I posted most of this diary entry as a comment earlier only to realize I overstepped the limits of what size a comment should be. Orig. diary entry noted at the bottom.
I've thought some on the issue of how we use force and how we are perceived, regardless of the reasons behind the reasons. When history blogs are written, because that seems how we document a mishmash of analysis, some fact, some fiction, some revisionism, Bush will not be seen as any kind of hero. Even if time grows kinder.
Every Bosnian I've met in the US considers Clinton, and subsequently Wesley Clark, a hero. There were mistakes made, in timing and in acceding to Milosevic. Mistakes in statecraft and diplomatic blunders are evident in any major political crisis and prior and during every major military campaign.
For those who are not Clarkies on this board, if you read his books or any of his testimony to Congress, or any of his numerous articles and editorials around the world press, you'll see a clear direction and reasoning that do not exist either in this current administration or in how the Iraq misadventure is proceeding.
You'll see a goal, and conscious, planned steps taken with full decisiveness in most actions. Complete, compelling, well-numbered and most important, overpowering force. Follow-up if at all possible with the right number of mix in coalition troops. Many of the missteps after the Balkan conflict ended (well, at least after the major internal violence on a wide scale ended) were in NATO and/or UN issues once the command had changed over to peacekeeping, and many missteps occurred after Clark was replaced as SAC. This wasn't something that US troops necessarily had much control over, as in some control struggles with the usual suspects like the Brits and French and others in NATO. That being said, it was the most successful co-military operation undertaken by a true coalition of countries since WWII. No, I haven't forgotten the first Gulf War.
The Serbs were the ones with a bitter taste left in mouth. A peaceful situation where all parties in an ethnic conflict that has literally gone on for centuries will not produce happy people on all sides. Lincoln said it best. But I've spoke with Serbs here in the US who see potential now, where none existed before.
In this country, in the Pacific Northwest, I see Serbians and Bosnians and Croatians, Muslims and Christians, of mostly the younger generation, mixing together, working together, playing sports together. Serbs, Bosnians Muslims, Bosnian Serbs, and Croatians shopping at the same markets, eating at the same places, working jobs together. It's sometimes an uneasy truce.
The older generations (those of ages above their 30's and older) do not trust. But, here, in America, they have a commonality that isn't as treasured back in the Balkans. The commonality exists in the language, the customs and food, the love of their homeland, the music, even the drinking culture. There are Bosnian-Serbian couples here, living in peace in their communities. I see Bosnian families watching both Serbian and Bosnian soap operas on satellite TV. I see communities thriving here, people of both ethnic backgrounds working as hard or harder than other immigrant groups this country has invited in.
The neighborhood and cultural lines have not blurred as much back in the old country as they have here. The neighborhoods and villages are still fairly segregated and suspicion abounds. How could it not after so much indiscriminate murder? But the upshot is still, after 10 years, after Tito, after Communism, there exists an uneasy peace, even under still-nasty economic conditions.
In the states of the former Yugoslavia, of course, there is still random violence, often not reported here, and there are still abuses by the UN peacekeeping troops that are never followed up on and investigated fully by any governing body. There are political assassinations occurring as power struggles continue between ethnic hardliners and progressives. There are Serbian war criminals who are respected members of their communities, and who are openly embraced by their communities. They are little more than organized criminal thugs - and this exists on both or all three sides or however many sides you want to see as you look at such a many-faceted and complex political situation. There are brothels that shouldn't exist that are populated with women who have no voice.
Make no mistake. The Balkan situation in so many ways was and is just as complicated and in many ways a much more long-standing, centuries in fact, conflict than what we see in the current Iraq quagmire. But the current situation is at least a kind of peace. Perhaps it's better described as a lesser chaos. This is infinitely preferable to the direction that Iraq appears to be heading under the current coalition non-guidance.
Sorry for the soapbox. When I hear the phrase, "we're fighting the war over there so that we don't fight it here", there is such a complete and total disconnection from the so-called "chicken hawk" point of view with the reality that this is one world and we live globally as never before. I get steamed.
When we fight a war anywhere, it always comes home to us. Why don't "they" understand that?
My apologies to the original diary owner...and if anyone in admin wants to delete my comment (number 83 in storiesinamerica - Quotes from GOP About Bosnia War... that would likely be a good thing.