Bill Clinton as UN Secretary General?

[Toad]

Originally posted by GScholz
The UN's greatest success in Bosnia was creating awareness in the world of what was going on, and force the world to act.  

Force the world to act?  Now THAT'S funny. Explain to me just once more how the "world" acted in Bosnia? To stop the killing, I mean.

And, while your at it... explain to me how the UN is creating awareness of the slaughter currently ongoing in Sudan and how it will "force the world" to act on that.

[Toad]

LOL.  Nato? Ask Boroda if that was a "legal" Nato action. I happen to agree with him that it was not.

What happened was the US finally got involved. Like it or not chum, when it comes to shooting bad guys, nothing happens until the US takes the lead.

Nothings going to happen in Sudan. Wanna know why? Because our US military, the one that every President since WW2 assured us could fight two major wars at one time in different theaters, is maxxed out by Afghanistan and Iraq.

In other words, our military is unavailable for Sudan. That is why nothing will be done.

There isn't any other military capable of getting involved in a shooting war where their own soldiers are going to die just to save Sudanese blacks.

Wait.......... the Dutch might be available.

[midnight Target]

Originally posted by NUKE
Can you imagine how bad that would be for America?

Clinton as head of the UN would undermine the President by default. Bad idea.

Clinton would be seen as America's voice.... totaly undermining our President.

Amazingly enough, I think this is spot on. Clinton is by far the finest POLITICIAN we've had in the WH for decades. He would do a great job in the UN. He would also be considered the 'voice of America' by many in the World. This may not be a good thing for the USA or the current administration.

[spitfiremkv]

Originally posted by NUKE
Can you imagine how bad that would be for America?

Clinton as head of the UN would undermine the President by default. Bad idea.

Clinton would be seen as America's voice.... totaly undermining our President.

and why is that bad?
Bush is undermining America.

[Toad]

I'm ignorant, alright.

So show me where it says NATO can militarily intervene in a nation's internal conflict. Because that's what the whole dismemberment of Yugoslavia was.

Article 5 and 6 should figure substantially in your argument.

The North Atlantic Treaty

Further, please review this NATO document and explain how it supports NATO's "first strike" that was used in Bosnia against forces that DID NOT attack any NATO country.

Declaration on a transformed North Atlantic Alliance issued by the Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council (``The London Declaration'')

5. We will remain a defensive alliance and will continue to defend all the territory of all our members. We have no aggressive intentions and we commit ourselves to the peaceful resolution of all disputes. We will never in any circumstance be the first to use force.

6. The member states of the North Atlantic Alliance propose to the member states of the Warsaw Treaty Organisation a joint declaration in which we solemnly state that we are no longer adversaries and reaffirm our intention to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or from acting in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter and with the CSCE Final Act. We invite all other CSCE member states to join us in this commitment to non- aggression.

[Toad]

Originally posted by GScholz
NATO may very well have exceeded their own charter, but that does not make their actions illegal. Only they can judge their actions by their own rules.

[/b]

No, anyone can judge their actions vis-a-vis their own NATO rules. They CLEARLY violated their own rules.

The UN sanctioned every NATO action in Bosnia. NATO's involvement in Bosnia was legal by international law. Whatever rules NATO has made for itself and whether they broke them is irrelevant to international law.

Your position is that International Law is all that matters. I disagree. That's a fig leaf. They couldn't even be true to their own charter.

The US never took the lead in Bosnia,

YGBSM!

NOTHING got done until the US took military action. We led the military action.

Ignorant or lying? You must type in front of a mirror.

[GRUNHERZ]

To me its pretty simple, nothing significant happened to kill the mass murderers until the Srebrenica incident showed the weakness of the UN position in bosnia.

After that the USA came in bombed the serbs, helped train the croatian army and plan our joint offensives with the bosnians which eneded the war and led to the Dayton talks...  Too bad it took 10,000 more or less televised deaths to start this action. Too bad that it took a country from half the world away to act..

[Toad]

By NATO's own rules it was illegal. NATO is a defensive alliance.

Dance around it anyway you like; NATO should not have attacked.

Ask yourself this: why didn't other non-NATO UN nations answer the call? Eh? Why?

Because the UN is meaningless and gutless... as it is showing once again in Sudan.

The US is maxxed out in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Sudanese blacks are being subjected to genocide. Where are the rest of the blue berets now that there's fighting to be done?

Go ahead... tell me how the UN will save the Sudanese.

[AKIron]

I can think of no one better for the job as head of a worthless, do-nothing organization like the UN than a worthless, do-nothing person like Bill Clinton. They were made for each other.

