Bosnia & Iraq

[_JS]

If we can avoid the political hackery for a moment, I have a serious question.

I remember the problems associated with Bosnia pretty well. Some of them were similar to Iraq, though there were clear differences as well.

There were many people in the United States who opposed United States involvement in Bosnia. Many said it was Europe's problem and that we shouldn't be involved. Another common statement was that the Balkan's had centuries of history of violence and that we could not possibly stop that. When we sent peacekeepers in, there was apprehension. This region had seen a few years of the nastiest warfare. It was primarily meaningless violence with snipers in Sarejevo shooting any civilian they saw to an occasional village where every living creature was slaughtered, including livestock.

Indeed, Europe even saw the worst massacre since World War II with the Srebrenica Massacre in 1995.

Yet, overall and despite occasional violence and the later addition of Kosovo to the task, Bosnia has been an overall success story. It was horrible and it could have been dealt with earlier, but for that matter so could Saddam. There are still US forces in Bosnia and Kosovo as well as many other national forces. The history of violence and even early mention of Vietnam-like circumstances never came to pass.

Now, there were plenty of factional problems in Bosnia and Kosovo. I won't even list all the numerous factions involved. There were religious differences. There were outside influences from other countries. There were plenty of weapons and certainly the opportunity existed for it to become a bogged down affair.

What are the major differences in Iraq and Bosnia? Is there anything this administration could have learned from President Clinton's handling of Bosnia (let's not make this hackery, we can all remember Somalia)? Were the military and political aspects of Bosnia handled better or differently? Was having NATO and UN support a major factor in the success?

[Xavier_Onassis]

Well, gosh, the major difference is that thousands of Americans have been killed in Iraq. In Bosnia, I don't think there were more than ten casualties in all.

There is no oil in Bosnia.

Europeans LIKED us for going into Bosnia. They DISLIKE us for invading Iraq. No Bosnians were waterboarded, sent to Gitmo or otherwise Al Gharaib'ed.


Bosnia was done according to the generals' best recommendations. Iraq was done according to what Cheney, Rummy and clowns like Wolfowitz and Pearle recommended. Henry 'the Thing that Will Not Die' has been consulted as well. One might think that Vietnam would be enough to poison his advice forever, but noooo.

[Plane]

Extremely light casualtys for American forces.

Therefore no significant anti-war effort.


I recall how at that time it was repeatedly affirmed that we would have to put "boots on the ground" to complete the job , but this seems to have not been true.

Aerial Bombardment ,and lots of it kept the Serbs hurting , it didn't immediately stop the massacres anywhere but when it seemed that we were going to just keep on blasting their stuff forever they caved.


We really ought to give Clinton Credit for devising a strategy that worked well (I still don't like him otherwise).

[The_Professor]

Clinton did indeed handle this conflict well. That being said, I still believe we shouldn't have gone in there just as I do not believe we should have gone into Iraq.

HERE IS THE CRUX OF THE ISSUE AS I SEE IT:

It all gets down to the concept of WHAT IS IN OUR NATIONAL INTEREST?

Of course, isn't it here where it gets confusing since we all define it so differently? My general take, is that we need to narrowly define this and not go around willy-nilly interfering in other's business.

Just because Bosnia has apparently come out so well still doesn't change my mind (that would be intellectual dishonesty) that it WAS a European issue and NO, we shouldn't have gone in there. I know we said it was because of genocide, but that doesn't fly. If it did fly, then we should have gone into Kwanda, Darfur, etc.

Your take?

[Mucho]

I don't think it is hackery to point out that Bosnia & Kosovo were handled by an intelligent and nuanced mind in the US Presidency while Iraq was handled by an idiotic incompetent fuck up. The results speak for themselves.

[Lanya]

Attention is destiny.  ---Sun Tzu

So what did we pay attention to before our involvement in Bosnia?
And same question re: Iraq?

Maybe I mean, what did our leaders pay attention to?

What were the goals in both cases?

Why did we find so little support from other countries during the Iraq war?

[Plane]

Attention is destiny.  ---Sun Tzu

So what did we pay attention to before our involvement in Bosnia?
And same question re: Iraq?

Maybe I mean, what did our leaders pay attention to?

What were the goals in both cases?

Why did we find so little support from other countries during the Iraq war?

Not much diffrence , except in scale , Iraq was more of a problem and scarier.

Did we really find a lot more support in Bosnia and Kosovo?

[_JS]

Aerial Bombardment ,and lots of it kept the Serbs hurting , it didn't immediately stop the massacres anywhere but when it seemed that we were going to just keep on blasting their stuff forever they caved.

Indeed, Srebrenica actually took place after deployment of troops. The Dutch, who were in charge of that sector, simply did not react quickly enough to stop it.

Casualties were lighter, but they didn't have to be. What I mean is that it very well could have become a guerilla war. In fact, the terrain in Bosnia and Kosovo is much more suited for such a war than Iraq. You had the separate factions, ethnic and religious hostilities, and a seemingly endless cache of arms on all sides. The potential was there.

Speaking of casualties, Americans seemed to accept them in Iraq for quite some time. There doesn't seem to be a linear quality to them. What I mean is that we didn't hit a "magic number" where support suddenly collapsed. Is there progress that took place in Bosnia that satisfied people enough to accept long-term stationing of troops? Is it the seeming lack of progress in Iraq that is harming American acceptance of casualties? Do people feel that soldiers are dying for a lack of a cohesive strategy?

If you recall, candidate Bush (2000) often quoted the "Powell Doctrine" where the military victory is won convincingly and an exit strategy is quickly implemented. It was a very Gulf War (1991) based strategy and in some ways was a slap at Kosovo. (I can dig up the old quotes if anyone wants me to). I'm not bringing this up as an attack. My point is that somewhere Bush got people who supported that strategy to support his plans for Iraq, be it September 11th, WMD, or some other argument. Are those individuals starting to waver in support?

[Mucho]

Not much diffrence , except in scale , Iraq was more of a problem and scarier.

Did we really find a lot more support in Bosnia and Kosovo?

One telling fact is that Clinton was able to go into Kosovo and walk among the people when it was over. Bush will never be able to do that in Baghdad.

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/1999/11/23/kosovo991123.html

They actually DID treat Bill as a liberator.