At the time it seemed like a good idea, an American President sending troops without cultural awareness into what all experts pointed to as a war with no end. For centuries there had been blood. Two ethnically divisive sides hell bent on each others destruction. A murderous dictator plows over tens of thousands of his own people’s women and children into unmarked graves. As the world stands in outrage and protest to this onslaught, they all seem to know that nothing will change with his removal. Yet with all the handwriting on the wall an American President throws The Powell Doctrine aside and leads the charge with only history as his judge.
Before Iraq there was Kosovo. The war with no end, but it doesn’t seem to matter. As long as WE don’t die, this is good policy.
The offensive is quick and yet we remain patrolling the streets, seemingly the only thing keeping the ethnic violence from rearing its ugly head.
One would think that after nine long years we would finally see controversy subside in Kosovo. You would be wrong.
The newly independent nation of Kosovo has lost over 50% of their World War Two era Serbian population. So that would mean that over 400,000 Serbs left in the last 50 years. Kosovo was bombarded by illegal Albanian immigration during this time. Over the years, their ethnic difference would lead to bloodshed and hostility from both sides. The Albanian culture would strangle out remnants of Serbia by mass populating.
For all the prudent reasons America led the way to defend the ethnic Albanians of Kosovo, the fact that they were Muslims certainly didn’t hurt our Islamic street credit in the pre-9/11 world. Even thought Osama Bin Laden was well into the planning of the attack on America that would plunge us into the Long War with Islamist aggression, the majority of the Muslim world was right behind us in Kosovo.
Yet, this life preserver raft thrown toward Islam in need from President Clinton didn’t make us safer. It was practically ignored by the Islamists of al Qaeda.
America was still evil enough to have 3,000 of her civilians killed in a first strike.
Conversely Vladimir Putin, a leader who openly bends Geneva conventions by executive edict in Chechnya and whose heavy handed tactics against Isalmist terror on his own Russian soil have been scrutinized by both sides fighting in the war on Terror, is still not public enemy number one to al Qaeda. I wonder why?
Many Soviet leaders, even before Brezhnev, were strongly anti-religion and took hostile stances toward Islam. And when Soviet aggression was finally met with resistance in Afghanistan after the 1979, it was the American CIA who came to the rescue for Islam.
If our foreign policy is the reason for this violent hatred, where is the consistency? How can we state that the mendacity of American Islamic policy and our presence on holy Saudi sand is the reason for the foundation of al Qaeda. However we ignore the Tsunami relief in Islamic states. Iran’s 2003 earthquake in Bam that killed 15,000 people was immediately responded to by American led aid. Natural disaster plagued Indonesia has seen more American bottled water and MRE’s than our own troops at war. Literally aviation assets used for war against militant Islam were used to drop humanitarian aid to the same people who flock to Iraq and Afghanistan to die in jihad.
The right thing often times makes a huge mess. I hope history is kind to the legacy of President Clinton and will forgive for this colossal failure. Kosovo: the wrong war at the wrong time.
I only hope we are “as careful getting out of Kosovo, as we were careless getting in.”
