Newsgroups: alt.activism,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Never again. How soon we forget.
From: demon@desire.wright.edu (Stupendous Man)
Date: 13 Aug 92 14:28:47 EST
Organization: Demonic Possesions, Inc.

In article <BsxFx1.Huw@news.cso.uiuc.edu>, bfrg9732@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Brian F. Redman) writes:
> kmcvay@oneb.almanac.bc.ca (Ken Mcvay) writes:
> 
>>>>>>	This is pathetic, and somewhat sick.
>>>>	2) It wasn't in repsonse to what you posted, but what Brian did.
>>>
>>>  I know that, but the questions are still valid and the "pro-
>>>  interventionists" are still evading them.  
> 
>>Here's some solid political advice, certain to assuage the concerns of the
>>poltical left - there is clearly only one policy which we can adopt, and
>>that is to endlessly pontificate about how to help, in the hope everyone
>>will be dead before we have to get off our ass and actually _do_ anything.
> 
>>With some judicious political prattle, we can adopt the high moral
>>appearance of wanting to help stop the killing, while doing nothing of the
>>sort, thus placating everyone opposed to intervention.
> 
>>It might help to televise the killing every night on news specials, with
>>sports commentators instead of news commentators - given the end of the
>>Olympic Games, there are now lots of them available for work.
> 
> I call your attention to an article in this week's NEWSWEEK magazine
> entitled "It's All Too Easy to Get Sucked Into War." (August 17, 1992
> issue, page 20, by David H. Hackworth). The author, David H. Hackworth,
> was part of a U.S. force which was involved in fighting against 
> Yugoslavian guerrillas between 1945 and 1953. "In a half century of

	Which US forces would that be?  I'm unaware of any US forces fighting
for Tito after the war.

> wandering around battlefieds, I've never met fiercer fighters. They
> could easily suck the United States into a ground war -- hook, line
> and body bag." writes Hackworth.
> 
> Hackworth points out that, fresh from a victory in the Gulf War, we
> have a tendency to assume that any conflict in the Yugoslav republics
> will be similarly antiseptic: "...the idea is that we can deal with
> Serbia from the air. The plan, if it comes to that, would be to
> replay the gulf war with all its laser and stealth wonder toys:
> totally antiseptic, almost bloodless and oh, by the way, a boon for
> the depressed U.S. defense industry, which is a heavy-duty political
> contributor." The author proceeds to point out why any involvement
> in Yugoslavia would *not* be a replay of the Desert Storm scenario.
> He demonstrates that any U.S. military committment would inevitably
> result in a committment of U.S. ground troops.

	Why?  Why do anti-interventionists *insist* that it be a US ground war? 
The Euros are quite capable of handling it.

> Hackworth writes that "...Yugoslavia is an impossible mission." Drawing
> on his lifetime of military experience he warns that military 
> involvement in the region is tantamount to getting dragged into
> an unwinnable war. 

	A strawman.  We wouldn't be fighting Yugoslavia.  We would be allied
with Bosnia (and probably Croatia and Slovenia and Macedonia) against Serbia.

> "...Yugoslavian soldiers, irregular or regular,
> are the meanest mothers in the valley of death and the last tigers
> the United States ever wants to try to tame."

	Meanset mothers of all fighters?

> Hackworth ends the article by suggesting that rather than risk
> military disaster, we could "airdrop bundles of food and water to
> the poor people who are trapped in the quagmire below."

	While we put cotton in our ears to prevent their screams of agony from
interrupting our dinner hour?

Brett
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