What Republicans Said About Kosovo

As the Spring of 1999 began to unfold, you may have heard the sound of influencial Republican voices criticizing the President of the United States.

"No goal, no objective, not until we have those things and a compelling case is made, then I say, back out of it, because innocent people are going to die for nothing. That's why I'm against it." Sean Hannity, Fox News

"Explain to the mothers and fathers of American servicemen that may come home in body bags why their son or daughter have to give up their life?" Sean Hannity, Fox News

"You can support the troops but not the president." Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)

"You think Vietnam was bad? Vietnam is nothing next to Kosovo." Tony Snow, Fox News

"If we are going to commit American troops, we must be certain the y have a clear mission, an achievable goal and an exit strategy." Karen Hughes, speaking on behalf of George W Bush

President Bill Clinton was about to send 4,000 American troops to help quell the conflict in Kosovo. As soon as US troops were deployed, it was over in a matter of months, and not one American soldier lost their life in combat. Were these critics ever called traitors or America haters? No, because they were exercising their patriotic right to question the actions of the sitting President.

Sending U.S. troops to Kosovo is fraught with serious pitfalls that the president has yet to acknowledge. The American people deserve a clear explanation of the risks and a vigorous congressional debate now over the wisdom of such a deployment. Once the troops are there, it'll be too late.Gary Dempsey, The CATO Institute

"Well, I just think it's a bad idea. What's going to happen is they're going to be over there for 10, 15, maybe 20 years." Representative Joe Scarborough (R-FL)

"President Clinton is once again releasing American military might on a foreign country with an ill-defined objective and no exit strategy. He has yet to tell the Congress how much this operation will cost. And he has not informed our nation's armed forces about how long they will be away from home. These strikes do not make for a sound foreign policy."Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA)

In the Fall of 2000 during the second Presidential debate with Vice President Al Gore, Governor George W. Bush answered a question presented by moderator Jim Lehrer about Kosovo. When asked about his position on how he felt about our troops being there he responded "I'd very much like to get our troops out of there, our military is made to fight and win a war" - not babysit the Kosovars. He also said in the same debate that our military should never be used for "nation building".

The entire Republican base was against the Kosovo intervention. Throughout the 1990s, Slobodan Miloševiæ was trying to create a separate Serb-dominated state. Prosecutors described it as a "joint criminal enterprise" whose goal was to remove the majority of the Croat and other non-Serb individuals, approximately one third of the regions population. Many atrocities were committed as tens of thousands were driven from their homes. This all began in 1992 and after several conflicts, it escalated in 1995 with Croatia driving out much of the Serb population into Bosnia and Serbia. NATO air strikes continued to do pummel them, nearly destroying their military forces. After the Bosnia conflict ended, it wasn't until 1999 that a rebellion broke out in Kosovo against Serbian rule. During the conflict many were killed and over 100,000 Kosovo Albanians were made homeless.

In 1999, President Clinton sent troops into Kosovo and in March he called NATO air strikes a "moral imperative". The reasoning was to "defuse a powder keg" in an area that has engulfed Europe in war before (WWI). The only American forces killed were two Army pilots who's helicopter crashed. The operation went about as smoothly as possible and a cease-fire was declared in June.

Flash forward to 2002, in the aftermath of 9/11 and the invasion of Afghanistan, the Bush Administration began presenting their case for war in Iraq. Even though there was no connection to 9/11, no connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda, we were told Iraq posed a "grave and dangerous" threat. No WMDs were found, in fact, it is believed that Saddam Hussein was weaker in 2002 than he was in 1992 after the Gulf War ended. Democrats and liberals criticized the rationale for all out war in Iraq when we were already tied up with Afghanistan. Republicans lashed out calling critics of the war "traitors" "unpatriotic" and part of the "blame America first" crowd. Bush sent over 100,000 troops into Iraq with no strategy to win, 3,000 service members are dead and many more are wounded or maimed. We have been in Iraq longer than we were in WWII and the situation is getting worse instead of better... Clinton sent just 4,000 peacekeeping forces to Kosovo in a conflict that was snuffed out in a few months, with zero combat casualties.

"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." Governor George W. Bush

If President Bush can't take his own advice, who would we expect him to listen to?