-Caveat Lector- The New Australian Is Clinton Worth dying for? By James Henry No. 116, 19-25 April 1999 What is the US really doing in the Balkans? This is a question that millions of Americans are now beginning to ask in earnest. Unfortunately, most of them seem to be arriving at the wrong conclusion. Continually fed stories of Serbian atrocities, supported by hours of television footage of thousands of Kosovars forced to abandon their homes, it has been all too easy for Americans to assume that their government is engaged on a humanitarian mission. What has not sunk in as yet is the fact that America is at war — and it is a war — not merely to save Clinton's political skin by driving his scandals of the front pages but to supply him with the kind of legacy for which he desperately craves. A legacy that in his own mind would portray him as a great leader if not actually a hero. None of this is based on Clinton-hating paranoia (I don't hate the man at all — I just despise him) but on observation. The manner in which he has climbed to the top, his betrayal of friends and his country's national interests, his corruption and compulsive lying, his contempt for the rights and interests of others, his vindictiveness and spite all indicate a personality that literally cannot empathasise with others, who merely sees people as pawns. Such a personality would have no moral qualms about endangering the lives thousands of US troops if it thought it would promote its ambitions. And what is Bill Clinton's chief ambition? In his book Agenda Bob Woodward relates the tale of Clinton telling his aides how he would have liked to have been president during WW II. This is a chilling and revealing insight into Clinton's state of mind. No sensible and humane man really wants to lead his country into war. He does so out of perceived necessity and nothing else. War means that leaders have to make awful decisions that involve the loss of thousands of lives. Churchill, for example, knew that Coventry was going to be bombed and yet he took no measures to prevent it. Why? Because that would have told Berlin that the British had cracked their codes. Does anyone think he enjoyed making this decision? What kind of man wants to put himself in a position where he has to make life and death decisions for thousands because he thinks it will make him look good? A man like Clinton, that's who. What does he crave? The kind of legacy that the Churchills of history bequeath their countries. Clinton believed that Kosova offered him such a legacy on the cheap. The none-too-bright Albright assured him that Milosevic would quickly surrender to an aerial assault and thus allow NATO, meaning Clinton, to dictate terms to Milosevic. In this fantasy, Clinton emerges smelling like roses, a genuine leader who humbles his critics, despatches his scandals and establishes a legacy worthy of a national hero. Who knows, maybe even Mount Rushmore figures in his dream. However, Clinton's dream is in very real danger of turning into a military and political nightmare for the nation. Elsewhere I wrote that Clinton's actions risked "triggering uncontrollable forces" and that "any Serbian leader who gave up Kosovo might as well commit suicide."* I also pointed out that Milosevic would sit tight while accelerating the drive against Kosovo Albanians. This is precisely what he did. How did I know? Because Clinton gave him no choice, unless you consider suicide a choice. Milosevic knew that the aerial attack would be spearheaded by cruise missiles. He also knew, as would anybody who read an American paper or watched CNN, how many cruise missiles the US had in stock. Well, it is now believed that the cruise inventory may have dropped below 100 because, thanks to Clinton's gutting of the military, there are no cruise missile production lines in operation. This means that low flying aircraft will eventually have to replace them. Something else I pointed out. To make it worse, the risible 'strategy' of using bombing to 'degrade' Serbia's military facilities and logistics have been a dismal failure. After more than 4000 sorties intelligence believes these facilities still largely remain unscathed. Why? Because the important fixed positions are underground, where they have been for 50 years, while mobile units, including hundreds of tanks and ground-to-air missile batteries, remain intact. So Serbian forces still have anti-aircraft missile batteries, thousands of anti-aircraft guns, not to mention several hundred shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles. Does General Wesley Clark know this? Of course he does and this is why, in my opinion, the pentagon is not releasing battle damage assessments. Clark knew from the beginning of the campaign it would fail to severely damage the Serb military because it had prepared itself decades ago for a massive assault. Only then, the expected enemy was Moscow. Very sensibly, the Serbs have pursued the wait-until-you-see-the-whites-of-their-eyes military strategy. Meanwhile, Serbian forces carry on with the expulsion of Kosovar Albanians. Clinton and his kindergarten circle of advisers cobbled the thing together in the belief that Milosevic would fold after a week or so. Why shouldn't he? After all, they would. No wonder there is so much discontent in the Pentagon. No general would ever dream of committing forces in this manner. But the commander-in-chief (the man who loathes the military) has done just that. Now our left-wing dominated media is beginning to talk of a "lengthy campaign" and the "necessity for ground troops", constantly relating stories of atrocities and acts of genocide to justify extending the war. Now let me make this clear: This war is being pursued by Clinton serve his own ambitions while the liberal (left-wing) media see it as a means to punish Milosevic for his politics, not for his crimes. Humanitarianism has nothing to do with it. Many of those calling for war are the same people who cheered Pinochet's illegal arrest but just cheered and cheered Castro. The same people who scream for Milosevic's head are cheering Zhu, whose government is guilty of crimes that greatly exceed anything Milosevic has done. So Milosevic the thug, whose wife is a dedicated Marxist-Leninist, has been selected as the means to provide our sociopathic president with his legacy. That is what it is really all about and that is why a lot of gallant young Americans are in grave danger of going home in body bags. But Milosevic is not going to be a patsy for Clinton and probably intends to give Clinton the kind of legacy he would dearly love to avoid. Clinton gutted the military, squandered the country's moral authority, aggravated conditions in Kosovo and made the world a more dangerous place, provoking Russian nationalism, isolating Macedonia and Montenegro and maybe even destabilising Greece in to the bargain. Some legacy. Perhaps now Americans will come to realise that the presidency involves more than policies on school uniforms, meddling in medical affairs, making high-sounding commitments about education, etc. Maybe now they will realise that character does matter and genuine moral authority does not spring from poll ratings nor is it a matter of numbers. What of the Kosovar refugees? Like it or not, Kosovo is part of Serbia. If Serbia expels part of its population this leaves Western nations with only two choices: a) absorb the refugees or (b) invade kosovar and occupy it on a permanent basis, expelling those Serbs who resist. It would have been cheaper and more humane to have implemented a Marshall Plan for Albania than attack Serbia. Last week** I wrote that the former course of action would have weakened, perhaps fatally, Milosevic's grip by stripping him of his nationalist pretensions and removing from Serbians any feeling of victimhood. This would have strengthened the hand of democratic forces who might have toppled Milosevic and come to a civilised arrangement over Kosovian autonomy. All of that is out of the question now, thanks to Clinton's selfish actions. I also believe that proposition (b) is also out of the question. Where or how it will end is now anybody's guess. But the real question still remains: Is Clinton worth dying for? **COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. 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