For Best Results, Use a Multinational UN Force

In the Opinion page article "US, UN Face Opportunity for Global Peace," Dec. 15, the author provides cogent reasons for changing the way of dealing with the breakdown of civil order in future Somalias.

Instead of sending in dominant United States forces only tangentially under United Nations auspices, he calls for a more multinational force under UN command, utilizing national contingents from selected countries. This strikes me as a suitable interim measure.

However, to reduce the chance of political opportunism by certain governments in deciding whether to commit troops, and to avoid the political acceptability of having national contingents suffering casualties, one should work for a different goal: to establish - sooner rather than later - a truly multinational force of volunteers from any country.

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Recalling the effective Mogul armies whose polyglot soldiers used the military language of Urdu, the UN forces would be trained together and would use the international language of English. John O. Sutter, San Rafael, Calif.


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