European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - July 13, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse Saturday july 13, 1991 the stars and stripes Page 13 commentary George f. Will history argues against Yugoslavia s cohesion the Bush administrations response to the predictable irreversible and not deplorable disintegration of Yugoslavia underscores three problems with its notion of a new world order it involves a misplaced Faith in newness. There is an indiscriminate Ness in its focus on the whole wide world. And it stresses order at the expense of better values. Ronald Reagan adored one of the most a conservative and incorrect thoughts Ever to Issue from a pen in this Case Thomas Paine so we have it in our Power to begin the world Over wrong. Paine brimming with enlightenment rationalism and most americans settled along the Edge of a continent they considered a Blank slate on which to write thought they had escaped the curse of history a inertia. Today the ancient Peoples overthrowing the Legal fiction a a Yugoslavia Are caught in an especially concentrated form of that inertia. Although Yugoslavia is older than most states most Are less than 40 years Oldie is dying Young at age 73. Cobbled together by strangers As the first world War ended it forced intimacy upon Peoples who were worse than strangers they were ancient rivals. To expect Yugoslavia to continue to exist but in a radically loosened confederation is to expect it to accomplish with none of americans advantages a More delicate and dangerous task than America undertook Between 1776 and 1865. Americans with a shared social culture and political vocabulary moved from the declaration of Independence through the articles of confederation and constitutional convention through Alexander Hamiltons nationalizing policies and John Marshall a nationalization of the Law to the climacteric of the civil War. Those were 89 vexing and finally bloody years. But that political journey was facilitated by a common american consciousness formed in the Crucible of revolutionary struggle. Americans transformation was immeasurably easier than the one in the opposite direction that strangers Are urging from a Safe distance on yugoslavs. The . Government urges for them a modulated movement from close to attenuated association but developments there Are driven by hatreds intensified by being Long suppressed by a Central government that is a source of Unity Only As an object of nearly Universal disdain. In March 1861 Lincoln struggling to preserve the nation appealed to americans a Bonds of he invoked a the Mystic chords of memory heard by northerners and southerners alike a by Lee As Well As himself. He was invoking real things. Those things were not sufficient to Avert War but they were a basis of postwar reconciliation. Yugoslavs have no such Bonds and hear no such chords. Any real nation is an ethical association organized around shared sentiments about important values. Yugoslavia a manufactured rather than organic entity is a a prison of nations Lenin a description of the czars Empire ,. A nation has been called a daily plebiscite re Newing itself from the everyday acts and sentiments of its people. For seven decades Yugoslavia has been powerless to suppress or win those daily plebiscites. Deputy Secretary of state Lawrence Eagleburger says a what we want is a new has anyone notified history of the Bush administrations disapproval of the tendencies of the late 20th Century while in Belgrade last month Secretary Baker said rather grandly a we will not Reward unilateral the ghost of lord North nodded approvingly. But who assigned the United states the office of great rewarded when did the United states which resulted from a famous unilateral action 215 july fourths ago adopt this sniffy disapproval of unilateral actions. Order is Only generally not invariably desirable. Remember the disorderly Farmers who by the rude Bridge that arched the flood fired the shot heard a round the world anyway in the Post cold War world the insistence that Yugoslavia a Unity is an important . Interest reveals an inability to draw distinctions. Wisdom is knowing what you do not know political Wisdom is less a matter of knowing what to do than of knowing what cannot be done. The Bush administration which May not know sufficient american let alone balkan., history is investing . Prestige in a cause that is and deserves to he doomed a an attempt to preserve the chimera of yugoslav nationhood. The administrations Post desert storm hubris regarding the world and its congenital Lack of imagination regarding problems at Home Are now reinforcing each other. The administration has a swollen sense of its Potency on the world stage and an inability to imagine things to do domestically. The result is gratuitous a and bad a advice for turbulent Peoples who Are completely uninterested in our Distant interest in Washington Post writers group William Safir intelligence Community needs to Wise up a we have destroyed All of their nuclear reactor facilities a declared Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf on Jan. 27 iraqis nuclear capability had been the general was misinformed. We now know that Many bomb damage assessments provided by our intelligence a a assets were wrong. Not Only did our bombers fail to destroy Many of the targeted nuclear Sites but our $30 billion per year array of satellites and big ears and array of experts failed to learn of other facilities making weapons of mass destruction. That was Only one of the intelligence flops. Toward the end of the Brief land War president Bush was advised that iraqi generals were poised to overthrow Saddam Hussein this made the president overconfident and caused him to heed Gen. Colin Powell a counsel to Stop on the Dot of 100 hours. The result of that intelligence misjudgment 700 modern iraqi tanks spared. Added to the 2.000 older tanks that had been hidden that spared Armor helped the under Defeated dictator crush the kurdish and shiite rebellion that our intelligence failed to notify Bush was in the works. That a Only the ending. In july of last year we Learned last week israeli defense minister Moshe Arens flew to Washington to inform defense Secretary Dick Cheney How Saddam was using Western technology to produce nuclear devices. Apparently this was Pooh poohed by our defense intelligence Agency or was brushed aside by smug Cia analysts despite corroborative . Customs evidence. But after the invasion1 of Kuwait other Western and Middle Eastern intelligence agencies soon Learned much More about specific companies and shippers. When a few of us got All red in the face and started banging our spoons against the highchairs Cool Heads went to the Cia for its opinion and to think tankers privy to its judgments. Not to worry said the spooks of summer who nine months before had issued a National intelligence estimate that Saddam Hussein was a no threat to his Iraq reporters were assured was a five to 10 years away from a nuclear weapon with emphasis on the 10. And missiles forget it. But the Cool Heads were somewhere behind the Power curve. Done to blame the reporters with their Learned diagrams and techno jargon blame american intelligence sources who were bamboozled before and during the War by Saddam a double track nuclear production activity. Now we Are in the painful process that intelligence analysts Call a walking Back the we must take what we now know and apply it to our estimates Back then. Purpose to find out Why our expensive machinery was wrong about iraqis buildup wrong in so Many damage assessments during the War wrong about when to Stop. But who will walk Back the cat what institution is watching our secret watchers to make certain we get the Hirst data for the Dollar Piff Iab a the presidents foreign intelligence advisory Board a Hasni to had a chairman since John lower died. Bobby Ray Inman is warming the seat for William Webster or for Robert gales if he is not confirmed As the Webster successor at Cia although it plans to examine military intelligence failures for the first time Piff Iab so lessons Learned will have All the zest of lukewarm pablum. Hips a the House permanent select committee on intelligence a chaired by Oklahoma Democrat Dave Mccurdy is mainly interested in technical flops such As the Schwarzkopf complaint about a real time Dow link of photography meaning a delayed by kibitzer so. That leaves Sissy the Senate select committee on intelligence a chaired by Democrat David Lyle Boren also of Oklahoma sooner like spying to Lay out the shortcomings probably in an authorization Bill before August. A the most serious weakness was Ini mint a a Boren tells me the Lack of human intelligence to report Saddam s prewar intentions. Then comes the failure of turf conscious civilian and military cultures to work together and the bureaucratic Quot risk averse american Spoo Kery had its big successes particularly in counter terrorism and bomb targeting was often amazing. And we won even if we have to use air Power again to Clinch the Victory. But now is the time to cure not cover up. The costly intelligence weaknesses revealed by the persian Gull War. I i he new York time ,
