PoliCHARTZ - Thread of U.S. Politics & the Presidential Election

[Final-Fan]

Jackson50 said:

Final-Fan said:
We decided that the American public wanted to stop genocide even if it didn't directly affect us, and did so. Without, if I recall correctly, losing one American life in combat.

I guarantee that interventions like that make the world respect the USA more, and therefore help our diplomatic efforts in things that DO affect us. And that's ignoring potential indirect effects of such conflicts on the world at large and therefore the US.

Anyway, by "smart" I meant "effective".

I also think you overestimate how much the world respected us for that intervention. There were nations other than Russia and China opposed to our actions. I believe the Italians and Greeks were also staunchly opposed to it. It was not America the beneficent coming to save the day. No, it was America the meddlesome interjecting its will on those who did not seek it. 

If what we wanted to stop was genocide, then our goals were wrong from the beginning. There was no genocide in Kosovo. There may have been a brutal civil war with atrocities committed by both sides, but it was not a genocide. I find it odd that the KLA was originally considered a terrorist group, or a group that committed terrorist attacks (as certain nations deemed them), but was later trained by the US. We chose to support a group that systematically killed ethnic Serbs and Roma. It is unfortunate that the US once again interjected itself into a civil war that it had no interest in.

Well, I do concede that a cursory search reveals little evidence for genocide.  My imperfect memory probably conflated mass atrocities with suspected (at the time at least) genocide. 

That same cursory research shows that although Italy was critical of NATO involvement, it wasn't strong enough to stop itself from being the "main" staging ground for land-based air attacks.  And Greece did object but again not so strongly that they didn't involve themselves in the conflict as well. 

As for the KLA, those allegations have been made but there is "no reliable evidence [...] to substantiate the allegations."  I do not dispute, however, that the KLA was an unsavory ally, doing assassinations and kidnappings etc. 

In any case, even supposing that my example is a bad one, it doesn't mean that there are no good ones.  And as for "America the meddlesome interjecting its will on those who did not seek it", I think that the Kosovars were pretty happy to get NATO's help.