TURNABOUT
It
was Warner, you'll remember, who introduced the Senate resolution
approving military action against Yugoslavia, who now complains
that "we are drifting into this endless commitment.'' But
what did he think was going to happen – that we could
bomb the Serbs from 15,000 ft. and get out of there without
our boots touching the ground? Oh well, better late than never.
But before we break out the champagne and start celebrating
the return of constitutional government in America, there
are several obstacles to be overcome – and a few questions
to be asked . . .
WHY
NOW?
While
Kosovo has long since dropped off the front pages, and off
the American public's radar screen, we have to ask: why now?
Why has Senator Warner suddenly turned on a dime? Why has
Senator Byrd enraged many of his fellow Democrats, who don't
want this brought up in an election year? "We're fed up with
the inability of this administration to be honest with us,''
said Sen. Judd Gregg, a New Hampshire Republican. He remembers
way back when the Clintonistas were reassuring Congress that
US troops would be in Bosnia only for a year. That was six
years ago. Our little expedition to Kosovo was slated to last
six months, but "now they are talking about indefinitely,"
says Gregg. As if anybody believed the solemn pledges of this
administration to begin with. As for Senator Warner, less
than a year ago, as NATO was raining hellfire on Belgrade,
he was singing
a different tune in answer to a question from Jim Lehrer
on the PBS News Hour:
JIM
LEHRER: "In a general way, how do you feel about this mission,
eight days after it began?"
SEN.
JOHN WARNER: "Well, we had, I think, a basis to believe
that Milosevic would not have subjected his own people in
Belgrade and elsewhere to the type of very serious damage
being inflicted by the air campaign. But he has not, for reasons,
perhaps some day we will learn more fully. I think all the
diplomatic efforts, including perhaps the futile one by Primakov
have been made, and he only historically responds to military
pressure. And we've got to stay the course. There are no other
alternatives."
STAY
THE COURSE?
From
"stay the course" to complaints about our "endless commitment"
– in less than a year. Continuing his conversation with
Lehrer, the Senator put his imprimatur not only on the military
operation but also took responsibility for its aftermath:
"You
have to ask your question [sic] – what if we had done nothing
as a collection of 19 nations? Here in this most holy of weeks
of Easter, and done nothing [sic], and watched these same
pictures – how would you have reacted to that? So it
seems to me that we had little choice but the 19 nations of
mounting the actions [sic] they have taken today and to see
them through to the finish."
TROUBLE
AHEAD
But
not quite to the finish: having been one of the biggest hawks
at the height of the propaganda blitz, when images of Kosovars
streaming across the border were inundating the airwaves,
Warner is now running from the consequences of the policy
he not only approved but authored. No, unfortunately, the
Warner-Byrd legislation does not signal the resurgence
of "isolationism" in the Republican and Democratic
parties – instead, it signals a resurgence of real trouble
in the Balkans. For if even the hawkish chairman of the Senate
Armed Services Committee is suddenly getting nervous about
Kosovo, and is seeking to cover his political posterior, and
a whole lot of his colleagues – from both parties –
are following suit, then something must be up. In the
context of recent developments inside Serbia, as well as increasing
incidents on the Kosovo border, there is a distinctly
ominous aspect to the panicky stampede of politicians scrambling
to get out of the way of the oncoming disaster. Do these guys
know something we don't know?
PROVOCATEURS?
Even
as the first phase of the Kosovo war ground to a halt, Clinton
was announcing phase two: in place of missiles, covert
operations would be launched to bring down Slobodan Milosevic.
The US gathered under its wing a few Serbians willing to serve
as mouthpieces for the US State Department, such as Zoran
Djindic and a few other fringe elements without any real influence:
the real opposition to Milosevic, centered in the Serbian
Renewal Movement, led by Vuk
Draskovic, the charismatic novelist,
and the very effective Otpor
student organization – long
hated by the Milosevic Commies – are far too nationalistic
for the NATO-crats' taste. Milosevic, too, realizes who his
real enemies are: not isolated collaborators in the pay of
various Western intelligence agencies, but the soul of the
Serbian people represented by the democratic and monarchist
nationalists and the nation's youth. This growing movement,
which rejects Milosevic and despises the NATO-crats, is under
attack on two fronts: from Milosevic – and provocateurs
within its own ranks.
COVERT
ACTION
The
latest
in a series of mysterious
assassinations has Belgrade in turmoil: Bosko Perosevic,
head of Milosevic's Socialist Party in the city of Novi
Sad and regional governor of Vojvodina
province, was shot at an agricultural exhibition by one Milivoj
Gutovic, a 50-year-old security guard and longtime employee
of the fair. According to reports from Serbian sources, Perosevic
was well-known to his attacker: they were both born and raised
in the same town. First an automobile "accident" nearly puts
Vuk Draskovic out of action; then Arkan,
along with several
other shady characters, are gunned down in the streets
of Belgrade in broad daylight: now this. Somebody is sure
stirring the pot, and, without definitively identifying whose
hand is guiding the spoon, we have only to ask: who benefits?
