March 24, 1999
Web posted at: 3:04 p.m. EST (2004 GMT)

WASHINGTON (March 23) -- There is a rule abut U.S military intervention aboard: Drop bombs, don't send troops. The reason isn't so much military. It is mostly political.

Bombing seems safer, at least for Americans -- especially smart bombs that can blow up carefully selected military targets while minimizing civilian casualties. Bombs that can go right down Saddam Hussein's chimney.

Or Osama bin Laden's.

"Today I ordered our armed forces to strike at terrorist-related facilities in Afghanistan and Sudan," President Bill Clinton said August 20, 1998.

Air strikes are not without risk, of course. American planes can get shot down. Remember Scott O'Grady, the heroic air force pilot who got shot down over Bosnia?

Clinton has warned Americans of those risks in Kosovo.

"U.S. and other NATO pilots will be in harm's way. The Serbs have a strong air defense system," Clinton said Friday during a news conference.

The problem with air strikes is that they don't usually accomplish much.

Adolf Hitler couldn't bomb Britain into submission. Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon tried for years, without success, to bomb the North Vietnamese to the peace table. Bombing isn't what got Iraq out of Kuwait in 1991. We had to send in ground troops.

Ground troops not only increase the risk of U.S. casualties. They also increase the risk that the U.S. will get involved in another country's politics. That's what happened to us in Vietnam. And in Lebanon.

"There are no words to properly express our outrage. And I think the outrage of all Americans at this despicable act," President Ronald Reagan said on October 23, 1983 after a suicide bomber killed 241 Marines and sailors at the Marine headquarters in Beirut. The servicemen were part of a multinational peacekeeping force.

And in Somalia.

"This past weekend we all reacted with anger and horror as an armed Somali gang desecrated the bodies of our American soldiers and displayed a captured American pilot," Clinton told Americans in an Oval Office address on October 8, 1993.

So a president sends ground troops into Iraq with a promise.

"This will not be another Vietnam," President George Bush said on January 16, 1991, a day before the air war against Iraq began.

We can win and get out.

"When the troops we've sent in finish their work, I'm determined to bring them home as soon as possible," Bush continued.

Even if, in the view of most Americans, we didn't quite finish the job.

Clinton sent ground troops into Haiti in 1994 with a promise: "The United States cannot --indeed, we should not--be the world's policeman."

So first, we get the Haitian generals to agree to a peace deal. Then we send the troops in to enforce it. And get out.

"When this first phase is completed, the vast majority of our troops will come home -- in months, not years," Clinton explained at the beginning of the operation.

Even if it's not clear we accomplished very much in Haiti.

The president sent ground troops into Bosnia only after there's a peace agreement. Now we're getting out. Although it's not clear what will happen when all the American troops are gone.

Our troops don't wage war. They wage peace. Americans are now split over whether the U.S. should participate in air strikes in Kosovo.

But if a peace agreement is reached in Kosovo, should the U.S. commit its troops as part of a NATO peacekeeping effort? Fine.

A peace agreement makes it easier to send troops in. But harder to get them out. Because the peace may last only as long as the U.S. troops are there.

Wednesday, March 24, 1999

• 2000 hopefuls divided on support for NATO air strikes
• Clinton explains attacks to U.S. public
• The politics of bombing
• U.S. defense secretary: No indication of NATO casualties
• Text of House Kosovo resolution
• GOP pushes flag burning amendment
• Jackson won't seek presidency in 2000
• McDougal says her ex-husband lied about Clinton's Whitewater involvement
• Clinton urges Arafat to delay declaration of Palestinian state
• Congress voices support for airstrikes, troops
• Democrats criticize census bill, Census director criticized
• Iran-Contra independent counsel suggests keeping the law
• House approves $180 million for its committees
• Anti-bigotry measure defeated after contentious House debate
• Black-tailed prairie dog to be evaluated for endangered status
• House approves $1.3 billion for Central America, farmers

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