The N.Y. Times' Unwitting Mea Culpa
I think that the Gay Lady's lead editorial today communicates something quite different from what the "paper of bird cage bottoms" intended:
The Times editorial board is thinking barely to the end of its collective nose. They argue against bailing out of Kosovo because to do so would lead to a "return of violence." But they also concede that the elements that give rise to that "default mode" haven't changed in the six and a half years that the Serbian province has been under Western occupation. This is a formula for making that occupation permanent.
Cap'n Ed points out the obvious comparison to Iraq, and the NYT's diametric opposite stance vis-a-vie that theater. Ditto the Anglo-American refurbishing of that country that has it on the fast track to full-fledged democracy versus the pointless, brain-dead bureaucratic stagnation that charaterizes the "international supervision" of Kosovo.
To me this is the flip side of the parallel I have always drawn between Clinton's war of aggression against Serbia and Bush's war of liberation in Iraq. In point of fact everything about the two conflicts were polar policy opposites. Kosovo had no foreign policy context; Iraq fell well within the greater GWOT. Slobadan Milosevic had attacked neither the U.S. nor his neighbors; Saddam Hussein was an established regional aggressor who remained in a legal state of war with the American-led Coalition ever since the first Gulf War. Milosevic had no WMDs and did not seek them; both were true of Saddam. And most egregious of all, in Iraq we defeated a terrorist regime and are repelling the assymmetrical invasion of other terrorist forces, whereas in Kosovo we were attacking Serbia on behalf of the Kosovo Liberaton Army, a Muslim narcoterrorist group.
The short version is it was entirely in our national security interests to liberate Iraq, while the mirror opposite was the case with Kosovo. The latter was Bill Clinton's attempt to fabricate a legacy that wasn't headlined by Gap dresses and the pecker tracks thereon, a quest that will most likely last the rest of his misbegotten life. George W. Bush, by contrast, stands at least a decent chance of transforming the most violent and backward region of the planet into something approximating an oasis of liberty - or at the very least a pacified area that will no longer fly hijacked airliners into American skyscrapers and seek to do a whole lot worse.
Want it even more concise? Clinton's Kosovo adventure was everything the Left dishonestly attributes to Operation Iraqi Freedom. And the Times has now implicitly admitted it.
Frankly, I could care less if the UN and/or NATO want to sit in Kosovo with their collective thumb up their collective ass for years to come. But if the U.S. is going to continue doing the heavy lifting and bill-paying for this futile exercise, the Bush Administration should attach an iron-clad condition to the bargain: employ the equivalent democratization program that is transforming Iraq immediately so as to lay the groundwork for an eventual exit, or we pull out and leave the "world bodies" to their own pitiful devices.
Let's see if Turtle Bay and their Gay Lady cheerleaders can conquer the world for "peace" without Uncle Sam's help. And when they fail and come crawling back to us, dispense with the faux graciousness in handing out the "We told you so"'s .
We have argued that Kosovo is neither prepared for nor deserving of independence. Its Albanian majority has shown no tolerance toward the Serbian minority and little capacity for self-government. Kosovo has no army, only a fledgling police force and powerful mafias. ...
The Security Council would be foolish to use the Ahtisaari mission to extract itself from a bad situation as soon as possible. Even with the best of intentions, an independent Kosovo will require international forces and strong oversight for a long time. In the Balkans, the default mode is violence.
The Times editorial board is thinking barely to the end of its collective nose. They argue against bailing out of Kosovo because to do so would lead to a "return of violence." But they also concede that the elements that give rise to that "default mode" haven't changed in the six and a half years that the Serbian province has been under Western occupation. This is a formula for making that occupation permanent.
Cap'n Ed points out the obvious comparison to Iraq, and the NYT's diametric opposite stance vis-a-vie that theater. Ditto the Anglo-American refurbishing of that country that has it on the fast track to full-fledged democracy versus the pointless, brain-dead bureaucratic stagnation that charaterizes the "international supervision" of Kosovo.
To me this is the flip side of the parallel I have always drawn between Clinton's war of aggression against Serbia and Bush's war of liberation in Iraq. In point of fact everything about the two conflicts were polar policy opposites. Kosovo had no foreign policy context; Iraq fell well within the greater GWOT. Slobadan Milosevic had attacked neither the U.S. nor his neighbors; Saddam Hussein was an established regional aggressor who remained in a legal state of war with the American-led Coalition ever since the first Gulf War. Milosevic had no WMDs and did not seek them; both were true of Saddam. And most egregious of all, in Iraq we defeated a terrorist regime and are repelling the assymmetrical invasion of other terrorist forces, whereas in Kosovo we were attacking Serbia on behalf of the Kosovo Liberaton Army, a Muslim narcoterrorist group.
The short version is it was entirely in our national security interests to liberate Iraq, while the mirror opposite was the case with Kosovo. The latter was Bill Clinton's attempt to fabricate a legacy that wasn't headlined by Gap dresses and the pecker tracks thereon, a quest that will most likely last the rest of his misbegotten life. George W. Bush, by contrast, stands at least a decent chance of transforming the most violent and backward region of the planet into something approximating an oasis of liberty - or at the very least a pacified area that will no longer fly hijacked airliners into American skyscrapers and seek to do a whole lot worse.
Want it even more concise? Clinton's Kosovo adventure was everything the Left dishonestly attributes to Operation Iraqi Freedom. And the Times has now implicitly admitted it.
Frankly, I could care less if the UN and/or NATO want to sit in Kosovo with their collective thumb up their collective ass for years to come. But if the U.S. is going to continue doing the heavy lifting and bill-paying for this futile exercise, the Bush Administration should attach an iron-clad condition to the bargain: employ the equivalent democratization program that is transforming Iraq immediately so as to lay the groundwork for an eventual exit, or we pull out and leave the "world bodies" to their own pitiful devices.
Let's see if Turtle Bay and their Gay Lady cheerleaders can conquer the world for "peace" without Uncle Sam's help. And when they fail and come crawling back to us, dispense with the faux graciousness in handing out the "We told you so"'s .
posted by JASmius at 4:14 PM
<<< Home