Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 29, 1995                   TAG: 9511290054
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

THE CASE FOR SENDING TROOPS

Lugar is right. Congress and the public are hard sells when it comes to military action, and rightly so. No one, this newspaper included, has any enthusiasm for dispatching troops to Bosnia. Even so, the president has made a strong case for a risky but necessary mission.

Clinton claims he doesn't need congressional approval. He is wrong. A deployment of this difficulty, danger and potential divisiveness shouldn't be undertaken without the backing of Congress.

The House and Senate should deliberate carefully, debate vigorously, and demand answers to probing questions - about terms of engagement and exit strategy, among other things.

Ultimately, though, Congress and the public ought to recognize the need for American leadership and support its exercise. It is no substitute for effective international peacekeeping capacity - but Bosnia can't wait while the latter is developed. To abandon international responsibilities now would put U.S. interests at greater risk than would the uncertain and messy pursuit of peace.

Consider:

The agreement forged in Dayton is flawed, to be sure. The Bosnian state may well prove a legal fiction, as might provisions about refugees returning home. Still, the pact represents the best chance for ending a war in the heart of Europe that has left 250,000 dead and 2 million homeless. And it couldn't have been achieved without committing to include U.S. troops in the NATO forces sent to enforce the peace.

The danger of "mission creep" is chilling, unquestionably. But, unlike in Vietnam, America isn't sending soldiers to help one side fight a war. They will be helping implement a pact signed by the participants: war-weary Serbs, Croats and Muslims. The settlement tragically corresponds with unjust facts on the ground - in particular, ethnically cleansed partition - but this realism enhances odds of success.

The Bosnia deployment will not, assures Clinton, fall prey to the fate of past peacekeeping and humanitarian missions in Lebanon and Somalia, in which U.S. casualties prompted hasty, humiliating withdrawals amid turmoil. Nor will NATO forces act like U.N. peacekeepers. The 60,000 NATO troops, from Europe and Canada as well as the United States, will be answerable to a U.S. commanding general, will not have vague nation-building as part of their mission, and will be authorized to respond massively to any threat or provocation.

The consequences of abandoning the U.S.-brokered peace plan could be severe and far-reaching. Leaving aside the likelihood of war resuming and possibly spreading, a NATO without a mission or leader surely would be a NATO without a future. When America walked away from Europe after one world war, another followed. When America stayed engaged after World War II, the Cold War was won, peace prevailed, and U.S. interests flourished. Isn't there a lesson here? Isn't there a national interest?

And if America amounts to a set of ideals, isn't there a national interest in helping stop a slaughter of innocents?

Clinton did well Monday night not to oversell a mission whose chances of success are uncertain - less certain, indeed, than the prospect of casualties. By no means should the mission be undertaken with any illusions about righting the war's wrongs or redeeming horrific losses. Kept, though, within sharply defined limits, a supportive role for NATO in Bosnia remains unavoidable, if risky, and deserves congressional and public approval.