Commentary / PERSPECTIVE ON INTERVENTION :...

Whether in a schoolyard or in the world at large, the powerful have an obligation to protect the powerless. Not to do so violates the biblical injunction, “Thou shall not stand by the blood of your neighbor.” To have the power to stop great evil with almost no risk to oneself (no ground troops are called for), and yet avoid doing so, is a terrible sin.

Bosnia is an internationally recognized sovereign state. If we watch as Bosnia is annihilated, which country or ethnic group is next? If the principle of national sovereignty is not enough to prompt intervention, what is?

The threat to world peace today does not emanate from superpower rivalry; it emanates from the regional imperialism of people like Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. If they are allowed to destroy countries with impunity, we will witness far more destruction than nuclear weapons ever brought about.

I therefore ask the right: Are you only concerned with those slaughtered by communists?

And I ask the left: Are you only concerned with wars that can hurt you (Vietnam, the Cold War)?

As each day passes with no military response to Serbian aggression and atrocities, there is only one lesson the world can learn. When asked, “Did the world learn anything from the Holocaust?” Elie Wiesel is reported to have responded, “Yes, that you can get away with it.” That lesson is being reinforced by the Western world as you read this.