Conference back40::soapbox

    ...Any action taken will likely be minimal.  The Serbs do not take the
    UN seriously, and the UN has lost it's credibility in this one.  The
    politics in this one will probably spur an entire library of analysis
    and biographies.  I believe that Politics has essentially sunk the UN,
    and the time to respond has long since past...anything that is done now
    will only muddy the waters and polarize the political groups further.
    ...if ever there was an example of a no win situation, this surely
    rises to the top...It will take a someone with real savy and a new
    approach to problem solving to work through this one...the existing
    participants do not have the necessary abilities (IMHO)
    
    Rod
                                                           

    The UN has an opportunity to rescue its damaged credibility.  Taking
    hostages of UN peacekeepers is a blatant affront.  It is also the
    perfect excuse for the cowardly governments that now finally have
    something worthwhile to use in PR to protect their domestic
    reputations- "we must go in to get the peacekeepers out" and to tell
    the rest of the worlds' bullies that it isn't nice to fool with mother
    UN.  Quite sad that its come to this; the UN position is so much weaker
    than it was three or four years ago that only a huge military operation
    will salvage it.
    
    If the UN is not coordinating a massive response secretly, right now,
    than it is doomed to irrelevence within a few more short years.
    
    DougO

    <---- I agree, something must be done, and soon, but I fear that there
    is still too much Political showmanship up for grabs, and the same
    people that have been stalling the process up to now, are still there. 
    As long as they see this as an opportunity to futher there careers,
    by pulling a successful political solution out of their hat, they will
    continue to hinder the UN.  Again, I see this as a no win situation...
    
    
    Rod

    
    This British Public take on it is that given the history of
    British involvement in the Balkans, they should have kept
    out of the whole debacle.  It can only get very messy from
    here on in.  The Conservative gov't would love a little war
    to divert attention from their plight and indulge in a bit of
    jingoism. 

    
      So something must be done, eh ?  No, so sorry, nothing must be done.
    
      Sending more armies/weapons with no discernible mission into an
     already wartorn land will do NOTHING.
    
      Wipe your Sesame Street brain clean - war is death, it is ALWAYS evil
     and brutal and catastrophic for the participants.  Best advice : don't
     attend wars.  Second best advice : when you don't follow best advice,
     you go in shooting and you keep shooting till nobody else is.
    
      bb

    
    re: Note 442.5
    
    >>  No, so sorry, nothing must be done.
    
    What do we do then?  Turn our backs while people get murdered?
    How many millions have died in the past, while others hide behind 
    pacifism?  Do we just let the killing go on?
     
    I admit I don't have an answer, wish I did.  But I have a hard time 
    just turning my back on these folks.  I've been watching them get
    killed on TV for the past 4 years or so.  
    Maybe someone should make the Bosnian Serbs pay for it.  Perhaps
    their cities should be made to resemble Sarejevo. 
    
    al

    Uhhnn - Stupid Question (maybe a little late but...)
    
    What in the h*ll are we supposed to be doing in there anyway?
    
    Dan

    .8
    
    > What in the h*ll are we supposed to be doing in there anyway?
    
    Keeping warlords from killing civilians, either by weapons fire or by
    starvation.  Failing on both counts, we are.

    > Sending more armies/weapons with no discernible mission into an
    > already wartorn land will do NOTHING.
    
    I mentioned the mission.  Getting the peacekeepers out.  Follow along.
    
    THEN, we leave them alone.  Its a tragic calculus; but the peacekeeping
    mission, while preserving some hundreds of thousands from war for this
    long, from starving for this long, has collapsed.  It is ultimately a
    failure.  It is time to forcibly extract the peacekeepers and withdraw
    the soldiers entirely.  We abandon hundreds of thousands of civilians;
    until their own leaders find ways to end the killing.  And we renounce
    our facetious western arrogance about security matters.
    
    DougO

Someone mentioned in a possible solution in EF, a vague paraphrasing
being that the UN should arm the conflicting sides and let themselves
give each other a good slapping, then when their forces are sufficiently
depleted the UN can wade in without too much risk of repercussions on
a wider scale.  Only problem is, the politicrats don't like that sort
of solution and will argue about it for decades to come.

Chris.

    ...a military solution to extraction of the UN seems inevitable, if not
    this time, then the next time hostages are taken.  A full scale let's
    go in a knock a few heads together shoot em' up won't work (IMHO). 
    There are too many countries in bad financial and political strife at
    this time in our  history.  Any or all of these countries would love
    nothing better than a major heat up of the world's stability right now. 
    This would benefit them by focusing attention away from their domestic
    troubles, and give a new blood-sport for the masses to follow, and
    there is always the chance that some Political Hack might get lucky and
    do something important enough to earn themselves a place in the History
    books...with the potential of dragging in (and up) old polarizations
    (East/West, North/South, Russian/American, Us/Them), the risks here are
    too great!
    
    
    Rod

    An American viewpoint:
    
    It's a European problem that must be solved by European countries. If
    non-Europeans get involved, you're asking for a repeat performance of
    WWI and WWII...(imho)
    			Jim

A European viewpoint (even though Britain isn't part of Europe)

It's a Yugoslavian problem that must be solved by the Yugoslavians.  If
non-Yugoslavians get involved, you're asking for a repeat performance of
WWI and WWII...

Chris.

    
    re, .10 - OK, so you want to get the hostages, er peacekeepers, out.
    Since they are our allies, I'd like to get them out too.  There they
    are, chained to bombing targets, pinioned on the front of armored
    vehicles as living shields.  Since this situation is their own fault,
    it's a tad embarassing, no ?  What do you suppose landing troops will
    result in ?
    
      I think it would be wiser to send Carter again, myself.  We could
    beg the Serbs for mercy, for example.
    
      bb

The British Army is starting to deploy there.  So far it's a token
gesture, apparently to reinforce the UN position, but I find myself
wondering if this is merely a gesture or the thin end of the wedge.

Chris.

    > What do you suppose landing troops will result in ?
    
    There are several scenarios.  The problem with ground warfare in
    ex-yugoslavia has always been that the indigent forces need merely
    melt into the mountains and conduct guerilla warfare.  Were we to
    conduct a long campaign that's what they'd do.  On the other hand, we
    don't have to conduct that kind of operation.  We can put in massive
    special forces, shoot where and who we have to, get the hostages
    released, and leave.  I fully expect that the operation is being
    planned right now.
    
    What do you suppose sending in Jimmy Carter will result in?
    
    DougO

    > What do you suppose sending in Jimmy Carter will result in?
    
    He could build a couple of "Habitat for Humanity" houses in Sarajevo?

    .13
    
    Jim, if it's just a European problem, then you can't blame them
    if they told Clinton to keep his bleeping mouth shut.  Most reports
    I've watched indicated that the actions taken against UN troops
    escalated when Clinton spoke out and said bombing raids should
    increase.
    
    

    
    The small town bully is now a monster - and I mean the Bosnian
    Serb leader - karadich?? the UN and the rest of the western govt
    as many noter said before are ineffective, pansy POLITICIANS. I
    don't believe for an instant that they have any interest to end
    the problem - seeing them sitting their asses in non-ending meetings
    mean zilch. 
    
    Since the Serbs only understand and operate under brutality, they
    should be treated to such NOW. You see we think we can reason with
    2 year olds too, but we know, sometimes spanking helps. This is the
    case with the inhumane Bosnian Serbs. We've let them bully EVERYBODY
    (UN, Nato etc al) for the last 4 effing years, so what we expect? A
    cowering Serb empire ?!
    
    So let's take Karadich out - kill the snake by cutting its head. They
    think tribally so the action has to be something they can relate to.
    Yes, it'll cost lives, it already has, so what's the difference, if
    the outcome justifies it?

    Poisonally... I think Clinton should shut the a**hole under his nose
    and stay the hell out of it. nuff said.
    
    I'm sure the British have got a pretty good hold over things. People
    are to humanitarian and 'nice' nowadays to get anything done.

    
    once upon a time taking HM soldiers hostage would bring on Kitchner
    Lord of Odurman to supress the dervish masses.
    
    

A rescue mission is probably a bad idea.

Oh,  not that it might work,  it might.  But if it didn't,  you would then
have the rescue forces to rescue.  And so on.

A massive ground invasion might work.  Oh yes,  the Serbs would melt into 
the mountains and conduct guerrilla warfare.  But there is an out from the
war:  give the Bosnian forces heavy weapons so that they can fight toe to
toe with the Serbs.  Then leave.  Sure,  might be some ugly battles later, 
but it would be an equal opportunity killing field,  with no side gaining. 
Unlike the current situation,  where Bosnian Serbs are looking to seize
land.


Phil

    There is *NO* US security or economic interest in Bosnia and therefore
    we should stay out of it, period.
    
    those pushing US military involvement should feel free to show their 
    bravado by going to Bosnia and volunteer to fight against serbs. It is
    so easy to sit in front of a tv, get mad at the serbs and expect someone
    else to risk their life to make you feel good. firing angry notes is 
    easy, cheap and risk free.  
    
    if europeans (including uk) want to solve a european problem, its
    their business and their call.
    

    
    RE: Note 442.24 
    
    >  those pushing US military involvement should feel free to show their
    >  bravado by going to Bosnia and volunteer to fight against serbs. 
    
    Actually some us did, just a different war with different people.
    There too, were people in need, just as there are people in need now.
    
    al
    

    It's hard to disagree with common sense.  If this is indeed a European
    problem , then let the Wheels continue to turn.
    
    ...The only issue that I can see where this philosophy breaks down, is
    around the UN (United Nations).  They are rapidly loosing credibility
    over this, and there short-comings, and political leashes are
    undermining the UN as a viable representative for policing a truce.
    
    ...If the UN cannont solve this problem, by whatever
    means (Political/Armed response/or other), then they have effectively
    presented a position of incompetance, and will have little or no future
    abilities to police problems in other countries. (IMHO)
    
    
    Rod

    >> >>  those pushing US military involvement should feel free to show their
    >> >>  bravado by going to Bosnia and volunteer to fight against serbs. 
    
    >> Actually some us did, just a different war with different people.
    
    Those of you who did, if you volunteered to go there and risk your
    lives, then that was your choice, which of course you had every right
    to make, and good for you, and we salute you.
    
    But it's presumptuous for any of us to force our fellow countrymen
    whose job it is to defend the United States of America, to go all
    over the world to fight and die in other people's fights.  If they
    wish to volunteer for such a mission, that again should be their
    choice.  But I wouldn't presume to say that we have an obligation
    to "do something".  We've lost more than enough of our relatives
    and friends over the last several decades.
    
    Just because someone "needs help" doesn't mean that we're obligated
    to send our people off to die for them.  Our country is still suffering
    from the last several such misadventures we've undertaken.  Enough,
    let's back off for a while.
    
    Chris

    re: .27
    
    >> ...political leashes are
    >> undermining the UN as a viable representative for policing a truce.
    
    If the U.N. is to be the World Police, then let them (try to)
    recruit and assemble a group of volunteers from all over the 
    world to form the U.N. Army, instead of leeching off sovereign
    nations' existing armed forces to do their dirty work for them.
    
    
    >> [U.N.] will have little or no future
    >> abilities to police problems in other countries. (IMHO)
    
    Many people would like this just fine...
    
    Chris

    Re .24:
    
    > There is *NO* US security or economic interest in Bosnia and therefore
    > we should stay out of it, period.

    There is a human interest.
    
    I can understand why you wish your economic interests protected.  I can
    understand why you want to be secure.  Do you not also wish to be
    human?
    
    
    				-- edp
    
    
Public key fingerprint:  8e ad 63 61 ba 0c 26 86  32 0a 7d 28 db e7 6f 75
To find PGP, read note 2688.4 in Humane::IBMPC_Shareware.

    re: 30
    
    >> Do you not also wish to be human?
    
    Is it "human" to salvage misplaced guilt by sending your fellow
    countrymen to their deaths, and asking their survivors to suffer
    those losses for the rest of their lives?
    
    If that's "human", then count me out.
    
    Chris

    .30 ::EDP has, with great precision, hit the very essence of this
        dilmena. 
    
        The moral imperative regarding genocide, atrocities, and civil
        rights violations are the things that the world is turning their
        backs to just as it did in the late 30's and early 40's Europe.
    
        That's the decision faced by the world. Either stand up and do
        the morally dignifying thing or turn your backs and close your eyes
        completely and get the hell out. Let's face it, there is no
        graceful and honorable to do either at this point.
    
        Oh ya, and be prepared to help clean up the mess later with some
        sort of economic aid.
    
        Chip

    	The problem with "being human" arises when those you want to
    	help neither want your human compassion, nor want to "be human" 
    	themselves.

    .33
    
    And can we assume that the thousands of starving, brutalized civilians
    in Bosnia don't want our human compassion?  Or would we be wiser to go
    on the premise that they are being manipulated, by a small minority of
    militant fanatics?  I think I'll take the latter premise, thanks.

    
    re. 30 - oh, I see.  I'm inhuman, not sending in US ground troops.
    
    Go ahead, read me out of the human race.  You can follow the cynical
    military manipulations of Clinton. Real human carpetbombing, you'll do.
    
      bb

So, to the `we shouldn't get involved' fraternity, perhaps we (the
outside world) should just build a large wall around the former
Yugoslavia and let them beat the crap out of each other, civilians
and all?  So much for civilisation...

Chris.

        >> The moral imperative regarding genocide, atrocities, and civil
        >> rights violations are the things that the world is turning their
        >> backs to just as it did in the late 30's and early 40's Europe.
    
    That may be your moral imperative.  My moral imperative says that
    I will not send thousands of my countrymen to their deaths for a
    cause that is not ours, nor will I force their loved ones to endure
    their loss.  My moral imperative says that people should work out
    their own problems, and that we will assist with negotiation,
    financial aid, material goods, but we will not put our own people
    at peril.
    
        >> That's the decision faced by the world. Either stand up and do
        >> the morally dignifying thing or turn your backs and close your eyes
        >> completely and get the hell out. 
    
    Again, that's your definition of the "morally dignifying" thing.
    I don't consider it "morally dignifying" to send U.S. troops to
    die for anything other than the defense of the United States.
    And it's not "closing our eyes" at all.  It's making a reasoned,
    informed decision with the correct priorities.  The United States
    is under no obligation, moral or otherwise, to endlessly sacrifice
    our young men and women to the entire world.
    
