From: ia4@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Imran Anwar)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.islam
Subject: Editorial in NY Times on Bosnia
Date: 10 Oct 92 22:21:14 GMT
Organization: Columbia University


This is an editorial in the NY Times today.  

At Least- Slow the Slaughter

Late and grudging, the Bush Administration now declares it
will join in an effort to stop Serbian warplanes from bombing
unarmed Muslims in Bosnia. An effective ban on such flights
from Serbia may clear the air space. It will not clear
America's conscience.
Vicious cluster bombs are not the only reason that Muslims
are dying by the thousands. Serb terrorists are still driving
Muslims from their homes,now from the suburbs of Sarajevo.
Serbian artillery still pounds hospitals, homes, schools_all
in the despicable name of "ethnic cleansing." And as winter
nears, hundreds of thousands of Bosnians face death by siege,
by starvation, by winter winds. To repeat, without
exaggeration, that's hundreds of thousands.
The war in Bosnia is not a fair fight and it is not war. It
is slaughter. Yet American officials, despairing of a way to
end the war, continue to dither. They remain oddly unwilling
to acknowledge that even if collective military intervention
cannot readily compel a cease-fire, it can at least slow the
slaughter.
To knock out the Serbs' artillery and tanks can slow the
slaughter. To break up the hidden concentration camps can
slow the slaughter. To create safe havens for people dragged
shoeless from their homes can slow the slaughter. And at the
very least, Washington can persuade the United Nations to
lift its embargo on Bosnia, permitting Bosnians to arm and
defend themselves.
Leaders in Belgrade bear most of the responsibility for the
butchery in Bosnia. They promised to stop, and then broke
their pledge. The argument now concerns,how to bring them to
justice. French, British. and Canadian troops now bolster the
U.N. force in Bosnia. But the U.S. military continues to
oppose limited intervention for limited goals. Gen. Colin
Powell, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made that
clear in an interview with The New York Times last week: "As
soon as they tell me it is limited, it means they do not care
whether you achieve a result or not."
That traditional military view of all-or-nothing warfare
antedates Vietnam and was reinforced in Lebanon, where, in
General Powell's words, "a bunch of Marines were put in as a
symbol" without knowing what their mission was. "Two hundred
and forty-one of them died as a result." But missions are
seldom as well defined as generals would like. Why, for
instance, is a no-fly zone in Iraq any clearer than a no-fly
zone in Bosnia?

The Air Force remains as reluctant to fly to help beleaguered
Bosnia as it was to run the Berlin airlift. The Army does not
like such static operations as protecting safe havens for
refugees, nor commando raids, like those needed to close down
concentration camps. The Navy has better things to do than
blockade.
In short, what Bosnia holds out to the military is the
prospect of dangerous, undesirable duty. But when Americans
spend more than $280 billion a year for defense, surely they
ought to be getting more for their money than no-can-do. It
is the prerogative of civilian leaders confronting this
historic nightmare to ask the military for a range of options
more sophisticated than off or on, stay out completely or go
in all the way to total victory.
With that in hand, President Bush could tell General Powell
what President Lincoln once told General McClellan: "If you
don't want to use the Army, I should like to borrow it for a
while."