On Clinton and the Serbs...
John, I have not followed all the twists and turns of developments in the former Yugoslavia. To do so, I would have to devote 24 hours a day to it..
Yet I think we should all be mindful of the ORIGIN of the Kosovo conflict. It is indeed true that when Yugoslavia was still intact, ethnic Serbs in the Kosovo Autonomous Republic were definitely persecuted by the ethnic Albanian majority (90%). That is why Milosevich was able to successfully seize on the Kosovo issue, in his effort to refashion himself from a Communist into a Nationalist. So he abolished Kosovo's autonomy, and it was all downhill from there...That of course does not excuse what he has been doing in Kosovo recently, but it does put it in its historical context...
As for Clinton's policy (towards the Serbs, in this instance), I don't find it at all unique...Practically all our Presidents have used double standards in their foreign policy, at one time or another. Remember, for example, that old distinction between "bad" dictators (theirs) and "good" dictators (ours)? And remember all that High Presidential Dudgeon against the Bad Guy of the Week (Castro, or Khaddafi, or Khomeini, or Saddam Khussein, or whoever)?
Interesting that most of the villains recently have been Muslims. Perhaps Clinton is only trying to be even-handed, by going after Milosevich...<gg - joke>
jbe |
