In February 2008, Kosovo declared independence from Serbia. This capped off a process which had begun with NATO's airwar on Serbia from 24 March to 10 June 1999. That campaign killed an estimated 5,000 Orthodox Christian Serb soldiers, and wounded an estimated 10,000 more. This is in addition to the estimated 500 innocent Orthodox Christian civilians that were killed by bombs striking non-military targets. The direct damage of the bombing campaign has been estimated at $30 billion dollars in one of the poorest nations in Europe. Serbia is not expected to recover from the U.S.-led bombing campaign for another decade or more.
Since NATO took over administering the province of Kosovo at the end of the bombing, 151 Orthodox Churches and monasteries have been destroyed and some 250,000 Serbs and other non-Albanians have been driven from their homes. In northern Kosovo, a Serb remnant of between 120,000 and 150,000 now finds itself cut-off from Serbia in a hostile, independent nation. Inside Serbia, anger over the loss of Kosovo has caused violent demonstrations, and has even collapsed the ruling government.
While the bombing campaign was officially NATO-led, the fact is that it was an American operation from start to finish. The Clinton Administration was the driving force behind it, and the Bush Administration continued the policies it inherited which resulted in an independent Kosovo.
As the situation with Kosovo illustrates, the choice of American president has a huge impact on the lives of Orthodox Christians around the world. That fact gives American Orthodox Christians a huge burden during presidential election cycles. If we choose badly, then death and mayhem can literally rain down on our fellow Orthodox.
How have we lived up to this responsibility? Extremely poorly to say the least. Three people could end up being president of the United States come January 2009. At least two of them are probably incipient disasters for Orthodox Christians globally, and the third doesn't look like much of a prize either. Let's look at the three possibilities and assess the possible future impact on the Orthodox world.
The Republican nominee will be John McCain. For Orthodox Christians around the world, what would a McCain presidency offer?
Well, if history is our guide then the answer has to be, "Nothing good."
For starters, let's keep in mind that the Republican Congress was less than enthusiastic about the war on Serbia. Only 44 House Republicans voted to endorse the use of American troops as part of a NATO peacekeeping force in Kosovo. Thirty-eight of the Senate's 55 Republicans voted in 1999 against the air campaign in a nonbinding ballot taken right before strikes started. In another nonbinding vote, an overwhelming 173 House Republicans opposed American involvement in the NATO attack on Serbia.
In 1999, clearly the mainstream Republican position was hostile to Clinton's policy of attacking Serbia in order to create an autonomous Kosovo. Unfortunately, John McCain was not in the Republican mainstream at that time.
John McCain's big complaint about the war against Serbia was that the U.S. and NATO weren't hitting Serbia hard enough. In a speech delivered three weeks after the start of the bombing campaign, McCain stated his two objections to the way the war in Serbia had been handled up to that point. According to McCain, the airwar had been, "an excessively restricted air campaign that sought the impossible goal of avoiding war while waging one." As elaborated in other speeches, McCain thought we should be hitting a wider variety of targets, and hitting them in a more devastating fashion, even if the numbers of civilian casualties (innocent Serb Christians) would go up.
McCain also objected to our reliance solely on airpower. In his speech, he complained, "The second is the repeated declarations from the president, vice president, and other senior officials that NATO would refrain from using ground troops even if the air campaign failed. These two mistakes were made in what almost seemed willful ignorance of every lesson we learned in Vietnam."
If it had been up to John McCain, U.S. ground troops would have gone in and slaughtered Serb soldiers face-to-face, while U.S. bombing would have been less discriminate and more damaging to the Serbian civilian population.
Good thing for us, then, that McCain wasn't president. What we got from Clinton was bad enough, what we would have gotten from McCain was a genocide.
Has John McCain's attitude about the Balkans changed at all since 1999?
McCain's official statement on Kosovo independence said, "I support independence for Kosovo and am pleased that the United States joined with our European allies, including Britain, Germany, and France, to recognize Kosovo as an independent state. Since NATO ended the Milosevic regime's brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing in 1999, Kosovo has remained under UN and NATO protection. It has been clear for some time now that independence was the proper and necessary final status for Kosovo."