    Chris

    Bosnia-Herzegovina (sp) is the Kitty Genovese of europe.

    come on Chris... do we need to debate the legitimacy of morality
    about what's going on over there? i'll give you more credit than
    that and not entertain that dialog.
    
    the question is involvement or non-involvement - right or wrong on
    a basis of morality. that's the difference.
    
    what's going on over there is immoral.
    
    what we or anyone does to address it may be the moral choice we argue.
    
    Chip 
    

>> So, to the `we shouldn't get involved' fraternity, perhaps we (the
>> outside world) should just build a large wall around the former
>> Yugoslavia and let them beat the crap out of each other, civilians
>> and all?  
    
    I don't care what "the outside world" does about this.  The United
    States should do nothing at all.  As for the rest of you, have at
    it, if that's what you want to do, but don't drag us into it.
    
    If people want to "beat the crap out of each other", so be it.
    I'm not going to step into the crossfire of a gang war on the
    streets of Boston, for example, so why should I risk myself for
    this?  And if I'm not willing to risk myself, I'm certainly not
    hypocritical enough to insist on risking others.
    
>> So much for civilisation...
    
    My definition of "civilization" does not include the U.S.
    offering an unending supply of puppets to die for foreign wars.
    One would hope that the world's definition of "civilization"
    would ultimately involve peace, as opposed to the endless
    drum-beating to get involved in more and bigger wars.
    
    Other definitions of "civilization" are well-documented in
    one bloody war after another in the history books, as well as
    the nightly news.  If that's civilization, I'll take my version
    instead.
    
    Chris

    >> come on Chris... do we need to debate the legitimacy of morality
    >> about what's going on over there? i'll give you more credit than
    >> that and not entertain that dialog.
    
    If you re-read your earlier note, you'll see that you were attempting
    to take the "moral high ground" with your position, and you did not
    acknowledge that there is another morality here, the morality of
    not sacrificing your fellow countrymen, while finding other ways
    to attain peace.
    
    Of course what's going on over there is immoral.  But we must weigh
    that against the painful lessons we've learned in our past, losing
    so many of our own people to other wars whose justifications seem
    to fade as time goes by.  But the pain goes on.
    
    The point I was trying to make is that there's moral justification
    for both points of view, and it's not a no-brainer decision.
    
    Chris

We should not go in... The fueding parties involved in this conflict
have been at each others throats for a long long time. By going in, we
will not solve ANYTHING. Both sides hate each other. That will NEVER
change. Look at what the communists did. They kept the peace for many
decades, but did that change their hatred? Nope. The first chance they
got, they began to kill each other. Unless you want the US involved in
that place for oh, at least 100 years in order to clean the slate and
wipe the hatefull memories from the minds of the people there, then 
going in would be a wasted effort. 

This is why we should NOT go in. There are plenty of places in the world
besides this place where people are killing each other. If your reason is
for humanity, then we must go in and police the whole world. Are you 
ready to make this case? If not, then you shouldn't support going into 
Bosnia...

Iraq took over another country, along with a lot of oil. That was enough
reason to push Iraq back into it's borders. Haiti, Somolia, Bosnia - they
are all internal matters. We should not get involved.

/scott

    .42
    
    > Both sides hate each other. That will NEVER
    > change.
    
    This is, of course, well documented by the interviews I heard on the
    radio recently, in which Bosnians were asked whether the Tuzla shelling
    and the Sarajevo attacks will estrange them from their Croat and Serb
    neighbors.  They answered strongly in the negative.  They said that
    there are always some nutters, but that they'd lived side by side with
    members of the other groups and had formed friendships that would not
    wither simply because the nutters were out there killing and maiming.

>They said that
>there are always some nutters, but that they'd lived side by side with

"always some nutters"??? Huh??? This WAR has been going on for how long
now? And it's just caused by "some nutters"??? 

BTW - don't trust the media's spin on the events. They would LOVE for us
to go to war, since it'll make more money for them...

/scott

    .44
    
    This WAR is caused by a relatively small number of people who wish to
    exercise power over a much larger number of others even if such
    exercise entails killing the others.  That's a fair description of a
    nutter, I think.

Re a few back

sod the morality, but I thought that civilisation was about looking
after each other.  When you start to say `I'm not getting involved,
it's not my problem' then where does it end?  Should we go back to
the times of tribal feuding?

Chris.

    Re .31:
    
    > Is it "human" to salvage misplaced guilt by sending your fellow
    > countrymen to their deaths, and asking their survivors to suffer
    > those losses for the rest of their lives?

    To their deaths?  When oil was at stake, the US proved quite capable of
    killing 100,000 to 200,000 Iraqis with minimal US casualties.  (What
    was it, a dozen?)  But now that only human suffering, not oil, is at
    stake, we cannot risk US soldiers?  Today's armed forces are not
    draftees; they signed up voluntarily, with full knowledge they could be
    called upon to earn their pay.  Our troops have expressed their
    satisfaction on prior peace-keeping missions.  They may well prefer to
    fight for humane reasons than for oil.
    
    Instead of asking a few US families to suffer, you condemn tens or
    hundreds of thousands of Bosnians to suffer.  I place no lesser value
    on the lives of people in foreign countries, with funny languages, skin
    colors, or religions, than I do on the lives of people in the US.  Do
    you?
    
    To those who will not support a fight against ethnic "cleansing", a
    fight against genocide, a fight against crimes against humanity, expect
    no support from anyone else in your dirty fights for oil and power.
    
    
    				-- edp
    
    
Public key fingerprint:  8e ad 63 61 ba 0c 26 86  32 0a 7d 28 db e7 6f 75
To find PGP, read note 2688.4 in Humane::IBMPC_Shareware.
    

    Re .35:
    
    > You can follow the cynical military manipulations of Clinton.
    
    Apparently the person following Clinton's manipulations here is you. 
    Clinton's current and slight backing of possible increases of troops in
    Bosnia are new -- they are changes from his earlier position.  My
    acceptance of the need to send peace-keeping forces into Bosnia stems
    from the earliest reports of ethnic "cleansing" and concentration
    camps, long prior to Clinton's politicking.  Indeed, for a long time
    Clinton neglected the suffering in Bosnia, even while he sent US troops
    to fight over oil.
    
    > My moral imperative says that I will not send thousands of my
    > countrymen to their deaths for a cause that is not ours,
    
    		Cause:			United States' position:
    
    		Oil			Ours
    
    		Human suffering		Not ours
    
    Keeping your car running, that's a cause worth dying for.  But killing
    Muslims, that's okay.
    
    > I don't consider it "morally dignifying" to send U.S. troops to
    > die for anything other than the defense of the United States.

    Why should police officers risk themselves to defend you?  Why should
    firefighters?  Is the neighboring town any different than the
    neighboring country?  Should firefighters from the neighboring town
    lend their assistance fighting a big fire in your town?  Or should they
    refuse it as undignified to risk their lives to help you?  Should the
    army never send troops from other states to assist with recovering from
    a natural disaster in your state?  What makes the human beings in
    Bosnia so different from your neighbors that you would send help to
    your neighbors but not to Bosnians?
    
    
    				-- edp
    
    
Public key fingerprint:  8e ad 63 61 ba 0c 26 86  32 0a 7d 28 db e7 6f 75
To find PGP, read note 2688.4 in Humane::IBMPC_Shareware.

Eric, should we have sent troops to Rwanda?  How about Afghanistan?

    Re .42:
    
    > Haiti, Somolia, Bosnia - they are all internal matters. We should not
    > get involved.
    
    The events in Bosnia are not internal matters.  The Bosnian Serbs are
    being aided by Serbia, which is external.
    
    > If your reason is for humanity, then we must go in and police the
    > whole world.
    
    Helping one person to their feet does not obligate you to help every
    person.
    
    > . . . The fueding parties involved in this conflict have been at each
    > others throats for a long long time. By going in, we will not solve
    > ANYTHING. Both sides hate each other.
    
    Two of the three sides reached an agreement they could live by, and the
    established government wants peace.  The Serbs are not merely feuding;
    they are attempting to commit genocide.
    
    
    				-- edp
    
    
Public key fingerprint:  8e ad 63 61 ba 0c 26 86  32 0a 7d 28 db e7 6f 75
To find PGP, read note 2688.4 in Humane::IBMPC_Shareware.

       <<< Note 442.50 by RUSURE::EDP "Always mount a scratch monkey." >>>

>    Helping one person to their feet does not obligate you to help every
>    person.
    
    	Why should this person be the one you say we should help?
    
    	Did you support sending troops to Viet Nam?

    re: .47
    
    >> To their deaths?
    
    That is the usual result of such violent activity, if history
    serves as any indicator, particularly in the kind of ground war
    that we're about to go globe-trotting into on this occasion.
    
    
    >> When oil was at stake, the US proved quite capable of
    >> killing 100,000 to 200,000 Iraqis with minimal US casualties.  (What
    >> was it, a dozen?) 
    
    First, I did not agree with the decision to fight the Gulf War,
    so your entire oil vs. humanity scenario is inoperative for me.
    
    Second, a ground war in Bosnia is a very different kind of war
    than the air war in Iraq, and we would suffer many more deaths.
    If you want to compare the battle conditions to some other war,
    Korea or Vietnam would be a closer analogy.
    
    
    >> But now that only human suffering, not oil, is at
    >> stake, we cannot risk US soldiers?  
    
    "Only" is your term, not mine, and I do not agree with the "only"
    part.  And, like I said, I did not agree with the decision to fight
    the Gulf War, so your "if one was okay then so is the other" doesn't
    apply for me.  The first one wasn't okay, either.
    
    
    >> Today's armed forces are not
    >> draftees; they signed up voluntarily, with full knowledge they could be
    >> called upon to earn their pay. 
    
    They volunteered to defend the United States, with full knowledge
    that they could be called upon to earn their pay by defending the
    United States.  If you are claiming that all of the armed forces have
    explicitly or implicitly agreed to fight other countries' wars
    all over the world, or to be assigned to United Nations missions
    and commanders, I can tell you that is not the case.
    
    
    >> Our troops have expressed their
    >> satisfaction on prior peace-keeping missions.  
    
    Some, but not all, of them have.  Many of our troops have also
    expressed their dissatisfaction on prior peace-keeping missions.
    I've read and/or heard many such accounts.
    
    
    >> They may well prefer to
    >> fight for humane reasons than for oil.
    
    As stated earlier, the oil issue is irrelevant.  It is true that
    individual servicepeople may prefer to fight in this war.  Members of
    the U.S. armed services should be given the choice to volunteer (or
    not) for this particular assignment.  I'd said in my original reply on
    this topic that an all-volunteer force for this specific war would be
    quite reasonable.  I know of at least one who is marked for assignment
    to this mission, who believes that under the current plans, it will be
    a "massacre".  Against us, that is.
    
    
    >> Instead of asking a few US families to suffer, you condemn tens or
    >> hundreds of thousands of Bosnians to suffer.  
    
    I condemn no one to anything.  The people over there using the guns and
    bombs and other weapons are condemning.  That is most unfortunate, and
    we should use any means, short of putting our people's lives in jeopardy,
    to assist in the cessation of this war.
    
    
    >> I place no lesser value
    >> on the lives of people in foreign countries, with funny languages, skin
    >> colors, or religions, than I do on the lives of people in the US.  Do
    >> you?
    
    "Funny" is your term, not mine, and I don't agree that they have
    "funny" languages, skin colors, or religions.  Their languages, skin
    colors, and religions may be different, but that certainly does not
    give the people a lesser value.  Nor a greater value, for that matter. 
    A human life is a human life, wherever it is.
    
    Considering the equal intrinsic values of their lives, then, if I were
    a commander-in-chief (or even a non-combatant-in-chief), and put into a
    situation where I was forced to make a life-or-death decision between
    one American life and one life from another country, and one or the
    other must die, and I could choose to save only one, then I would
    choose to save the American.  I don't apologize for loving my country
    and my fellow countrymen.  I'd also save someone from my own family
    before I'd save a stranger.  It's the same phenomenon.  I suspect
    that most people from other countries would make the same choice,
    to save their own countrymen.  Why is that choice denied to Americans?
    
    
    >> To those who will not support a fight against ethnic "cleansing", a
    >> fight against genocide, a fight against crimes against humanity, expect
    >> no support from anyone else in your dirty fights for oil and power.
    
    I will support all efforts in this fight that involve negotiations,
    economic sanctions, economic aid, materials, and so on, but I will
    never support sending Americans to their deaths and asking our
    mothers/fathers/ sons/daughters to stoically bear the losses forever
    from yet another bloody, barbaric, distant battlefield.
    
    "My" dirty fights for oil and power?  Which fights are those?  I've
    never approved of any dirty fights for oil and power, nor do I expect
    or desire any "support" for such.
    
    Is this what we as a nation are reduced to?  If we don't fight War A,
    don't expect any support when we want to fight War B?  Okay, you've
    got a deal.  I won't fight either one.
    
    I desire for the United States to leave others alone, and to be left
    alone in return.  It works locally, it should work globally.
    
    Chris

    
    If it's a matter of external interference then it's strange
    how precious few of those petrodollars seem to have found their way 
    into the hands of the badly-armed Bosnian muslims. 
    
    This doesn't have to be an intrusive intervention:
    
     o Pull out the UN ground forces.
    
     o Tell Russia to go fork itself, and face sanctions if it
       clandestinely supplies Serbia.  Boris wants that foreign
       currency more than the admiration of his Serbian clients.
    
     o Make the bordering states adhere to their signed copies of the
       UN Charter under threat of sanctions.  Most are as economically
       badly off as Russia.
    
     o Blockade the Ionian sea.
    
     o Instigate a total land blockade, placing UN troops at each major
       border crossing.  Allow only food and medicine in.
    
     o Continue to attack armaments storage and manufacturing sites
       on both sides, and attack Serbian supply lines if they fail
       to hold the arms embargo.
    
    Other nations are supplying this war with arms and munitions.
    there is only a small local capacity for manufacturing and with a total
    REAL embargo, the whole thing would soon drop down to a level at which
    the UN could intervene with low potential casualties.
    
    Yes, it means prolonging the human misery further, but at least it's
    better than this half-assed attempt at protection.
    
    Colin
    
    
    
    
    
     

    re: .48
    
    >> 		Cause:			United States' position:
    >> 
    >>		Oil			Ours
    >>
    >>		Human suffering		Not ours
    >>
    >> Keeping your car running, that's a cause worth dying for.  But killing
    >> Muslims, that's okay.
    
