If you’re an antiwar conservative or libertarian, remember when it was OK to oppose the war but support the troops? Remember when it was OK to "criticize your commander in chief during a time of war" without committing treason? Remember when you weren’t accused of hating your country, God, and kittens for questioning the official reasons for going to war? Ah, the glorious old days in the spring of 1999.
I’m referring to the war in Kosovo, of course. This was a war to stop "ethnic cleansing" and "end hatred." Serbian atrocities were vastly overstated and the now-deceased Slobodan Milosevic was painted as the Hitler of the 1990s, even though he was losing a province every couple of years and his country was falling apart.
This was another "good war," a liberal’s war. We were on a mission to stop ethnic hatred and mass murder; at least, that’s what we were told. Over seven years later, however, the region is still a mess. Hatred, murder, and chaos still reign in Kosovo and the rest of former Yugoslavia. It’s probably safe to say that most Americans lost interest quickly after the two-and-a-half month NATO bombing campaign ended in 1999 and peacekeepers arrived. It is perhaps appropriate to say that the war in Kosovo is today’s "Forgotten War."
The Left by and large supported this war, with some dissenting voices. The Right was split, but for the most part opposed the war. Even though it was technically a NATO mission, the United States and Britain led the charge for military action. Former President Bill Clinton was instrumental in getting America heavily involved in the region. Today, however, the Left is generally antiwar, and the establishment Right is generally supportive of Bush’s policies in Iraq.
Could the massive "flip-flopping" on both sides be boiled down to politics instead of principle? What else could explain it?
That the majority of the Right was against the Balkans adventure is well documented. In March 1999, the Washington Times ran an informative article, "Conservatives Not Behind Kosovo Effort,” which detailed vast opposition to Clinton’s war. The article quotes academic Angelo Codevilla as saying, "You can shoot a canonball through the ranks of conservatives and not find anyone who supports this war." According to Brent Bozell III, "Sentiment is very strong that there is no rhyme or reason to get involved in Kosovo."
Bozell later used his media watchdog organization to blast coverage of the war in Iraq that was not favorable enough to the cause. A search for "Iraq" at Bozell’s Media Research Center yields numerous results blasting "antiwar" coverage and personalities (with "antiwar" often meaning "insufficiently enthusiastic about the war").
An even more entertaining column detailing the transformation of the hawks-turned-doves-turned-hawks can be found from the folks over at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), a "progressive" media watchdog group. In a spring 2003 article titled “Dissent, Disloyalty, and Double Standards," analyst Steve Rendell compiled a number of great on-the-record quotes from notable conservative figures who turned in their peace pipes for machine guns between 1999 and 2003.
For instance, in a May 1999 "Limbaugh Letter," Rush asked, "Why Kosovo?" Not only that, but he criticized both the rationale for and the execution of the war. According to FAIR, Rush was also critical of the "shifting justifications" for war in the Balkans.
We must pause at this point to ask ourselves: Why did Rush hate our troops? What was he eating that spring that caused him to be a "Blame America First" antiwar agitator?
Luckily, by 2003 Rush came to his senses about those antiwar sissies. Here’s what Rush had to say about the opponents of the Iraq war: “I want to say something about these antiwar demonstrators. No, let’s not mince words, let’s call them what they are: anti-American demonstrators.”
Apparently, it’s only OK for a conservative to oppose a war if it’s a Democratic president who is dropping the bombs. If it’s a Republican president, then all critics are anti-American and should move to France, where they belong.
Rush wasn’t the only born-again warmonger. Also in his legion are loud supporters of the current war such as Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Joe Scarborough, and others. According to FAIR, Savage called for the arrest of anti-Iraq-war activists. According to Savage, "Then we can stop some of these maniacs who are encouraging our enemies, weakening our troops’ resolve, and confusing the American people."
Savage, however, was singing a much different tune in a 1999 column, "The Oily Tracks Running Through Kosovo." According to Savage, "Kosovo was about oil and nothing but oil, with maybe some uranium thrown in and a dash of ‘wag-the-dog.’ And you thought it was to save the poor Kosovar Albanians." Moreover, the NATO bombing campaign was "shameful and cowardly." Sounds almost like the kind of talk from conspiratorial leftists that conservatives love to hate.
