Wendy, I think you're mistaking the priority Power gave to containing Milosevic's aggression for a disinterest in the fate of minorities in Kosovo and Bosnia. I haven't read the book, but in articles she clearly does recognize that a humanitarian crisis did follow the bombing, which she did indeed support. But it seems to follow from her general point of view that the bombing should have been coupled with ground troop deployment. Perhaps she did not think it possible that NATO would accept this as a necessary cost of war, so she chose from what she thought were the available options. Gingrich's Congress was already opposed to any action at all. By the consequences of the bombing and due NATO disinterest in the actual development of Kosovo, we can say that she was wrong to allow for the attack on the sovereignty of a nation state.
Yet the consequences of inaction would have also been tragic. This her critics are not considering. She emphasizes that thuggery would have grown in Kosovo even more so than it has, and there would have been no legitimate legal-political structure to contain it . She holds out the possibility that this may yet develop.
She is however being assailed by leftists because she does not think the fascist demagogue Milosevic would have returned regional autonomy to Kosovo in the absence of force; he after all dictated since 1989 the termination of all ethnic Albanians from public enterprises and a policy of cultural imperialism. I see no proof that Milosevic was willing to return regional autonomy to Kosovo if Appendix B were dropped from the Rambouillet agreement. Thinkers as different as Stephen Zunes and Jeremy Scahill assert this, but where where is the real proof? I don't see that Powers is wrong about this.
My main point though is that Power certainly does not seem to be someone disinterested in minorities. Her critique of the US occupation of Iraq is among the more important popular pieces yet written, so it just does not seem fair to paint her as a leading voice of imperialism (she has also insisted that we take the war option off the table in negotiations with Iran).
She seems very serious about carefully planning a US withdrawal that does not create an even bigger bloodbath in its wake, and she is not at all impressed that the so called surge will prevent rather than bring about greater calamity. It's a responsible point of view for which I hope we Americans will vote in the upcoming primaries and general election. She will certainly give McCain supporters fits.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-power5mar05,0,3348120.story?coll=la-opinion-center
Abu Hartal
ps and certainly not directed at you Wendy: Let's make sure all the condescending replies and dirty language and calls for jackboots don't turn into a lynching party against Obama supporters some of whose voices the posts submitted under my name represent. The American left has had a problem with this kind of thing for a very long time.
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