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Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (41402)	4/2/1999 11:33:00 AM
From: JBL	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 67261

Stupidity knows no limit : I don't know wether to cry or laugh after reading the following.... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Serbs should release captured U.S. soldiers immediately Dallas Morning News 04/02/99 Editorial The government of Yugoslavia has scored an undeniable propaganda coup by abducting three U.S. soldiers and spiriting them away to be humiliated in front of Yugoslav television cameras. Coming less than a week after the dramatic downing of a U.S. stealth fighter, the beleaguered but nationalistic citizens of Yugoslavia can only feel encouraged. Still, three basic facts must be pointed out: North Atlantic Treaty Organization ground forces are not participating in the current hostilities against Yugoslavia. The United States has not declared war on that country. And the captured troops have always been designated as military observers. Given these factors, the government of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic should release the Americans right away. Certainly, Belgrade should forget any plans to try the Americans. For What? Peacekeeping? Staff Sgts. Christopher Stone and Andrew Ramírez and Spc. 4 Steven Gonzáles must at the very least be treated according to internationally accepted norms of humanitarian behavior. They are not prisoners of war in the conventional sense. The United States has long explained the presence of troops there as a trip wire to keep any conflict in Kosovo from spreading. U.S. officials insist the troops were inside Macedonia when they were captured. But even if the Americans strayed over a poorly defined border into Kosovo, they were part of a NATO observation team. Until recently, they even wore the blue helmets of United Nations peacekeepers. The incident is disturbing enough by itself. But the kidnapping also underscores the dangers of the United States being drawn into the conflict on the ground. Serious thought must be given to what the U.S. response would be to a nightmare like the one that unfolded in Somalia a few years ago. Would the United States pull out, as it did in Africa? Or would it use American fatalities as a justification for inserting more troops? It is telling that even the question of who abducted the American troops on Wednesday cannot be answered with certainty at this time. Serb infiltrators from Kosovo, perhaps? Or Serb partisans of Macedonian citizenship? That such questions should have to be asked at all only lays bare the morass into which NATO's enterprise has now entered.