-Caveat Lector-
from: http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3709d42e77ce.htm
Kosovo: the liberals' war
--------------------------
By C. Raja Mohan
The Hindu
NEW DELHI, April 5.
Where have all the Western liberals gone? Nearly two weeks into
NATO's war against Serbia, there is barely a whimper of protest in
either Europe or North America. But then you can't expect Western
peaceniks to protest against a war they themselves are waging.
Nearly eight years ago, the U.S. Democrats came very close to
denying the President, Mr. George Bush, the authority to wage a war
against Iraq's Mr. Saddam Hussein. But now it is a Democrat in the
White House who is pursuing an open-ended war in the Balkans. In
Britain, many leading lights of the Labour Party and the Left had
strongly protested against the Gulf War. Now a Labour Prime
Minister, Mr. Tony Blair, is among the NATO hawks on Kosovo.
The reversal of attitudes towards war and peace among liberals is
most visible in Germany, where the ruling alliance of Social
Democrats and pacifist Greens has ordered the German bombers into
combat for the first time since the end of Second World War.
Until recently, German public opinion refused to endorse the
participation of German armed forces even in international peace-
keeping missions, given the sensitivities arising from the Nazi
past. But now there is strong support in Germany for the war
against Serbia.
In France, where the intelligentsia traditionally revelled in
opposing American "Cowboy imperialism", is backing the war against
Serbia. The French Government, which had been promoting the idea
of a "multipolar world" is now firmly with the United States in the
Balkan war.
The conservative French President, Mr. Jacques Chirac, and
Socialist Prime Minister, Mr. Lionel Jospin, have set aside
political differences and the traditional suspicion of the NATO
to line up behind the bombing of Belgrade.
Although there is some unease in Europe -- particularly among the
former Communists and in Greece -- at the unfolding war in the
Balkans, the measure of political unity that has emerged in the
Continent against Serbia is unprecedented. A war started by the
Western liberals in the Balkans has now gained strong support from
the conservatives -- of course, for entirely different reasons.
The liberals have always recoiled at the idea of going to war in
pursuit of such crass objectives as balance of power, geopolitics,
or securing valuable natural resources such as oil. The European
liberals were particularly irked by what they saw as attempts by
the U.S. to drag their nations, through the NATO, into such wars.
They see the war in the Balkans, however, as being driven not by
narrow national interests but by the moral imperative of preventing
"genocide", "ethnic cleansing" and the return of "barbarism" to
Europe. Although many in the world may not share this view,
there is no denying the strength of this belief in Europe, and
the absence of any sympathy for the Serb point of view.
When the Balkan crisis began to unfold at the turn of the 1990s,
the then U.S. President, Mr. Bush, was extremely reluctant to get
involved. Despite the fact that he had successfully waged the Gulf
War in the name of a "New world Order", Mr. Bush was determined not
to repeat the adventure in the Balkans.
Mr. Bush and other American conservative internationalists seemed
to say "we don't have dog in that fight". With no conceivable
geopolitical interest in the Balkans, the Bush Administration was
quite happy to leave it to the European powers to manage the
crisis. It was the American liberals who challenged the Republican
policy of benign neglect and kept up the demand for a U.S. military
intervention.
In his election campaign against Mr. Bush, Mr. Clinton attacked
the American inaction in the Balkans. But when he took over as
President, Mr. Clinton was equally wary of being drawn into the
Balkan quagmire. But as the European efforts failed and the
political pressure from the liberals mounted, Mr. Clinton got the
U.S. inextricably entangled into the conflict by the mid- 1990s.
The Balkans have became the new testing ground for the convictions
of postmodern liberal internationalism in the West. Since the end
of the Cold War, liberal internationalists have been the strongest
champions of Western intervention in the internal affairs of other
nations in pursuit of universal values.
Discarding the earlier distrust of interventionary policies,
induced by the Vietnam war, the liberals now sought to mobilise
Western state power to set right every wrong in the world -- from
human rights to environmental standards and from religious freedom
to sexual orientation.
Whether it was to save failing States in Somalia or Haiti, or the
promotion of democracy in China and Myanmar, the liberals called
for greater American activism through use of either military force
or punitive economic sanctions against any State seen as deviating
from the prescribed norms.
Although the U.S. and Western focus on these issues has remained
inconsistent and episodic, the conflict in Kosovo may now have
lured the Western liberals into pushing their internationalist
fancies to their logical conclusion. Having failed to compel
Mr. Slobodan Milosevic into accepting their demands on Kosovo,
the NATO is now drifting into a total war against Serbia.
While the American conservatives have been deeply troubled by the
internationalist project of the liberals and are strongly critical
of Mr. Clinton's incremental expansion of the military involvement
in the Balkans, they now have no choice but to back the escalation
of the conflict.
For the American right, the question is no longer how the U.S. has
got into the conflict, but how to get out with a clear victory.
It is one of demonstrating the "credibility" of the world's most
powerful military alliance. The political defiance of a small
nation against the collective Western alliance cannot be tolerated.
It must be stamped out at all costs.
Those who believe the battle for Kosovo is just another absent-
minded American intervention that would be withdrawn at the first
signs of trouble may be misjudging the mood in the West. It is
more likely to be a fight to the finish.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
How the World sees us is often not how we see ourselves.....
Some see us, especially the Liberals, as bullies.... imposing their
will and ways on others........ as this article from New Delhi,
aptly points out.........
"Whether it was to save failing States in Somalia or Haiti,
or the promotion of democracy in China and Myanmar, the
liberals called for greater American activism through use of
either military force or punitive economic sanctions against
any State seen as deviating from the prescribed norms."
Now the question is if we are willing to accept responsibility for
being the World Police force....... a Pax Americana...... are we
also willing to start World War 3 in the pursuit of Liberal
interventionism... or to save the Prestige of NATO, now so openly
exposed as corrupt....?
Can we handle the truth?
Posted by: prometheus () *
04/06/99 02:30:19 PDT
--------------------------------------------------------------------
To: prometheus
"It is more likely to be a fight to the finish."
Can we handle the truth?
This is what Carleton Coon has to say in The Races of Europe (1939):
In studying the racial history of the Balkans, it must be borne in
mind that here more than elsewhere in Europe, linguistic and ethnic
boundaries are constantly changing; there have been many wholesale
emigrations and immigrations; whole countrysides have changed
not only masters, but also peasantry, in mass evictions and mass
colonizations. The Balkan peoples change their languages and
ethnic identities with difficulty and only after bitter oppression;
it is easier to transplant than to alter them; once converted,
however, they become as ardent partisans of the new allegiance as
of the old. The Serbs have been subjected to these disturbances as
much as have the others. Their position as the dominant people of
Yugoslavia has only been won through centuries of retrenchment and
struggle; their present effort to Slavicize by force the minorities
within their boundaries is a commonplace of Balkan history.
From: Pig's Eye (emailname) *
04/06/99 02:41:38 PDT
--------------------------------------------------------------------
To: Pig's Eye
And How many know the bloody history of the Balkans.... or that
Yugoslavia was not even a country until the end of WW 1... or that
it wasn't even called Yugoslavia at first but until King Alexander
came to power in the 1930's.......?
Or how many know that this is where the first World War started?
From: prometheus () *
04/06/99 02:49:57 PDT
--------------------------------------------------------------------
To: prometheus
Where are the Hapsburgs when you need them?
From: Pig's Eye (emailname) *
04/06/99 02:51:58 PDT
--------------------------------------------------------------------
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