One of the curious features of the Iraq war last year was the serious split across the Atlantic. And what seemed to puzzle as much as infuriate Americans was why the major European powers, having signed on to war without U.N. authorization in 1999 against Slobodan Milosevic, "the butcher of Belgrade," refused to do so in 2003 against Saddam Hussein, "the butcher of Baghdad."
On balance, the Americans would appear to have just cause for their complaint of double standards. To be sure, there are important differences. But in some respects the differences are exaggerated and, in other respects, important similarities overshadow the differences.
In 1999, on the one hand, there was compelling television footage of the humanitarian tragedy in Kosovo that outraged an internationalized human conscience. But just as the claims of weapons of mass destruction have been shown to have been greatly exaggerated and amplified through a surprisingly gullible media, so were the claims of mass murders of up to 200,000 people in Kosovo.