Not only was this military decision made capriciously by the Commander in Chief, the President's reasoning for going to war with Yugoslavia in the first place is confused. In a major speech outlining why America and NATO needed to act, Mr. Clinton contradicted himself during his own remarks. Another case the President makes is that Milosevic is the reincarnation of Hitler. But only a few years ago he was praised as a peace maker. Next the White House states that we must end genocide.
Genocide is the systematic extermination of an ethnic or religious group.
Yes, ethnic cleansing is a horrible crime against humanity, but it is not genocide. Another tack the Administration pushed is that air raids were necessary to prevent the destabilization of Kosovo's neighbors. Finally, the President cites a moral imperative to prevent the wanton slaughter and displacement of an ethnic group. A commonly used figure states that 2,000 people were killed in Kosovo last year in fighting between Serb forces and the Kosovo Liberation Army and other ethnic Albanians. However, this is the same Administration that urged the U.N. Security Council not to send reinforcements to Rwanda where one million people were being massacred.