raharris1973
November 20th, 2004, 04:03 PM
What if the US and other western nations blocked the security council approval of an arms embargo, and sold or provided arms over the table to Croatia and Bosnia?
Here's the probably results:
1. the fighting becomes less one-sided earlier.
2. Serbs have the opportunity to commit a few less atrocities, the Croats and Bosnians have a little more opportunity.
Given 1 and 2, western media sympathies don't tilt so much towards the Bosnians, and the press covers it more as a mess like Lebanon, rather than like the second-coming of the Spanish Civil War featuring those poor embargoed defenseless Bosnians and Croats against the big bad Serbs.
Other likely consequences of all this are:
3. Middle East Muslim nations are less likely to get pulled into providing arms and mujhadeen to the Bosnians.
4. UN peacekeepers are less likely to be taken hostage by either side. The Serbs don't want to tilt the fine balance against themselves, and the Bosnians don't want to either.
Negotiated agreement on pragmatic grounds is likely earlier, probably with no western-led bombing campaign. The whole war crimes tribunal and international micro-administration of Bosnia are less likely too.
We can derive a rule from this - If you want to take prophylactic action against moral pressure for international humanitarian military intervention, make sure the slaughter that the media is covering is more even-handed and not so one-sided.
Here's the probably results:
1. the fighting becomes less one-sided earlier.
2. Serbs have the opportunity to commit a few less atrocities, the Croats and Bosnians have a little more opportunity.
Given 1 and 2, western media sympathies don't tilt so much towards the Bosnians, and the press covers it more as a mess like Lebanon, rather than like the second-coming of the Spanish Civil War featuring those poor embargoed defenseless Bosnians and Croats against the big bad Serbs.
Other likely consequences of all this are:
3. Middle East Muslim nations are less likely to get pulled into providing arms and mujhadeen to the Bosnians.
4. UN peacekeepers are less likely to be taken hostage by either side. The Serbs don't want to tilt the fine balance against themselves, and the Bosnians don't want to either.
Negotiated agreement on pragmatic grounds is likely earlier, probably with no western-led bombing campaign. The whole war crimes tribunal and international micro-administration of Bosnia are less likely too.
We can derive a rule from this - If you want to take prophylactic action against moral pressure for international humanitarian military intervention, make sure the slaughter that the media is covering is more even-handed and not so one-sided.