Word: yugoslavia
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Incredibly, Yugoslavia's year-old civil war got even worse last week. The shelling, rocketing and machine-gun fire raking Sarajevo intensified as desperate Bosnian forces tried to break out of the siege that the Serb militia had locked around the city. Artillery and mortar rounds hit the airport so constantly that humanitarian relief flights were suspended for three days and U.N. officials warned that they might back the aid effort with military muscle...
Iraq's government, more defiant than ever last week, vowed to bar U.N. inspectors from all its ministries. Asked if his patience with Saddam Hussein is wearing thin, Bush said, "I've been fed up with him for a long time." From the warring states of the former Yugoslavia, images of inhuman conditions in detention camps flashed to television screens around the world, provoking disgust and anger...
Bush has the option to use American military power in both places and has threatened to do so. Some of his political friends and foes urge him to act forcefully now, especially in Yugoslavia's civil war. He has suggested that he would consider the use of U.S. air and naval forces to safeguard relief shipments into Bosnia, but resists calls to do more...
Though Iraq remains high on the August agenda, Yugoslavia, with its millions of innocent victims displayed daily in the media, has become Issue No. 1. Rarely is a nation presented with a clear, unequivocal moral issue to decide. Washington faces one now: to act or not to act to end Serbian aggression and the human agony it is inflicting. This question is uncluttered by direct American national interests, because the U.S. has none in Yugoslavia. If Bush decides to risk American lives in any form of military action there, it will be only because the U.S. accepts a moral obligation...
Obviously, no such agreement exists. The U.S. appears as reluctant as its NATO allies to accept the case for military involvement in Yugoslavia. It can lead the U.N. into a world police role only if Americans first have a debate and reach a national consensus. In fact, by providing a forum for such a debate, the presidential campaign may be a blessing in disguise...