TWO
BIRDS, ONE STONE
The
Serbian opposition surely doesn't, as terror spreads and Milosevic
tightens his grip. His government has already announced that
Perosevic's death was the result of a plot hatched by the
Serbian Renewal Movement and Otpor: the police announced that
several arrests in connection with the assassination had already
been made. Government officials declined to give further details
but for the fact that the involvement of the Renewal Movement
and Otpor was "beyond doubt." Independent
Serbian media report that the killing was not political,
but based on personal jealousy: Gutovic, it is said, was never
a member of the Serbian Renewal Movement or Otpor, and is
known to have given a speech praising "our commander, Slobodan
Milosevic." You don't have to belong to the black helicopter
school of conspiracy theorizing to wonder aloud at the role
of NATO-crats in all this: it is no great stretch to imagine
that the same crew responsible for inflicting a campaign of
terror by air would resort to a terrorist campaign of a different
sort. By giving Milosevic an excuse to crack down on the nationalist
opposition, they will have rid themselves of a troublesome
opposition – and polarized Serbian politics to the
point of civil
war.
EUROPA
LIBRE
Naturally,
the biggest warmonger in the Senate – who else but John
McCain? – thinks the Warner-Byrd amendment is "a
disgrace." "There is no objective observer who doesn't believe
it will be destabilizing," he averred – but of course
the biggest "destabilizing" factor in the region was the war
he and his Senate buddies approved and unleashed, the consequences
of which are yet unfolding. McCain moans that inclusion of
the Warner-Byrd language in the bill will lead to the development
of an independent
European defense force capable of policing the Balkans
– as if this is something to be feared instead of welcomed.
But why shouldn't the Europeans start providing for
– and paying
for – their own security arrangements, now that the
cold war is long over? Indeed, the House of Representatives,
where a measure similar to the Warner-Byrd amendment now percolates,
is beginning to ask the same question.
THE
WAR PARTY PANICS
The
approval of the Warner-Byrd rider to the military construction
bill by the Senate Appropriations Committee, on a smashing
23-3 vote, put the War Party in a panic; the administration
and its congressional allies immediately launched a bipartisan
counterattack. A group of ten Senators, from both parties,
announced that passage of the Warner-Byrd Amendment would
forever brand the US as an "irresolute ally." Secretary of
Defense William
Cohen declared that approval of the measure would effectively
put an end to the NATO alliance – an exaggeration, to
be sure, but we can always hope. In a letter to Sen.
Carl Levin (D-Michigan) the ranking Democrat on the Armed
Services Committee, General
Wesley Clark opined: "These measures would invalidate
the policies, commitments and trust of our allies in NATO,
undercut U.S. leadership worldwide, and encourage renewed
ethnic tension, fighting and instability in the Balkans."
The hypocrisy of this would-be Napoleon, forced into early
retirement on account of his imperious penchant for creating
policy rather than implementing it, is breathtaking. Stated
US policy is to provoke social and political disruption through
covert operations to overthrow the Milosevic regime by force
and create the conditions for a Serbian civil war – if
that isn't instability, then what is?
IF
THIS GOES ON . . .
It
is unclear, at this point, whether the administration can
muster the votes to prevent the Senate from overriding President
Clinton's threatened veto. But in reality this is less meaningful
than it appears. For a lot can happen between now and next
summer in Kosovo – and it will, if present trends
continue. Who knows what "emergency" will come up before July
2001? We cannot foresee exactly what the NATO-crats have in
mind, or where they will strike – Montenegro,
Vojvodina,
the Serbian-Kosovo
border – but their response to political pressure
may well be to up the ante, and create a provocation. If and
when Kosovo blows, you can be sure that the Senator Warners
of this world will back off fast.
THE
WAR AT HOME
This
is not to oppose the Warner-Byrd amendment, but merely to
understand that its impact is primarily on domestic politics
here at home rather than on the ground in the Balkans. Its
passage sets up the next President for a decision on the Kosovo
question: it also represents an attempt (however belated)
to recapture
congressional authority over the war-making power. This
will require the presidential candidates to take a stand:
I don't think the word "Kosovo" has passed Dubya's lips since
the war's end – not that he had that much to say about
it in any case (except that he
supported US intervention: "we have to have one objective
in mind," he burbled, "and that is to achieve the goals and
do so ferociously"). Gore is naturally a firm supporter of
our failed and immoral policy, while this leaves Pat
Buchanan as the only major candidate daring to speak
truth to power, demanding the unconditional withdrawal
of US troops from Kosovo, and asking of our elites:
"How
does forcing the people of Serbia to endure a brutal winter
without fuel or heat advance our goal? What happened to the
moral idea of proportionality, even in wartime, between means
and ends?"
WANTED:
NEW LEADERSHIP
Having
jumped head first into the quagmire, it is going to be a long
and difficult struggle pulling us out. The Warner-Byrd amendment
would get us out of Kosovo – maybe – in a year or
so: and while that isn't soon enough, it's a start. What's
needed is not legislation, but new leadership and a
revived anti-war coalition: a
new movement that goes beyond Left and Right with the
vision to put the national interest above the "humanitarian"
whims of our arrogant elites – and the courage to fight
for a foreign policy that puts America
First.
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