G Bush hasn't been in office for 6 damn years. When in the HELL are you going to stop blaming others and start holding Clinton responsible for SOMETHING!!!!
The Albanians are getting slaughtered. 250,000 are huddling in the woods like animals waiting to freeze to death and Albright just flaps her jaws.
WSJ Yesterday.
Outlook How Convenient
"Today there is peace in Kosovo-Metohija. Life in Kosovo-Metohija has returned to normal. The Republic of Serbia has thwarted the secessionists' attempts to realize their intentions through terror. The terrorist gangs have been destroyed . . . Serbia has once again shown that it is capable of resolving its problems alone, with full respect for the democratic countries' principles and standards regarding human, civil and minority rights."
--Serbian Prime Minister Mirko Majanovic
The above quote was part of an Orwellian victory peroration given by the Serbian Prime Minister Monday. How convenient that the West is now demanding that Slobodan Milosevic call a cease-fire and withdraw his forces from Kosovo. For the past three months, Mr. Milosevic's army and police forces have been burning and bombing their way across the ethnic-Albanian-dominated province of Kosovo in an "antiterrorist" campaign that has left more than 200 villages destroyed and sent more than 250,000 refugees into the woods and mountains, or across the border to an uncertain fate in crumbling Albania.
The timing of the new cease-fire demands from the United Nations Security Council and NATO beggars belief. If these ultimatums have a familiar ring to them, rewind several months to the first days when television cameras relayed pictures of the bodies of murdered Albanians and their burned-out homes. The tough-talking Madeleine Albright led the outrage club: The United States, declared Secretary Albright in March, was "not going to stand by and watch the Serbian authorities do in Kosovo what they can no longer get away with in Bosnia."
In late June, foreign ministers from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and the U.S. met in London to demand that Belgrade cease all military action against Kosovar civilians, help the return of refugees and allow international monitors into the areas. "President Milosevic will be making a grave mistake if he imagines the international community will be as slow to act in Kosovo as it was in Bosnia," said British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook. And later: "President Milosevic is now on his last warning."
NATO then conducted military operations in neighboring Albania and Macedonia, issuing a statement that the operations have "the aim of demonstrating NATO's capability to project power rapidly into the region." The meeting, it turned out, was just another pit stop on the photo-op diplomacy circuit.
There were more warnings. "If President Milosevic does not realize how dangerous the game he and his military forces are playing, the consequences will be very serious for him and his country," Richard Holbrooke told a National Press Club audience in June. He was echoed by British Defense Minister George Robertson after a spate of high-level talks in Brussels.
It is difficult to think of a time when the language of diplomacy has been so devalued; or when U.S. and Western leaders have been so careless with the principle of credibility. These warnings were followed by--as Milosevic knew they would be--three months of relative silence as Serb tanks and howitzers made their way from village to village in Kosovo. Now there's the onset of winter, with its potential to leave thousands of refugees stranded in the mountains and woods dying of cold or starvation--a humanitarian crisis that would no doubt be embarrassing for governments that swore they wouldn't let it happen.
The truth is that the West made a conscious, if nonpublic, decision to leave Milosevic to his dirty work in Kosovo. There were plenty of "reasonable" justifications for doing so along the lines of, "We were unprepared to recognize an autonomous Kosovo, which is what the ethnic Albanian leadership in Kosovo and the Kosovo Liberation Army were seeking." Or, "Had we intervened earlier, we might have emboldened the KLA, who after all are a bunch of outlaws too." Or, "We never expected his forces would take it this far and kill this many civilians"--and so forth. Privately, European foreign ministry officials have told us they would have gladly supported an effort to hit back at Milosevic if only the U.S., which would need to supply the air power and leadership, had said the word.
But the foreign policy apparatus in the U.S. has lost its compass. When leaders refuse to lead and instead hide behind empty threats, high-minded phrases and supplicant visits to the aggressor, credibility goes out the window. If the Kosovars foolishly thought the West would come to their rescue, Slobodan Milosevic knew better. Now that the job is done, the Clinton Administration, which still pretends to lead the Western world, is conveniently demanding justice. It will no doubt declare victory when a satisfied Milosevic follows the script. Whatever "deal" is now cut in Kosovo, don't expect those refugees to be on the right end of it. |
