From: prabhak@giga.cs.umn.edu (Satya Prabhakar)
Subject: Re: PLEASE! SHOW UP IN WASHINGTON DC FOR BOSNIA (MAY 15th)
Nntp-Posting-Host: giga.cs.umn.edu
Organization: University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, CSci dept.
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Michael Sells <m_sells@haverford.edu> writes:
>
> This is not a fresh case of
>>ethnic cleansing but just another chapter in the continuing saga
>>of intense mutual hatred, destruction,... 
>
>Every place on earth is the scene of a saga of mutual hatred and
>destruction.  The holocaust was not a "fresh case."  It was another
>chapter in a 900 year history of attacks on Jews in Europe.  That didn't
>make it acceptable. and Balkan history does not make the genocide against
>Bosnian Muslims acceptable.

I guess that it was not acceptable because Germany *also* chose
a path of aggression simultaneously that put the interests of
other countries in peril. I wonder whether US or other countries
would have risked themselves if only Jews were persecuted and
Hitler had no imperialist ambitions. (I am no student of history
and I am just asking questions.)

If even for a moment you think that I am condoing ethnically
motivated violence and killings, you are dead wrong. Let me
assure I am not. My only question is this: Do powerful countries
have a moral obligation to interefere in other countries if
their own interests are not threatened. I cite an essay by
Charles Krauthammer in the Time (this week) that discusses
this issue eloquently.

For example, did US and other European countries abandon their
moral compunctions when they chose not to send military troops
to Bombay when Hindus, in a rare fit of impassioned rage, killed
many Muslims recently. I think not!

Under what conditions should US interfere in foregin countries,
is an abstraction one must clarify before resorting to acrimonious
accusations of religious bigotry and such.

Satya Prabhakar
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