S. was faced with a: "critical test..." (1999) when the Serbs began their assault on the Kosovar Albanians in March 1999" and in fact Starr believes this test was of more consequence than the one posed by Iraq in 1991 because in the Gulf War the United States "faced a clear act of international aggression that threatened to put vast wealth in the hands of a murderous and hostile regime." (Starr, 1999) in Kosovo, the situation was quite different because there was "no obvious strategic or economic interest" which compelled intervention and Milosevic, "unlike Saddam...did not threaten any nation outside his region." (Starr, 1999) the Kosovar Albanians are predominantly Muslims and therefore it was not likely that the U.S. would have assisted in addition to the fact that we had not real ties with Kosovo. Starr writes that it is highly unlikely that the United States would have become involved "if the majority in the Republic House had controlled foreign policy" and notes the statement of John Kasich who said that since the "people of the Balkans have been fighting each other for centuries, we are unlikely to settle their differences." (Starr, 1999) Those who protested involvement in Kosovo cited the possibility of a "quagmire...another Vietnam." (Starr, 1999)
Starr writes that seven weeks into the involvement of the United States and NATO, that the operation was being executed from the air and that the U.S. And NATO were: "...wary of any ground involvement and desperate to avoid failure," it appeared that the U.S. And NATO were attempting a "merciless war" from the air as suggested by Tom Friedman of the New York Times who stated "Every power grid, water pipe, bridge, road and war-related factory has to be targeted...the stakes have to be very clear [to the Serbs]: every week you ravage Kosovo is another decade we will set your country back by pulverizing it. You want 1950? We can do 1950. You want 1389? We can do 1389." (Starr, 1999) However, as noted by Starr, this war had been entered with a purpose that was of the nature of "humanitarian" and therefore to bomb the enemy "back to the Middle Ages would undermine the original rationale." (1999) Starr states that there was a better, although more risky alternative which was mobilization of "overwhelming force on the ground" which was more likely to result in surrender of the Serbs, less civilian deaths and "full autonomy for the Kosovars within what would necessarily be, for some time, an international protectorate." (Starr, 1999)
III. STARTLING SERBS to the REALITY of VIOLENCE WITH BOMBS
Nevertheless, bombing did take place as evidenced from the work of Laura Rozen (1999) entitled: "Outlaw Nation?" published by the Salon website states that a Serbian translator who has assisted Western journalists in covering the Kosovo crisis stated "You have the most disgusting president in the world. He's a pig and he's a bastard." (Rozen, 1999) the Serbian translator, named Sasha was speaking from Belgrade on the second night of the airstrikes by NATO against her country." (Rozen, 1999) Rozen reports that Sasha went to college at an American university and has many friendships with Americans and has "even flirted with the idea of immigrating to the United States. Unlike most of her fellow Serbian citizens, she has seen firsthand the devastation and violence Serbian security forces have unleashed on the ethnic Albanian citizens of Serbia's southern province of Kosovo, in her role helping journalists cover the crisis. But despite her many ties with the United States and direct knowledge of the humanitarian crisis in Kosovo that triggered NATO involvement, Sasha's hatred of the U.S. And NATO is raw. And understandable, after a sleepless night punctuated by air raid sirens, arrests of foreign journalists in her charge and the explosion of 2,000-pound precision-guided bombs not far from her family's home in a suburb of the Serbian capital, Belgrade." (Rozen, 1999) According to Rozen, "For the first time since World War II, Serbs are experiencing war in their own territory." (1999) While the Serbian government has assisted in perpetrating war through support of Bosnia and Croatia - wars that have altogether killed almost 300,000 people. War has now come to Belgrade..." (1999) the war mafia in Belgrade was stated by Rozen to have been "reactivating, with Zeljko Raznatovic 'Arkan' showing up at Belgrade's Hyatt Hotel tea room to intimidate remaining foreign journalists and calling for volunteers to staff his paramilitary thus armies in Kosovo." (1999) However, NATO, with the airstrikes which "shattered and...
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