Bolton is so bad on Kosovo, it is horrifying. Check out his making an utter fool of himself for a second time that week, on Fox's Crier Report back in March 29, 1999. Bolton comes off as something like Noam Chomsky crossed with Pat Buchanan, queasy to use force and American isolationist at the same time, without a moral fibre in his soul. And to think he was hanging his hat at AEI at the time:

...
CRIER: John Bolton, before the KLA came into being, what was the ethnic cleansing, the refugee problem like?

BOLTON: Well, it was -- I think it was less severe than it is now, and I think one of the problems that the American bombing campaign has exacerbated is the fact that there is a legitimate civil war going on in Kosovo. I just don't believe that there's a sufficient American interest to take the side either of the Kosovar Albanians or of the Serbs. We have no interest in the outcome of that war, and yet de facto now, by the bombing campaign, we've taken the side of the Kosovar Albanians. I think inserting ground troops, even in an effort for humanitarian purposes, just risks getting us involved in a civil war we're not going to get out of for a long time.

CRIER: Bob Dornan, even if we're in to go in for humanitarian reasons, by hurting the Serbs, we're helping the KLA. Are you comfortable with that? Do you -- do you feel that this is a democratically-based organization? There are certainly reports out now that they're getting their money from drug running and they're Marxist in nature. Are you comfortable with this group?

Hey Catherine, so is the MEK Marxist, but Bolton thinks the US should work with them for Iran intel.

Back to the Crier interview, where next up the journalist Jonathan Landay makes absolute mincemeat of Bolton's contention the US has absolutely no moral interest in the then raging Balkan conflict:

...LANDAY: ...But I think we're being a little bit forgetful of history here. The fact is that the United States interests there were established by the Bush administration when it issued the 1992 Christmas warning to Mr. Milosevic that the United States would take unilateral action in the case he moved against the Kosovar Albanians.

What we're looking at right now, whether we like it or not, are enormous interests that are at stake. If you look at what happened in Lebanon, and if you look at what happened in Afghanistan, if you look at what happened in Kurdistan, what we're looking it potentially are two million stateless people in the heart of Europe, with the potential of continuing cross-border attacks in Serbia, sowing instability in Macedonia and Albania. Certainly, what's going on now in Montenegro, the tiny republic that also is part of Yugoslavia, is a major concern. And that has all the potential of exploding -- of taking this crisis across other borders in that region....

CRIER: So John Bolton, what do you do, if, in fact, the instability comes primarily from the refugees and the disruption in the world seeing the cleansing? What do you do?

BOLTON: Well, the instability that exists now, in large part caused by the administration's policy, I think can be alleviated by trying to go to what we should have done, frankly, back in the Bush administration, which is through a congress of Europe-type procedure, try and get everybody together and, in fact, impose the proper solution in the Balkans. If we were -- we're accused already of acting in a hegemonic fashion, which would not be half bad, from my perspective. The problem is we're not acting in a hegemonic fashion. We are wrapped around the axle of the Kosovar Albanians, and there's no telling how campaign the better

Wow, what a thoughtful response. So Bolton believes in Europe after all, when he can't think of anything better. Of course, it was the borders imposed by the Congress of Europe the last time round which had become part of the problem during the break up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Truly, what utter use will this dial-an-insult loudmouth be at the UN? Come on, the Bush administration can do better than this. The American people deserve better than this. This guy is a hack, a destructive, ill-qualified, unthoughtful, unstable, vindictive, and ineffective partisan hack, one who appeased genocide every time it occurred in the 1990s.

Update: Here's Bolton making a fool of himself on Crossfire in 1993. It's breathtaking. After the Bush I administration he served in sent US troops to Somalia, he accuses the Clinton administration of engaging in emotion-driven humanitarian interventions in places like....Somalia. His hypocrisy is truly staggering. Here's Bolton speaking with Bob Beckel, on August 8, 1993:

BECKEL: Welcome back to Crossfire. The conflict in Somalia has claimed more American lives, four U.S. servicemen killed by a land mine, believed to have been planted by renegade warlord Mohammed Fahda Aidid. Given President Clinton's vow to respond, the U.S. is now at risk of being drawn deeper into Somalia's civil war, but has that civil war become a quicksand, and is it time for America to pack her tent and come home? We're putting that question to Edward Luck, President of the United Nations Association, and John Bolton, an Assistant Secretary of State during the Bush administration.

John, conservatives in America seem to be developing a new foreign policy of nonintervention. Now, when it was your guys' great idea to intervene, we continued the intervention in Vietnam to supposedly fight communism, worst war we ever had, when Ollie North decided to break the law and continue to intervene in Nicaragua, when we intervened in the internal affairs of Chile, we did all those things, conservatives seemed to-

Mr. BOLTON: So many times-

BECKEL: No, no, but you guys all seemed to like those interventions. Can you name me one place now, besides England and Canada, where you might deem to intervene to help- where you see as United States security interest? Just name me one example. I'd like to know.

Mr. BOLTON: Don't count on England and Canada.

BECKEL: Oh, they may not be willing to go there either. Pat [Buchanan's] not willing to go to Newark.

Mr. BOLTON: I would say Republicans are adults on foreign policy questions, and we define what we're willing to do militarily and politically by what is in the best interest of the United States. That's the only question that matters.

Mr. LUCK: Isn't George [H.W.] Bush a good Republican? Didn't he send the forces there [to Somalia]?

Mr. BOLTON: If- he did. If there were a strategic interest in Central Europe or elsewhere, then I believe we would be prepared to intervene. What we are not prepared to do is what I think the Clinton administration wants to do, which is wholesale intervention everywhere on abstract human rights or humanitarian grounds. I don't deny that there are important humanitarian and human rights interests in Somalia and in other places, but I think before the United States commits its forces, I think we have to define why it's in the best interest of the United States....

[Edward LUCK, UN Association]: Name one place where the Clinton administration has wanted to intervene where the Bush administration had not already intervened. Is there one country that you can name?

Mr. BOLTON: Well, I would not have intervened in Somalia.

...

Mr. LUCK: Well, but George Bush did. ...

Incredible. Bolton never misses an opportunity to put partisan opposition to Clinton above doing the right thing in the face of genocide or starvation. He was a non interventionist before he got on the payroll with the (Republican) interventionists. But he doesn't support any of their ideals, not the use of US power or leadership to stop genocide or promote democracy. The only thing they come together on is hatred of abstract, strawmen theories of world government. And that's enough for his supporters? Are they that cheap?

Posted by Laura at April 14, 2005 01:25 PM