Kosovo involvement a mistake

I'm the last one to want American foreign policy to be dominated by a fear of Vietnam but this time Mr. Clinton has gone too far. He has ruined our foreign policy. He has sent us to Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Iraq. In only one case - Haiti - have we succeeded in accomplishing something. Kosovo has now embroiled our nation in yet another area of the world that we neither understand or should be involved in.

Just like Vietnam was a civil war between the Vietnamese, so the war in Kosovo is a civil war in Yugoslavia. There are a thousand years of history in the province, in which both the Serbs and Kosovars have a strong and delicate history. If we are to argue that the Vietnam war was a mistake, then we should argue against getting involved in Yugoslavia.

The fact is that by killing Yugoslavians we are making a gargantuan mistake: We have no realistic goals. If Mr. Milosevic does not back down, then there is nothing we can do. All indications are that Mr. Milosevic and his supporters will not buckle, but will fight to the end. We are alienating the Russians who have, since World War I, been the so-called defenders of the Slavs. We could in fact cause a meltdown in the Balkans that could lead to a widened war, something that has already happened three times this century.

Even if you don't agree with the above statements let me give you one more example. Texas used to be a sovereign nation just as Kosovo claims it once was. If the Texans wanted to leave, would we let them? If Texas was trying to leave, would we let a Chinese peacekeeping force roam around our country to protect them? No.

Neither of those two things would be allowed by the American people. We already fought one civil war, just as Milosevic is fighting, to keep our nation together so we would fight to keep Texas. We would never allow a foreign power to send its troops (like NATO wants to do) to allow a state of ours to leave. Or would we allow our own NATO the OAS (Organization of American states) to send Mexicans in to defend Texas? No.

The Texas comparison is a good one. Think of your houses being bombed by a former power that was trying to help one of our states leave and then ask yourselves whether you agree with our mission in Yugoslavia.

Seth Frantzman
History and political science freshman