Here at home there is legal standing and constitutional obligation to hold our chief executive accountable. But there is no legal basis for our intervention in the internal affairs of Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia has not invaded an independent country or committed terrorist acts against the United States. Yugoslavia is trying to prevent its further fragmentation, this time at the hands of the Kosovo Liberation Army. Mr. Milosevic's forces are being just as brutal in Kosovo as the federal government was to the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas.
Brutal governments are abhorrent.
If the American people support self-determination in Kosovo, let Congress declare war on Yugoslavia. But we should not resort to extra-legal means to use U.S. armed forces to affect outcomes in Yugoslavia when we lack the fortitude to hold our own chief executive accountable. Might is not right, not in Yugoslavia, not in the United States. The rule of accountable and merciful law is a great human achievement. It was principally the achievement of the British people, and it spread with British influence.