Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, January 1, 1993 TAG: 9301040273
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE: PAXTON DAVIS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A NEW PRESIDENT, AND MORE WAR
THE ENTHUSIASM of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush for martial adventure on exotic shores perpetuates a foreign-policy tradition Americans may yet to come to rue.It also leaves at President-elect Bill Clinton's doorstep a quandary - whether military intervention in the affairs of other nations is justified, and when and where and how, that could undermine seriously the domestic agenda, seeking economic recovery and social reforms, that was the cornerstone of his campaign for the White House.
The issue is important but difficult to grasp. Since shortly after the end of World War II, successive American presidents, with the notable exception of Jimmy Carter, have used either military pressure or direct military power to oppose nations and actions they regarded as inimical to the national interests of the United States.
Their military decisions, whether in Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, the Dominican Republic, Laos, Cambodia, Lebanon, Grenada, Nicaragua, Panama, the Persian Gulf or now Somalia, invariably were presented as acts of supreme moral superiority.
Amercian troops were fighting, we were told, to resist "communist aggression" or to contain "communist expansion," to protect American medical students, to rid Central America of a nefarious "drug lord," to save South America from "communist influence," to resist the aggression of a dictator whose true precursor was Hitler, to guarantee the delivery of food to a people experiencing famine caused by violent men.
Invariably, too, the effort was couched in moral terms. We faced an "evil empire." Our troops were waging a "crusade." Americans represented the forces of light against the forces of darkness.
Some of this may have been true, while much was not. The fact that American military actions, whether sensible of misguided, were usually, in fact, attempts to protect some American business or political interest abroad was rarely acknowledged. Only recently, for example, has the Bush administration finally begun to admit that the war against Saddam Hussein was really about oil.
Now, hard upon its decision to intervene in famine-ridden Somalia, Bush appears to be readying another final military action, this time against Serbia. Though somnolent throughout the fall and, for many, apparently indifferent to the fate of Bosnia-Herzogovina, he now adds warning upon warning to Belgrade that the United States will not tolerate further Serbian aggression.
That the Serbs are indeed aggressive, and that the fall of Bosnia is near, seems indisputable. But the power of the United States to affect the outcome of the fighting at any price the American people are willing to pay seems, by the same token, doubtful. And there is the added question: If Bush commits American air power to intervention, what choices does that leave Clinton?
The eruption of regional conflicts, most of them deeply rooted in ethnic and religious quarrels too ancient to be wholly understood, has become a predictable feature of the post-cold war world. They have taken place in Eastern Europe, until recently part of the Soviet bloc, and throughout the old U.S.S.R. Nearly all produce human suffering on a scale unimaginable to most Americans, leaving hordes of refugees, widespread destruction and disease, famine in much of the world.
Reagan and Bush, obsessed with the dogma of resistance, followed their predecessors in sending in the troops. To many, though the cost proved high, it was the right thing to do. To those who believe in alternative solutions, who are persuaded that the United States ought to be more modest in its international behavior, it created only tragedy. And now a new president must decide for himself.
Paxton Davis is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.