by Joe Snyder
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Pick up any issue of your favorite daily newspaper. Close examination reveals there are at least 10 to 15 wars going on somewhere. It is strange the people of so many nations appear willing to kill one another. Trouble is, most of them believe it is the responsibility of the United States to help them do it.
Indeed, the U.S. becomes involved, either directly or indirectly, officially or unofficially, in nearly every conflict that breaks out. We have demonstrated we will intervene between warring groups, even when peace is a last resort. Yugoslavia is the latest example. We have troops in at least a dozen other countries, our mission in several obscure and clouded by diplomatic hogwash.
Clearly, Congress has shown little interest in this war, and has provided no leadership to provide any clear direction. Many Americans, despite all the briefings, news conferences and speeches, could care less and are quite ambivalent, willing to accept almost any activity as an excuse to ignore the precarious world situation.
It is a strange war. We did not intend to actually "win" it — just destroy certain cities, the nation’s power grid, the railroads and other essential public facilities. We made life tough for a lot of people who merely want to resume fighting one another as they have done for a thousand years.
This was an Air Force victory with a few bombers even as far away as Missouri to Kosovo to strike designated targets from 32,000 feet, hoping not to hurt anybody on the ground. Once we had almost used up our limited supply of bombs and missiles, we decided we had "won" and then called in small contingents of ground forces from NATO countries to do what they could without risking too much.
For a time, the Russians wouldn’t even let others into the airport. Sometimes it’s hard to keep track of who we’re supposed to be fighting. Even the burial and re-burial of the dead creates animosity.
Since the president and the Joint Chiefs of Staff decided early to bomb to smithereens the territory occupied by the people we were trying to help, and keep our ground forces out of harm’s way, Milosevic remains in office, resisting arrest and resignation, issuing insults against NATO every hour on the hour. By this time, formally charged a war criminal and subject to arrest, this monster should have been ousted by NATO troops and sent packing for his war crimes trial in The Hague.
This won’t happen because this is not a conventional war. Often our troops have difficulty determining who the "good" guys are if, in fact, there are any good guys among the numerous ethnic factions responsible for the situation we face. Not long ago, the French had to battle some of the folks we supposedly "saved." There are such incidents every day, with NATO forces in a defensive mode against still-warring factions who never seem to know when enough is enough.
NATO, with the U.S. footing most of the bill, has begun rebuilding the infrastructure our bombers destroyed — "they" say it won’t cost over $20 or $30 billion. Wouldn’t it be nice if some of that money was helping people in Turkey?
If all this wasn’t enough, citizens are suffering from toxic materials left in the ground from the intense bombing. Farmers put their hands in the soil and they break out in a rash; children are suffering headaches and nausea, while there are twice as many miscarriages as normal. The produce is not fit to eat and the water table has been seriously damaged.
Well, don’t worry. There will be another crisis someplace. It, too, could be rooted in ancient grudges; people who can’t stand one another are willing to see their children killed, just to make a point. You can bet the USA will feel it has an obligation to go there and fix things, but our record in "brush fire wars" is not very pretty.