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   From: wmuhanna@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Waleed A Muhanna)
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   References: <19o8i9INNh7p@function.mps.ohio-state.edu> <kutluk.717237401@ccl.umist.ac.uk> <1992Sep27.183512.20135@samba.oit.unc.edu>
   Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 22:17:17 GMT
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   Xref: news.bbn.com soc.culture.arabic:13319 soc.culture.iranian:14502 soc.culture.turkish:22904

   In article <1992Sep27.183512.20135@samba.oit.unc.edu> Bruce.Scott@bbs.oit.unc.edu (Bruce Scott) writes:
   >Kutluk writes:
   >
   >"[...]Such serious is the West's commitment to the survival of Bosnians."
   >
   >You shouldn't interpret this as lack of concern.

>   Recent reports (see items below) reveal horrendous episodes unseen 
>   since the Nazi era: concentration camps, mass murder, and crematoria.
>   Do you think that this provides enough justification?

Wrong, things were much worse in Cambodia, East Timor, Kurdish Iraq,
Burma, Uganda, Sudan, etc.  In Cambodia, 1 million people were killed
in concentration camps.  In East Timor, 100,000 died.  10s of
thousands of Kurds died in Iraq.  Hundreds of thousands of Africans
died in Uganda and Sudan.

>   The US and NATO are the ones who have the military assets and capability
>   to put an end to this mass slaughter.   Where is the UN Security council?
>   Why hasn't the use of force been authorized?  Why hasn't a multi-national 
>   force been organized?  Why is this aggression allowed to stand?  Why is 
>   the genocide in B-H allowed to continue?  Do you think if the people being 
>   victimized were Christians or Jews instead of Muslims, that the reaction 
>   would have been a bit different perhaps?

They have been Christians victims.  You seem to have forgotten the war
in Croatia, in which the Serbs practiced many atrocities.  We did
nothing for the Christians either.

>   How is it possible to square the hand wringing, spinlessness,
>   and shameless abdication of responsibility by western powers in 
>   the face of unbridled genocide, on the one hand, with the gung-ho 
>   west and the all out war in reaction to Iraq's occupation of Kuwait?
>   I guess the difference simply boils down to one thing: OIL.   
>   Not aggression, not human lives.

This is a very good point, and I join you in your condemnation.

   >Hey, where is all this rhetoric anymore about the evil US trying to be
   >the world's policeman?

>   As someone mentioned here before, the only people who come out of this 
>   tragedy looking like the real hypocritical shits many of us have long 
>   suspected them of being, are the self-righteous, oh-so-pious, holier-
>   than-thou governments, leaders, and some individuals of what is called
>   the civilized world.

The US got involved in very similar situation to Bosnia once.  It was
in a small South-East Asian country called Vietnam.  The Vietnamese
taught many Americans a lesson about our abilities to intervene in
civil wars.  We were taught another lesson in Lebanon.  Don't expect
us to forget anytime soon.

As for the Europeans, "European Leadership" is the oxymoron of the
ninties. 

peace be with you,
fletcher
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