As per the suggestion of El_Kabong**, I have opened this thread for those who wish to justify the U.S. intervention in Kosovo in 1999. It seems particularly relevant today, in light of another impending “intervention.” Given that the burden of proof always lies with those who favor war to justify the action, I leave the floor to those who think the NATO bombing was justified to explain why.
Doh! Pardon my vB code ineptness.
I’d love to hear some answers on this one as well.
Do you have any other hobbies besides complaining about everything the United States does? There has just got to be other topics that concern you. Do you like baseball? What kind of books do you read? What was the last movie you saw?
Marc
I will need an mental enema after this, but:
I am with Chumpsky on this one, sort of.
In Iraq, we have real interests. Cheap oil, chemical weapons, etc. I am all for invading Iraq, since there are tangibles involved.
In Yugoslavia, we had what interests? If the answer is ‘moral interests’, then why sit by during the machete parties in Africa? Where is the UN-led operation in Mexico to help the Za-whatevers? Not to mention, the baby of NATO, the KLA, was on the State Dept. terrorist watch list, until we decided to bomb Yugoslavia. Interesting.
I am against interventions on moral principles alone. If two groups want to have at each other, so be it. When they want to stop, they will. So long as we have no interests in the area, why spend our lives and money?
I disagree quite strongly that the NATO action had anything whatever to do with any humanitarian interest. Indeed, the action itself, uncontroversially, made the humanitarian situation much worse, and they knew it would make it much worse. I contend that what are called the “national interests” were very much at stake in Kosovo, and that the NATO action was very much a part of pursuing these interests. But, before I get into that I would really like to hear somebody justify the action.
OK, I’ll have a go. I’m not particularly patriotic or anything, but I think the NATO action was justified.
Between 1988 and 1998, an estimated 1 million people died in the Balkan War, most of them civilians. UN troops were present only as peacekeeping observers. Between 1998 and March 1999, undeniable acts of genocide had been committed against Albanian ethnic groups in Kosovo, most notably in Racak in January 1999. I do not know the total estimated body count in Kosovo (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/366981.stm
gives only vague estimates), but I would be extremely surprised if it rivalled Bosnia. I cannot see any reason why the war in Kosovo would not have continued for several years, racking up a similar bodycount to Bosnia, had NATO not intervened in March 2000. If one asks “did the NATO action, while killing up to 2000 civilians itself (Serbian government figures), reduce civilian deaths * overall, in the long run *?”, my belief is that the answer can be given in the affirmative.
I am prepared to admit that the NATO action might have “speeded up” the atrocity rate. However, this does not in any way lay the responsibility for these atrocities at NATO’s door since, as I say, there is no reason to believe that such would not have happened eventually anyway without March 1999’s intervention.
An invasion of Iraq would, I believe, be justified if it was reasonable to assume that Iraq would target another state or ethnic group with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons in the future * without * such an invasion. I do not believe such an assumption is particularly reasonable at this point. However, in the long term, I believe military action would be * about * the minimisation of suffering, even if somehow in the future it was proven to be a “wrong guess”.
Question for ** Chumpsky **: Do you believe the Serb forces, and Milosevic in particular, were guilty of genocide as defined in the dictionary? Do you believe the NATO action constituted genocide as defined in the dictionary? Please state the last war in which NATO was involved which you believe was justified, and for what reasons.
I agree with ** RobertTB ** that similar action was and is justified in many other places around the world. Where I cannot disagree more is that national interest should take precedence over moral principle. If that were the case, there was nothing wrong with Saddam invading Kuwait in the first place, for the good of Iraq. Where it is a case of “two parties at each other”, the minimisation of civilian casualties should be actively sought, militarily if necessary. However, where evidence of genocide authorised from the top exists, then remaining neutral is paramount to idly watching a toddler kill a baby if you are the only adult around to prevent it.
Sorry the first “2000” should be “1999”
paramount = tantamount
Preview Reply buttons? Feck 'em.
