Remember when the United States sent troops to the Balkans to help “keep the peace”?
They were supposed to stay for a year.
That was six years ago. Today, about 9,000 U.S. troops remain on patrol with ever-expanding duties, no clear mission and no timetable for their withdrawal.
That’s the trouble with so-called “peace-keeping missions.” We should never forget that – especially now as the U.S. moves toward a similar option in an even hotter region of the world, the Middle East.
During his campaign for the presidency, George W. Bush told us he generally opposed such open-ended military engagements. He promised to tell NATO that keeping the peace in Europe was the business of Europeans, not Americans.
In debate with Al Gore last October, Bush said, “I hope that they put the troops on the ground so that we can withdraw our troops and focus our military on fighting and winning war.”
Of course, that’s what the American people wanted to hear back then. Now Bush is obviously telling the European elite what they want to hear.
In June, NATO decided to send up to 5,000 troops to Macedonia, and the Bush administration quickly signed up for its first military action – one with no U.S. vital interests at stake, one unsupported by constitutional provisions and one contrary to the president’s previous policy positions.
In May, Bush signed unconstitutional executive orders declaring “national emergencies” to deal with the “extraordinary threat to national security, foreign policy and economy of the United States” posed by events in the Balkans. No one from the administration has bothered to explain to the American people how anything happening in the Balkans could possibly amount to an extraordinary threat to our national security.
All this bears a stunning resemblance to Clinton administration policies.
During his first visit to Kosovo in July, Bush told American troops: “America’s contribution is essential.”
Nobody bothered to ask why. Bush didn’t bother to offer much of an explanation.
U.S. forces first went to Bosnia-Herzegovina as Yugoslavia crumbled. Though the battles among Muslims, Serbs and Croats began in 1991, during the Bush I administration, George W’s father uncharacteristically decided not to intervene. That decision was reversed by Bill Clinton.
In 1995, 20,000 U.S. troops were among the 60,000 NATO-led “peacekeepers” in Bosnia. Now, 3,550 Americans remain there – with no end in sight.
The U.S. later sent 5,332 troops to Kosovo. They remain – with no end in sight.
Another 500 American troops are in Macedonia, and we are talking about putting more there – deepening our engagement in the region.
“NATO’s commitment to the peace of this region is enduring,” said Bush last month, “but the stationing of our force here should not be indefinite.”
Yet, indefinite it is.
This is the New World Order, and there’s apparently no stopping it – as long as Americans continue to support the “Tweedle-dee, Tweedle-dumber” policies of the Democans and Republicrats.
No matter what they tell you during the political campaigns, you can count on business as usual when the election is over.
Secretary of State Colin Powell, no doubt one of the central architects of the current Balkans policy, once said, “The lessons I absorbed in Panama confirmed all my convictions over the preceding 20 years, since the days of doubt over Vietnam. Have a clear political objective and stick to it. Use all the force necessary and do not apologize for going in big if that is what it takes. Decisive force ends wars quickly and in the long run saves lives.”
We can argue about the rightness or wrongness of such statements and about what the U.S. did in Panama. But one thing is not arguable: That famed Powell Doctrine does not apply in the Balkans. It is not being followed in the Middle East, either. We are following, instead, the failed Vietnam model – illustrating, once again, there is simply no rhyme or reason to U.S. foreign policies, no connection between words and deeds, no link to reality, constitutional safeguards, national interest or common sense.
And, worse yet, there is no organized opposition to these Pax Americana plans.
