Matthew Yglesias: Kosovo and the Rise of the Humanitarian Hawks
Yglesias cautiously questions the Clinton legacy of the "good war" in the former Yugoslavia, now that Kosovo has declared independence and more ethnic cleansing of Serbs, Roma, etc, there appears imminent. Bombing Belgrade was bitterly opposed by Congressional Republicans, who then turned around and used it as grounds--following the supposed moral authority of the liberal hawks--for attacking Afghanistan and Iraq for "humanitarian" reasons. In so many words, Yglesias suggests the old UN model of diplomacy and international peacekeeping forces was a better one for regional conflicts than a unilateral rain of death from the skies.