Today's "Waiting to Get Blown Up" article in the Washington Post [
http://www.washingtonpost.com/... ], highlights critical differences between Bill Clinton's policies in Bosnia that produced "zero casualties" for US troops and Bush's strategies that have led to over 2,500 US deaths in Iraq. Describing a typical moment in the daily duties of soldiers such as Capt. Mike Comstock, 27, of Boise, Idaho, the WaPost says:
Comstock's patrol stopped at Bayaa homes and shops to conduct a "SWET assessment": checking the sewage, water and electricity services available to residents. . . ."I can't fix electricity or sewers all the time," Comstock told Muhammed Adnan, a Bayaa resident. "Patrolling your neighborhood is one thing we can do." [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/.... ]
By comparison, Clinton's strategy for the use of 20,000 US troops as part of a multinational mission including NATO to end the Bosnian Civil War (called IFOR [
http://www.nato.int/... ]) was characterized by troops'
limitation to strictly military tasks: the separation of combatants, demobilization, demarcation lines, etc. Consequently, in its mission of support to civil aspects of the peace plan, IFOR proved very prudent, selective, less determined, indeed positively abstentionist.
[
http://www.iss-eu.org/... ]
Emphasizing the intentionally limited mission of US troops in Bosnia, US Secretary of Defense William J. Perry told the US House International Relations and National Security Committees on November 30, 1995:
What is the mission for IFOR?
The mission of IFOR is to oversee and enforce implementation of the military aspects of the peace agreement: cessation of hostilities, withdrawal to agreed lines, creation of a zone of separation, return troops and weapons to cantonments. And, of course, IFOR will be responsible for its own self-defense and freedom of movement. [ http://www.defenselink.mil/... ]
Bill Clinton and his people recognized from the beginning that although using troops for
military aspects of a foreign intervention could be successful, using them as social services workers would be disastrous. To Bill Clinton's credit, no US or NATO troops were killed in battle after the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords that ended the civil war in Bosnia.
But, after over 2,500 deaths of US troops in Iraq and probably ten times more Iraqi deaths in confrontations with US troops, it is time to acknowledge that Bill Clinton's approach in Bosnia worked well while Bush's approach in Iraq emphatically does not work.
The Washington Post's quote from Capt. Comstock's above is mostly noteworthy because it underscores - from a soldier's own experience - the futility of the troops' social service work. Using US troops for "checking sewer, water and electricity services", represents a fundamental misapprehension of what troops can accomplish in a war zone and subjects troops to unnecessary danger with negative possibility for corresponding benefits. The "SWET assessments", now being conducted by US troops in the heart of Baghdad, put US troops at risk and lead to more of the very warfare that degrades the very public services that the troops are assessing. Because Bush doesn't learn from the past or the present, US troops continue "Waiting to get Blown Up.
Logic and foresight told the Clinton Administration what Bush cannot learn even from four years of warfare: It doesn't work to use US troops for SWET assessments. I feel certain that a new Clinton Administration, like the first one, will be much smarter than Bush in terms of committing our troops and keeping them out of harm's way.