The sky is falling -- or is it?

Guest post by G. Scott Hulsey

Mr. Hulsey is a fellow with the Truman National Security Project and resides in Atlanta, Georgia. 

(Ed. note: After a bit of a hiatus, we're back with more great posts from guest contributors affiliated with the Truman Project. If you missed Michael Chase's recent piece on China's military modernization, go here. Stay tuned for more. -- MJWS)

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America is on the brink of collapse. Or so one would think, listening to today's pundits. According to the shrill voices comprising today's media, the United States is devolving into a socialist, God-hating country that is ruled by an alien imposter and hurtling toward its demise faster than grandma facing a Medicare "death panel." The media, of course, are merely echoing – and many times amplifying – the rhetoric of politicians who make these and other assertions to garner votes and power.

Call me crazy, but I'm not buying it. Having just returned from a year abroad in Bosnia, I am prepared to say that our country works pretty darn well. While Bosnians must frequently traverse single lane dirt roads, we in the U.S. have an extensive highway system, over which we can drive seamlessly from coast to coast. Whereas criminal justice in Bosnia is often slow or non-existent, we in the U.S. have a system that, by and large, puts the bad guys in jail and sets the innocent free. Public corruption, the norm in Bosnia, remains the exception in the U.S. In Bosnia, government office seemed inaccessible except to a limited few. Here, by contrast, anyone can run for office, irrespective of her fealty to party and officials. Bosnia is very poor and career opportunities are limited, while the U.S. remains the wealthiest nation in the world. Indeed, many of my acquaintances in Bosnia dreamed wistfully that their country would become a U.S. state or protectorate.

Many of the problems Bosnia faces are to be expected, as the country was embroiled in a brutal war only 15 years ago, a war waged among its three largest ethnic populations: Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs. More than a hundred thousand died out of a population of four million, and the country's infrastructure and institutions were decimated. In fairness, the country has made substantial progress from where it was in 1996. Still, most of Bosnia's ills could be ameliorated through a better-functioning government. Ethnicity continues to divide government like a chasm, however, rendering it hopelessly dysfunctional.

Interestingly, many Bosnians seemed willing to forgive their former enemies and move forward in peace. Politicians, however, continue to play upon these divisions to retain power. Milorad Dodik, who leads the Serbian part of the country, routinely chastises the country's Bosniak sector for limiting the country's progress and issues calls for secession. Such expressions of ethnic division, not unique to Dodik, continually tear out the stitches in Bosnia’s wounds. A government so divided cannot accomplish even the most routine of functions.

One of my major takeaways from my Bosnian experience is that words matter. To be more precise, political speech has consequences. As I began to write this article, I could not have anticipated recent events, in which a United States representative was shot and several others in close proximity killed by a deranged gunman. Whether or not this crazed individual was influenced by today's political rhetoric, it is clear that political hyperbole is making it increasingly difficult for Americans, and the politicians who represent them, to find common ground.

Some people will claim that the problems facing America today are fundamental and that fiery language is needed to grab the attention of our citizens. While I acknowledge that America faces a host of difficult issues, we must remember that our country has successfully conquered slavery, Hitler, and the Great Depression, to name just a few monumental challenges. The problem today is that our political discourse not only is out of proportion to our problems, but, troublingly, bears little resemblance to the problems we face.

Inflammatory rhetoric used to smear the political opposition has little to do with solving issues and everything to do with playing upon societal divisions. In this regard, we are becoming more and more like the politicians of Bosnia, who are willing to incite societal division for the sake of power. And if we're not careful, our talk may begin to create real problems where none exist.

The reality is, America still works – and it works well. We can conquer the problems we face if we unite to resolve them, as we have always done. The current public discourse neither reflects the state of our country nor advances solutions. The sky is not falling. Let's stop listening to those who tell us otherwise.

War criminal and mass murderer arrested in Serbia

By Michael J.W. Stickings

From the NYT:

Radovan Karadzic, one of the world’s most wanted war criminals for his part in the massacre of nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995, was arrested Monday in a raid in Serbia that ended a 13-year hunt.

