Now this is a bad idea

NATO has given Bosnia a "preliminary" membership nod, with further consideration for full membership to follow.

As those of you who were't living under a rock in the '90's remember, Bosnia-Herzegovina was the setting for a protracted, brutal civil war.  NATO spent over 10 years patrolling the small country so that the parties involved wouldn't continue to target each other and all civilians within reach. 

Now, even though tensions in Bosnia are still very high, one of the three ethno-political entities that run the counry refuses to give up its stocks of weapons, and anyone who really things about it knows that at best we're a decade or so of the fighting starting back up, we're allowing them into our mutual defense pact.

So what will NATO do when the Bosnian Serbs get support from Serbia proper and start raping and killing their way across the countryside again?  Of if the Croats decide they'd rather take what they've got and merge with Croatia?

NATO was constructed to provide a united front against possible Soviet aggression.  It's reason for being is gone, and has been for almost two decades.  Why does our government continue to be a part of this group that is now reaching out to new countries that will drag the alliance, including the U.S., into civil wars?  Why don't we just take our tanks, planes, and troops, and go home?