[Toad]

Who led?

Originally posted by GScholz
That's my point. The UN made the world act by showing what was going on.
 

Well, the everyone knows what's going on in Sudan right now. So... when will the UN "world" act?

I mean, you don't need the US, right? You guys can act without us like you've been saying, right?

[Toad]

Originally posted by GScholz
Last time I checked Pakistan, Sweden, Jordan and Ukraine are not NATO members. They were all there, and probably other non-NATO nations I fail to recall.

You are ignorant.

So why was NATO required? Why was it necessary for NATO to violate it's own charter?

Why didn't the Pakis, Swedes, Jordanians and Ukrainians handle it?

BECAUSE THEY CAN'T.... or even worse, they won't.

Somebody here is ignorant. It'd be anyone that thinks the UN has any value at all when it's time to actually fight a real war and die for another nation's people.

[Toad]

From Lisbon to Dayton: International Mediation and the Bosnia Crisis

.....Bosnia made embarrassingly clear that, contrary to the exclamation of Jacques Poos, then-president of the European Community (EC), the “age of Europe”had not yet dawned.

Despite a series of sustained and concerted medi-ation attempts, Europe was unable to provide an external military or political solution to the Bosnia crisis.

UN peacekeeping forces,whose principles of consent and consensus represented the optimism of post–Cold War international military thinking,were exposed as a poor fig leaf for the Western powers’ lack of military and political will to bring about a peace that could be kept.

Only when the United States, backed up by the military muscle of NATO, finally took hold of the intervention did the crisis begin to lift in Bosnia...

....May 25:NATO bombs Serb positions in retaliation for Serb attacks on Sarajevo and other UN safe areas.

May 26: Mladic retaliates by taking 350 UN personnel
hostage, as “human shields” against further NATO attacks.

June 18: UN hostages released.EU begins to debate withdrawal of UNPROFOR troops; United States discovers it would be obligated to assist in withdrawal.

July11:The fall of Srebrenica;an estimated 8,000 Muslims executed by Bosnian Serb forces.

 Aug. 5: Croatian “Operation Storm” retakes the Krajina after
one day of fighting.

Aug. 19: Three American envoys killed in accident on
Mt. Igman during shuttle diplomacy.

Aug. 28: Serbs mortar the Sarajevo marketplace, leaving thirty-five dead.

Aug. 30: NATO launches operation “Deliberate Force,”massive air attacks on the Bosnian Serb positions near Sarajevo.

U.S. Offers to Send Troops to Assist Bosnian Pull-Out
By Art Pine
Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON

President Clinton formally offered Thursday to send up to 20,000 U.S. ground troops to help evacuate the U.N. peacekeeping force in Bosnia-Herzegovina if the allies decide to withdraw in the face of increased harassment and hostage-taking by nationalist Serb forces there.

Pentagon officials said the United States probably would supply between 40 percent and 50 percent of an allied evacuation force of up to 45,000 troops. The U.S. military also is likely to provide the bulk of the air- and sea-lift for the operation....


This story was published on December 9, 1994.
Volume 114, Number 62.
This story appeared on page 2.

Oh, yeah. The UN has landed and the situation is well in hand.

YGBSM.

Your problem is you identify yourself to closely with the UN failure in the Balkans. It wasn't your fault; the UN just suxxors at stopping genocide. Quit blaming yourself.

Your service was honorable; unfortunately,  the organization you served was humiliatingly impotent, lacking in the will to win.

In a way, you probably now know how some of our VN vets felt/feel.

[Toad]

Originally posted by GScholz
Now THAT is rather ironic considering that it was the Pakistani blue-hats that saved your soldiers in Mogadishu while the locals where dragging the maimed remains of your dead through the streets.

Read Blackhawk down? Remember what it took to get the Pakis moving?

That US taskforce asked for heavy armor, in the form of Abrams tanks and Bradley armored vehicles as well as the AC-130 gunship, but the Clinton Administration denied those requests.

Had the taskforce been properly equipped, the Pakis could have stayed at the stadium forever.

[Toad]

Originally posted by GScholz
However on the ground things were a bit different.
 

No, things on the ground were "UN standard". They were getting ready to withdraw.

There was no ground war per se. The was a deliberative air campaign, however, and that is what ended the open genocide.

And, the air campaign was primarily a US operation. Check the number of PGM dropped and what percent of those were dropped by Euro air forces.

[Toad]

Like I said, you don't need to be embarassed; it wasn't your fault.

Nitey-nite. Past my bedtime.