Congress opposes US border crisis as 'manufactured,' but actual bogus 'emergency' is OK?

The US has just extended a “national emergency” in the Balkans, even though it is the chief culprit for the problems there. Expect no outrage from Congress, for which foreign adventures are fine – but securing US borders is not.

US President Donald Trump sent a note to Congress on Tuesday that he was extending for another year the national emergency with respect to the “Western Balkans,” declared in Executive Order 13219 of June 26, 2001.

The “extremist violence” in present-day North Macedonia as well as acts obstructing the implementation of the 1995 peace accord in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the 1999 UN Security Council Resolution 1244 in Kosovo, are “hostile to United States interests and continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy” of the US, Trump’s notice says.

Soporific and formulaic language invoked in every emergency declaration since 1976 will no doubt cause many eyes to glaze over, in particular those who can’t tell the difference between the Balkans and the Baltics. The ironic thing here, however, is that the US itself is the main agent of instability in the Balkans, and stands behind every action this emergency declaration is intended to oppose!

Take Kosovo, a province of Serbia occupied by NATO after an illegal war in 1999. Former President Bill Clinton, his Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, top NATO commander at the time Wesley Clark, and other “luminaries” traveled there last week to mark the 20th anniversary and bask in the gratitude (and plaques, statues, stamps and medals) of the “Kosovians” – ethnic Albanian separatists they have backed ever since. Those same ethnic Albanians then started a rebellion in Macedonia in 2001, serving as a pretext for the original emergency declaration.

As for violations of UNSCR 1244, the most blatant of them has been the 2008 declaration of Kosovo’s independence – which was backed by the US and its allies – since the actual resolution affirms the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia and Serbia.

Last, but not least, the US and the EU are the biggest threats to the Dayton peace accords, having sought to redefine and replace the 1995 treaty by insisting on centralization of Bosnia – even though that’s what led to the civil war in the first place – at the expense of autonomy that made peace possible.

Not one member of Congress, Democrat or Republican, has pointed any of these things out in the context of this national emergency, nor challenged it on any grounds whatsoever. Ditto for the 2015 emergency with respect to the “situation in Burundi,” for example. The silence has been deafening.

By contrast, the only time the House and the Senate have passed a joint resolution of disapproval was for the national emergency invoked by Trump this February, citing the crisis on the US-Mexico border. To Democrats, that is a “bogus” and “manufactured” crisis and Trump is literally Hitler for trying to deal with hundreds of thousands of people crossing the border illegally.

More than a few Republicans had joined the Democrats in voting against Trump’s border emergency, citing “principles” and “usurpation” of congressional authority. Yet here is a genuinely bogus emergency, citing from Washington’s own actions and those of its proteges in order to justify further support for policies that violate a UN resolution and a US-sponsored peace treaty, and no one – not a single senator or representative – has spoken up against it.

Nebojsa Malic, for RT

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.