    See my previous reply.  Keeping my car running is not a cause worth
    dying for.  Killing Muslims is not okay.
    
    Why are you attributing positions to me that I have never espoused?
    
    
    >> Why should police officers risk themselves to defend you?
    
    Because that is exactly what they volunteered to do.  They didn't
    volunteer to, for example, ferret out foreign spies or to get
    involved in federal crimes, which would be the correct analogy.
    The United States Armed Forces volunteered to defend the United
    States, and that is the limit of their obligation (and ours).
    
    
    >> Is the neighboring town any different than the
    >> neighboring country? 
    
    You've hit upon one of the central issues here.  People who would
    answer "no" to that question would understandably tend to agree with
    a decision to place U.S. ground troops in Bosnia.  People who answer
    "yes" would tend to disagree with putting U.S. troops in Bosnia.
    
    My answer, of course, is "yes, it is different".  To elaborate would
    involve a long and boring dissertation on "one-world" philosophies,
    world history, cultures, boundaries at various levels, and so on.
    Suffice it to say that I'm not a "one world" kind of guy, and that
    I set my limits at the boundaries of the highest-level governmental
    body to which I owe direct allegiance, not to mention to whom I've
    paid untold thousands of dollars in taxes, the United States of
    America.  The United States is where I draw my political, social,
    and cultural boundaries, because those boundaries are what I've
    grown up with, and they're what I've learned to live with.
    
    Nations exist, cultures exist, both historically and in the present
    time, and they have every right to exist.  We can't hand wave that
    away, no matter how many "Star Trek" TOS episodes we watch misty-eyed
    when the characters say what a wonderful place Earth "became" once
    we got rid of all the pesky and petty "differences between nations"
    stuff.
    
    I'd like all war to stop, but I'm not willing to make more and bigger
    war in a misguided attempt to attain that goal, because historically
    it has not worked.
    
    But you're right to hit on this, it really one of the central matters
    the entire "United States as world police" issue.  I also suspect that
    it's the one that most people will be quite unwilling to change their
    minds about, on either side.
    
    Chris

re: Note 442.47 by RUSURE::EDP
    
>    To their deaths?  When oil was at stake, the US proved quite capable of
>    killing 100,000 to 200,000 Iraqis with minimal US casualties.  (What
>    was it, a dozen?)  

Think about what would happen if you and everyone else were paying
$4.00/gallon for gas.  It would totally screw up our economy.  This, IMO
satisfys the "national defense" aspect of kicking arse.

> But now that only human suffering, not oil, is at
>     stake, we cannot risk US soldiers?  

That's right.  Contrary to popular opinion, the US IS NOT mother hen for
the rest of the world.

>Today's armed forces are not
>    draftees; they signed up voluntarily, with full knowledge they could be
>    called upon to earn their pay.  

Todays, Yesterdays and tomorrows US soldiers are charged with defending
the Constitution, and the government.  To send them on side trips to
Bosnia and Somalia would be irresponsible, questionable legally, and
NOT PRUDENT (GHWB speak).

>Our troops have expressed their
>    satisfaction on prior peace-keeping missions.  They may well prefer to
>    fight for humane reasons than for oil.

That's nice, but our troops fight where they're told to fight, and under
what circumstances (National Defense/Security) they can fight.  Using
our military as a police force in other nations is WRONG.  For a quick
example, you remember somalia.  Hows it going there?  Oh, we split and
the place is still a mess, the media just stopped showing you starving
babies on the tube every night.  How many dead Americans came home
from Somalia.  I'll bet your be RIPS**T if one of them was your brother.
They died FOR WHAT?!?
    
>    Instead of asking a few US families to suffer, you condemn tens or
>    hundreds of thousands of Bosnians to suffer.  I place no lesser value
>    on the lives of people in foreign countries, with funny languages, skin
>    colors, or religions, than I do on the lives of people in the US.  Do
>    you?
 
You're getting emotional.  The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

>    To those who will not support a fight against ethnic "cleansing", a
>    fight against genocide, a fight against crimes against humanity, expect
>    no support from anyone else in your dirty fights for oil and power.
 
Change the constitution EDP, then we'll discuss it.  It's bad enough
the executive branch is playing footsies with the UN.  **IF** you and
a chitload of other folks can change the constitution to allow our
military to be used to supress global genocide and stop crimes against
humanity, have at it.  That's what a democracy is all about, right?   
Until then, let's follow the constitution and NOT circumvent it.
Or, hope someone does something which will PROVOKE a concerted US 
response.  Like put some of our folks in harms way, and then let them
get shot up... oh dear... we've got marines on the move... and assets
within missile reach of some nutter with a rocket.   

MadMike

    My $.02 worth
    
    We should go in with a VERY EXPLICIT agenda.  Get the UN guys out,
    period, end of discussion!  No humanitarian stuff, just bail out our
    friends.
    
    Then, being good capitalists, sell weapons to both sides, and attempt
    to retire some of our national debt.  Crude, Cruel, Heartless, etc...
    but highly profitable!  
    
    I would have been a good Ferengee (sp?)
    
    Dan

    
    .56, Dan
    
    See, we don't disagree on EVERYthing.    :^)
    
    The reason we (Canada and the other nations supplying peacekeepers) are 
    in trouble over there is that we violated the Powell Doctrine, to wit: 
    `Go Big or Go Home'.
    
    Unless the UN and NATO are prepared to commit vastly greater resources
    to the situation, then we will do little good and get our butts kicked
    in the process.
    
    jc
    

    >Unless the UN and NATO are prepared to commit vastly greater resources
    >to the situation, then we will do little good and get our butts kicked
    >in the process.
    
    >...commit vastly greater resources...
    I would only add "for a short period of time".
    
    Dan

    .52 Chris, you confused yourself. In one breath you say that the
        armed forces are not being paid to fight for another country
        but you use the Gulf War and Viet Nam as examples of wars you
        disagreed with, but the armed forces were committed to. They
        pledge to defend the U.S., the Constitution, but to follow
        orders as well. 
    
        Those soldiers were ordered to liberate Kuwait and were ordered
        to stop the PAVN and VC forces from invading SVN. Now, if they
        simply said no (soldiers) what do suppose would have happened
        them? Brig-city. 
    
        Oh, the gang war thing is (like) way out there...
    
        I'm not convinced that the U.S. should take ownership for resolving
        this. What I am saying that someone should. The UN is a big joke.
        I don't know exactly what the dues are for membership, but I'll bet
        it ain't cheap and they certainly are not earning their money.
    
        My position is that the world is negligent, callous, and spineless
        in this situation and the others mentioned. To allow criminals to
        run nations that prey on other nations and peoples is inexcusable.
        To defend something not being done is as inexcusable, period.
    
        BTW, there was a significant U.S. ground force involved in the Iraq
        that was deployed and saw a great deal of action, took many
        objectives, and, in fact, marched into Iraq.
    
        Chip
     
        

    There are some very simple solutions here. The military wants to use
    all its hi-tech airpower or thousands of troups. There is another very
    effective way.
    
    1st tell the world that the UN mission has failed  and that they are
    pulling out.
    
    2nd after they are all out, start a systematic and absolutely brutal
    campaign from the sea adjacent to the area of launching cruise missiles
    at all the following targets in Serb held Bosnia:
    
    	All electrical generating and dist facilities
    	All water supplies, pumping stations etc
    	All food wharehouses, dist centers and truck depots
    	All gasoline and especially heating oil facilities and storage 
            centers
    
    If they have no food or heat in Sarajevo (sp), the Bosnian Serbs
    (civilians) can live the same way.
    
    If the Serbian Serbs intervene, or object, give them a couple of
      'shots' too.
    
    	Demand an unconditional surrender and return to all previous
          borders
    	Demand that all those listed by the UN etc as possible war
          criminals be turned over to the UN
    	Try, convict and hang Karotovich (sp) the Bosnian Serb leader in
          the capital of Serbia
    
    Failure to meet these demands will result in more missiles destroying
    more of THEIR country. Make it a very hollow victory.
    
    There are No ground troups	
    There are No pilots to be shot down
    There is virtually No risk to the allies
    
    Keep this up until they give in or freeze/starve to death...

>    1st tell the world that the UN mission has failed  and that they are
>    pulling out.

Er, maybe you haven't been paying attention.  Part of the problem here is
that the UN troops can't pull out at the moment.  They are being held
hostage.  The proposed use of troops is to get them out (or to safer
positions).

/john    

    Re .49:
    
    > Eric, should we have sent troops to Rwanda?  How about Afghanistan?
    
    Why do you ask?  Have I said we _should_ send troops to Bosnia?  Would
    an affirmative answer to any one of these _require_, by any LOGICAL
    process, an affirmative answer to the others?
    
    
    Re .51:
    
    > Why should this person be the one you say we should help?

    I have not said we should help this one person.  I have given reasons
    to help; I have not stated that they are conclusive or that they
    outweigh reasons not to.
    
    Among the reasons to help are these:
    
    	a) Why not?  There is nothing wrong with helping one person
    	and not another based simply on opportunity (they fell while
    	you were nearby) or other factors (you had time, you felt like
    	helping -- or not because you were busy).
    
    	b) Scale and purpose.  A small civil war may burn itself out
    	before external assistance can be usefully applied.  Bosnia
    	has proven itself not to be small, not to be civil, and not to
    	burn out.  Furthermore, as bad as war over oil or land or power
    	is, genocide is worse.  It is an evil that threatens the entire
    	human race and is more deserving of extinction.
    
    
    				-- edp
    
    
Public key fingerprint:  8e ad 63 61 ba 0c 26 86  32 0a 7d 28 db e7 6f 75
To find PGP, read note 2688.4 in Humane::IBMPC_Shareware.

    Re .52:
    
    > If you are claiming that all of the armed forces have explicitly or
    > implicitly agreed to fight other countries' wars all over the world, or
    > to be assigned to United Nations missions and commanders, I can tell
    > you that is not the case.
    
    Really?  That's quite fascinating.  I would be simply astonished to
    have you quote the part where they agreed to take orders from their
    commanders -- except those that involved fighting in other wars or
    being assigned to United Nations missions.
    
    > . . . if I were a commander-in-chief (or even a
    > non-combatant-in-chief), and put into a situation where I was forced to
    > make a life-or-death decision between one American life and one life
    > from another country, and one or the other must die, and I could choose
    > to save only one, then I would choose to save the American.
    
    What if it were two-for-one?  Three-for-one?  At what point would you
    risk one life to safe many?  How little do you value non-US lives?
    
    > Why is that choice denied to Americans?

    Who says the choice is denied?  What is preventing the US from making
    that choice?
    
    
    				-- edp
    
    
Public key fingerprint:  8e ad 63 61 ba 0c 26 86  32 0a 7d 28 db e7 6f 75
To find PGP, read note 2688.4 in Humane::IBMPC_Shareware.
                

    Re .54:
    
    > re: .48
    
    > Why are you attributing positions to me that I have never espoused?

    .48 addresses .35, which Notes reports was written by GAAS::BRAUCHER? 
    Are you claiming that you wrote that note?
    
    >> Why should police officers risk themselves to defend you?
    >
    > Because that is exactly what they volunteered to do.  They didn't
    
    And the agreements and oaths undertaken by US service members require
    them to serve even if ordered to fight in UN peacekeeping missions.
    
    > Nations exist, cultures exist, both historically and in the present
    > time, and they have every right to exist.
    
    People are important, not nations.  Nations do not bleed, nations do
    not feel pain, nations do not suffer when their relatives are
    massacred.  Nations exist ONLY to serve people, and the importance of
    nations cannot be placed higher than the importance of their purpose
    without defeating that purpose.
    
    
    				-- edp
    
    
Public key fingerprint:  8e ad 63 61 ba 0c 26 86  32 0a 7d 28 db e7 6f 75
To find PGP, read note 2688.4 in Humane::IBMPC_Shareware.

    Re .55:

    > Think about what would happen if you and everyone else were paying
    > $4.00/gallon for gas.  It would totally screw up our economy.  This,
    > IMO satisfys the "national defense" aspect of kicking arse.

    That is nearly the price of gas in some countries.  So what?  They
    survive.  I'd walk to work.  Everybody would look for homes closer to
    work, or vice-versa.  We wouldn't waste so much money on highways
    instead of rails.  Local food would be cheaper than food from the other
    side of the country.  We'd manage.  Nobody has to die over it.

    The United States' transportation system is based on extravagance and
    waste.  The government subsidizes road transport because we enjoy it,
    not because it is efficient.  There's a lot of room in our economy to
    improve that system:  Use trains instead of cars and trucks.  Stop
    subsidizing roads, so that people will choose transportation based upon
    its actual price instead of its subsidized price.

    Yes, we would have to make some adjustments in our lives if oil were
    more expensive.  Is it worth killing over?  No.

    > That's right.  Contrary to popular opinion, the US IS NOT mother hen
    > for the rest of the world.

    Contrary to your opinion, nobody claims the US is mother hen.  But we
    are brothers and sisters to the rest of the world.  Our land is filled
    with relatives of people in Zaire, New Zealand, Bosnia, Brazil,
    Austria, et cetera.  We have benefitted from their resources, from
    their people, from their friendship.  We can afford to return their
    friendship.
                 
    > They died FOR WHAT?!?

    They died trying to alleviate human suffering.  It is a noble goal,
    even when it is not successful.  But since it enjoys little popular
    support, the true reward of trying to do the right thing comes from
    within oneself.  By comparison, the soldiers who protected oil and
    killed over 100,000 Iraqis were cheered, and the deaths among them
    were hardly mourned.  This goal, the populace decreed, was worthy.

    What are the causes of these events?  It is pure human selfishness and
    nothing else.  There is no moral justification for fighting over oil
    while ignoring genocide.  It is not Christian, Jewish, Muslim,
    Buddhist, Humanitarian, or even Libertarian.  There is no system of
    religion or philosophy that supports such topsy-turvy values, except a
    few perversions that value pain and suffering.
    
    When proclamations of "national interest" are used to justify fighting
    over oil, the nation turns its back on ethics.  The decisions made to
    fight in Iraq and not Bosnia are decisions made by greed, not by right
    and wrong.
    
    
    				-- edp
    
    
Public key fingerprint:  8e ad 63 61 ba 0c 26 86  32 0a 7d 28 db e7 6f 75
To find PGP, read note 2688.4 in Humane::IBMPC_Shareware.
              

