Horror comes home: Somalis exulting over a US corpse, a captured pilot bruised and terrified: these pictures have changed America's mind sbout Somalia and the world. Peter Pringle Reports

The power of the single image of the GI's corpse being dragged through the streets of Somalia was measured in the polls. All of a sudden Americans just wanted their boys back; establishing stable government in Somalia didn't really matter any more.

For weeks last year they had watched pictures of emaciated Somalis with fly-covered, distended bellies dying in their thousands while local warlords plundered and pillaged their depleted foodstocks. By December, when George Bush announced he was sending in the marines as the last gesture of his presidency, he had overwhelming public support. Few questioned his motives, though they were far from clear. Was this a genuine humanitarian gesture or a good exit line? Few spoke, or even thought, of the possibility of failure, at least out loud. The images from the Horn of Africa were of cheering Somalis welcoming GIs bringing food and grain to a nation on the verge of extinction.

Last week the Somalis were cheering again, but the pictures were of that near-naked US corpse, so grotesque that newspapers and magazine editors declined to put them on their front pages. But they did print the scarred and bruised face of the downed US army helicopter pilot Michael Durant staring, numb with fear, at the camera held by his Somali captors. Inevitably, Durant triggered another American phobia: hostages.

Once again the images of war have overwhelmed Americans, just as they did a quarter of a century ago in Vietnam.

A deluge of pictures of the dead and wounded GIs from the battle in Mogadishu on Sunday 3 October, stories of their final minutes of agony, the funerals in Arlington cemetery, the interviews with relatives, and the discovery of GIs' last letters home, have been enough to turn ardent internationalists into instant isolationists.

The feeling is intensified because of the botched job that led to the GIs getting killed. They were members of the elite Ranger Battalion who ran into an ambush and had to wait hours to be rescued. Old warriors have recalled how the First Ranger Battalion was destroyed at Anzio in 1944 because of bad planning, and two companies were routed in Korea for the same reason.

The result of all this remorseful recollection is that most Americans appear to have lost the stomach for a fight in Somalia; or, probably, for one in Bosnia or Haiti, or indeed in any other distant lands to which their President may wish to send them in order to counter the new world disorder.

The long-term effects of this sudden and pervasive sentiment can only be guessed at: an end to American participation in international peace-keeping efforts; missed opportunities to breathe new life into a bankrupt and beleaguered United Nations; a proliferation of small pockets of political instability that by themselves may be of little consequence, but which taken together could become a serious threat to world peace.

More than any US president before him, perhaps, the draft-dodging Bill Clinton can send his men into battle only if American public opinion is behind him. But America's collective memory is now so full of ghostly images of GIs at risk in questionable conflicts - from Vietnam, to Beirut, to Panama - that public opinion may never get behind the President.

In a national outpouring of grief, remorse and criticism of the Clinton administration's policy, Americans did not see what their soldiers had done to the other side. They were not shown the pictures of the 200 Somalis that the international Red Cross estimated had died in the battle and the hundreds of wounded piled into hospitals short of drugs and plasma.

Within hours of the battle, in which 17 Rangers were killed and more than 70 wounded, the television image-makers compounded the shame and agony by interviewing Chief Warrant Officer Durant's equally numb and scared relatives. Last letters home of the fallen were reprinted. In his letters, Private First Class Richard Kowalewski, a 20-year-old Ranger, spoke of the days before he died. 'I kept waking up all night long. I sleep in the corner of our tent. I must have rolled over and stared at the stars for hours . . . There are a few times in a person's life that really make him or her think. One of those being when you think it might be your time to go . . . I'm being as careful as I can. I carry a loaded weapon with me everywhere I go. I don't hesitate one bit showing it to the faces of those Somalis that are always around us.'

James Martin, a member of the US Quick Reaction Force, was also killed on 3 October. He wanted to go to Somalia to 'kick butt' as his father had done in Korea, but he had lost faith in what he was doing in Somalia and complained about the shortage of troops and equipment. Before he was killed he had begged his father: 'Call your Congressman, call everybody. We're desperate to get help.'

Such images of a war gone awry are more powerful than a president's words, as Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon found out. In smaller frame they can abruptly end the career of a secretary of state, as Cyrus Vance conceded over Jimmy Carter's abortive mission to rescue the hostages in the Tehran embassy. As pictures of the burning transport planes that had collided in a desert sandstorm came home, Mr Vance did the honourable thing and quit the administration.

In Somalia, as in Vietnam, with the images come the buzzwords. In Vietnam they were 'quagmire' and 'light at the end of the tunnel'. The old buzzwords have been replaced with new ones: 'exit strategy' and 'date certain' (for withdrawal) but they beg the same question. 'Will our boys be home by Christmas?' This time people don't want to wait. 'Bring 'em home', the headlines blared.

In an explosion of outrage and concern for the troops still in Somalia, thousands of citizens telephoned and wrote to their Congressmen demanding to know what could possibly justify the continued presence of GIs. Wives of the GIs in Somalia who left from Fort Drum in northern New York State quickly formed their own lobby group calling for immediate withdrawal of US forces.

The power of the single image of the GI's corpse being dragged through the streets was measurable. When asked in a poll whether US troops should withdraw immediately, 33 per cent of those who had not seen the picture answered yes, compared with 50 per cent of those who had seen it. When asked what should be an important goal of the US in Somalia, 96 per cent said making sure US prisoners were released, 89 per cent said bringing the troops home as soon as possible. Only 43 per cent said establishing stable government in Somalia - the original reason for staying beyond last May and helping the UN forces.

For many Congressmen, the fact that US forces must operate with the United Nations is the best reason why Americans should be kept at home. No one doubts that the fiasco of the UN operation in Somalia will make it even more difficult for Mr Clinton to win congressional approval for sending 25,000 troops to help to enforce an eventual peace agreement in Bosnia, and the first 250 US troops due in Haiti on Tuesday under a UN mandate have yet to land because of the lack of a 'permissive environment' - another new buzzword, meaning 'the local police don't want them'.

The new isolationist mood in Congress was best summed up by Senator Robert Byrd, a Democrat from West Virginia, who told senators: 'I do not see in the front of this chamber the UN flag. I have never saluted the UN flag. I salute Old Glory, the American flag.'

(Photographs omitted)