[Hitler] And I would’ve gotten away with it if it wasn’t for those pesky allies wasting their lives and money
[/Hitler]
Well, we did sort of have interests in the area. Regional stability. There was a (not unreasonable) fear that if the fighting continued Turkey and/or Greece would get involved and would begin expanding the war. And we all know how much Greece and Turkey like each other. So you would have the interesting situation of two NATO members going at it.
To tell you the truth, no nation can afford to get involved on a whim, moral or otherwise. In Rwanda, the US made the difficult but correct decision not to get involved. Namely, we weren’t invited. No one wanted us there. In Kosovo, we had a political and legal lever to act. So we could afford to.
The scenario would have been a solo US military, isolated in the Rwanda region, and with hostiles all around. Not a pretty picture. Essentially, we didn’t have a dog in the fight, and its not smart to try and beat the two dogs at the same time. And there was no legal or political justification for it. Sad, but then, nobody ever said that life was fair.
Do you know what “uncontroversially” means? Since many people believe that the Kosovo action improved the humanitarian situation, and you apparently disagree, a ‘controversy’ exists.
In general, just because you want to believe something, it doesn’t make it so.
Sua
Thanks for taking up the challenge, SentientMeat.
Interestingly, the reason given to justify the intervention is humanitarian. It is a near historical universal that the aggressors defend their actions in terms of “humanitarianism.” The claim is always made (if you know of a counter-example I’d like to hear it) by the aggressor that the action will result in less loss of life in the long run than non-intervention. Such claims should obviously be treated with extreme skepticism. In fact, there is only one example I know of where a really good case for humanitarian intervention can be made, and that is Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia in 1978, ending the reign of the Khmer Rouge. Interestingly, the U.S. condemned the Vietnamese invasion and turned to support of the Khmer Rouge after their ouster, even pressing the U.N. to honor the right of the Khmer Rouge to occupy Cambodia’s seat at the U.N.
The case cannot be made in Kosovo.
Let us examine it. First of all, there is this claim: “Between 1988 and 1998, an estimated 1 million people died in the Balkan War, most of them civilians.” I am not exactly sure what you are talking about here. In Kosovo during the year before the bombings, about 2,000 - 3,000 were killed on all sides, Serbs and Kosovo Albanians, mostly armed combatants (not civilians).
What was the effect of the cruise missile humanitarianism? Well, it multiplied the number of Kosovar Albanian homeless and dead, without saving one life, or stopping one atrocity. By highest estimates, the Kosovo civil war drove 400,000 ethnic Albanians from their homes in 1998; 30,000 of these fled Kosovo. The first two weeks of the bombing increased this to over one million homeless Kosovars; more than 400,000 of whom fled Kosovo. From March 26th through April 13th, NATO escalated the atrocities to double those in the whole year of 1998. Furthermore, this was predicted by NATO. Supreme commander of NATO forces Wesley Clarke said that it was “entirely predictable” that NATO bombing would escalate the humanitarian crisis.
So, what we had was a civil war. Two thousand killed on all sides does not a genocide make. Yet, the claim of genocide was made constantly by NATO leaders, and is echoed again here by SentientMeat: “Between 1998 and March 1999, undeniable acts of genocide had been committed against Albanian ethnic groups in Kosovo, most notably in Racak in January 1999.”
The phrase “act of genocide” is an interesting one. What exactly were these “undeniable acts of genocide”? We heard many lurid tales in the weeks leading up the bombings about bodies being dumped in wells, rape as policy, mass graves all over the place, etc. But, when investigators went in afterward to dig up as much dirt on Milosevic as possible for retroactive justification for the bombings, they couldn’t find any evidence of any “acts of genocide.” It turned out that the tales of thousands of bodies dumped in wells, rape as policy, etc., were simply made up. Of course, if you have evidence for these, I would love to peruse them. You could also hand the evidence over to the Hague Tribunal, as they seem to have not been able to discover anything, and would love to hear from you. The total number of deaths that Milosevic is on trial for has been reduced from early media reports of hundreds of thousands, down to 381. cite
The “Racak massacre,” as it is called, is alleged to have been the event that precipitated the bombing. Clinton and the rest of the NATO media lie machine made many impassioned speeches about how we could not sit and watch such heinous crimes against humanity and do nothing. Interesting in light of history, but let’s think about it for a second. I believe there were 45 bodies found at Racak. Forty-five! Even if the bodies were all civilian, is that a massacre worth going to war, killing thousands of civilians and wrecking a country over? In fact, even the 45 bodies that were found were apparently not civilians massacred by Serb forces, as was initially claimed by the KLA and repeated by the NATO lie machine. Thirty-seven of the corpses had powder residue on their hands, indicating they had been involved in combat, only one was a woman, an none were under the age of 15. A massacre? Worth destroying a country for?
