THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, December 2, 1995 TAG: 9512020003
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 46 lines
The decision to send troops to Bosnia at this time is a win-win situation for President Clinton. By putting troops in now it is almost certain that they will be there during most of the 1996 presidential campaign. This will practically guarantee his re-election.
It is very hard to campaign against the commander in chief while U.S. troops are at war. Anyone who does so will appear unpatriotic and mean-spirited.
If casualties start to mount or public-opinion polls go South, the president can withdraw the troops. He can then claim the moral high ground by saying he fulfilled his commitment to the peace plan. And, besides, he'll be the president that ``brought the boys home." All this will be fresh in the minds of the voters on Election Day.
President Bush waged a war for national-security reasons. By the time the voters went to the polls it was completely forgotten and it cost him the election. President Clinton is too politically shrewd to let that happen to him.
CLIFTON MIDDLETON
Norfolk, Nov. 28, 1995
I oppose President Clinton's plan to send our troops into Bosnia as peacekeepers.
I was among those American forces ashore in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1982-83. We were called ``peacekeepers,'' too. Within a year there were more than 283 graves of brave Americans, testifying to the error of getting involved in that mid-Eastern quagmire of tribal strife.
The parallel between Beirut and Bosnia is startling: a multinational force comprising thousands of American troops caught between armies fueled by centuries-old hatreds. One need only study recent history to see the folly of Clinton's ill-conceived solution to Balkan warfare.
JOHN MAIORANA
CDR, U.S. Navy (ret.)
Norfolk, Nov. 29, 1995 by CNB