In that same statement McCain also blamed Russia for stirring up discontent in Serbia over the loss of Kosovo. As if the Serbs themselves would never have noticed the partition of their country on their own.
Okay, enough about Serbia already. What about the wider Orthodox world? The situation with McCain isn't much better.
Orthodox and secular news sources are full of articles (such as The Continuing Plight of the Patriarch of Constantinople) which chronicle the ongoing problems of Christian persecution inside Turkey. None of this registers on John McCain, however, who has repeatedly praised Turkey as in this speech which called for full Turkish membership in the EU, "It should be obvious to all that Turkey is an essential member of the Euro-Atlantic community and an integral part of Europe. Obstacles of prejudice, ethnic stereotype, and bureaucratic gamesmanship that block Turkey's path to Europe do not reflect well on the fairness of our institutions and do damage to our security."
According to John McCain, the exclusion of Turkey from the EU isn't because of its poor human rights record, its illegal occupation of part of Cyprus, or even the logical fact that Turkey isn't a European state. No, according to John McCain, the reason Turkey is being excluded from full membership in the European Union is because the Europeans are prejudiced.
What about the biggest Orthodox Christian nation, Russia? In addition to blaming the unrest in Kosovo on Russia (rather than genuine Serbian nationalism), McCain has promised to kick Russia out of the G8. In 2006, McCain traveled to Tskhimvali, in the disputed region South Ossetia, where pro-Russian citizens want to secede from the former Soviet republic of Georgia and seek union with Russia. He denounced them, of course, saying that Russia had no business ruling over any part of Georgia - even if the residents there wanted it.
His aggressive attitude goes far beyond mere antipathy towards Putin. McCain's support for a whole range of policies specifically directed against Russia have lead observers to characterize his policies "Russophobic."
Enough picking on McCain. What about Hillary Clinton?
Any criticism I made of McCain applies equally to Hillary - if not more so. Hillary's husband was the architect of the war on Serbia, and she has praised that policy on more than one occasion. She is just as pro-Turkey as McCain, if not more so, and turns just as blind an eye as he does to Turkish human rights abuses. Her attitude towards Russia has many Russians hoping for a McCain presidency because he might actually be easier to work with. In addition to being shrill, she is dismissive of Russia and has been a full-bore supporter of the Chechens, despite their ties to Al Qaeda.
In fact, the only real divergence between Hillary and McCain on foreign policy is on the timing of some kind of withdrawl from Iraq. On all other issues, Hillary and McCain are so close that it can be difficult to find any real distinction between them at all.
Okay, from an Orthodox perspective, these two aren't that good.
What about Obama?
Good question - what about him? Obama is the great void. He has little experience in foreign affairs, and has tried hard to avoid providing many details on his views of the world.
Here is what we do know. Obama endorsed the independence of Kosovo and proclaimed the need for U.S. military support if it is invaded. He echoed a desire to deal aggressively with the Russians on all fronts, and seems no less pro-Turkey than any of the other candidates.
On the other hand, however, Obama's declaration of support for Kosovo's independence was much more tepid that Hillary's. Also, Albanians constantly accuse Obama of being pro-Serb. If he is or not is anyone's guess, but most Albanians who lean Democratic are on-board with Hillary. On the Republican side, McCain was always their man. Albanians of all political stripes seem to dislike Obama, which is interesting since one big fear of Obama is that he might be too pro-Muslim.
So really, who knows if Obama would be better or not? The fact is, however, that no one is going to grill him enough to find out one way or the other.
It then looks like a complete loss from an Orthodox perspective, regardless of who wins, at least in terms of Orthodox issues outside the United States.
Given that fact, I do want to take a moment to look at how we got here. The fact that we came to this impasse is directly related to problems within the American Orthodox community that we need to address, or else this is just going to keep happening.
Partisanship above all else - When Clinton was bombing Serbia on the basis of lies and distortions, Orthodox Christians who considered themselves Democrats were largely silent or (worse) actively supported the bombing. Why? Because it was their guy doing it. When Republicans took over, and proceeded to continue Clinton's policies in the Balkans, Republican-leaning Orthodox Christians suddenly discovered the virtues of Greater Albania.