Furthermore, if we simply look at history, we see that the “Racak massacre” cannot possibly have been the reason for the bombing. Indeed, recall Jenin, where the Israelis and the U.S. claimed there was no massacre since less than 100 people were killed, a large portion of whom were civilians!
Consider also, a real massacre, a massacre that was caught on videotape by American journalists Amy Goodman and Alan Nairn. The Santa Cruz Massacre “On November 12, 1991, Indonesian troops fired upon a peaceful memorial procession to a cemetery in Dili, East Timor that had turned into a pro-independence demonstration. Over 271 East Timorese were killed that day at the Santa Cruz cemetery or in hospitals soon after. This massacre, unlike many others which occurred during the course of Indonesia’s U.S.-backed occupation, was filmed and photographed by international journalists. Amy Goodman and Allan Nairn, two U.S. reporters, were beaten during the massacre.” In fact, Goodman and Nairn were almost killed themselves, saved at the last second because they were Americans.
What was the U.S. reaction to this actual massacre? Were their cries to bomb Jakarta? Did NATO cry that we could not let this stand? No. In fact, the U.S. and other western countries supported Indonesia, and the massacre was carried out with U.S. supplied weaponry. It was not the only massacre that was carried out with U.S. arms, over 1/3 of the population of East Timor was killed by the Indonesian security forces between 1975 and 1999, all with total U.S. support.
East Timor is not the only place where massacres have been carried out under the U.S. aegis. Mass killings were commonly carried out by U.S. allies Turkey and Columbia during the 1990’s. Indeed, in Columbia, the security forces killed more civilians in the year leading up to the NATO bombing of Kosovo than were killed on all sides in the civil war in Kosovo.
What this tells us is that the NATO action had nothing whatsoever to do with “humanitarianism.”
This is also false, even if we accept NATO claims. The reason is that the Serbs agreed to every NATO demand regarding Kosovo, and the war could have been averted and a peaceful settlement arrived at.
The Serbs agreed to every point in the Rambouillet Accord, except one–Appendix B. Read through Appendix B. You will see that it is nothing less than an agreement for a giving up of Yugoslav sovereignty. This was what NATO was after the whole time, and it was, or course, unacceptable to any country.
Milosevic was been charged with 381 deaths. These occured during the course of a civil war and bombardment by a foreign power. This hardly constitutes genocide.
The NATO action was undertaken to destroy the remnants of Yugoslavia. It was not genocide, it was dismemberment. And I don’t think NATO has ever been involved in a just war.
Anyway, sorry for the lack of cites in the above. I wrote this at work, just perusing a few web sites, so the documentation leaves something to be desired. I can dig up some more resources tonight. But, I encourage people to check my facts and present counter-evidence.
Like I said, though, the justification for war always lies with the aggressor. Not only do I not think that NATO made the case for war, I think that the action was a monstrous crime, in every respect–with regard to international law, and morally. Recall that NATO’s own charter says, “The Parties undertake, as set forth in the Charter of the United Nations, to settle any international dispute in which they may be involved by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security and justice are not endangered, and to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.” Clearly the NATO action violated even the charter of NATO, not to mention the U.N. charter, and every precept of international law.
More later…
ChumpskyInterestingly, the reason given to justify the intervention is humanitarian. It is a near historical universal that the aggressors defend their actions in terms of “humanitarianism.” The claim is always made (if you know of a counter-example I’d like to hear it) *
Lebensraum, for one. And I’m pretty sure Pol Pot never claimed to be a humanitarian.