>    > Eric, should we have sent troops to Rwanda?  How about Afghanistan?
>    
>    Why do you ask?  Have I said we _should_ send troops to Bosnia?  Would
>    an affirmative answer to any one of these _require_, by any LOGICAL
>    process, an affirmative answer to the others?

Do you always answer a question with a question?

I ask because I'm interested in your opinion.  You point out that you
haven't said we should send troops to Bosnia.  Fair enough.  So what
should we do?  While we're at it, what should we have done in Rwanda
and post-Soviet Afghanistan?

re .55, .65

if you can find petrol as cheap as that in the UK you've found
yourself a bargain (typical price is about the equivalent of
$4.20 - $4.30 a gallon I think)

Chris.

    
      We do not have infinite resources.  We cannot give every bum a
     quarter for very long.
    
      In fact, we're mostly broke right now.  The only moral course for
     us is to try to estimate the likely benefits our expenditure of
     scarce resources might bring.  Sure, the Alamo was heroic.  No thanks.
    
      I oppose use of US ground troops in the former Yugoslavian states
     because it looks hopeless to me.  Perhaps, many Americans are more
     pessimistic after all our other failures, and oppose this potential
     operation because it does not appear practical to us.  To argue that
     it is immoral to be pragmatic leaves us doomed to failures, failures
     which damage us, as Viet Nam did.  In going to Bosnia, we would risk
     what strength we have.  A debacle would be terrible for the us, and
     terrible for the world.
    
      bb

    
    In the US, you may bike or walk as a means of recreation, but not
    to get from A to B.
    
     :-)
    
    

    Re .66:
    
    > Do you always answer a question with a question?
    
    No.  I did so in this case because your questions appeared to assume
    things that were counter to fact and because they were irrelevant to
    the discussion.  I have no reason to answer random questions and no
    interest in diverging from the principal line of discussion.
    
    > So what should we do?  While we're at it, what should we have done in
    > Rwanda and post-Soviet Afghanistan?
    
    I have not professed to set or advocate policy in this or other similar
    situations, and I see no reason to do so now.
    
    
    				-- edp
    
    
Public key fingerprint:  8e ad 63 61 ba 0c 26 86  32 0a 7d 28 db e7 6f 75
To find PGP, read note 2688.4 in Humane::IBMPC_Shareware.

>    I have not professed to set or advocate policy in this or other similar
>    situations, and I see no reason to do so now.

In .48 you said you accept the need to send peacekeeping forces to Bosnia.    

    
      Well, I'm sorry if I misread EDP, but then, it's a noisy channel.
    
      DougO, in high New World Order dudgeon, wants to traipse the kids
     off to Sarajevo.  Him, I understand.  And who knows, fortune sometimes
     favors the bold - maybe he'll bring on a golden age in the Balkans,
     under Sesame Street UN commanders.
    
      Chris Ralto and I, doubt it.  We see doom around every corner.  We
     might be right, too.  Sometimes, the bear gets you.
    
      But EDP is coming off wishy-washy (shades of Clinton ?) - we should
     IN PRINCIPLE go in, but in practice we won't, because we need UN
     approval, NATO approval, congressional approval, hold hearings, etc,
     and anyway our exact rules of engagement have not exactly been met.
    
      But we feel their pain.
    
      bb

Note 442.65 by RUSURE::EDP
    
>    That is nearly the price of gas in some countries.  So what?  They
>    survive.  I'd walk to work.  Everybody would look for homes closer to
>    work, or vice-versa.  We wouldn't waste so much money on highways
>    instead of rails.  Local food would be cheaper than food from the other

I see your point, but I disagree.  While we do waste a lot, we are a
geographically large area.  Also, the price of oil effects MANY other
items.  If the price of oil were to skyrocket, within months, your job
would be gone, so you don't have to worry about walking anywhere.  And
you don't need a car, cause you can't afford the car, nor the gas, so the
auto industry farts, and drops a ton of workers, who stop buying all sorts
of other things and our economy implodes.
Now, you can argue we have too much riding on availabilty of oil and I'd
agree with you.  We definitley have too many eggs in the oil basket.

>    The United States' transportation system is based on extravagance and
>    waste.  The government subsidizes road transport because we enjoy it,
>    not because it is efficient.  There's a lot of room in our economy to
>    improve that system:  Use trains instead of cars and trucks.  Stop
>    subsidizing roads, so that people will choose transportation based upon
>    its actual price instead of its subsidized price.

Yup, more waste and inefficiency.  BUT, the national highway system is
part of our "national defense" and as such, should be paid for by the
feds.  Businesses should be "encouraged" (not FORCED) to look for more
economical ways of doing business.  Until then, screwing with our oil
supply is considered screwing with our national security.

If I may toss this out:  Most of our "one worlder, new world order, big
banker" folks.... are oil men.  Interesting.

MadMike
                                            

    re: .59
    
        >> .52 Chris, you confused yourself. In one breath you say that the
        >> armed forces are not being paid to fight for another country
        >> but you use the Gulf War and Viet Nam as examples of wars you
        >> disagreed with, but the armed forces were committed to.
    
    I'm not sure what you're trying to say here...  I've said that the
    U.S. armed forces should not be used to fight other countries' wars,
    and I've said that I disagreed with the decisions to get involved
    in the Gulf War and Vietnam.  I don't know what the "but the armed
    forces were committed to" means; I didn't say they were committed,
    and I don't believe that they should have been committed in the
    first place.  I guess I'm missing the point, but I've been
    consistently opposed to decisions to involve the U.S. in such wars.
    Is there some inconsistency in what I've said anywhere?...
    
    As for following orders, yes, they have to follow orders.  I don't
    hold the individual servicepeople responsible for being involved
    in these wars.  Once they're in the service they must follow orders.
    Rather, I hold the governmental leaders responsible.  It's our presidents
    over the years who have chosen to abuse the existence of the U.S. armed
    services for their various global plans over the years.
    
    
    >> I'm not convinced that the U.S. should take ownership for resolving
    >> this. What I am saying that someone should. The UN is a big joke.
    
    Someone should definitely resolve this, as I've said.  If the U.N.
    is going to make a habit of these global police actions, they must
    form their own military force comprised of international volunteers
    who are signing on specifically to serve as a global enforcers (which
    our U.S. troops did not sign on to do).  The U.N. army could spread
    their word all over the world, fine with me.  I just don't want
    U.S. armed forces to be used in this matter.
    
    If the U.N. wants to be almost constantly at or near war with someone
    somewhere (they've been getting pretty overextended in the last
    couple of years), then they shouldn't be assembling these ad hoc
    bits and pieces of assorted armies and navies from different
    countries as they've been doing.  I'd rather that they use other
    methods, but if they must use military force, then let them get
    their own.
    
    
    >> To defend something not being done is as inexcusable, period.
    
    Something should be done, but not at the cost of American lives.
    I don't see that as negligent, callous, and spineless; we have
    other alternatives to solving this problem.
    
    
    >> BTW, there was a significant U.S. ground force involved in the Iraq
    >> that was deployed and saw a great deal of action, took many
    >> objectives, and, in fact, marched into Iraq.
    
    Right, after we'd pounded everything and everyone into submission
    with our air war.  I don't believe we have that option in Bosnia.
    Isn't this going to be pretty much a ground war (as it's been),
    where we're not even sure how to identify the "enemy"?
    
    Chris

re .73,

your argument doesn't hold water, I'm afraid.  The US may be a geographically
large area, but I'd be surprised if the typical journey to work was any
further than it is for employees elsewhere (okay, I *know* I'm based from
home now, but my journey to work used to be an 80 mile round trip, which
wasn't unusual)  Oil prices are considerably higher here, but the economy
hasn't collapsed (despite the attempts of the Government) and I still
have a job, oddly enough.

Chris.

    >> >> Why are you attributing positions to me that I have never espoused?

    >> .48 addresses .35, which Notes reports was written by GAAS::BRAUCHER? 
    >> Are you claiming that you wrote that note?
    
    Only the first quote that you extracted into your .48 addresses bb's .35.
    But the remainder of your .48 quotes my .37, which you don't specifically
    acknowledge there, but if you go back and check you'll see that it's true.
    
    Most of .48 addresses (and directly quotes) my .37.  In .48, you
    were assuming that I was in favor of our involvement in the Gulf War.
    
    Chris

    There IS an alternative. Reread .60
    
    We can make living conditions as miserable for the agressors as they
    are doing for the opressed. NO GROUND forces PERIOD.
    
    I know the UN is in a hostage situation. Announce that you are pulling
    out,get out then send in the missiles. All of Bosnia is within  range. 
    They are cheap, selective, and plentiful. In addition, there would be
    no downed pilots as new hostages.
    
    

    Chris, just for the record the majority of Iraqi ground troops
    were not subjected to air offensives... 
    
    I get this from some GW veterans who went directly into Iraq.
    
    Chip

    re: .63
    
    >> >> If you are claiming that all of the armed forces have explicitly or
    >> >> implicitly agreed to fight other countries' wars all over the world,
    >> >> or to be assigned to United Nations missions and commanders, I can
    >> >> tell you that is not the case.
    
    >> Really?  That's quite fascinating.  I would be simply astonished to
    >> have you quote the part where they agreed to take orders from their
    >> commanders -- except those that involved fighting in other wars or
    >> being assigned to United Nations missions.
    
    I addressed this somewhat in another reply a few minutes ago.
    What I'm trying to say here is that in my opinion, and in the
    opinions of some individuals in the U.S. armed forces, their
    oaths and agreements involved defending and protecting the United
    States, and they were not adequately informed (and did not explicitly
    or implicitly agree to) that they were signing an agreement to become
    soldiers in the "U.N. Army".
    
    To me this is analogous to a consumer signing an agreement to buy
    something, then after the purchase, discovering a hidden clause that
    dictates that they are considered to have "automatically" agreed to
    an entire additional (and undesirable) set of conditions.
    
    Apparently the Pentagon agrees to some extent, because one news
    item this morning reported that the Pentagon is going to insist
    to Clinton that if he sends troops to Bosnia, that the troops
    must be under the command of U.S. officers.  Interesting.
    Well, it's a start...
    
    
    >> What if it were two-for-one?  Three-for-one?  At what point would you
    >> risk one life to safe many?
    
    I'd thought of this after I wrote .52 or .54, and it's a very
    interesting question (aside from your use of the word "risk",
    which should be replaced with "lose", because that's what would
    happen, and it more firmly defines the conditions).  I was going
    to enter it here as a "thought experiment" last night, but I didn't
    log on.  But let's phrase it to fit the situation:
    
    	Would you send one American involuntarily to lose his or her
    	life in order to save [some number > 1] people from a different
    	country?  Is there any number for which you'd say "yes"?  If so,
    	what's the number?
    
    	And if so, which American would you send?  Does it matter?
    	Can it be yourself, or a relative, or your best friend, or
    	your best friend's son, or a neighbor?  Or should it be some
    	anonymous person from another neighborhood or town or state?
    
    	Do you want to know his/her name, what state and town they
    	lived in, where they worked and what they did for a living,
    	who his/her parents and spouse are, who his/her children are
    	and how old are they, how they will cope with the loss, and
    	so on?  Do you want to keep in touch with them after you've
    	made your decision, to see how they're doing?  Do you want
    	to get involved with them, to help them out over the years,
    	after you've made your decision?
    
    
    We really want those nightly haunting images of global wartime
    atrocities to go away.  Of course, we're not bombarded with nightly
    haunting images of the shattered lives of the relatives of Americans
    who have been killed in all of these wars.  If we were to face such
    a televised barrage of our own friends and neighbors, our own
    countrymen, then we might pause before agreeing with the creation
    of more similar tragedies.
    
    
    >> >> Why is that choice denied to Americans?

    >> Who says the choice is denied?  What is preventing the US from making
    >> that choice?
    
    The choice is denied because Americans are expected to fight and
    die in distant wars that are none of our business.  No other nation
    has had to carry that depth of expectation time and time again for
    the last several decades.  We've suffered tens of thousands of deaths
    during a period of time in which neither our borders nor our national
    security was ever threatened.
    
    The choice is denied because an American cannot sign up to defend
    his or her country without also committing themselves to be sent off
    in harm's way to defend others.
    
    Nothing is preventing each individual American president from making
    that choice, but somehow they always seem to get bitten by that
    "save the world with U.S. troops" bug.  We've seen the pattern,
    and it's time to break it.
    
    
    >> How little do you value non-US lives?
    
    "Have you stopped beating your wife?"  I never said that I place
    "little" value on non-U.S. lives.  I said that if I were put in a
    position where I had to decide which life to save, I would choose
    to save the American.  I believe that most people would choose to
    save their own countrymen first.  That's really what this is all
    about.  I want the right to make the same choice that people in
    other countries have, rather than have it automatically assumed
    by the world community that America has to be there.  We don't.
    
    Chris

    re: .64
    
    >> And the agreements and oaths undertaken by US service members require
    >> them to serve even if ordered to fight in UN peacekeeping missions.
    
    At least some of them disagree, privately.  They must follow orders,
    of course, but some of them feel as if they've been deceived and
    that they're being used as global pawns.  Obviously I'm not familiar
    with the exact wordings of their oaths, and so on, but it would be
    interesting to do some research on this (and some more discussions
    with those currently in the service).
    
    What's at issue here is whether people who have volunteered for
    the service under the pretense of defending the U.S. and its
    national security can or should be used for these other U.N.
    military missions.  Some of them don't believe so.  Why not
    allow U.S. servicepeople to volunteer for these U.N. military
    missions?
    
    
    >> Nations exist ONLY to serve people
    
    How is a nation serving its people by involuntarily sending them
    to die for something far beyond, and irrelevant to, its political,
    social, and cultural domain?  How is a nation serving its people by
    forcing the survivors to bear this terrible burden for the rest of
    their lives?
    
    Chris

    >> Chris, just for the record the majority of Iraqi ground troops
    >> were not subjected to air offensives... 
    >>
    >> I get this from some GW veterans who went directly into Iraq.
    
    Right, the troops themselves weren't subjected to air offenses,
    I was sloppy in my wording there.  What I meant was that the
    air war that preceded the ground war was so devastating to the
    overall Iraqi "war machine" that the ground troops were defeated
    in a relatively straightforward manner (also aided by the nature
    of the terrain, and so on).  I don't believe we'd have any of
    these advantages in Bosnia.  It would be very interesting to
    see the specific plans for exactly what we'd do once we got
    there.  Or will they have to make it up on the fly as they
    experience whatever conditions they encounter there?
    
