Spearheading the movement that clamored for US (and Western) intervention in Bosnia in the early 1990s – and Kosovo in 1998-99 – has been a diverse group of people united around a desire to stamp out “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing”. Naturally, their definitions of these terms have been rather flexible.
While I don’t think these voices have been the prime mover behind the American Empire, they have certainly been its useful idiots during the Clintonian era. While under George the Lesser their influence seems to have waned in favor of the bloodthirsty oil imperialists, they have by no means vanished.
Witness one Melanie Kintz, who offered an attempt at sarcasm Monday while trying to cajole students of Western Michigan University to oppose ethnic cleansing…
According to Kintz, “In the early 1990s Serbs, Croats and Bosnians [sic] carried out an ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. Roughly 700,000 Muslims were killed while the world stood by and watched.”
Even the most hardcore propagandist of the Bosnian War blanches at this figure, conjured out of thin air. A number of 250,000 – equally ungrounded in reality, mind you – has become commonly accepted in the Western press. One American analyst, formerly favoring intervention but later repenting, has claimed as early as 1995 that the actual figure cannot be over 60,000.
From a moral standpoint, there ought to be no difference between one death, 60000, 200000 or a million – they are all wrong. But in the world of victim politics, numbers are key. With the genocide activists cluttering the airwaves every time they get wind of a conflict somewhere far away (usually aided by Imperial meddling, incidentally), every two-bit warlord who wishes to win by allying himself with the Capo di tutti capi will invoke “genocide” and offer numbers as proof. When these numbers can be documented, the claim makes sense. But with the media vultures and activists peddling fabrications, the truth is more elusive than ever – making it ever so harder to tell apart real genocides from fiction, and helping the real victims.
The Clinton-Blairian doctrine of “limited sovereignty” when “human rights” are in danger invites this sort of abuse by default, as the only arbiter of alleged abuses are the Empire’s leaders and their prostrate press.
As shown by the increased focus of the Bushites on Saddam Hussein’s alleged “human rights abuses” and “oppression” now that their talk of WMDs has been exposed as lies (not that anyone cared, eh?), this “human rights” imperialism isn’t endemic to Democrats. Indeed, no one seems to care what excuses are used, so long as the Empire’s powers keep increasing, at home and abroad.