By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Original Sources, (http://www.originalsources.com)
March 24, 1999
Considering the way the Kosovo conflict has been reported in the American media, it is rather remarkable that there is so little support for Clinton's war against Yugoslavia. One of CNN's "quick polls" asked: Are NATO strikes against Yugoslavia likely to force its compliance? A whopping 64% said "No."
Another poll by CNN asked: Should NATO launch a military strike in Yugoslavia? A majority, 53% said "No."
And, that was only the first day. It is probably going to be less and less popular as the days go one. Remarkably, the free-fall of the Dow-Jones yesterday was not blamed on Clinton's announcement of his war with Yugoslavia, even though it began right after Clinton's speech announcing his decision to bomb Yugoslavia.
In a crazy world, which seems to get crazier by the day, Bill Clinton, who dodged the draft which might have landed him in Vietnam and who organized pickets here and abroad to protest the Vietnam war, is about to start a similar conflict in Yugoslavia, like his hero got us into Vietnam. And, why did President John F. Kennedy get us mixed up in Vietnam? Shortly before he began sending troops in 1962, Kennedy said: "The danger in Southeast Asia--as we have seen in Laos and we see now in Vietnam-is not .of overt aggression across boundary lines by foreign armies but rather by the effective use of guerrillas, which have--for example in Vietnam--have assassinated in the last twelve months two thousand civil officers of the government and two thousand local policemen, and are carrying on a very vigorous effort to seize control of the Government by guerrilla means."
Of course, in Kosovo, the government officers and local policemen who have been killed in the last year are mostly Serbs, being killed by a guerrilla army, the KLA, which, we found out recently, is being financed by the sale of heroin in Scandinavia, Italy and the Czech Republic.
Yesterday President Clinton tried to evoke memories of World War II by trying to convince Americans that somehow Milosevic is a 1990s Hitler, and he is the 1990s Winston Churchill recommending early interference in the Third Reich's juggernaut which gobbled up nation after nation - including Yugoslavia.
The problem with this scenario is that the Yugoslavians are not outside their borders. The ALBANIANS are outside their borders. And, Milosevic is not bombing Albania, or, say, London. It is Bill Clinton who is bombing Belgrade. Furthermore, it is the KLA, many of whom are not even Albanians, but are mercenaries for a variety of countries, including Iran, that is using the tactics of the North Vietnamese - assassination of local policemen.
President Lyndon B. Johnson used almost the identical argument Clinton used yesterday when he greatly expanded our involvement in Vietnam in 1966:
"Yes, we have learned over the past half century that failure to meet aggression means war, not peace. In carrying out that policy we have taken casualties in Berlin and Korea, and now in Vietnam. We have had 160,000 American casualties from World War II up until Vietnam. Now every morning I look at those casualty figures. I measure them not as statistics, but man by man. As of this morning, we lost 1,705 Americans in Vietnam in the year 1966--1,705. But we lost 49,000 last year on our highways.
"But I tell you that if we fail in frustrating this aggression, the war that would surely come in Asia would produce casualties not in the hundreds or seventeen hundreds, but in the hundreds of thousands and perhaps in millions. Your Government therefore, under your President, is determined to resist this aggression at the minimum cost to our people, and to our allies, and to the world....Let them remember that tonight there are 300,000 young Americans, our own boys, out there somewhere in Southeast Asia, on the land and on the sea and in the air. They are there fighting to quarantine another aggressor. They are there fighting for the peace of the world."
In four years the Vietnam war grew from a few "advisers" to 300,000 young Americans fighting in Southeast Asia - and that led eventually, in nine years of fighting, to 58,900 deaths and 155,000 wounded.
In a response Slobodan Milosevic sent to the Co-Chairmen of the negotiating sessions at Ramouillet and Paris he makes the charge that the "negotiators" at the sessions never actually got together in the same room and negotiated - but that they were presented a draft which was never debated between the two parties.
If we are going to compare the Kosovo situation to some other war, it is most similar to+ the Vietnam war. It is a conflit between two warring factions of the same nation - Vietnam, divided into two "autonomous" provinces - North and South. In effect, using that analogy, the KLA would represent the North Vietnamese guerrillas, and the Yugoslav army units would represent the troops of the elected government of South Vietnam.
Milosevic and others in the Yugoslav government make the point that Yugoslavia has never moved against another sovereign country, yet they are about to be attacked by NATO for defending their own sovereignty. This is not really the hysteria of a madman. This is very much the same point that about half the members of Congress are concerned about. It is clear from what Serb spokespersons are saying that they are basically being blackmailed with threats of bombing raids to force them to sign a document which they believe violates their sovereign rights. Quite a number of world leaders in Asia agree with them.
In the meanwhile, it appears, Senators who believe we are doing the wrong thing by getting sucked into a situation where we are providing air cover for the KLA, have voted to allow the raids to take place because Clinton and NATO would be undermined if they back down now. So, to support the unelected guerrilla war, heroin dealing leaders of the KLA, who have never been elected, we will accept a free-falling stock-market, the death and destruction our bombs will inflict on hundreds of thousands of people in Yugoslavia, and the probable deaths of some of our pilots.
If Milosevic does not cave in, which is what Madeline Albright has said publicly he must do, what next? So far about 2000 people have died in Kosovo. Approximately 1600 were Albanians, and 400 were Serbs. Since Serbs constitute only 10% or less now of the population, a Serb is twice as likely to be a target of the KLA than an Albanian is to be the target of a Serb. The "ethnic cleansing" of Kosovo, so far, has been getting rid of Serbs - not getting rid of Albanians.
Have the Serbs committed "atrocities?" Presidential candidate Lamar Alexander said on CNN recently, "There have been atrocities on both sides." But, he went on to say, "There are atrocities committed in Nashville, Tennessee, my home town."
If, as it appears, we are about to set a new standard for international intervention into the affairs of sovereign states with disgruntled minorities, we better decide first how we intend to argue our case at the United Nations when Hispanics in Southern California demand the same rights the Albanians demand. The Albanians want their own schools, where they are taught in their own language without having to learn the dominant language of the nation, and their own form of government. When Hispanics become the majority in, say, San Diego County, and demand "autonomy" and the right to re-unify the county with their "mother country" - Mexico, what will America's response be, do you suppose?
To comment: mmostert@originalsources.com
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