This doesn't just happen over the Balkans, it happens in terms of Russian policy, Turkish policy, Lebanese policy, Syrian policy, Egyptian policy, etc. All across the gamut, Orthodox Christians in the United States consistantly prove that they are Republicans or Democrats first, and Orthodox Christians at least second, if not third, fourth, or fifth. The fact is that in terms of foreign policy, both American parties can be equally wrong at the same time, and frequently are.
Feel like doing something about that? Then quit reflexively attacking the other side while turning a blind eye to the faults of your own. If someone criticizes the Bush Administration's policy in the Balkans, do not answer, "But Clinton...."
There is no "but." The Bush and Clinton policies on the Balkans are essentially the same. Attacking one is the same as attacking both. Quit trying to differentiate them. It isn't helpful to the cause.
Teamwork Counts - What is the Orthodox equivalent of the Christian Coalition or the Catholic League? Wait - there isn't one. There are Orthodox lobbying groups, but they are all organized around ethnicity. But there isn't any kind of congress or coalition to help bring these various groups together and work on common problems. Everyone seems to be just hanging out and doing their own thing, which undercuts any possible influence Orthodox Americans might have in the political process. It is time to get past ethnically-based lobbying and form at least one organization that is capable of organizing pan-Orthodox resources.
This organization does not have to be a clone of the Christian Coalition, which had policy positions on every conceivable issue. Many Orthodox disagree on such issues as health care, environmental regulations, gun control, etc. Trying to nail down a single Orthodox perspective on such topics is needlessly divisive. But, especially on foreign policy, I think there is a great deal of Orthodox cohesion which could be mobilized.
Focus matters - In 1996 I was working for a Republican candidate in Southern Georgia. As part of the election, we met with a pastor of a mega-church to secure his active support. I came in ready to discuss abortion and other hot-button issues of the day. The pastor didn't ask about any of my candidate's social positions. In fact, all the pastor wanted to know about was my candidate's support of Israel.
That was it. We spent an hour talking about the need for supporting Israel, giving money to Israel, and shipping weapons to Israel. God, it seems, was only concerned about Israel.
Support for Israel is the most important issue for literally millions of American Evangelicals. It is so important that no deviation from absolute support is allowed. That is why, eventually, much of the Republican base will coalesce around John McCain. He's a huge backer of Israel, which will be enough to offset the weakness he's shown on other signature issues of the Christian Right.
Do I advocate a similar focus on say Serbia or Russia or Cyprus? God forbid! But, just because a united Orthodox political effort isn't going to be as myopic as the Christian Coalition doesn't mean it can't be focused.
Obama is a big-time social liberal. He's more pro-abortion than Hillary, and has quite a list of policy positions that are noxious from an Orthodox perspective. But, what if he were to decisively break with the Clintonian/Bushian policy in the Balkans, pledge support for a unified Cyprus, backdown from a new Cold War with Russia, and pledge to hammer Turkey on its Christian civil rights record? Would that be enough to make social conservatives, like me, forget those other issues?
Yes, it would, especially since I don't buy McCain as a social conservative who is going to make progress on abortion anyway. On the liberal side, Hillary has the most comprehensive health care package. But for liberal-leaning Orthodox Christians, the question is whether or not that is enough to justify their support. Are liberal Orthodox Christians willing to risk war in the Balkans and, the possible deaths of thousands under a Hillary administration - just to get taxpayer funded medical care?
I'm not saying Obama is any better, chances are he isn't. As I said before, no one is going to ask him, or hold him accountable for his answers, because no one in the United States actually represents the Orthodox perspective on foreign relations.
If a candidate felt that he or she could pick up literally millions of votes by adopting more pro-Orthodox stances, then (especially in a close race) there would be a powerful incentive to do so. This is all definitely something to consider for the next race which will start in January 2009 as the new president is sworn-in.
You are unlikely to get all, or even a good bit, of what you want from a potential president. Which is one reason why I think it is really past time for a unified voice on Orthodox issues in the United States. Understanding the imperfections of the system, perhaps at the very least we could head off more military confrontations with Orthodox nations. The alternative to it is more of the same, and personally, I don't like having dead Orthodox Christians on my conscience.
