All in all, it's really a no-win situation for us. On one hand, if (when) we intervene militarily we stand to lose American troops. We also will be calling Russia's hand on just how far they are willing to go to support their traditional allies in Serbia. On the other side of the coin, without a significant (read that bloody and massively destructive) intervention that effectively stops the Serbs, we risk allowing a chain of events to unfold in the Balkans that could bring us closer to World War III than we have been in almost 30 years.
I spent 18 months in Greece and a total of 30 months in Turkey during my Air Force career. I can testify that at any given moment, they are only one half-assed excuse or perceived threat from going at each other tooth and nail. Armed warfare on Greece's border has a chance of igniting a conflict that could be impossible to contain, short of a miracle. Just think, there would be armies shooting at each other from the northern Adriatic to the Persian Gulf. If you look at your map, the only things seperating Milosevic and Saddam, are Greece and Turkey. It doesn't take a clairvoyant to see that such a scenario could be the impetus to start something we can't stop.
Faced with those choices, I don't believe we have much option than to try to bring things to a halt now, if we can. I can't help but wish that we had someone that we could trust at the helm for the immediate future. Sometimes, it's not just "the economy, stupid".
No matter what happens, I believe that we are at a watershed moment. Whatever happens in Serbia and Kosovo over the next few weeks could well establish the dynamic that will determine what the history books have to say about the 21st century. |
