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Looking like Rudolph Hess, Richard Holbrooke arrived in Yugoslavia to give Slobodan Milosevic the full Richard Chamberlain ( Monday March 22, 1999 ). He may be talking tough to us, " We are on the brink of military action. It's not too late to avoid it, but the window is narrowing ". To the Serbs, he is a dog slinking over there with his tail between his legs, as they accuse Clinton of " saber-rattling " and declare that they will not end their offensive in Kosovo until the rebels stop " provocations " and N.A.T.O. ceases " threatening " them. You know, these guys are genuine genocidal maniacs, but if there was an international chapter of the ACLU, would they be up in arms? It is their country after all! Even I can understand why they don't want 28,000 N.A.T.O. troops stationed inside their rightful territory. I mean come on, we didn't exactly squawk when they were running over helpless students with tanks in Asia or hacking innocent people to bits with machetes in Africa? So what are a few homeless gypsies in the Balkans worth? Hey, aren't they a nomadic people anyhow? Yeah, uh huh, when it benefits Clinton, he can really be a peace-maker, war-maker or money-maker!
The President had a live news announcement today to keep the people aware on developements in the situation in Kosovo. Less than an informative affair, it seemed more like a primer designed to soften the blow of seeing American jets go down in flames over Yugoslavia and pilots coming home in body bags instead of window seats. This was no news conference, but a blatant excuse for Bill Clinton to get in front of the cameras once again. Can you spell: W-A-G T-H-E D-O-G? I knew you could.
If you put together the preamble of Clinton's pseudo news conference of the other day and today's announcement, you would have to assume that N.A.T.O. airstrikes are reasonably imminent. Don't kid yourself, any airstrikes will be mainly made using American aircraft, American pilots and American taxpayer paid for cruise missiles. The international element of any N.A.T.O. action will be a pityfully small affair. The expense and casuality rate, will be ours, and not the world's, to absorb.
It must really scare the heck out of the Serbs when National Security Adviser Sandy Berger says stuff to the media like, " Richard Holbrooke would be delivering a stark message, ' Move to the path of peace or face the punishment of NATO '". Milosevic can just go to downtown Belgrade, if he wants to eat a Big Mac; but you have to look to the Sandy from the Whitehouse for one that talks!
Ostrich breath military and political talking heads and columnists will try to convince you that airstrikes will be sufficient to get the Serbs to stop the war within their own borders, and knuckle under to N.A.T.O. pressure. They will wag their fingers at the use of allied air power against the Serbs in Bosnia, and claim that alone, brought them to the negotiation table. Well, they fail to tell you that a Croatian ground offensive was concurrent with the N.A.T.O. air attacks! Oh, that wouldn't make any difference, would it? Or, if we need ground troops, who is it gonna' be Alphy ( you and me? )? I'll just point out that we lost an aircraft in that last one. Think about it.
Am I only the only one around here who sees a similarity between " Serb led Yugoslavia and Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo in the 1990s " and " Nazi Germany and Austria, Czechoslovakia, and the Sudetenland in the 1930s "? Oh yeah, besides the fact that the Serbs are a little more openly hostile that the Nazis were ( or is it just the world wide media coverage? ).
Okay, try this one. What geographical region hosts(ed), what most informed people consider to be, the main cause of World War One? Yeah, right, I knew you could spell: T-H-E B-A-L-K-A-N-S.
Look man, it's hard; but you must finally ask yourself this question: How many American pilots and/or dollars is one ethnic Albanian citizen from Kosovo worth? Then you must balance this, with all the other locations around the world where an internally sovereign state is conducting what you believe to be an actionable attrocity, and why we aren't bombing there already? The Kosovars ( why not Kosovians? ) just should have spoken up when the world was focused on Bosnia. See: He who hesitates, is lost. ( 9-23-98 ) .
- Bongo ( Body bag airstrikes and wag the dog foreign policy! )
