Policing the world/ Let's not rush into supporting a new peacekeeping

0 Comments | Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Feb 23, 2000

The day after President Clinton called for U.S. involvement in yet another international military conflict, the national media and the public didn't take much notice. That's disappointing. Although the proposal to fund a "peace" monitoring force for the Congo would not include American ground troops, it does merit wider debate.

Apparently, Americans are so accustomed to U.S. world policing that the announcement of a possible new engagement doesn't raise many questions. After deployments to Grenada, Haiti, Somalia and Kosovo, among others, the U.S. public seems not to care where the president sends our troops and money, or even whether they should be there.

"It is no longer an option for us not to know about the triumphs and trials of the people with whom we share this planet," the president said last week during a National Summit on Africa. "We can be indifferent, or we can make a difference."

If he were referring mainly to the need for America to trade freely with African nations and to encourage anti-corruption policies and diplomatic solutions to wars and internal conflicts, we would applaud him. But these platitudes serve as poor justifications for approval of $42 million to help pay for U.N. forces to monitor a cease-fire that virtually no one in the Congo is obeying.

Even the plan's supporters argue that 5,500 U.N. troops are far too few to do much of anything in a large country torn by a civil war that affects several neighboring nations. The main reason for the proposal, according to media sources, is that Western powers, apparently still stinging from charges of racism after NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia while ignoring worse abuses in Africa, are attempting to show they care about the suffering of Africans as much as they do about the suffering of eastern Europeans. Adding to the pressure, South African President Nelson Mandela has urged America to intervene militarily.

But assuaging the consciences of U.S. leaders should not be the rationale for a new American overseas commitment. It could lead to a U.N. role too small to effectively ensure the peace but too big to escape the blame if something as terrible as a massacre occurs to people supposedly under U.N. protection.

It could also lead to ratcheting up of U.S. commitments. Before Congress approves of any expenditure, it should first look at current U.S. policies toward the Congo. A recent report by the World Policy Institute, for instance, blames U.S. arms selling for fueling the war there. Congress should also look at the limitations of U.S. meddling, such as in the Balkans, where America's efforts have not stemmed the violence. And Congress should ask the administration how many more such conflicts America should involve itself in, especially in light of stepped up involvement in the war in Colombia.

When is enough enough? When will America learn that it cannot police every conflict or fund every peacemaking deal? Rather than get involved in the Congo, Congress should engage the American public in a healthy debate on the constitutional limits of overseas involvements.

No sense of outrage/

Are we too jaded by Clinton scandals?

With the end of the Clinton administration within view, Congress and the general public aren't too overwrought about the latest charges of cover-ups in the White House. After Monica Lewinsky, Filegate, Troopergate, Chinagate etc., Americans are simply biding their time until the Clintons finally leave Washington.

However, abuses of power, flaunting of laws, lying, evading and hiding documents at the highest levels are corrosive of the democratic process, leading Americans to believe that there are two sets of laws - one for themselves, another for their leaders. We'd feel more confident about the future of our country if Americans would muster a little outrage now and again, especially at the latest revelation.

The former chief of White House computer operations, Sheryl Hall, told the media that the administration covered up 100,000 subpoenaed e-mails related to a variety of Clinton administration investigations. Contractors who discovered the messages were threatened, she said, with one of them being told "they had a jail cell with his name on it if he discussed the matter." Hall said the administration's goal was to delay the investigations until the president left office.

The Clinton watchdog group, Judicial Watch, has filed a lawsuit on Hall's behalf accusing Hillary Clinton and other White House officials of subjecting her to harassment for her whistle-blowing actions. According to reports, the lawsuit claims Hall was targeted at Hillary's behest after she complained about the use of career White House employees and databases for illegal political activities.

Here again are credible charges of White House abuses. Yet expect a good number of national media members to virtually ignore the story, prominent Democrats to accuse Hall of being part of the vast right-wing conspiracy and Republicans to be too timid to make an issue out of it.