Algo para leer y pensar.
________________________________________________________________
Jaime Forero
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NASA VITT
Siempre adelante !!
> ----------
> From: Mahan[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Tuesday, May 18, 1999 9:35 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: End Bill Clinton's War
>
> End Bill Clinton's War
> Cato Institute
> May 18, 1999
> by Doug Bandow
>
> More civilians--Kosovar refugees, at that--have been killed by allied air
> strikes. NATO has destroyed China's embassy in Belgrade, dropped cluster
> bombs on a Serb market, shredded relations with Russia, blasted the
> Yugoslav
> economy into rubble, triggered escalating violence against Kosovars, and
> destabilized all of Southeast Europe.
>
> Yet allied attacks continue. Not just continue, but intensify.
>
> Bill Clinton's war has proved to be one of America's greatest foreign
> policy
> debacles. What does the President do? Hire Leslie Dash, vice chairman of
> Edelman Public Relations Worldwide, to advise the administration on
> Kosovo.
> President Clinton should end the war instead.
>
> The President launched an unprovoked war of aggression against a small,
> distant state. He cynically wrapped his campaign in humanitarianism while
> ignoring worse slaughters elsewhere. He arrogantly assumed that foreign
> leaders would genuflect before him. He attacked their nation when they
> didn't.
>
> How does Bill Clinton justify his war? In a recent speech at National
> Defense University President Clinton likened events in Kosovo to those in
> Nazi Germany: a "vicious, premeditated, systematic oppression fueled by
> religious and ethnic hatred."
>
> This is pure cant. The administration has nothing against "vicious,
> premeditated, systematic oppression" if committed by allies, like Croatia
> and Turkey. Or if perpetrated against black Africans.
>
> Moreover, as ugly as was the Kosovo conflict, it was no Nazi Holocaust,
> but
> a minor civil war, with casualties a fraction of those occurring in such
> places as Kashmir and Sri Lanka. Where real genocide results, like Rwanda,
> President Clinton studiously averts his gaze.
>
> Once it became clear that the administration intended to effectively strip
> Yugoslavia of Kosovo, however, Belgrade unsurprisingly lashed out. Indeed,
> allied bombing turned all Kosovars--whose leaders publicly lobbied for
> NATO
> intervention-- into enemies of the Serbs.
>
> Yugoslavia wasn't gentle before being bombed. It certainly wasn't going to
> be gentle afterwards. The number of refugees in Albania and Macedonia
> jumped
> from 45,000 to 640,000.
>
> At the same time, the allied war quickly turned into a war on Serb
> civilians, with strikes on everything from bridges to electrical plants to
> television stations. The only way NATO can continually intensify the
> bombing
> is to widen its target list. And that means more dead civilians.
>
> Accidents may be unavoidable, but they are least justifiable in a
> supposedly
> humanitarian war. How many Yugoslavs deserve to die to enable Kosovar
> refugees to go home? Ethnic cleansing is ugly; premeditated murder is
> worse.
>
> Of course, Bill Clinton argued in his speech that reducing Yugoslavia to
> ruins "is the right thing for our security interests over the long run."
> But
> he can't really believe that.
>
> The conflict in Kosovo, though messy, was contained until NATO began
> bombing. The Serbs were attempting to hold onto what they had, not expand.
> Yugoslavia's earlier civil war did not explode Europe because none of the
> major powers intervened.
>
> But the administration's maladroit attempt to impose a solution unwanted
> by
> either side sparked Belgrade's crackdown, followed by mass refugee flows
> that destabilized Serbia's fragile neighbors. The war has immeasurably
> strengthened the Kosovo Liberation Army, which has expansionistic
> dreams--to
> unite Albanians throughout the region--vis-a-vis Kosovo's more moderate
> political leadership.
>
> The NATO countries are fast dividing as they confront Russia, itself
> sliding
> towards political chaos. Bill Clinton has spilled gasoline across Europe.
>
> Continued bombing guarantees only continued killing, instability, and
> failure. Kosovars will suffer and Serbs will die for nothing.
>
> Inaugurating a ground war, and following it with a long-term occupation
> (Republican presidential candidate Lamar Alexander speaks of
> "three-to-five
> decades of patrol") would be far worse. If the Europeans want to turn
> Kosovo
> into a protectorate and occupy Belgrade, let them. They have a million men
> under arms.
>
> The U.S. should stop bombing. Today.
>
> Forget about concerns over credibility. Credibility, like patriotism, is
> the
> last refugee of the scoundrel. NATO's credibility is already in tatters.
> Maintaining, nay, intensifying a manifestly failed policy will rend what
> little is left.
>
> Instead, Washington should propose negotiations where regional proposals,
> rather than U.S. dictates, are presented. Discussions need to be led by a
> country that hasn't warred against Serbia; Russia must participate.
>
> The goals are basic: return of refugees, protection of Kosovars, presence
> of
> Western monitors, end of the guerrilla war, and political autonomy for
> Kosovo.
>
> None of these will be easy to obtain. Thanks to NATO the already deep
> hatreds in Kosovo have been intensified beyond imagination.
>
> But there is no alternative. It should be tragically obvious by now that
> Washington cannot impose peace.
>
> The President does have a PR problem with his war. But the problem is the
> war. The solution is not to hire another media flack. It is to end the
> war.
>
>
> Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute.
>
