Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague and friend from the government, the talented chairman of the House standing committee on foreign affairs. His question is an excellent one.
He points to the first thing that I think we all desire, which is support from the United Nations. We have a larger commitment here and a larger rationale for involvement: the humanitarian reasons that many members in the House articulated earlier today.
We would like to have the UN involved, but if it is not involved, NATO certainly has the power and the ability to do that. The justification comes within the confines of international law which supports intervention in environments where gross human rights abuses are clearly taking place and in this case where genocide is occurring.
I think NATO has a responsibility. Although as the hon. member mentioned it is slightly out of its purview, NATO is largely responsible for a good segment of the security of Europe. If the situation in Kosovo expands, the expanding conflict would involve Montenegro, Greece, Russia and other nation states in the surrounding area. All those nation states could be involved in the larger conflagration. If that happened, the world simply could not turn a blind eye.
In the larger scheme of things, in an effort to prevent more bloodshed and in an effort to save more lives, while NATO would like to have the UN's tacit involvement, it should go ahead regardless because I think a larger principle is involved. It would add a lot more credibility to the United Nations in its ability to act early to intervene.
With respect to Bosnia, we were far too late in intervening. As a result, 250,000 people were killed and the countryside was laid to waste for generations to come.
If there is any lesson to be learned from recent history, we should look at Bosnia and see the abysmal failure of NATO. If it moves a little further along within the confines of international law to act where it is appropriate, then I think it will be justified in the long term not only within the nation states that participate but also history will take a favourable view to the intervention.