Bill Clinton: “I'm glad you asked the question in the way you did. I was afraid you were going to ask me why we agreed to get involved…”

“I'm glad you asked the question in the way you did. I was afraid you were going to ask me why we agreed to get involved in this process today. Just for the benefit of the people who don't know as much about it as you, let me tell you what happened today. Today the Secretary of State announced a new policy by our Government that we would agree to become more involved in what is going on in Bosnia, not in committing our ground troops now or anything like that but in trying to get involved in these negotiations to protect the rights and the integrity of the Bosnians, the Croatians, and others who have been basically subject to the assaults of the Serbs; that we would be in a position to say we're not going to enforce a peace agreement on the Croatians or the Bosnians that they don't believe in, but that if we could get an agreement, then the United States would participate, not alone but with the United Nations and with Europe, in guaranteeing that the agreement would protect the basic human rights of the people involved and the terms of the agreement. Now, people say, ``So we are not committing today to make war in the former Yugoslavia.'' We are committing to try to help get a peace and then to enforce it. Why is that? Because if we don't, number one, the terrible principle of ethnic cleansing will be validated, that one ethnic group can butcher another if they're strong enough to do it, at the end of the cold war; number two, that problem could spread to other republics and nations near there. Never forget, it's no accident that World War I started in this area. There are ancient ethnic hatreds that have consumed people and led to horrible abuses. You know about it, the rapes of the women, the murders of the children, all these things you have read about. We've got to try to contain it. And I think we have to be very much stronger standing up to aggression. We've got to get the heavy weapons out of utilization; you implied that. We've got to toughen the embargo against the Serbs. We ought to open a United Nations war crimes inquiry, and we ought to enforce the no-fly zone against Serbian aircraft, strongly. Those are the things that I think we should do. I do not believe that the military of the United States should get involved unilaterally there now. We have to work with these other countries. And I might say that that's the position that General Powell and our foreign policy folks have taken. But this is a much more aggressive position than the United States has taken. But I can tell you, folks: We're not going to make peace over there in a way that's fair to the minorities that are being abused unless we get involved. And if we don't get involved and the thing spreads all over creation over there, then we'll be pulled into it in horrible ways that could be very dangerous to our people. So we ought to do what is right now. It's also what is safest for the United States. Mr. Bonds. But isn't it a reality, Mr. President, that if the United States doesn't get involved and doesn't lead, nothing is going to change?”