Misstepping in Kosovo
© 1999 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
The ethnic cleansing continues in Kosovo as
tens of thousands of Serbian civilians are
fleeing across the border. They know that the
killing and persecution of Serbs will resume as
15,000 soldiers in the Kosovo Liberation Army
flood back into the province. The KLA makes
no pretense about their intention: They will
drive all Serbs out of Kosovo.
Reassurances of protection by NATO forces do
not carry much weight. From the perspective of
the Serbs, NATO and the KLA are allies.
During the last few weeks of the war, NATO
worked with KLA ground troops to flush out
Serbian troops and expose them to dreaded
cluster bombs.
War makes strange bedfellows. In a recent
dispatch from Europe, San Francisco Chronicle
correspondent Frank Viviano wrote a scathing
indictment of the KLA. In his report, Viviano
says that law enforcement authorities in the
United States and Western Europe know that
officers of the KLA and many of their backers
are at the core of the largest illegal drug
operation in Europe. The international police
agency known as Interpol released a statement
in 1997 that said, "Kosovo Albanians hold the
largest share of the heroin market in
Switzerland, in Austria, in Belgium, in
Germany, in Hungary, in the Czech Republic,
in Norway and in Sweden."
Viviano reminds us, "In 1944, the invading U.S.
Army handed the reins of power in Sicily to
local 'anti-fascists' who were, in fact, Mafia
leaders."
We have not learned much from past mistakes.
We are on the cusp of committing the same
blunder in Kosovo. One might say that our
new "moral imperialism" has gotten us in bed
with some of the worst scum in Europe.
However, as bad as the regional aftermath of
this misbegotten war actually is, there is a
larger perspective that cries out for attention.
As we have focused our diminished military
resources upon Yugoslavia, we have increased
our risk and vulnerability elsewhere to nations
we have alienated and threatened. We may
thank providence that our enemies have not
yet acted in concert while we are otherwise
committed. What a fortuitous time for North
Korea to do what it has been hankering to do
for years, that is, use its 1 million-man army to
overrun 35,000 American troops and
overwhelm South Korea, for Saddam Hussein
to re-enter Kuwait and this time move on into
Saudi Arabia, and for China to make its
military move to retake Taiwan.
Our major international relationships have
suffered serious injury. China is a militant and
resentful adversary, not a strategic partner. Our
allies in Asia, including Japan, are terrified of a
major shift of power in their area of the world.
And by humiliating Russia, we have
strengthened that nation's resurgent old-guard,
anti-American forces. If, in the next election,
they do not regain control of the Russian
government, it will be because we are lucky,
not because we are smart.
If we are not lucky, our actions in the Balkans
and our redefinition of NATO as an aggressor
power may well precipitate Cold War II. If we
are not lucky, some small nation we have
pushed around will find a way to make us pay
dearly for some real or imagined offense
In his Memorial Day speech, Bill Clinton
boasted, "What we are doing today will ... give
our children a better, safer world to live in."
It is folly to claim we are "safer" now than we
were a mere few months ago. Clearly, the
national security of the United States has not
been strengthened by our intervention in the
tragic problems of Kosovo, but rather, put at
significant risk.
Having said all that, I am convinced that the
greatest danger to America is not that we
stirred up trouble all over the globe, but that
we inflicted terrible damage on our
Constitution.
At our peril, we pretend that wars are not wars
to circumvent the law and the Constitution.
With our subterfuges, clever lawyering,
judicial trickery and outright dishonesty, we
are becoming a nation of men, not laws. Our
Constitution has effectively lost its objective
reality in the process of becoming a malleable
tool for ratifying the prejudices, persuasions
and agendas of whomever happens at a
particular point in time to be president, on the
Supreme Court or in Congress.
Our Constitution is mocked when presidents
use legal sophistry, good intentions and other
pretexts to take us to war without a declaration
of war by the Congress. Our Constitution is
invalidated when justices fantasize what's in it
and our elected representatives refuse to honor
their sworn duty to protect and defend it.
We are too great a nation to allow our leaders
to play word games with our Constitution,
particularly the provision that protects us from
the dangerous misuse of awesome military
power by a rogue commander in chief.
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