    In any event, all of this may be moot; Dole says that this
    would face a real uphill battle in Congress.  I wasn't aware
    that Clinton was going to bother getting Congressional approval
    for this.
    
    Chris

    re: Note 442.75 by CBHVAX::CBH
    
    I've been waiting for you.  Tell me, how many industries do you
    have which are subsidized by the Crown?  Let's take for example,
    your airline industry and your automotive industry?
    
    Granted, I can stop driving if gas gets too expensive.  What happens
    when Delta, United etc... pass on the cost, and people stop flying,
    and people postpone buying cars, and Ford, GM and Chrysler stop
    ordering parts and the tire maker in Akron looses his job, and plastic
    costs go through the roof, and people stop buying computers from
    DEC, and....
    
    See.  I think there's a difference here.  Too much *shock* at once is
    VERY BAD.   
    
    MadMike

    Chris, I agree... Bosnia would be a much tougher battle field and
    a head ground effort would produce unacceptable (if there is such
    a thing) casualties.
    
    I think, however, that this could be handled in a way that would
    minimize that. Of course, if this whole thing was dealt with a long
    time ago........................
    
    Chip

re .82,

the Government would probably increase subsidies.  I doubt if there's
many countries out there where the major industries don't already
receive government subsidy of one form or another...

Chris.

    Re: Lager Lout
    
    Chris,  it's not supposed to work that way here.  Our government
    doesn't (isn't supposed to) subsidize things.
    
    Subsidy usually equals tax breaks, which is legit, since the gov't
    has the ability to regulate commerce and can tax them.  They also
    know that TAXING The piss outta something is BAD for bizness, so
    they'll give someone a break, like a tax write off for fuel on the
    airlines, etc...  They shift the burden onto peons ("the people")
    who are getting fed up nowadays.
    
    The feds also bailed out chrysler, which was a tough call but a
    good deal in the long run.  
    
    THEN, there's the subsidies which fall under the PORK catagory.
    "Here's 2million to NOT farm this land this year".  This stuff, I
    believe (hope) is gonna go *poof* soon.
    
    So, the US government isn't supposed to be subsidizing industries,
    even to get them through tough times.  They can't idle, or furlough
    Ford and keep paying folks because we don't tax the snot out of
    the population.  Er, well, we do tax the snot out of people, but what
    the feds spend it on is committed elsewhere.
    
    I'll bet a lot of your industry is still subsidized or owned by the
    government (or crown) however that works.  I heard they've been
    trying to privatize a lot of your stuff too.  
    
    MadMike

>    Chris,  it's not supposed to work that way here.  Our government
>    doesn't (isn't supposed to) subsidize things.
    
well it does, however indirectly (tax relief, as you pointed out,
import tariffs, etc).  I was thinking about your earlier comment
about a shock being bad for the economy, and considered how much
money would be saved by not recirculating tax endlessly, ie it'd
be interesting to see if removing, say, tax from petrol would cancel
out the subsidy paid to industry, which would recoup by being able
to charge more because people would have more money etc etc, but
the economy would never survive such a trauma.

Dunno what this has to do with this topic, but I'm feeling in a
rambly sort of mood!

Chris.

    Bill, you don't understand my point at all.  "high dudgeon"?  How
    about, think about the future.  Do you or do you not see any point at
    all to the existence of the UN?  Sure, they cost too much, sure, its
    corrupt, sure, the general assembly is a waste of time.  But all of
    these problems can be fixed.  The larger question is, do you fix it, 
    or do you let it go?  because the failure of high profile ops like
    peacekeeping does increasing damage to the credibility of the UN and
    its major backers, us included.   There won't be much of an
    international talking shop to salvage, for any purpose you might deem
    worthwhile, if we let it go.  Think about the future.

    The discussion here in soapbox doesn't begin to address those larger
    issues.  Shoot, in here, we haven't even begun to address the Muslim
    issue- if we pull out of Bosnia, several Islamic countries have
    promised to move in, to protect their Muslim brothers from Slavic
    (Serb) aggression.  Just imagine how happy Greece will be to have
    50,000 Turkish troops straight north, picture the carnage of B&H spread
    to a general allout balkan war- Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria, Serbia,
    aflame- much more likely if the west pulls out.  This is a European
    problem, and it isn't going to go away, and that makes it a NATO
    problem.  If you've been reading any of the academic foreign policy
    journals in the last year, you may be familiar with what they're
    calling "The Clash of Civilizations", what some, starting with Samuel
    Huntingdon, believe to be the next great global polarization; between
    the forces of Islam and those of Western Civilization.  I don't
    consider it so likely, myself, but many do.  Now, given the
    possibility, do we really want to pull out of B&H, since several
    Islamic countries have said they'll go in if we do?  Such
    considerations have to be part of the calculus of decision-making wrt
    to UN and NATO credibility in further operations in B&H; yet soapbox
    certainly has NO cognizance of these issues.  And you say I want to
    'traipse' off to Sarajevo in high dudgeon?  Get a grip.
    
    And laugh at it all you want- their is a strange paradox in America's
    public opinion on our foreign policy- on the one hand we demand a
    highly moral, human-rights oriented policy, on the other, we refuse to
    risk American soldiery for anything other than narrowly defined
    (usually economic) 'vital interests'.  This apparent paradox is really
    a signal failure of our politicians to merge these two apparently
    diverse opinions into a less schizophrenic policy, to wit: we will
    defend principles as well as oil.  EDP begins to address these issues,
    and nobody here even knows what he's talking about, or can begin to
    address him coherently.
    
    There are several other areas of political and strategic concern that
    complicate the discussion of what our considered response should be wrt
    B&H.  Soapbox is too immature a forum for these issues, frankly, and I
    wasn't intending to even begin the discussion.  Since you insist on 
    dragging me back into this note, then, feel free to address these
    issues.  But don't claim you've 'understood' me until you try.
    
    DougO

    Re .71:
    
    > In .48 you said you accept the need to send peacekeeping forces to
    > Bosnia.
    
    That a person needs to be helped does not logically require that any
    particular person must help them.  As I wrote in .62, I have not stated
    that the reasons to help are conclusive or that they outweigh reasons
    not to.  Was this not clear to you?  Do you think you have any
    advantage to gain by trying to impute meaning to my words other than
    what was intended, or will you be better off by accepting what I really
    mean?
    
    
    			     	-- edp
    
    
Public key fingerprint:  8e ad 63 61 ba 0c 26 86  32 0a 7d 28 db e7 6f 75
To find PGP, read note 2688.4 in Humane::IBMPC_Shareware.

    Re .72:
    
    > But EDP is coming off wishy-washy (shades of Clinton ?) - we should
    > IN PRINCIPLE go in, but in practice we won't, . . .
    
    I have neither said nor urged that in practice we will not go.  I have
    merely discussed certain reasons for going.  Considering the reasons is
    a prelude to making a decision.  At least it is for me; I can't vouch
    for many conference participants or other persons.  Had I the
    information Clinton undoubtedly has about the situation, I surely would
    have made a decision by now.
    
    
    				-- edp
    
    
Public key fingerprint:  8e ad 63 61 ba 0c 26 86  32 0a 7d 28 db e7 6f 75
To find PGP, read note 2688.4 in Humane::IBMPC_Shareware.

    Re .73:
    
    > While we do waste a lot, we are a geographically large area.
    
    But the fact that we are large does not create any need to traverse
    that area.  Just because California is far away doesn't mean I have to
    drive there.  Nor does it mean I must consume trucked-in California
    wine or California oranges.  We are no less capable of local
    self-sufficiency in the United States than small European countries,
    particularly since items can be transported by more efficient trains.
    
    > If the price of oil were to skyrocket, within months, your job would
    > be gone, so you don't have to worry about walking anywhere.  And you
    > don't need a car, cause you can't afford the car, nor the gas, so the
    > auto industry farts, and drops a ton of workers, who stop buying all
    > sorts of other things and our economy implodes.
    
    Actually, my job would be safe:  Increasing cost of travel would
    increase the value of information services, which do not require
    travel, and hence the computer industry would gain.  Certainly there
    would be some turmoil, especially in the auto industry, but since our
    _current_ system of transportation is inefficient and costs the country
    billions of dollars, the result _after_ a period of turmoil would be a
    more efficient system.
    
    If this is a concern, the solution is to act now by gradually reducing
    government subsidies of roads and cars to zero.  A gradual transition
    will reduce turmoil and allow auto industry workers to find new jobs. 
    When the transition is complete, we will be a stronger, healthier
    nation without the need to go kill foreigners over oil.
    
    > BUT, the national highway system is part of our "national defense" and
    > as such, should be paid for by the feds.
    
    The highway system _was_ part of our national defense.  It doesn't
    really play that role anymore, and it is difficult to imagine a
    situation where it would.  Instead, the highway system has become
    another bureaucracy, dedicated more to exercising its power (such as by
    mandating sequential exit numbers instead of mileage-based numbers)
    rather than serving the people.  Were our national priority on
    automobiles to be reduced, roads would not disappear; they would still
    be available if needed for defense.  We just wouldn't need so many
    large highways.
    
    
    				-- edp
    
    
Public key fingerprint:  8e ad 63 61 ba 0c 26 86  32 0a 7d 28 db e7 6f 75
To find PGP, read note 2688.4 in Humane::IBMPC_Shareware.
    

    Re .74:
    
    > If the U.N. is going to make a habit of these global police actions,
    > they must form their own military force comprised of international
    > volunteers who are signing on specifically to serve as a global
    > enforcers (which our U.S. troops did not sign on to do).
    
    The National Guards are formed state-by-state but serve the United
    States when called upon.  Militaries are formed nation-by-nation but
    serve the United Nations when called upon.
    
    
    				-- edp
    
    
Public key fingerprint:  8e ad 63 61 ba 0c 26 86  32 0a 7d 28 db e7 6f 75
To find PGP, read note 2688.4 in Humane::IBMPC_Shareware.

    Re .79:
    
    > To me this is analogous to a consumer signing an agreement to buy
    > something, then after the purchase, discovering a hidden clause that
    > dictates that they are considered to have "automatically" agreed to
    > an entire additional (and undesirable) set of conditions.

    What hidden clause?  Hidden how?  Disappearing ink?  Or was it covered
    up with a piece of papers while the prospective soldiers were required
    to sign it?  What would give the candidates this idea?  The United
    States has a history of foreign intervention, at least since we
    declared the Americas off limits to Europoean colonization.  (Monroe
    Doctrine?)  We have reciprocal-aid agreements with various countries
    (NATO, et cetera).  Did the candidates think when they joined, the US
    would suddenly change these policies just for them?
    
    > But let's phrase it to fit the situation:

    Your rephrasing does not fit the situation.  There's a chance of
    survival; it is not a guaranteed loss.  We risk lives all the time. 
    There has not been a single day in recent decades that lives have not
    been lost in automobile accidents, yet we continue to use automobiles.
    Would I order a _draftee_ to fight in a foreign war?  No.  Would I, in
    some situation, order a _voluntarily joined_ soldier to fight.  Yes. 
    And that doesn't change whether they are a friend or a stranger, a
    neighbor or from across the country.
    
    > The choice is denied because Americans are expected to fight and
    > die in distant wars that are none of our business.
    
    Stopping genocide is everybody's business.
    
    > No other nation has had to carry that depth of expectation time and
    > time again for the last several decades.
    
    So we're the best.
    
    > I never said that I place "little" value on non-U.S. lives.
    
    You didn't answer the question either.
    
    
    				-- edp
    
    
Public key fingerprint:  8e ad 63 61 ba 0c 26 86  32 0a 7d 28 db e7 6f 75
To find PGP, read note 2688.4 in Humane::IBMPC_Shareware.

    Re .80:
    
    > Obviously I'm not familiar with the exact wordings of their oaths, .
    > . .
    
    > What's at issue here is whether people who have volunteered for
    > the service under the pretense of defending the U.S. and its
    > national security can or should be used for these other U.N.
    > military missions.
    
    You don't know the oaths, but you assert there's a pretense.  Foul! 
    It's not Friday yet; Friday is Make-Up-A-Fact Day.  What evidence do
    you have there was any pretense?
    
    > How is a nation serving its people by involuntarily sending them
    > to die for something far beyond, and irrelevant to, its political,
    > social, and cultural domain?
    
    I have already answered that with my first responses.
    
    
    				-- edp
    
    
Public key fingerprint:  8e ad 63 61 ba 0c 26 86  32 0a 7d 28 db e7 6f 75
To find PGP, read note 2688.4 in Humane::IBMPC_Shareware.

    re: .92
    
    >> What hidden clause?  Hidden how?  Disappearing ink?
    
    I was making an analogy... I did not mean that this was literally
    what had happened to the people who had signed up.  As to our "history
    of foreign intervention", someone considering entry into the armed
    forces in the last twenty or so years could reasonably expect that
    we had learned something from the likes of Korea and Vietnam, and
    that the country wouldn't be as eager to entangle itself in a
    similar manner.  This is all speculative and subjective, of course,
    but it certainly was a factor back when I was deciding whether to
    join up when I was younger.
    
    This latest rash of interventions, particularly with U.N. involvement,
    has come mostly since 1989.  People who have signed up since then
    should probably know what they're getting into, but there are many
    "long timers" who are dismayed at the direction of the last few years.
    
    
    >> Your rephrasing does not fit the situation.
    
    It fits the situation as I see it, the reality of what has
    happened in the past, and what will most likely happen if we
    undertake this mission.
    
    
    >> Stopping genocide is everybody's business.
    
    "Business" was perhaps too broad a word for my original "none of our
    business" statements; "obligation" or "responsibility" would be a more
    specific word for my intent.  We can be concerned about an issue
    without being obligated or responsible for directly resolving it, and
    certainly without being obligated or responsible for sacrificing our
    own lives.  It's the responsibilty of the people who have volunteered
    to assist in stopping it.  Needless to add, there are means available
    to stop it other than military action, and I'm not convinced those
    means have been exhausted.
    
    
    >> >> I never said that I place "little" value on non-U.S. lives.
    
    >> You didn't answer the question either.
    
    Actually, I thought I'd addressed that issue quite thoroughly.
    
