East Timor vs Somalia

Enrique Diaz-Alvarez enrique at anise.ee.cornell.edu
Tue Sep 28 18:27:11 PDT 1999


Max Sawicky wrote:


>
> To the surprize of nobody, I would agree.
>
> I am struck by the extent to which those who opposed
> the Kosovo intervention support this one because
> instead of the U.S., it's the UN.

Well, there a few other minor differences.

- East Timor intervention respects international law. The US intentionally

and gleefully wiped its ass with it in Kosovo - in fact, I see this ass-wiping as a major goal of the intervention. US to world: don't ever think that international law will protect your water plants from cruise missiles.

- Intervention in East Timor has a good chance of stopping an existing humanitarian catastrophe. Intervention in Kosovo caused a humanitarian catastrophe much worse than the ugly counterinsurgency campaign it allegedly tried to stop.

- Intervention in East Timor will involve ground troops, rather than terror bombing of civilians from 15,000 feet.

- There seem to be no ulterior motives for intervention in East Timor. In Kosovo, there was the issue of rescuing NATO from obsolescence.


>
>
> At the same time, it is acknowledged that the UN
> is a creature of the U.S.

Again speaking strictly for myself, I acknowledge no such thing, if only because Russia and China have veto power.

Enrique



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