And now it is time for justice in The Hague. And for Karadzic to spend the rest of his days in custody. Nothing will make up for what he did, but at least, and at long last, he has been found. And will be found guilty. Which is better than nothing.

Who is condescending now?

By Edward Copeland

Why it's none other than Bill Clinton, continuing to do his own warped take on the mad scene from King Lear. Now, he calls young voters naive for clinging to the hope and inspiration they get from Barack Obama instead of embracing the platitudes, pessimism and politics as usual offered by his wife the way older voters have. As The Boston Globe reports:

Older voters gravitate to Hillary Clinton because they're too wise to be fooled by Barack Obama's rhetoric, former president Bill Clinton told Pennsylvania voters today.

Clinton's comments, to a packed high school gym about an hour north of Philadelphia, were one part presidential politics and one part legacy protection. His beef was with Obama's contention that many of the problems facing the country today were simmering long before President Bush took office seven-plus years ago.

"I think there is a big reason there's an age difference in a lot of these polls," he said. "Because once you've reached a certain age, you won't sit there and listen to somebody tell you there's really no difference between what happened in the Bush years and the Clinton years; that there's not much difference in how small-town Pennsylvania fared when I was president, and in this decade."

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Last week, however, Clinton seemed to suggest that older voters might be more absent-minded than wise. Defending Hillary Clinton's faulty recollection of landing under sniper fire during a 1996 humanitarian visit to Bosnia, the former president said of her critics, "When they're 60, they'll forget something when they're tired at 11 o'clock at night, too."

Why did she lie?

By Edward Copeland

One of the biggest questions left unanswered after Hillary Nothing-But-Ambition Clinton's easily debunked nonsense about sniper fire in Bosnia is why she would make such a fib that could be uncovered at such rapid speed? Writing in Slate last week, professional misanthrope Christopher Hitchens may have hit upon the answer. Granted, I usually think the worst of Hillary and her motives, but this one I find even more appalling because if it's true it means that she wasn't lying just to boost her own foreign policy credentials but also in part to cover her complicity in delaying the Bosnian peace process in the 1990s costing thousands of people their lives as a result.

Hitchens reminds his readers of Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign promise of ending the genocide in Bosnia, something he sat on his hands about for most of his first term. By the time Hillary took her trip in March 1996, things were finally getting under control, but according to an account in the book For Love of Politics by Sally Bedell Smith, the delay was directly attributable to Hillary's insistence on stalling.

Taking the advice of Al Gore and National Security Advisor Tony Lake, Bill agreed to a proposal to bomb Serbian military positions while helping the Muslims acquire weapons to defend themselves—the fulfillment of a pledge he had made during the 1992 campaign. But instead of pushing European leaders, he directed Secretary of State Warren Christopher merely to consult with them. When they balked at the plan, Bill quickly retreated, creating a "perception of drift." The key factor in Bill's policy reversal was Hillary, who was said to have "deep misgivings" and viewed the situation as "a Vietnam that would compromise health-care reform." The United States took no further action in Bosnia, and the "ethnic cleansing" by the Serbs was to continue for four more years, resulting in the deaths of more than 250,000 people.

Yes, Hillary, according to this account, thought a little more ethnic cleansing was OK if it meant her health plan might have a clearer path to success. Of course, in 2008, the U.S. still has an awful health care system and thousands of Europeans still mourn their dead.

Hitchens also cites two personal instances as further evidence as to the why behind the sell out of Bosnia for Hillary care.

I can personally witness to the truth of this, too. I can remember, first, one of the Clintons' closest personal advisers—Sidney Blumenthal—referring with acid contempt to Warren Christopher as "a blend of Pontius Pilate with Ichabod Crane." I can remember, second, a meeting with Clinton's then-Secretary of Defense Les Aspin at the British Embassy. When I challenged him on the sellout of the Bosnians, he drew me aside and told me that he had asked the White House for permission to land his own plane at Sarajevo airport, if only as a gesture of reassurance that the United States had not forgotten its commitments. The response from the happy couple was unambiguous: He was to do no such thing, lest it distract attention from the first lady's health care "initiative."

Hillary Clinton may be more despicable than I ever gave her credit for.