Matt Gunterman March 8th, 2007

I’ve had time to take a closer look at the Congressional War Powers report from the Center for American Progress that Think Progress posted today. It has some pretty frightening things to say about Mitch McConnell and his God complex.

If you’ll recall, Mitch and the Republican leadership were none too happy in 1999 when the United States, under the leadership of then-President Bill Clinton, and its Nato allies intervened militarily in the Balkans in an attempt to stop the genocide in Kosovo. In the end, the operation proved to be a great humanitarian and military success, and instilled new life and purpose into the Nato alliance.

But Mitch McConnell was one of the strongest opponents of Clinton’s action,which saved tens of thousands of lives. In fact, Clinton’s efforts in the Balkan conflict were so successful that the Milosevic regime capitulated and the region was stabilized in less than one Friedman unit. If only Mitch had literally shown Clinton one eighth the patience he’s shown George W. Bush, Mitch could have saved himself a lot of humiliation (but humiliating himself by his poor choices is something that Mitch has only gotten better at in the intervening years).

Now, get this, the CAP report reminds us that, not only did Mitch try to undermine the military plan of the nation’s Commander-in-Chief, Mitch–a mere senator–actually tried to enact his own competing strategy. Yes, that’s right! Mitch McConnell tried to fund his own little army in the Balkans! Check out this quote from the report:

“[W]e ought to give the Kosovars a chance to defend themselves. I mean you have refugees when people are afraid and can’t defend themselves; that’s when they run; that’s when they go across the borders into Macedonia and other places. These people will stay, if they think they have a chance to defend their homes and defend their families.” Senator Mitch McConnell, CNN TALKBACK LIFE 15:00 pm ET, March 25, 1999. Later in the fall, Senator McConnell introduced a bill, S.846, to authorize $25 million in assistance for the “self defense of Kosova.”

And this plan of McConnell’s was no small operation. From the floor of the Senate he boldly outlined his plan to “equip 10,000 men or 10 battalions with small arms, antitank weapons, for up to 18 months.”

This is the same man who is now declaring that, “If the Senate doesn’t support the mission in Iraq, it has only one option, and that’s to decide whether or not to fund that mission.”

• Iraq War , Kosovo War (1999) , Mitch McConnell , U.S. Senate
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