[Info-vax] Nice printers for OpenVMS?

[Doug Phillips]

On Aug 8, 1:30 pm, JF Mezei <jfmezei.spam... at vaxination.ca> wrote:
> Doug Phillips wrote:
> > I get real tired of hearing "why doesn't the US do something about
> > that" on one hand, and "curse the US for doing that" on the other, and
> > I don't think I'm alone.
>
> One forgets that when countries have interests in foreign soil, their
> foreign policy is adjusted accordingly.  If EXXON has massive
> investments in country A but none in country B, odds are that if there
> is trouble in coutry A, the USA will intervene, but won't intervene in
> country B.  Same applies to other western nations such as France,
> Germany, England etc who have corporations invested in other countries.
>

Such is the way of the world. Oil is a global industry. The fact is,
the US is in a damned if we do, damned if we don't situation most of
the time. The US acts just like every other UN member nation: It does
what it considers best for it own interests. Yes, you have touched on
one of the problems with capitalism.

> One problem is that the USA tends to ignore the UN, or worse, use its
> veto to prevent the UN from doing its job.  Even under Clinton, the USA
> ignored the UN efforts in the balkans and continued to send arms to one
> faction despite a UN embargo on all arms shipments.

Bosnian Muslims were being slaughtered and the UN wanted to stop arm
shipments to them. The Serbs were still getting arms from someplace,
though.

> The USA even insisted on a resolution preventing UN troups there from using their
> weapons to protect themselves and impose peace. Of course, once clinton
> finally sent in USA troups, those troups were not bound to the "do not
> use firearms" resolution the USA had insisted be imposed on UN troups.
>

Hmmm. My memory of that is bit different, as are the accounts you
could read if you cared to. The UN was operating under a defensive-
fire only order from the UN, if that's what you're talking about. In
peacekeeping situations, there is always a don't file unless you're
fired upon order. There was no "do not use firearms" order.

The Balkan conflict was about a complex as anything could be and the
trouble didn't just happen overnight.

> And then the USA claimed the UN troups had been incapable and ineffective.

As did France and Britain. France wanted to send in more troupes to
take back Srebrenica, which the Serbs had just taken from UN forces.
Britain issued a warning to the UN that inaction would result in
complete failure of the mission.

The UN had negotiated a pledge between the sides to end the violence,
but the Serbs broke it. The UN issued strong words demanding that the
violence should stop. Unfortunately, the UN did little else to stop
the violence. There were small contingents of UN troupes in the area
around Srebrenica but they had no real force.

So the debate was: pull out and let them kill each other or try to
stop it. France and Britain both stated that if the UN didn't do
something soon, there was no reason to be there so they would remove
their troupes. The US decided that if the UN wasn't going to help
those people, they would. France and Britain (and even Canadians) were
there fighting along side other NATO countries. So, curse that damned
US again.