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Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JBL who wrote (43646)	4/23/1999 9:30:00 AM
From: Daniel Schuh	Respond to of 67261

That kind of opinion gets printed all the time in the NYT, JBL. They don't go in for the kind of "diversity of opinion" you find in the Washington Times or the editorial page of the WSJ. Or your favorite Murdoch rags around the globe.

To: JBL who wrote (43646)	4/23/1999 9:55:00 AM
From: Les H	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 67261

Clinton's Vision For 'New NATO' At Risk in Kosovo By Morton M. Kondracke President Clinton has a grand vision -- if not exactly a grand strategy -- for the new NATO, but it's failing its first crucial test in Kosovo. As the alliance gets ready to celebrate its 50th anniversary, it faces the question: If the entity that contained the mighty Soviet Union can't defeat pathetic Serbia, what can it do? To their credit, Clinton and other NATO heads of government agree that they can't stand by and do nothing in the face of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's slaughter of the Kosovar innocents. But if they don't defeat him, he will defeat NATO. That's what's happening right now, and the result could be no "new NATO," and maybe no NATO at all. Kosovo is the test of Clinton's proposed new "strategic concept" that NATO should not merely be a defensive alliance protecting the territory of its member countries. Instead, it should involve itself "out of area" -- in this case in the so-called "internal affairs" of a sovereign nation. Doing so against the will of the sovereign government -- Serbia -- violates the United Nations' charter as well as NATO rules. Yet NATO is doing it, and the United Nations is not objecting, as much for moral reasons as strategic ones. The strategic ones have to do with the destabilizing effects of hundreds of thousands of refugees pouring across borders into ethnically volatile countries that can't afford to keep them. But NATO leaders also share a sense of what civilized Europe ought to be like at the edge of the 21st century, and Milosevic's barbarism threatens it. Clinton has been enunciating this vision as part of his public justification for allied bombing of Serbia. It's a Wilsonian vision that asks nations to place idealistic notions of "multiethnic democracy" on par with "vital national interests" -- and "values" on a par with "territory" -- as reasons for waging war. In his address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors last week, Clinton said that Kosovo was part of a "great battle" underway at the end of the 20th century, pitting "integration" versus "disintegration," "globalism" against "tribalism" and "oppression" versus "empowerment." "Most of us," he said, "have a vision of the 21st century" involving the "triumph of peace, prosperity and personal freedom," respect for minorities and shared struggle against disease, environmental degradation, terrorism, organized crime and mass destruction. The vision is endangered, Clinton said, "by the oldest demon of human society: hatred of those who are not like us." "We are in Kosovo," he said, "because we care about saving lives and we care about the character of the multiethnic post-Cold War world." It's a glowing vision -- civilized nations fighting to protect the oppressed and advance liberal values -- but it's endangered by more than Milosevic. For one thing, the vision is not matched with a clear set of goals or a military strategy. It's obvious, for instance, that the forces NATO created to blunt a Soviet invasion of Western Europe are too heavy to perform "out of area" missions like Kosovo. But the overwhelming problem is that neither Clinton nor other NATO leaders are willing to risk many of their soldiers' lives -- or their own political fortunes -- to actually triumph over Milosevic. "Multiethnic democracy" apparently is worth bombing for, but not launching a ground war over -- even though it's becoming increasingly clear that it will take a ground war to win. At the rate things are going, NATO will keep bombing for weeks or months, while Milosevic continues devastating the population of Kosovo. Serbia may lose its oil refineries and military installations, but the Kosovars will lose their homes, their land and their lives. If bombing doesn't bring Milosevic to heel, it's entirely possible that a demoralized NATO will cut a "diplomatic" deal with him that ratifies the results of ethnic cleansing. That's what happened in Bosnia, but this time there'll be no disguising the fact that Milosevic has won. If that's how this adventure ends, it's a fair bet that NATO will be reluctant ever again to try an "out of area" operation for humanitarian aims. It'll be the end of the "new NATO." The defeat might even threaten the "old NATO," although arguably the alliance could still find work preparing to defend Western and Central Europe against potential expansionism by Russia. Somehow, at the NATO summit this weekend, the alliance has to decide what it wants its future to be. Clinton, in particular, already has taken considerable political risk over Kosovo. Adversaries who couldn't throw him out of office over sex fully expect he'll be disgraced in foreign policy. So, he may as well go for a full victory -- with ground troops, almost certainly -- and convince NATO this weekend to go along. This is not a question of means. The West has the combined military power to defeat tiny Serbia. This is a question of will. That is, it's a moral question.