    The question, as I recall, was along the lines of "How little value
    do you place on non-U.S. lives?", which as I said, is an unanswerable
    "Have you stopped beating your wife?" kind of question.  I don't place
    "little" value on non-U.S. lives at all.  I've thoroughly (and far
    too wordily, even for me) explained why I'd choose to save an American
    life under the conditions that we presented.  I'll refer you to my
    earlier reply which answers the question being addressed here
    involving the "relative value" of lives; briefly, I'd said that all
    human lives have equal intrinsic value, and that if I had to choose
    between saving an American and saving someone from another country,
    I'd choose to save the American.  In that note I went into a lot of
    detail to explain why, and how it's similar to why people would choose
    to save family members and friends first, and how most people in
    other countries would choose to save their countrymen first.
    
    It's just human nature to be more concerned about those who are closer
    to you.  That's why we have "local news" that covers (for us) the
    Boston area as opposed to some city in Italy for instance.  It's why
    some of us want to buy American-made goods, or even seek out goods
    made in our home state, or go to locally-owned businesses instead
    of chains.  They're all manifestations of the same effect, feeling
    a greater interest in those who are closer to you.  It's not devaluing
    anyone else.
    
    Chris

    >> You don't know the oaths, but you assert there's a pretense.  Foul! 
    >> It's not Friday yet; Friday is Make-Up-A-Fact Day.  What evidence do
    >> you have there was any pretense?
    
    I've said that I don't know the oaths, but I know and have heard
    from people who have taken these oaths, and some of what I'm saying
    is relating what I've heard from them.
    
    I've never been in the service, and I've never seen or heard any
    of these oaths or agreements myself, but the people that I've
    heard are quite familiar with them, and some of them aren't pleased.
    
    I'm not going to be able to provide courtroom-quality "proof" of
    any of this, all I can do is relate the impressions and reactions
    of people who do know.  "Hearsay", as opposed to "foul".
    
    Chris

    
    The problem here is that the UN is a "PEACEKEEPING" organization.  
    This implies that there is peace to keep.   Well I am sorry but
    there is no peace.  
    
    The UN is a wimpy useless organization and either they realize this
    and change from "PEACEKEEPERS" to PEACEMAKERS or they will continue
    to be an ineffective wimpy useless organization that is in the way
    of a war.   
    
    The US and British (maybe French?)/turks etc..  should get off there 
    buts and break from the UN and kick some but (make some PEACE) or get
    out of the "PEACEKEEPING" bs of the UN.  

    
    NATO members have decided to create a multi-national Rapid Response
    Force.  Ground troops will be mainly British, French and Dutch, and
    the U.S. will provide air transport services.
    

    
      In 1912, 3 men ran for US Prex :
    
        Taft, who was isolationist.
        Teddy R, who was interventionist in US material interest only
        Wilson, who was a moralist.
    
      In a 3-way split, Wilson won a clear plurality, but less than 50%.
     He took us from our solid isolationist stance we'd held since the
     revolution, entered WWI on moral grounds, knowing it was not in
     our national interest.  After we went in, Roosevelt supported the
     war, but NOT Wilson's proposed peace.  In a stinging defeat, the
     isolationists repudiated Versailles, the 14 points, Wilson, and
     Roosevelt, and the US went back to isolationism until Pearl Harbor.
    
      And ultimately, it is Pearl Harbor that is the watershed event that
     transformed America from overwhelmingly isolationist to a mix of
     Rooseveltian "realpolitik" and Wilsonian "moralism".  If there had
     been no bombs dropped on Hawaii 12/7/41, how different history would
     have been !  Every Preseident FDR to LBJ gave lip service to the kind
     of international altruistic moralism Wilson espoused, and when a
     change did come, it wasn't to isolationism, but to realpolitik under
     Nixon.
    
      And so the debates of Carter/Reagan/Bush/Clinton - debates about
     what KIND of international interventionism to practice - to further
     our own material interests, or to operate as a sort of missionary
     service to spread the practice of "good" behavior.
    
      But make no mistake - although we haven't had a real isolationist
     president since Pearl Harbor, isolationism has strong traditions here,
     a strong undercurrent of popular support, and considerable logical
     underpinnings.  Start with the admonitions on George Washington's
     Farewell Address, and follow the thread through Ike, the antiwar
     movement, Barry Goldwater, and today to both the left and the right.
    
      For too long, it has been considered irresponsible to be
     isolationist in military matters.  WWII and Cold War hysterics
     have drowned out the forces of reason.  But what has our world
     interventionism got us ?  Have we gained materially ?  Have we
     converted the "heathen" to moral behavior ?  So much wasted effort,
     so many billions of dollars squandered, so many holes at Arlington,
     so many stresses placed on our own society !!  For what ?  We are
     told America must "take her place in the world".  This sounds so
     stirring.  You can play the Stars and Stripes Forever.  The body
     bags come back later.
    
      bb 

    >our solid isolationist stance we'd held since the revolution,
    
    I am amused.  Within the last week I've read a book review of a book 
    on American history and foriegn policy.  The reviewer siad that the
    biggest problem with the book was that it uncritically assumed the
    veracity of the thesis you just expounded, Bob- that the US enjoyed
    over a century of splendid isolationism and that it was dragged kicking
    and screaming into international responsibilities, doesn't belong there
    and should return to its isolationist past.  The critic proceeded to
    detail many of the flaws in the theory- demonstrating conclusively that
    the US had always been extensively involved relating to the other
    powers of the world, and that while isolationism has surfaced time and
    again, it has been inadequate to describe our place in the world, and
    it has been repudiated by the electorate many, many times.
    
    And even your questions of outrageous failure have solid answers-
    
    > But what has our world interventionism got us ?  
    > Have we gained materially ? 
    
    The standard of living during the first three post-war decades (our
    first strongly interventionist period, according to you) quadrupled.
    More importantly, the differences accruing to this generation, which
    has never had to fight to preserve the free world, are owed to the
    differences in policy followed after WWII- as opposed to the policies
    followed after WWI, and all of their terrible isolationist consequences.
    
    > Have we converted the "heathen" to moral behavior ? 
    
    Well, we won the cold war - communism is dead - democracy and market
    economics are breaking out all over.  These are positive signs.
    
    > So much wasted effort, so many billions of dollars squandered, so
    > many holes at Arlington, so many stresses placed on our own society !! 
    > For what ? 
    
    Ask Lech Walesa or Vaclav Havel, men who struggled personally with the
    demons of this century and survived to lead their countries from ruins
    to hope.  They could tell you about the faceless millions who have
    looked to us, to our committment with NATO, to our long-term free trade
    strategy and struggles for stability worldwide as beacons of hope and
    moral behaviour among nations.  Our former enemies in Nazi Germany are
    now our staunchest allies and have forged a new relationship and place
    in the world with the partnership of the past fifty years.
    
    > We are told America must "take her place in the world".  This sounds
    > so stirring.  You can play the Stars and Stripes Forever. 
    
    Like it or not, nobody else stands where we stand.  If we abdicate the
    responsibility to use this power in ways we see as moral, that is making 
    just as irresponsible a choice as would be attempting to conquer the
    world with it.
    
    > The body bags come back later.
    
    There have always been moral choices to make.  There have always been
    ideals worth defending.  "When, in the course of human events,..." was
    how they communicated that necessity two centuries ago.  We still have
    the right and the responsibility to do the same.
    
    DougO

    OPEN FORUM -- Dangerous Plan to Slash U.N. Aid

    Madeleine K. Albright

    AS OUR NATION this month observes the 50th anniversary of the birth of
    the United Nations, three facts stand out:

    First, the United States continues to have a major stake in the success
    of the U.N. system. Second, U.N. members must reform the organization
    to seize the opportunities and meet the demands of a new era. Third,
    isolationist trends within both parties in Congress may -- unless
    vigorously opposed -- seriously damage the United Nations and our
    interests.

    A half-century ago, bipartisan U.S. leadership helped launch the United
    Nations; it matters a great deal whether bipartisan leadership is
    forthcoming now to sustain it. Here are some reasons to care:

    The U.N. builds security by helping to prevent conflicts in strategic
    areas, such as Cyprus and the Middle East; through sanctions, it
    attaches a price to the lawless behavior of rogue states; through the
    International Atomic Energy Agency, it helps to keep nuclear weapons
    from falling into the wrong hands; and through the General Assembly and
    Security Council, it provides a bully pulpit for the dissemination
    worldwide of our views.

    Programs such as UNICEF, serve our interest in a more civilized world
    by feeding the hungry, caring for refugees, fighting epidemic disease
    and helping children to grow up healthier and more able to contribute
    to their societies.

    The United Nations has become a powerful force for democracy and human
    rights; aiding democratic transitions from Cambodia to El Salvador to
    South Africa; and launching the first war crimes tribunals since
    Nuremburg.

    We benefit from the work of the U.N.'s specialized agencies each time
    we check a weather report, make an over seas call, board an
    international airline or export an American service or product.

    In short, the U.N. performs a host of valuable functions;
    unfortunately, it does not perform them as efficiently as it should.
    Unsurprisingly, the U.N. bureaucracy resists reinvention. So U.N.
    members must insist. Steps forward already have been taken: An
    inspector general has been created; a tough new under secretary general
    for management has trimmed the budget and installed a merit-based staff
    appraisal system; and major reforms in procurement are planned.

    Our goal is to move into the 21st Century with a smaller, more focused,
    more accountable United Nations that is clear about its objectives and
    able to get results. Our purpose is to make each U.N. dollar count.
    Less paperwork and more services will mean fewer trees killed and more
    lives enriched or saved.

    But, as Secretary of State Warren Christopher has pointed out, it is
    impossible ``to retreat and reform at the same time.'' And while the
    United States and others are striving to improve the United Nations,
    legislation pending in Congress would gravely wound it. Radical
    proposals would kill U.N. peacekeeping and slash our contributions to
    U.N. programs. The enactment of these measures would isolate America in
    an era when international cooperation is essential and constitute, in
    my view, a grave historical error.

    Consider the consequences. If U.N. peacekeeping is choked off, we could
    expect an even wider war in the Balkans, higher tensions in tinderbox
    regions such as Cyprus and the Middle East, a renewed threat to
    democracy in Haiti and more humanitarian disasters in Africa.

    If U.N. programs are squeezed out or shut down because America fails to
    pay its bills, a whole range of global goals would be set back -- from
    child immunization, to controlling pollution, to emergency relief, to
    containing deadly diseases such as AIDS and the Ebola virus. Resistance
    would grow to our highest priorities at the United Nations, including
    reform, the war crimes tribunals and maintaining sanctions against the
    likes of Libya, Iraq and the Serbs. The impact overall would be a body
    blow to American interests, leadership and ideals.

    In the words of one respected Republican senator, not normally known
    for exaggeration, if congressional budget plans now under consideration
    are implemented, America would end up, ``at the end of seven years with
    as visible and viable an international role as Ghana.''

    This is not a future we can accept. Either the wise heads in both
    parties prevail in support of policies for strengthening, reforming and
    down-sizing the U.N. system or we will see a divisive and destructive
    debate that harms U.S. prestige and leaves the United Nations less able
    to address problems that matter to our citizens.

    Never forget: the United Nations emerged not from a dream, but a
    nightmare. In the 1920s and '30s, the world squandered an opportunity
    to organize the peace. The result was Holocaust and world war.
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Published 1 June 95 in San Francisco Chronicle

    
      Horror of horrors !! The international role of Ghana !  Yep, sure
     glad we have the international role of Sliq instead.  "Repudiated
     many times", eh ?  Like maybe 1920 ?  You made such a big point of
     how wonderfully popular GATT and NAFTA were, DougO.  Well, I doubt
     it.  And if you think your precious UN will get the same money when
     we have to cut farm subsidies, welfare, NASA, the Pentagon, education,
     healthcare, public TV etc, dream on.  Cutting the UN is much easier
     politically.
    
      Of course, isolationism is a matter of degree.  Sure, to the shores
     of Tripoli - although note who started that one by taking hostages
     on the high seas.  The fact remains, foreign alliances, foreign wars,
     and standing armies were feared by federalist and anti-federalist
     alike.  Draw a box : Bangor-Miami-San Diego-Seattle.  Manifest
     destiny, and chuck the rest was popular enough.  At the time, Teddy's
     internationalism was viewed as a dangerous self-indulgence, not a key
     to national policy.  And after Versailles, the utter repudiation of
     old world quagmires was overwhelming.
    
      FDR took us back in, with the UN.  Not that after Pearl he had much
     choice.  As to Korea and Viet Nam, oh yeah - big votegetters those
     were.
    
      I think there is an opening this year for a real "America-First"er,
     for the first time in over 50 years.  Sliq thinks so too - see how
     he wriggles.  He knows Bosnia is a big loser politically.  But he's
     boxed himself so bad domestically, he's tempted to try a Bush.  It
     didn't work for George, either.
    
      Through all this, Americans have been much more sensible than their
     "leaders".  They want to be peaceful and prosperous, to develop
     their own way, to mind their own business till grossly provoked.
     But the leaders of both parties, carrying the internationalist
     baggage of their poltical forbears, keep trying to drag us into
     pointless wretchedness.  Pity.
    
      bb

    >"Repudiated many times", eh ?
    
    Perhaps I should fish up the book review and enter some of the better
    examples.
    
    >how wonderfully popular GATT and NAFTA 
    
    I didn't say they were popular.  I said they were common sense.  As far
    as popularity goes, I don't think the full-court press by the AFL-CIO
    and Ross Perot looked much like either would win a popularity contest.
    
    > And if you think your precious UN will get the same money when we
    > have to cut farm subsidies, welfare, NASA, the Pentagon, education,
    > healthcare, public TV etc,
    
    I don't, actually.  I don't consider getting our budget under 
    control to be out of line with preparing to face our international
    responsibilities- in fact, its a prerequisite.  Yes, our contributions
    to the UN will fall.  Acknowledging that, we should be planning now for
    the downsizing and restructuring we will be insisting on in the UN, as
    former UN Ambassador Albright mentions.
    
    > The fact remains, foreign alliances, foreign wars, and standing 
    > armies were feared by federalist and anti-federalist alike
    
    Sure.  But we have a standing army today, don't we, and we won the Cold
    War, didn't we?  Times change.  
    
    > FDR took us back in, with the UN.  Not that after Pearl he had much
    > choice.  As to Korea and Viet Nam, oh yeah - big votegetters those
    > were.
      
    And that's it, huh, the whole Cold War legacy.  If you forget the
    Berlin Airlift in '48, the reunification of Germany in '89, and
    everything in between.  If you forget the Marshall Plan.  If you forget
    that quadrupling of living standards in the US, and the wave of
    prosperity that has rebuilt the free world from Tokyo to Dresden.
    