“Our place in the Sun” (Kaiser Wilhelm)
Secure access to raw materials (WWII Japan)
States’ rights and the right to keep other humans as slaves (CSA)
“God told us to” (The Crusades)
Gold and glory (the conquest of the Aztecs and the Incas)
this is fun 
Sua
Actually, what I said in the other thread was that discussion of the morality of NATO (not just US) intervention deserved its own thread. That’s alright, though; I think most of the regulars here have become used to the Chumpster’s habit of twisting others’ words to fit his agenda.
I’ll get my direct response to the OP out of the way first: I believe that the NATO intervention in Kosovo WAS, on balance, immoral, if we assume that the only conceivable justification for outside intervention might have been genocide-level massacres of civilians in Kosovo. This was manifestly not the case prior to the start of the NATO campaign.
While our OP is undoubtedly recovering from this shocker, I’ll go on to state, however, that as usual the OP wildly overstates, misstates or makes up facts to support his case.
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Media overstatement of Kosovar casualties prior to NATO intervention: here is a BBC timeline dated 18 January 1999 that lists major events leading up to the conflict. Nowhere do I see the reports of hundreds of thousands dead that Chumpsky claims were in “early media reports”. Perhaps the OP is confusing the reported dead in Bosnia-Herzegovina with those in Kosovo. I invite the OP to provide one or more cites showing that a majority of major media outlets systematically overstated casualties in Kosovo by a factor of 10 or more, as the OP claims.
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Milosevic:
Well, 391, according to the UN Tribunal’s indictment, but let’s not quibble. I would note, however, that the indictment furthermore lays the blame for the forced displacement or deportation of more than 700,000 ethnic Albanian Kosovars squarely at Milosvic’s feet. I guess the OP considers the forced displacement of three quarters of a million people by Serbian forces to be a trivial matter. The indictment, btw, does not appear to use the term “genocide”; the charges are “murder” and “crimes against humanity”.
Oh yeah, and of course the indictment does not even bring up Bosnia-Herzegovina in reference to Milosevic, but c’mon, does anyone really believe that he had nothing at all to do with the proven atrocities by Serbs there?
Even if we assume the worst of NATO, it is completely beyond me why the OP refuses to acknowledge that Milosevic was, by any measure, an odious, murderous prick who supervised the systematic destruction of his country in pursuit of ethnic purity.
- NATO’s motives:
The OP has made this charge in several posts in at least two threads, and has yet to produce one shred of evidence that the above was anyone’s intention. I suggest in future posts on this subject, the OP preface this claim with “It is my opinion that…” to prevent further confusion of his opinion with fact.
I’ll state my opinion, which is not an original one: NATO acted (foolishly or otherewise) primarily due to public outcry over western inaction during the conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina. I lived in France during the period, and I can assure readers that this was a hot topic among the general population; most of the persons I knew at the time (none of whom held positions in government) were utterly disgusted by the lack of European response to the massacres in B-H, and I believe that clearly stated public opinion led, in large part, to the later, and assuredly clumsy, intervention in Kosovo.
Finally, I differ from the OP in that, IMO, Yugoslavia was already effectively destroyed at the time of the NATO intervention. That destruction took place almost entirely from within, however.
This is all I’ll say on this matter, I’ve already spent two hours on this response and I’ve got to get my Christmas cards out.
I think El_Kabong and Neurotik have it. The overriding reason was not humanitarian, but worry that unchecked civil unrest and refugees would spread further instability throughout the region. Macedonia and then Greece were the most often quoted examples. As well, there was a popular belief that the earlier Bosnian conflicts and Rwanda could have been prevented if only the grownups had shown up.
Genuine crap was going on in Kosovo, but the U.S. only acted on it because it had the above political cover. Annoying Serbia cost the U.S. virtually nothing - wheras if the U.S. made similiar demands of Russia in regards to crap in Chechnya…
There were also no interests in that area aroung 1914. Just treaties and alliances that were triggered.
around–around