It won’t be the first time in history, Americans and with them the “western” world turned a blind eye to who’s backs their hedonistic party was carried over.
If you look at what was life like. What people cared about. What songs sang about. What households looked like. War was as far a concept from the average American.
Sure we had the gulf war early 90s. We had Bosnia during Clinton years. But most Americans were more concerned with becoming stock traders from home, saving willy and the earth and how Clinton’s cigars were used.
Americans bombers dropping bombs by the ton to the backdrop of western advancement has almost become an expectation in our campaign of spreading our brand of democracy and its freedoms or else.
Admittedly the Yugoslav wars are not my strong suit in history, but if protecting genocide is all that is American, it makes you wonder where have we been the past decade when it came to Yemen. Same with the Uyghurs in China. Same with the civil war in Syria. I can list a few more...
Feels like there was something more that led America to Bosnia, and it wasn't just our benevolence and saving the world from itself.
> Feels like there was something more that led America to Bosnia, and it wasn't just our benevolence and saving the world from itself.
There was a lot of pressure to "do something" in the Balkans, and the military wasn't averse to showing off its goods, so something was done. Imagine the media pressure with Yemen x1000. That was Bosnia and Kosovo (probably mostly because it was in Europe).
Also, US military has intervened militarily in Syria, many times, and even with troops on the ground. Did you miss it?
The Uyghurs are a poor analogy, because despite the intense oppression they're under, they're not being mass-murdered. And a humanitarian intervention in China due to Uyghur situation is just not in the cards, because realism.
So sure, Bosnia+Kosovo interventions weren't just "benevolence". It was a convergance of factors (power dynamics, US President open to idea, media+public pressure, limiting intervention to air campaign, etc). But it wasn't an oil pipeline or some ridiculous conspiracy, either, like I sometimes hear.
Think you might need to qualify that. The mid-90s saw the Bosnian and Rwandan genocides.