    If you forget all that, then your America-Firster might have a chance.
    But one hopes that the campaign will be fought over the real issues of
    defining and taking our proper global leadership role, and not over
    whether or not we can hide from the world and make it all go away.
    
    > he's tempted to try a Bush.  It didn't work for George, either.
    
    Bush's popularity was at its highest after the Gulf War, when we had
    demonstrated to Americans and to the world how America can and should
    lead.  What didn't work for Bush was the business cycle, and the
    inability of his administration to continue voodoo economics.  Given
    what he knew on the campaign trail in 1980, it is astonishing that he
    left himself holding the bag in 1988 when the deficit had quadrupled.
    
    DougO

    Re .94:
    
    > This is all speculative and subjective, of course, . . .
    
    The United States is supposed to make military and foreign policy
    decisions based upon the speculations and subjective feelings of
    soldiers?
    
    > I don't place "little" value on non-U.S. lives at all.  I've
    > thoroughly (and far too wordily, even for me) explained why I'd choose
    > to save an American life under the conditions that we presented.
    
    That you would save a US life over a non-US live shows you value the
    former more.  The question is how much more?  This isn't a "beating
    your wife" question; you've already admitted a preference.  The
    question is what size is that preference?
    
    Would you save one US life over two non-US lives?
    
    > In that note I went into a lot of detail to explain why, and how it's
    > similar to why people would choose to save family members and friends
    > first, and how most people in other countries would choose to save
    > their countrymen first.
    
    Your explanation amounted to "just because".
    
    > It's just human nature to be more concerned about those who are closer
    > to you.
    
    Human nature also includes, at various times to various people, urges
    to eat too much, to steal, to attack, et cetera.  Humans have many
    failings.  It is also human nature to strive against those failings.
    
    > They're all manifestations of the same effect, feeling a greater
    > interest in those who are closer to you.  It's not devaluing anyone
    > else.
    
    Yes, it is.  Greater value for close means relatively lesser value for
    far.
    
    
    				-- edp
    
    
Public key fingerprint:  8e ad 63 61 ba 0c 26 86  32 0a 7d 28 db e7 6f 75
To find PGP, read note 2688.4 in Humane::IBMPC_Shareware.

    
    re, EDP - well, strictly speaking, foreign policy is not the same
     thing as individual morality.  You or I can have any attitude or
     resolve we like on Bosnia, but it will affect nothing that happens
     there, except to the extent we influence the forign policy of the
     USA, through our votes and our arguments swaying other votes.  We
     lack the power to do anything meaningful on our own, and in a
     majoritarian democracy, being right doesn't work without a majority.
    
      Nevertheless, there are parallels, and the same conundrum.  The
     logical thing to do on the highway is to drive by those broken down.
     We gain nothing tangible by stopping, we lose a little always, and a
     lot worst case.  So you either have do argue, with Hays-DougO, that
     we have some metaphysical gain that is mathematically hopeless, or
     you have to accept an axiomatic morality, be it religious or secular
     like Utilitarianism.
    
      What moralism you choose to subscribe to, if you choose an altruistic
     foriegn policy is up to you, but it certainly doesn't come from logic
     or nature, both of which suggest turning our heads in isolationism.
    
      Nor, if like me you ARE a moralist, are you doomed to always
     intervene.  It still requires some estimation that intervention will
     have a chance to do some good.  In Bosnia, I see no such chance.
    
      Or, with DougO, you can sign up with the metaphysical New World
     Order.  The idea that by squandering our resources we somehow will
     reap a benefit in "creating a better world".  For a pessimist like
     me, there are so many reasons to doubt this, it is hard to know
     where to begin.  I wish I could have a penny for every human that
     ever marched off to war with the best of intentions, and never
     effected any useful result.
    
      Isolationism is NOT immoral - it's just pessimistic.  It recognizes
     that in war, friction takes over, and all that violence brings is
     more violence.  Take a tip from the Swiss.  Stay home.
    
      bb

    re: .99
    
    Minor nit:
    
    But Doug, morals are relative.  What right do we have to interfere
    (force our morality) on other countries (people)?
    
    
    -steve

    re: .103
    
    Okay then, I'm an immoral, self-centered, isolationist pig.  I've
    always been one, and will always be one.  And I still believe
    that saving my own countrymen comes before saving others, and for
    that I offer no apology, because I see nothing wrong in it.
    
    
    re: .104
    
     >> Isolationism is NOT immoral - it's just pessimistic.  It recognizes
     >> that in war, friction takes over, and all that violence brings is
     >> more violence.  Take a tip from the Swiss.  Stay home.
    
    Good point, it's not immoral.  The interventionists try to justify
    their urgings to involve ourselves in the world's barbaric slaughters
    by making it into a moral issue, and claiming the moral high ground.
    
    As well as being pessimistic, for me isolationism also comes from a
    realization that we've built a pretty good civilization here, which
    many fear has peaked several decades ago and is on the decline,
    and we'd better see to fixing it first.  Because if we don't, we
    won't be in much of a position to help anyone at all.
    
    Chris

        Bob seems to laugh at the idea that the US was never really
    isolationist, which I mentioned from a recent book review;
    I thought I'd enter some of that review for the perspective.

    "...Fromkin states: 'Ever since 1898, the fundamental mental question
    about American foreign relations had been whether the United States
    would choose to play a continuing role in world affairs.'  The notion
    that the United States has a real choice in such a momentous decision
    is related to the beliefs that the United States is naturally
    isolationist and that, until the Second World War, isolationism was a
    norm in U.S. foreign policy...

    "First, there is nothing unique, as many Americans seem to suppose, in
    the desire of a society with a strong cultural identity to minimize its
    foreign contacts.  On the contrary, isolationism in this sense has been
    the norm whenever geography has made it feasible....[to find a] modern
    example of a hermit state we need look no further than Japan, which
    used its surrounding seas to pursue a policy of total isolation,
    reflected in its ideograms.  China, too, was isolationist for thousands
    of years, albeit an empire at the same time.  Britain has been
    habitually isolationist even during the centuries when it was acquiring
    a quarter of the world.  The British always regarded the English
    Channel as a cordon sanitaire to protect them from what they regarded
    as the continental disease of war.  So, too, the Spanish were mislead
    by the Pyrenees and the Russians by the great plains into believing
    isolationism feasible, as well as desirable.

    "The United States, however, has always been an internationalist
    country.  Given the sheer size of the Atlantic, with its temptation to
    hermitry, the early rulers of the United States were remarkably
    international-minded.  The original 13 colonies has, as a rule, closer
    links with Europe than with each other, focusing on London and Paris
    rather than Boston or Philadelphia.  Benjamin Franklin has perhaps a
    better claim to be called a cosmopolitan figure than any other
    eighteenth-century figure.  He was no slouch as a diplomat; indeed, he
    believed strongly in negotiations and mutually advantageous treaties
    between nations.  Had the British War Office allowed him, George
    Washington might easily have been a professional soldier in George
    III's imperial army, pursuing a career in Europe or perhaps even
    India.  America's ruling elite was always far more open toward,
    interested in, and knowledgeable about the world (especially Europe)
    than the French-Canadians to the north and the Spanish- and Portuguese-
    Americans to the south.  At Ghent in 1814, the U.S. team that
    negotiated the end of the War of 1812-- John Quincy Adams, Albert
    Gallatin, Jonathan Russell, James Ashton Bayard, even Henry Clay--
    was every bit as globally conscious and well informed as its English
    counterpart.

    "The truth is that, despite the oceans on both sides, the United States
    was involved with Russia (because of Oregon and Alaska), China (because
    of trade), Spain, Britain, and other European powers from its earliest
    days.  Isolationism in a strict sense was never an option, and there is
    no evidence that the American masses, let alone the elites, favored it,
    especially as immigration widened and deepened ties with Europe.  It is
    true that the United States, through most of the nineteenth century,
    was concerned with expanding its presence in the Americas rather than
    with global politics.  But exponents of 'America First,' like John
    Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, and John L. O'Sullivan--who coined the phrase
    'Manifest Destiny' in the 1840s--were imperialists rather than
    isolationists.  The only time imperialism was an issue in an American
    election was in 1900, when the Democrats used it to attack what they
    saw as President William McKinley's expansionist policies.  The voters'
    approval of American imperialism, if that is what it was, was reflected
    in McKinley's massive victory, by 292 to 155 electoral votes."

    These are a short extract of the views of Paul Johnson, writing a
    review in the May/June 1995 issue of Foreign Affairs, pp 159-161.
    The book reviewed is "In the Time of the Americans- FDR, Truman,
    Eisenhower, Marshall, MacArthur- the Generation that Changed America's
    Role in the World", by David Fromkin.  Johnson goes on to detail the
    reasons for American isolationism in the interwar period, what he calls
    an aberration resulting from the calamitous tactics employed by Wilson
    during the struggle for ratification of the Versailles Treaty.  Johnson
    concludes, "Except for those few isolationist-ridden years of the
    1930s, there has never been any substantial argument about whether the
    United States 'would choose to play a continuing role in world
    affairs'.  It has to; it wants to; it intends to.  The likelihood of
    Clinton's America, or any other America, shrinking into an isolationist
    posture is nil, though there will continue to be passionate arguments
    about the purpose and degree of commitment to intervention and still
    more about the command structure of international efforts...."
    
    DougO

    > So you either have do argue, with Hays-DougO, that we have some
    > metaphysical gain that is mathematically hopeless,
    
    This is not the argument.
    
    > logic or nature, both of which suggest turning our heads in
    > isolationism.
    
    It is NOT logical to retreat in isolationism.  That way lay WWII.
    We have profoundly and at great cost learned that lesson already;
    the nature of the power we hold in the world is plain.  We abdicate
    that power at our peril.
    
    DougO

    
      I hear the argument, DougO, but it is opinion only, and there
     is a widespread view to the contrary.  The US never allied with
     a foreign power between Yorktown and 1917.  In the struggles of
     Europe, we were rare and reluctant entrants.  With the exception
     of those periods when Americans were slaughtering each other, our
     army languished.  Our navy was pretty much a joke, too.  Other than
     TR's somewhat laughable bluster, we were never much in the colonial
     game.  As a percentage of GNP, foreign trade of the USA in the
     whole period up to 1960 was exceptionally low - we were nearly as
     self-sufficient as Russia (an advantage we frittered away since).
    
      This sounds like a typical hawk argument, "We have no choice".
     How many utterly catastrophic foreign adventures and wars have
     been preceded by this lie.  You do so have a choice !  Just say no.
    
      There is more than one plausible way to look at complex history.
    
      bb

    Oh, its an opinion all right, which just happens to correspond to the
    reality of our history quite a bit better than yours- I think.  One
    wonders whether you think foreign involvement/engagement always must be
    at bayonet point; your examples are always failed wars, you ignore the
    bindings of international trade, its power to stabilize as well as to
    generate friction.  You mention not at all the fascination and growth
    of mental discipline that comes from cultural exchange, as we learn
    wonders and tolerance.  Isolationism I see as a destroyer, a retreat
    from the community of the world.  Yours appears to me to be the way of
    the ostrich.
    
    >There is more than one plausible way to look at complex history.
    
    Sure, but arguing against engagement with the world ignores the whole
    sad Versailles/reparations/Weimar/Hitler bit.  Utterly implausible.
    
    >               -< See also, Henry K's "Diplomacy"... >-
    
    Fine, I see Diplomacy is in paperback now, I've been meaning to get it.
    Boris used to swear by it.  I can't imagine Henry the K arguing for
    isolationism.
    
    DougO

    
    No, HK certainly is/was no isolationist !  He explores the spread
    between Wilsonian "moralism" and TR's "self-interest".  If you are
    looking for a "right answer", sorry, he doesn't believe in them.
    He does explore the advantages and disadvantages of each.
    
    You are correct that since 12/7/41, there has been no isolationist
    candidate for the crucial (for US foreign policy) office of US Prex.
    But the idea sure hasn't gone away, and it will pop up real fast if
    Clinton tries to do the Bosnian bop.  He won't though.
    
    Really, this whole charade was just politics.  Note that the Bosnian
    Serbs offered immediately to release all hostages if the UN would
    just get out.  You don't need a rescue op.  And also note that John
    Major in the House of C's the other day, categorically refused the offer of
    hostage release for withdrawal.
    
    Meanwhile, here's a Pentagon estimate for quelling ethnic violence in
    Bosnia : 650,000 troops for 5-10 years, a trillion dollars.  But, hey,
    we never said the New World Order was cheap, did we ?
    
      bb 

    > If you are looking for a "right answer", sorry, he doesn't believe 
    > in them.
    
    What I'm looking for are useful perspectives.
    
    > He does explore the advantages and disadvantages of each.
    
    So I would expect.  I mean it, I've been waiting for an excuse to buy
    this, and I just saw an advert for it in paperback.  Good excuse.
    
    > Really, this whole charade was just politics.  Note that the Bosnian
    > Serbs offered immediately to release all hostages if the UN would just
    > get out.  You don't need a rescue op.  And also note that John
    
    Not what I read.  I read they offered a release as long as they were
    guarnteed no more air strikes.
    
    > Major in the House of C's the other day, categorically refused the
    > offer of hostage release for withdrawal.
    
    As he rightly should have.  Taking hostages of UN peacekeepers is not a
    move to be appeased, rather one which should earn them promises of dire
    retaliation if the hostages are harmed.
    
    > Pentagon estimate...650,000 troops for 5-10 years, a trillion
    > dollars.
    
    Useful perspective.  Clearly that isn't what we want to do.  
    
    For some thoughts on what we do want to do, I've just read the current
    Economist lead editorial.  I'll type it in when I can.
    
    DougO

    High Stakes in Bosnia

    Once more the United Nations and NATO have had their bluff called.  The
    seizure of UN peacekeepers as hostages in response to last week's NATO
    air strikes on a Bosnian Serb ammunition dump has raised the stakes in
    the murderous Bosnian poker game.  Faced with the choice of getting on
    with their mission, for all its dangers, or getting out, the response
    from the troop contributors has been resolute.  UN forces are to be
    regrouped to make them less vulnerable; reinforcements, including for
    the first time some heavy weapons, are on their way to protect the blue
    helmets on peacekeeping business.  Yet turning a better-armoured UN
    cheek to Bosnian Serb provocations cannot camouflage an obvious
    question: regrouping and reinforcing to do what?  Are the UN and NATO
    merely hanging on in Bosnia to avoid an embarrassing admission of
    failure?  If so, might it not be better simply to quit the game now?

