By JOHGN CONNORS
Forum Editor
 

Repeatedly I marvel at the world's short memory when it comes to American leadership in foreign policy issues. Somehow, through some miracle of forgetfulness, the world has decided we're lacking American leadership in the foreign policy arena once again. As if we aren't maintaining over 30,000 of troops in Bosnia. As if we hadn't brokered the Dayton Peace Accord in 1995. As if we weren't still spending seven billion a year on maintaining a peace-keeping force in the Balkans already.

Now some of the world's criticism is just. Remember that this latest of crises in the Balkans, the conflict in Kosovo, has been going on for seven months now while NATO has been figuring out whether or not to do anything. Officials apologize for their lack of definite military action up until this point claiming that we need to have great pause when breaching the territory of a sovereign nation. Why? Last I checked, the sovereign nation in question was Serbia (a.k.a Yugoslavia), the same nation that has repeatedly demonstrated it is willingness to allow its leader, Milosevic, to use his security forces as the death squads of Southeast Europe. Any nation that decides to send death squads against the innocent in Europe should consider themselves fair game for a visit from our military.

This isn't rocket science. What we're dealing with in this region is obviously a political leader who has no moral qualms about the taking of civilian lives. What's worse is that this latest of developments isn't going to provide any long term solution. Milosevic can still redeploy into Kosovo anytime he feels that the NATO threat isn't going to be backed up by actual force. This is a nation that is essentially harboring the means with which to kill as many Albanians again should it dare. Yet we are still treating this situation with kid gloves.

I'm predicting that Milosevic will take this opportunity to wait the threat of NATO force out. He'll agree to this latest of requirements, continue to withdraw his forces to meet the deadline on Friday, and then wait. In a few weeks time, or maybe it will be months, some NATO nation or maybe even the United Nations, will decide to waver on their commitment to keeping a militarily heightened position. Planes will be ordered home, international support will be questioned in the world media, and Milosevic will decide to threaten the Albanians once again.

What irks me to no end is the Russian position on this situation. Now an in an advisory position to NATO, Russian senior policy leaders have been sending clear messages that they are unhappy with NATO's threat to use force in the Serbian region. We've heard long before this, bizarre positions from the Russians indicating that they still consider the Balkan region within their own backyard of control. It's as if the Russians are actually willing to inadvertently allow the actions of the Yugoslav army to go unpunished simply because they don't want us messing in `their' territory.

There is an argument that by taking such a firm leadership role, we're negating our attempt to really make NATO and United Nations actions mean something. Unilateral action by definition does not allow for world involvement in decision making. It sends the message that in the end we don't trust the rest of the world with making decisions of this importance. Especially when there is a need for quick action. But considering it took seven months for NATO alone to reach a consensus, unilateral action seems the only appropriate avenue for response.

It's time that America faces up to the fact that being the leader of the world in this case means literally being its sheriff. We as

a nation are uncomfortable shouldering any more responsibility than we already carry. After all we've got a lot already what with bailing out economies of the world in order to ensure economic stability. As so many people argue already, we've got our own domestic problems to try and solve, why would we want more?

So why am I arguing that we, America in particular, are responsible for taking action? Because of two simple reasons. In this case we have a clear situation where innocent lives are being lost in what could be described as ethnic cleansing. This is not a grey area where our actions could be seen from many different angles of justice. There's little room for interpretation with Kosovo. The situation clearly mandates our action, assuming we still are a nation that backs up our rhetoric of freedom from fear and a belief in justice for all.

The second reason is much more pragmatic. We have the ability to act as no other country in the world does. We have the ability to project well-trained, incredibly powerful military force anywhere in the world. Few Perhaps most importantly, we have the mandate (if in no other form the complaints that we don't do enough) from the world to be the leader in decision making. Yes, no doubt there will be charges of imperialism, but there have been and always will be those charges, with or without Albanian lives being saved.