Through inept diplomacy and strategic miscalculation, the Clinton administration bears much of the responsibility for Kosovo's humanitarian crisis and for the Kosovo Liberation Army's (KLA) subsequent emergence as the dominant political force in Kosovo. Naturally, the administration has denied that its policies have had these adverse consequences, and it has been especially sensitive to the charge that its actions were in any way connected with the mass exodus of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo. Given the scale of the catastrophe in Kosovo, the Clinton administration's defensiveness is understandable. But despite its efforts at spin and "perception management", the facts are clear. As the great baseball manager Casey Stengel once said, "You could look it up."
The historical background of the Kosovo crisis is complex, but the immediate cause of the Kosovo war is readily identifiable: the irreconcilable aims of Serbia and the province's ethnic Albanians. Constituting the overwhelming majority of the province's population, Kosovo's ethnic Albanians invoked the principle of national self-determination and sought complete independence from Serbia. The Serbs, invoking the principle of national sovereignty, rejected an independent Kosovo because the province has deep historical and cultural significance to them.
