After an entire week of painting and drawing to the ambient noise of C-Span, CNN and Fox News, subjecting myself to a barrage of sensationalism, obfuscation and spin, I finally have a personal response to our involvement in the Balkans. It makes me angry.

First of all, I’m angry that I spent the first two weeks of the NATO bombing as an apologist for this military campaign. The evening that we began the current assault on Serbia, I listened intently to President Clinton’s emergency broadcast, in which he elucidated the age-old ethnic and religious hatred in that region.

He warned that the Serbian-Albanian conflict could rapidly spread through Europe, with catastrophic results.

This isn’t anything like Desert Storm, I thought. That war was fought for profit, despite all of Bush’s pontificating about humanitarian motives and Saddam’s victims.

The “Oil War” closed with “the second Hitler” still in power. Saddam was slaughtering Kurdish people by the hundreds as American ships sailed off into the sunset, having secured higher prices per barrel for poor, American oil companies. Saddam’s hapless enemies in that region still mistrust us for that one.

In Kosovo, however, we have no ulterior motive. We genuinely wish to save thousands of innocent people from a brutal dictator and prevent a wider conflict.

Which brings me to the second reason that I’m angry: We’re botching the job miserably. We’ve accelerated the violence in Kosovo. We’ve aggravated pre-existing tensions in that region, as well as tensions between the U.S. and our traditional cold war foes, Russia and China.

We’ve transformed a less-than-popular Serbian leader into a nationalist powerhouse, whose forces are running amok. Young ethnic-Albanian men are executed, women are raped and thousands are expelled from their homes and marched 80 or more kilometers to overflowing refugee camps.

Macedonian farmers, angry that their precious land is being used to “house” thousands of Albanian refugees, have threatened to “slit the throats” of their unwelcome guests.

Meanwhile, our bombing campaign has grown careless. In some cases, we’ve accidentally targeted the very people we intended to help.

Military and congressional leaders are urging that we send ground troops. Despite Clinton’s protests to the contrary, we are preparing to do just that. Within a week, American soldiers will march on Serbian soil.

We should have known from the beginning that ground troops would be necessary in order to prevent Serbian forces from terrorizing Kosovo’s Albanian populace.

But bombing campaigns are America’s favorite new tactic. “Look,” says the President, “we’re not risking the lives of American soldiers. Please, support our war!”

Which brings me to the third and final source of my anger: Clinton.

In 1992, President-elect Clinton should never have agreed to follow-up on sitting-President Bush’s threats to Serbia. The new guy wanted to allay concerns that he might not be as “tough” on America’s enemies as his predecessor had been.

Most of us didn’t vote for Clinton because we thought he would kick-ass all over the globe. People who voted for Clinton were sick of the gung-ho, bully on the block, American presence in the world. Clinton, much maligned in Washington for his pacifism (as well as his other foibles), was supposed to give us something different.

Too concerned about his own political survival, he has hedged his bets. He backed down on gays in the military, and has been backing down ever since.

If the man were true to his convictions, our nation would have implemented a policy of economic engagement with Serbia years ago. With America’s enormous wealth, our “olive branch” packs a hell of a lot more punch than our clumsily-wielded “sword.”

The worst part is that Clinton’s been advocating peaceful, progressive solutions to the Balkans and elsewhere during his entire presidency. TIME Magazine referred to his pacifism as the White House’s “dirty little secret.”

Instead of following his heart, he’s following his advisors. A sad, little, “desperate-for-approval” boy like Bill Clinton wants his legacy to redeem him. A humanitarian war, fought against his best judgment, capitulating to his foreign policy “experts,” is the means he’s chosen to this end. Bill Clinton wants forgiveness.

I never thought I’d say this, but maybe it’s better to have a stupid, myopic, amoral bastard like George Bush in the White House than an extremely intelligent, moral, guilt-ridden, neurotic, pushover like Clinton. Well, I said I was angry, didn’t I?

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James O’Donnell is a graduate student in art and design from Mesa, Ariz.