From: sethr@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (seth.r.rosenthal)
Subject: Re: Bosnian Muslims
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 12:52:28 GMT

In article <38301@imag.imag.fr>, oueichek@ngulu (Ibaa Oueichek) writes:
> aboelaze@cs.yorku.ca (Mokhtar Aboelaze) writes:
> : In article <20399@optima.cs.arizona.edu> bakken@cs.arizona.edu (Dave Bakken) writes:
> : >
> : >In Bosnia you have what is in effect a civil war, the premature
> : >recognitions of the Yugoslav republics notwithstanding.  Getting
> : >involved in a civil war is a very different matter from making
> : >Saddam disgorge Kuwait.  Is this such a hard concept to grasp?
> : 
> : 
> : Yes Dave, this is a hard concept for me to grasp.
> : I find it difficult to believe that swallowing Kuwait is more
> : repugnant than hundreds of thousands on innocent civilians suffering
> : every single day. (it is not less repugnant though).
> 
>   Don't confuse moral issues with politics. From a moral, humanitarian point
> of view, the suffering of Muslims in Bosnia IS unacceptable and disgusting,
> and it should be stopped by all the means. Now if you try to put emotions
> aside, a military intervention in a civil war will oblige the "super powers"
> to do that each time there is a civil war. From a legal point of view, Serbia
> isn't invading Bosnia, those are serbs from Bosnia who are doing this ugly
> job. If the US (or anyone else) must help one side here, they will have the
> obligation to take side in all the internal conflicts over the world (Lebanon,
> Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq,...etc).
>   Yes dear Mokhtar, it's immoral, but who said the we were living in a world
> based on morals ?.
> 

What would be even worse, would be for a Pan-Islamic force
to try to intervene at this time.  This may sound cruel
but my reasoning goes as follows.

Today, contrary to some opinions this in not a religious
conflict.  If it were, Catholic Croats wouldn't be allied
with Muslim Bosnians.  These are old ethnic conflicts,
originating in the Ottoman rule over the Balkans re-erupting.
Bring Iranian Revolutionary guards in, and the Croats will
likely switch sides and join the Serbs, and Serbia which
has not been directly involved will probably get directly
involved.  Further, if Turkish troops were to be involved
(particularly if they are not under UN control), I can't
imagine the Greeks would be too happy about seeing a Turkish
military presence on both sides of them.  With the alliances
between the US-Greece, and US-Turkey this would place the US in
a very bad position.  The advantage to leaving this in
the hands of a predominantly Western European force is that
they are not involved in the conflict directly either by
ethnicity (none of the US, Britain, France are primarily
Muslim or Eastern Orthodox, France is only marginally Catholic)
or religion.  A token Muslim force would not be taken as
threatening by the surrounding countries so long as it
was within a Western European one.

The logic was similar in the Gulf War where Bush made
sure that he had some Syrian, lots of Gulf State and
Egyptian soldiers to blunt the concerns of Muslim
states about European forces in the Middle East.
I believe Muslim actions must be in concert with Europe
to avoid a widening of the conflict.

I'm not sure what the solution is, but a Pan-Islamic Army
is not it.

		Seth Rosenthal

Disclaimer: All opinions are my own, not my employers'.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.arabic,soc.culture.turkish,soc.culture.iranian,soc.culture.afghanistan,soc.culture.french,soc.culture.african,soc.culture.pakistan,misc.invest,sci.econ