Here’s another quote directly from Savage’s column:
"Big Oil required a pipeline through Kosovo and the poor Serbs just happened to own the wrong real estate at the wrong time. How do I know that the Kosovo action was about oil or, to be exact, about establishing a safe haven for an oil pipeline? Just recently Bill Clinton signed an historic agreement with Azerbaijan on this very matter…."
Somebody call Michael Moore! Perhaps Savage can supply him with some juicy material for a documentary on the Balkans.
There’s more. Savage had this to say about the president of the United States and the U.S. Army general who led the NATO forces:
"These international war criminals were led by General Wesley Clark (a Rhodes Scholar from Arkansaw [sic]) who clicked his shiny heels for the commander-in-grief, Bill Clinton (another Rhodes Scholar from Arkansaw [sic])."
How dare Michael Savage say these kinds of things about our troops and especially our commander in chief! If he didn’t like it here in America and couldn’t support Our President, then he should have just left!
Thank heavens Savage saw the light before the 2003 invasion, when he said, "Take a look at what’s happening with Iraq. You have outright treason being committed by senators like Barbara Boxer. They might as well be working for Saddam Hussein." Savage also professed trust in President Bush because "he’s the commander in chief, not me, not you, not anyone else" and had information available that the rest of us didn’t have (information that turned out to be false).
The FAIR article also turns up some interesting quotes from individuals such as Bill Bennett, who said Clinton’s Kosovo policy was "nuts" – but later concluded that opponents of the Iraq war were "obviously helping Saddam Hussein."
(There were some proponents of the Kosovo war on the Right, including many establishment conservatives. Some neoconservatives such as Bill Kristol and the Weekly Standard crowd – who never met a war they didn’t like – did support military action in Kosovo. Even though I strongly disagree with their principles and worldview, at least they are consistent.)
It’s funny how things change in a few years, or more precisely, how things change from a Democratic president to a Republican president. According to my fellow conservatives, when a Democrat was president, it was OK to criticize his leadership. When a Democrat was president, one could "support the troops" and be a patriot in good standing while opposing the Balkans intervention. When a Democrat was president, humanitarian wars were bad, and indicative of the "New World Order." When a Democrat was president, repeatedly changing the rationale for a war was cause for ridicule.
But when a Republican takes office and leads a poorly executed war, based on bad intelligence, with constantly shifting justifications, everything completely changes. This drastic change in thinking is nowhere more evident than in the minds of many of my fellow Christian Rightists.
The Right in general and the Christian Right in particular utterly despised Clinton, thinking him to be a liar and a pervert. When he was president, I didn’t hear many admonitions from fellow Christians to "pray for our commander in chief." Many Christian conservatives opposed the war in the Balkans and rightly hammered away at Clinton for his foreign policy excesses.
To many Christian conservatives today, however, criticism of President Bush, particularly in the area of foreign policy, is off-limits and a violation of Romans 13, where the Apostle Paul tells Christians to respect governing authorities (balance this, however with Revelation 13 and Acts 4:19-20). But when Clinton was president, it was not a sin to be critical of his war efforts. Funny how things change.
There were of course many conservatives who truly believed the war in Kosovo was wrong and continue to believe that the war in Iraq will prove to be right in the long run. Fair enough. But they should not say that those of us conservatives (or anyone else, for that matter) who oppose the current war do not have a right to criticize the government, when they did the same thing just over seven years ago.
If the claim is that we must blindly follow President Bush and "support" the war in Iraq even if it is indeed the wrong thing to do, then the conservative flip-floppers all sinned an administration ago when they stood up against Clinton’s wars. They must explain why we cannot still love our country and care about our soldiers while opposing the current foreign policy, when they did the same thing under Clinton.
I had thought that the Right’s opposition to Clinton’s interventions was a return to the principles of the Old Right and a readjustment of outlook after the Cold War. Instead, the mainstream Right has blessed and sanctioned the most egregious offenses to liberty in the name of "fighting terrorism" and meddling abroad.
Yes, 9/11 "changed everything," all right. Or was it political opportunism that changed everything?