    It may yet come to that.  It does not take a military genius to see
    that the extra troops and equipment now being earmarked to reinforce
    the blue helmets could just as easily be used to help cover their
    retreat.  The British and French governments, whose soldiers form the
    backbone of the UN force in Bosnia, admit that withdrawal can no longer
    be ruled out.  So why stay on?

    The humiliation factor counts.  After the debacle in Somalia and the
    criticism of UN operations elsewhere, a withdrawal from Bosnia under
    Serb fire would make many countries think thrice before committing
    their troops to UN command anywhere.  And though NATO has carried out
    successfully all the missions asked of it in Bosnia, it would do the
    credibility of the world's strongest military alliance no good at all
    to be seen to share in a pistol-whipping from a bunch of renegade
    Serbs.  Yet UN and NATO humiliation now, or even three or six months
    from now, is not the only issue at stake.

    Remember why they came

    The UN has been given three tasks in Bosnia: to get relief supplies to
    civilians caught up in this brutal war; to protect UN-declared "safe
    areas", including Sarajevo and the enclaves in eastern Bosnia; and 
    to help broker a peace.  Some have long argued that this amounts to 
    a mission impossible: providing neutral humanitarian assistance one
    moment and enforcing ceasefires and weapons-exclusion zones the next,
    with little more than moral authority to call on in a tight spot.  The
    past week has yet again underlined the frustrations and the dangers. 
    The reinforcement of the blue helmets should, at a minimum, be done 
    in a way that reduces the Serbs' capacity both to threaten the
    peacekeepers and to disrupt the aid effort.

    To others, including many in the United States Congress, the UN
    compromise in Bosnia is not just impossible, it is immoral: since it 
    is not prepared to make war in support of Bosnia's Muslims, the chief
    victims, the UN should go, and let the Muslim forces be rearmed to win
    on the battlefield the peace they have yet to win at the negotiating
    table.  Yet the costs of quitting Bosnia have not diminished.  The
    UN-escorted aid convoys have saved thousands of civilians from hunger,
    and worse.  The inevitable upsurge of savagery that would follow the
    departure of the peacekeepers would claim thousands more lives, not
    least in the enclaves.  But the UN has provided more than meals and
    sympathy.

    Its presence has enabled the Bosnian Croats and Muslims, who last year
    were at each other's throats, to co-ordinate their military attacks and
    chip away at Serb conquests.  So has the isolation of Bosnia's Serbs
    from their brethren in Serbia proper.  Serbia's president, Slobodan
    Milosevic, may have been the instigator of the fighting in former
    Yugoslavia, but he seems to be tiring of a war that has impoverished
    his country.  It may still take some months, but the reinforced UN
    mission in Bosnia, combined with continued pressure from Serbia, could
    yet shove the Bosnian Serbs into a deal.  Were the UN to withdraw,
    however, the upsurge in fighting that would follow could rupture the
    Croat and Muslim alliance and reheal the divisions among the Serbs. 
    those clamoring for the UN to go need to ask themselves who in the end
    is likely to suffer most as a result: unhappily, the answer is still
    Bosnia's Muslims.

    Yet how can the UN make its staying on more effective?  In the first
    place, by not tying its own hands militarily.  The Bosnian Serbs have
    offered to trade the release of the captured blue helmets for a UN
    promise to abandon the threat of air strikes.  If the UN hopes to
    achieve anything more in Bosnia than to cover its own retreat, no such
    promises should even be considered.  On the contrary, the Serbs need to
    understand that any harm to the captured peacekeepers will meet with
    sharp retribution.

    Similarly, the UN needs to assert its right to carry out the tasks it
    has been given.  Over the past year or so, the Bosnian Serbs have
    whittled away at the UN's authority, both to bring in the food, by land
    and air, that is needed to sustain the humanitarian operation and to
    defend the safe areas and weapons exclusion zones, including that
    around Sarajevo.  To reverse that, the UN needs to give straightforward
    orders to its reinforced blue helmets to fire back.

    but such rules, if they are to stick, apply to both sides.  Just as
    Bosnian Serb provocations, because largely unanswered, have undermined
    UN authority, so Bosnian government forces, by using safe areas as
    launchpads for attacks across ceasefire lines, have undermined its
    credibility as a peace broker.  Though it is the Serbs' sickening
    barbarity, firing shells into crowded town centres, that sticks in 
    the mind's eye, much of the latest fighting in Bosnia, including the
    shelling around Sarajevo that eventually prompted the UN airstrikes 
    and the Serb hostage-taking, was started by the Bosnian government's
    forces.

    And what happens if they go

    That said, even a reinforced UN presence in Bosnia may not do the
    trick.  It has always been harder for the UN to walk the fine line in
    Bosnia between peacemaker and resolution-enforcer.  Without at least
    minimal co-operation of the warring sides, it cannot be done.  Even
    reinforced by heavier guns and attack helicopters, the blue helmets are
    not equipped to fight a war.  There may yet come a point when the scale
    of fighting obliges the UN to abandon the feeding and protection of the
    safe havens.  Then the justification for staying on would be gone.

    But the consequences of a pull-out would still be dire.  If pressure
    cannot be maintained towards a negotiated end to the war on the basis
    of the international peace plan, then the fighting would not only
    consume Bosnia, but also very likely bring Croatia and Serbia back into
    the war.  In that event, it would be hard to prevent the other calamity
    that the outside world has sought to avoid- the involvement of outside
    powers, including quite possibly Russia, in support of opposing sides
    in the conflict.  By then, the failure would be complete.  Hard as it
    becomes, there is still a lot at stake in Bosnia.

    The Economist
    3 June 1995

    re: the last many...
    
    This has been a very interesting discussion about moral and such, but
    much more pressing what should be done?
    
    Lets take this senario:
    You, yes little ol' you, are the person in charge of the UN Peace
    Keeping force in the Balkans...Your mission is to provide humanitarian
    aid, protect the safe havens, and maintain a cease fire....
    
    What are you going to do General?  It's all up to you !
    
    Dan

Is it just me, or have "UN peacekeeping forces" been pretty universally
defecated upon wherever they've been used?

Maybe they should quit while they're behind.

    >> You are correct that since 12/7/41, there has been no isolationist
    >> candidate for the crucial (for US foreign policy) office of US Prex.
    >> But the idea sure hasn't gone away, and it will pop up real fast if
    >> Clinton tries to do the Bosnian bop.  He won't though.
    
    Buchanan comes to mind as being as close to an isolationist as we
    can hope for.  It wasn't clear, or I can't remember (more likely)
    where Perot stood on foreign intervention in general.
    
    Buchanan has either been strangely silent since declaring, or maybe
    the media has decided to shut him out.  Between Bosnia and the OKC
    bombing and aftermath, there's certainly been plenty for him (and
    the other presidential aspirants) to talk about.
    
    Chris

    On the 5th of June, I mentioned to Bob in .99 that people like Vaclav
    Havel could tell him why isolationism was wrong, and more recently that
    among the lessons of WWII was that isolationism was wrong.  If Bob had
    been at Harvard yesterday to hear the commencement speaker, he'd have
    heard the same.
    
    DougO
    -----
    From today's Mercury News "National News in Brief" section, p 12A:
    
    Czech Leader urges firmer U.S. stance
    
    In Cambridge, Mass., Czech President Vaclav Havel told Harvard's
    graduating class that World War II might have been avoided if the
    United States had stood more firmly against Adolph Hitler.  Havel urged
    the United States to resist the isolationism he said helped bring on
    World War II and the Cold War.

    
    Um...WWII and the Cold War were our fault?

    i think the reference is to reacting to Hitler's early aggression
    when the Reich (sp?) was still weak. in fact, we know Hitler would
    have backed off on if a more assertive position was taken by the west.
    
    Chip

    
      Oh, Chip, it's just more of the same 20/20 hindsight.  If we
     had foreseen the outcome, we would surely have stayed out of
     Viet Nam.  You can do this with all of history, like DougO and
     Binder, if you like.  It won't do you a bit of good with the
     future.  In the real game, they don't tell you whether you get
     the lady or the tiger until it's too late to help.  The most
     common error in policy has been refighting the last war, which
     invariably was different in important respects from the current
     one.  So the French built the Maginot Line, the US leaves 1/4
     million soldiers in Germany for 50 years, squandering hundreds
     of millions and losing out in the rest of the world where the
     action happens to be.
    
      DougO &co are wonderful at predicting the past.  So am I.  Its
     predicting the future which they (and I) are such hopeless failures
     at.
    
      bb

    
    .120  my centipedes exactly.
    
    I wasn't there either, but here's another scenario.
    
    European countries turned a blind eye to Hitler's pre-war rearming and
    then preached appeasement after he began his little annexing hobby. 
    The US ambassador to Germany issued warning after warning to his gov't
    and the warnings were heeded.  Strongly worded messages came from the
    US, with the full support of the House and Senate.  Hitler, being a
    lunatic, continued to believe that the US and the Europeans would not
    go to war over Poland.
    
    Having cast their lot with the Europeans, the US entered the war the
    same day as France and Britain.  The war had the spport of the
    government, but still lacked popular support.  Thanks to the men and
    munitions supplied by the US the war went well for the Allies, but was
    still very costly.
    
    However, The early involvement of the US meant that Hitler had no
    chance to open the eastern front so the Nazi treaty with Soviet Russia
    held.  The Russians sat on the fence and quietly consolidated their own
    territorial claims.  In turn, Germany had more troops to commit to the
    western front inflicting greater casualties on the Allies.
    
    Towards the end of the two-year war, both Japan and Russia
    simultaneously attacked the Allies without warning.   Russia was
    concerned that the Allies would overrun and hold countries on their own
    border, preventing them from their own expansionist plans.
    
    Russia actually gained a foothold in Alaska, after overrunning the
    Aleutians. (During this action my father-in-law, a fighter pilot
    stationed on the Aleutians was shot down.)  At this time, popular
    support for the war had not developed and what little support there was
    was dwindling due to the high casualty rates.
    
    A weakened US was unable to defend on three fronts and did not yet have
    nuclear weapons. In spite of the difficulties, the Allies were able to
    hold the Axis forces to a stalemate and sued for peace, allowing
    Germany to keep the territory that it held, Japan to keep a large chunk
    of Asia, and Russia to keep a large chunk of Eastern Europe. 
    Czechoslovakia was partitioned between Germany and Russia.   The young
    farm boy from Tennessee who used to visit our house in Wales never got
    sent to Europe and never got to take Aunt 'Lizabeth to the town hall
    dances.  
    
    The cold war began, but with four nuclear-armed superpowers involved.
    The US was forced into isolationism.
    
    
    Of course, it didn't happen like this and my father-in-law came home
    safe from the Aleutians.  However, the young lad from Tennessee was
    killed a few months before the end of the real WWII.  Aunt 'Lizabeth
    still has the letter from his family. It thanks my grandparents for
    making him feel at home.  Whatever Havel said, the end result would
    have been the same for a lot of young men & women.
    

    don't you guys get the simple concept here. we've learned about this
    yet we do nothing and have learned nothing. it's prevention! n-o-t
    reaction. reaction ends up painfully expensive.
    
    Helen Keller could have seen this stuff coming!
    
    Chip

    Oh, once in a while we get it right- as the Vaclav Havel episode shows.
    
    DougO

    re .121-
    
    Whatever your reaction to Havel's statement(I think your alternative
    scenario laughable, frankly, ignoring the colonial legacy), it has been
    apparent for decades that US policymakers in the postwar era largely
    agreed that withdrawal from active involvement with the world following
    Versailles and the isolationism of the '30s did lay the seeds of WWII;
    and thus they collectively and bipartisanly accepted the burdens of a
    leadership role afterwards.  If that, Bob Braucher, was to "build a
    Maginot Line" or "fight the last war", you're less able than I thought. 
    Havel is merely reminding us of the great consensus that guided US
    foreign policy throughout the Cold War.
    
    DougO

    
      Don't look now, but the Bosnians are gearing up for a possible
     major offensive against the Serbs.  They would try to break the
     siege of Sarajevo.  This might be a bloodbath, and there is
     nothing the UN hostages, er peacekeepers, can do about it.  If
     this happens, the proposed rescue operation might be necessary.
     We are playing with fire.
    
      bb

    
    i wish the bosiak success. the thugs that have been shelling them
    deserve to have the stuffings kocked out of them.

    So what have we proven?  Gun control and the UN are dismal failures!
    
    -Jack

    >and the UN are dismal failures
    
    The UNPROFOR command in Bosnia & Hercegovina was given three missions.
    
    Name the missions.
    
    Evaluate their effectiveness at each mission.
    
    Discuss 'dismal failure' and whether it applies to this situation.
    
    DougO

 remind those liberals that the U.N. of today, unlike the U.N. of the 1950's
 that repulsed the communist invasion of S.Korea NO longer takes a firm stand
 to defend democracies but instead stands idly by and watches civilian
 populations be decimated by butcherous tin pot dictators. The U.N of today
 has regressed to the point of being nothing more than glorified messengers
 and handy hostages! Combatants no longer have any respect for the soldiers
 in blue hats & white vehicles that turn a blind eye to the war crimes
 unfolding in front of them! It's high time that the role of the U.N's Peace
 Keeping forces be reaccessed so as to enable them to repulse invaders and
 protect civilian populations. Incompetent meddling by politians has totally
 castrated the U.N's Peace Keeping force. They failed in Bosnia and Somalia
 because nobody respects a military force that isn't prepared to fight for
 what it believes.

    -Jack

    You get an F on your homework.
    
    DougO

    I'll still do the homework but this is why I think the UN is a dismal
    failure!
    
    -Jack

    
    On a completely irrelevant note:
    
    I was amused to see the other day that one of the U.N. military
    spokesmen in Bosnia was LTC Gary Coward.
    
    Must have been tough going through basic training with a name like
    that.
    

    
      Woodrow Wilson, and subsequently the League of Nations and the UN,
     have always stood upon a principle called "self-determination".
    
      This idea seems doubtful to me.  Particularly in the Balkans !
     I guess at its most basic, it means a general support of secession
     and separatism, at the whim of the occupants of any area.  But it
     seems to me this is mathematically untenable.  Consider overlapping
     regions A and B.  A poll of all the inhabitants of A might show a
     majority wishing A to be a nation, and the same for B.
    
      Wilson, although a professor and very smart, got it wrong.
    
      bb