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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GST who wrote (125945)	3/11/2004 11:45:25 PM
From: KLP	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Re: Your view that: <Clinton invaded Bosnia> Clinton did not invade Bosnia ~~ Clips from a Republican speech and a Socialist Review...Read and see if you think Clinton didn't go into Bosnia...and several other places as well. All without these countries attacking the US per se'--Both articles are much longer and worth reviewing. 888888888 Issue 177 of SOCIALIST REVIEW Published July/August 1994 Copyright © Socialist Review pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk >>>>>>Earlier this spring he used air strikes against Bosnia. More recently, he has become entangled in an escalation cat and mouse game with North Korea, in which he has moved to implement sanctions--and threatened to go to war--if North Korea doesn't back down. And since May he has been threatening to invade Haiti. Yet regarding the slaughter in Rwanda, which by some estimates has claimed close to half a million lives, Clinton has been virtually silent. The Clinton administration has even instructed its spokesmen not to describe the mass killings in Rwanda as genocide and to play down the horror of what has occurred there. They are allowed only to say that 'acts of genocide may have occurred.' Similarly, in mid-May the UN Security Council dropped the word 'genocide' from its resolution on Rwanda, which was watered down to express disapproval over 'systematic, widespread and flagrant violations of international humanitarian law.'<<<<<<<< 888888888888888 A Foreign Policy Vision for the Next American Century by The Honorable Kay Bailey Hutchison Heritage Lecture #639 July 9, 1999 66.102.7.104 >>>>>>>> We are injecting American troops into political situations that pose no threat to us or our allies. It started in Somalia, then Haiti, now Bosnia and Kosovo. Where is this leading? Just recently, in a speech, the President outlined his principle clearly: We must win the peace. If we can do this here...we can then say to the people of the world, "Whether you live in Africa or Central Europe or any other place, if somebody comes after innocent civilians and tries to kill them en masse because of their race, their ethnic background or their religion and it is within our power to stop it, we will stop it." What the President wants to do is to stop hatred around the world and replace it with democracy. As noble as that sounds, in practice it means the United States could become involved in civil wars all around the globe, trying to create a utopian American multi-party democracy--at the point of a gun.<<<< >>>>>>>>Misusing the Military. We're relying too much on military solutions to humanitarian problems. This pattern began in Somalia. We went in with the best intention: to feed starving people. At a time of famine, or flood, or hurricane, Americans want to respond, and the military has traditionally been a key part of that emergency relief. The military has resources: airplanes, ships, and personnel. Our military accomplished the original mission in Somalia. We broke the logjam, delivered the food, and saved lives. But the Clinton Administration--instead of withdrawing our forces--greatly expanded their mission. In Madeleine Albright's words, our objective became nation-building. We were going to impose a long-term solution by creating a democracy. The first job was to track down and capture the Somali warlord Aideed. That led to the tragic firefight when 18 American Rangers were killed. We failed to capture that obscure little warlord and withdrew in humiliation. We invaded Haiti to restore democracy. Five years and several billion dollars later, Haiti remains a desolate and mostly undemocratic country where political opposition is squelched by the very political leaders on whose behalf we intervened. Five hundred American troops remain, painting orphanages, building schools, and performing other community outreach.<<<<<< >>>>>>>>>>Democracy-Building in the Balkans. And now we have expanded this democracy-building experiment to the Balkans. In Bosnia, we have more than 6,000 American troops on an open-ended commitment to guarantee democracy. Bosnia is under semi-permanent occupation by NATO. Voters have been bused into disputed regions to vote for elected officials who cannot serve because they are unable to return to their pre-war homes. We're in even deeper in Kosovo. In the name of restoring democracy and preventing humanitarian chaos, we bombed a sovereign nation that had not attacked us or our allies. That is unprecedented. NATO has been turned into an alliance that starts wars.<<<< >>>>>>>>>>In Bosnia, for example, since 1991 we've maintained an arms embargo on the Muslim forces who were willing to fight for themselves. Congress voted time and again to lift the arms embargo and allow the Muslims to have the arms to defend themselves. But the Administration opposed us. For three years, the Muslims and Croats were routed because they could not fight. When the Croats finally got arms in violation of the embargo and fought back, Milosevic cut a deal. We've done the same in Kosovo. Are we better off because 25,000 bombs were dropped at a cost of billions of dollars and nearly depleting our inventory of critical weapons? Are we better off that thousands of Kosovars were massacred while we stayed 15,000 feet above the ground? Why not let the Kosovar Albanians fight for themselves? Their objective was basically the same as ours was: removal of Serb forces and a path towards autonomy, maybe even independence.<<<<<<<<