember about this?

JACK MULLER: Mud.

MS. BRACKETT: As bad as wading through the mud and the muck of the cleanup has been for the Scotts, wading for the bureaucracy as they have tried to find the help that they need has been almost as frustrating.

JILL SCOTT: We got a little bit of insurance, but not a whole lot. We got $10,000, and we figure right now just to replace the windows and the -- this window alone is going to cost me a grand.

MS. BRACKETT: The Scotts had hoped for some federal help to rebuild their gutted home, but they were told they make too much money for a grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. As flood victims, they did qualify for a loan from the Small Business Administration. But the interest rate was 8 percent.

MS. BRACKETT: Does an 8 percent loan do you any good?

TOM SCOTT, JR.: Well, after spending the day talking to different banks, I'm having trouble getting a home equity loan, because there's nothing to look at as far as a house. So it's something we may end up having to do. I don't know. We may just not get a loan at all and just keep trying out of our pocket to get it back together.

MS. BRACKETT: County inspectors have already condemned the home Tom Scott, Sr. rents to his mother-in-law, though Virginia Cato can't quite figure out why.

VIRGINIA CATO: All the structure seems good and sound just to look at it.

MS. BRACKETT: She has gotten a small emergency grant from FEMA to help pay her new rent, but so far there are no federal funds to compensate Tom Scott for his loss on the rental property, though he is eligible for a $5,000 grant from the county.

BETTY SCOTT: The build-in oven, the one you just looked out there, was in here, and then the microwave on top of that, and then a pantry.

MS. BRACKETT: As for the losses on their own home, Tom Scott's wife, Betty, dealt with the FEMA inspector. The Scotts should be eligible for either a grant from FEMA or an SBA loan, but so far they haven't had an answer from either agency.

TOM SCOTT: It's sad, because you lose everything and then you would like to just come back and have everything like it was, and it ain't going to be, you can't afford it, and that's, that's frustrating in itself, you know. But the government, I don't blame them. They, they don't have to replace it, you know. They're doing the best they can in that respect.

MS. BRACKETT: Scott says it will take at least three years before life is anything like it once was. The pastor of the Grace Baptist Church says people are discouraged.

REV. KEN SPILGER, Grace Baptist Church: When you come to the end of it and then you'd have all that mountain of work, the bags don't go away with the water, you know, and the bags have to go. So you have this mountain of work to do. I actually was feeling depressed, and somebody I had never heard of said, we're going to put together a team of people, and we'd like to help. And that was a real encouragement to me, because I felt like, well, we're not just done. We can reach out and still help and work with other people.

MS. BRACKETT: And that's been the story of the flood of 1993, says Spilger, terrible damage, terrible loss, but along with that, a spirit of camaraderie and cooperation that has lasted even after the Mississippi headed back to its banks. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Friday, Defense Sec. Aspin said U.S. combat troops would not leave Somalia until security is restored to the capital, Mogadishu. The U.N. Security Council lifted economic sanctions against Haiti, and U.N. aid convoy remained stranded in the Bosnian city of Mostar. They have been prevented from leaving by Muslim refugees afraid of renewed Croat attacks. Good night, Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Good night, Jim. That's the NewsHour tonight. Join us Monday night for a Newsmaker interview with U.N. Amb. Madeleine Albright and a look at black political leadership 30 years after the march on Washington led by Martin Luther King. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.