The 111th Congress should
- observe America's original foreign policy
- urge America’s West European allies to take over military responsibility for Bosnia and Kosovo,
- discontinue funding the ill-conceived nation-building experiments in Bosnia and Kosovo and insist on the withdrawal of U.S. troops,
- oppose taking on another Balkan dependent by firmly objecting to possible U.S. military intervention in Montenegro, and
- resist the temptation to reimpose sanctions on Yugoslavia if its newly elected democratic government does not always see eye to eye with Washington.
2009: Kosovo war not justified, professor argues in new book
2008: From the Vice Presidential debate, courtesy of Arthur Silber:
IFILL: Senator, you have quite a record, this is the next question here, of being an interventionist. You argued for intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo, initially in Iraq and Pakistan and now in Darfur, putting U.S. troops on the ground. Boots on the ground. Is this something the American public has the stomach for?
BIDEN: I think the American public has the stomach for success. My recommendations on Bosnia. I admit I was the first one to recommend it. They saved tens of thousands of lives. And initially John McCain opposed it along with a lot of other people. But the end result was it worked. Look what we did in Bosnia. We took Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks, being told by everyone, I was told by everyone that this would mean that they had been killing each other for a thousand years, it would never work.
There's a relatively stable government there now as in Kosovo.
Silber comments, "Biden's first sentence is unquestionably true: so steeped are Americans in the myth of "American exceptionalism," that they don't care at all whether we engage in war crimes, whether we unleash a genocide, whether we murder millions of innocent human beings -- so long as we "win." Biden is correct on that point, and this particular truth is unutterably disgusting.
"But every word that Biden says about Bosnia and Kosovo is a lie. Every word is a lie. These are the lies of liberal "humanitarianism,' which is imperialism under a different but equally bloody flag. I can only deconstruct these particular lies so many times. For a great deal of background on Bosnia and Kosovo, read, "The Truth Shall Drive You Mad: The Wise Men and Women of the Empire of Death." Here's a very brief excerpt:
I've written about the Clinton administration's Balkans policy, in the second half of "Iraq Is the Democrats' War, Too," and in "Liberal Hypocrisy in the Name of 'Humanitarianism'."
I suppose it might be advisable to remind you that the major excuse employed to this day by many liberals to "justify" the bombing campaign -- "But a genocide was going on!" -- was a lie. Yes, it was a lie. Read Diana Johnstone's book, Fools' Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO, and Western Delusions , and read her article from February of this year, "NATO's Kosovo Colony."
"Independent" Kosovo
NATO: Discussion at the Ozarks Virtual Town Hall
2004 Links
The Mideast/Balkan Connection:
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