To recapitulate: This thread regards the morality of NATO’s bombing of Serbia in 1999. Central to this question is the motivation for the bombing. What is kind of amazing is that a clear explanation for the bombing is so hard to come by. Every ostensible motivation crumbles upon a moment’s inspection. Up to this point, we have seen three candidates for the NATO motivation for the bombing of Serbia. Please point out if I have missed any.
- To stop a humanitarian crisis.
- To prevent refugee flow into neighboring countries.
- As a response to popular pressure to bomb Serbia in Europe.
Let us go through these one by one.
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To stop a humanitarian crisis. In order to believe this, one would have to believe that the U.S. cares so much about human rights that it is willing to go to war to protect minority populations from human rights abuses. Is this credible? Well, consider a partial history of U.S. actions with respect to human rights abuses:
[ul][li]Before World War II, for example, the United States could have admitted many Jews fleeing from Hitler’s Europe; it did not. [/li][li]During World War II, the United States could have bombed the death camp at Auschwitz, slowing down the Nazi killing machine; it did not. [/li][li]When hundreds of thousands of people were slaughtered in Indonesia in 1965; the killers were cheered on by the U.S. government which even provided lists of communists to exterminate. [/li][li]When the Pakistani army began slaughtering and raping hundreds of thousands of Bengalis in 1971, sending millions into exile, U.S. policy was to (in Kissinger’s words) “tilt in favor of Pakistan.” [/li][li]When Indonesia invaded East Timor, leading to the deaths of one third of the population, it received weapons and diplomatic support from Washington. In 1999, on the eve of a vote for independence, White House press secretary Joe Lockhart was asked whether the United States supported independence for East Timor. “Not that I am aware of,” he replied. [/li][li]When the Khmer Rouge was responsible for monstrous killings in Cambodia, the United States encouraged China to aid the Khmer Rouge and provided covert aid of its own. [/li][li]When the government of Guatemala killed 200,000 people in the 1980s, it was with United States aid and encouragement. [/li][li]When upwards of half a million people, mostly members of the Tutsi ethnic minority, were exterminated in Rwanda in 1994, the Clinton administration demanded that a UN force already on the scene be reduced and obstructed efforts to save lives, even failing to apply diplomatic pressure against the killers.[/ul] [/li]This partial list shows that the U.S. national security state has been at best indifferent to human rights abuses. Perhaps, though, the Kosovo action is a break from history, and shows that the U.S. has undergone a sort of religious transformation to one of protecting human rights. This would mark an event of enormous importance in world history, one that would be marked by a profound change of U.S. policy around the world, and not merely limited to Kosovo. Was this the case?
Well, in 1999, the U.S. continued to send military aid to Columbia, Turkey, Israel and Indonesia, among others, all well-known human rights abusers. Indeed, as Columbia became the worst human rights abuser in the western hemisphere in the late 1990’s, it also became the leading recipient of U.S. aid, (apart from Israel and Egypt, which are in a seperate category) taking over the top spot from Turkey, which had succeeded in wiping out several thousand Kurdish villages in the 1990’s.
Did Kosovo really mark a sea change? Consider the case of East Timor. In August, 1999, 5 months after the beginning of the bombing of Serbia, the Timorese were asked to vote on Independence from Indonesia which had invaded and occupied the country in 1975. The Indonesian military and para-military announced quite openly that a vote for independence would result in a mass slaughter. It was not a threat without substance. The Indonesian military had already massacred over 200,000 Timorese during the years 1975 to 1999, all with total U.S. support. This support continued until the end of 1999, after the bombing of Kosovo. Thus, if the U.S. had indeed undergone a religious transformation, it would have cut off aid to the Indonesian military. It did not.
U.S. policy with regard to East Timor alone shows that there was no religious transformation, and this is not the only case. Similar policies were carried out in Columbia, Turkey, etc., where military support was extended to states that are well-known abusers of human rights.
Furthermore, the bombings vastly escalated the humanitarian crisis, and predictably so. Supreme commander General Wesley Clark remarked on March 27, 1999 that an “entirely predictable” result of the bombings would be an escalation of the humanitarian crisis. He later remarked that “I can’t say I’m surprised by any of this.” cite
Lastly, the entire conflict could easily have been resolved if NATO had accepted the Serb offer. From this site:
"[In March, 1999] The US draws up a document which it presents to the KLA and the Yugoslav government. There are no negotiations. Both sides are told to ‘take it or leave it.’ The document requires Yugoslav withdrawal from Kosovo, the introduction of a NATO occupying force with total powers, and a plebiscite to decide on independence for Kosovo. What the American people aren’t told is that the document also gives NATO forces free rein throughout Yugoslavia, including Serbia itself, even Belgrade. It grants NATO forces free use of airports, roads, rails, and ports; free telecommunication services; and total immunity throughout Yugoslavia. In essence, this ‘agreement’ would allow NATO to occupy all of Yugoslavia, not just Kosovo. Members of the US “negotiating” team bragged that they intentionally set the bar too high for Milosevic to accept. ‘He needs a good dose of bombing, and that’s what he’s going to get.’
Amazingly, Milosevic accepted all the Rambouillet demands except for NATO occupation of Yugoslavia itself. He wanted the troops to be under UN command. (NY Times 4/8/99) Dan Goure, Deputy Director, CSIS and a Pentagon official under Bush said, ‘Rambouillet was not a negotiation, it was a setup, a lynch party.’ (Institute for Public Accuracy 5/4/99)"
In short, every NATO demand was agreed to by the Serbs, except for NATO occupation of Yugoslavia, a demand that would be unacceptable to ANY country.
So, for these reasons, number 1 is ruled out as a motivation for the NATO bombing. Let’s look at number 2:
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To prevent refugee flow into neighboring countries. This is a very curious one. Again, the “entirely predictable” result of the bombing was that the refugee crisis was escalated. This is exactly what happened. Before the bombing started there was no refugee flow out of Kosovo, but that changed after the bombing started. Furthermore, as stated above, the entire problem could have been solved, with a granting of autonomy to Kosovo, if NATO had accepted the Serb offer and not demanded NATO occupation of all of Yugoslavia.
Therefore, number 2 is ruled out as a motivation for the bombing. Moving on to number 3:
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As a response to popular pressure to bomb Serbia in Europe. This one is so outlandish that I think it may have been a joke by El_Kabong. One can imagine masses demonstrating in the streets of Geneva with signs reading “Bomb Serbia Now!” In some bizarro world we can imagine that. In the real world, however, there was no popular pressure for NATO to bomb Serbia. After a massive propaganda campaign, the NATO lie machine managed to garner some support for the action, but only by the most tortured imaginings can we conceive of this bombing as being a response to popular pressure. And, again, if the bombing really was a response to popular pressure, surely the peaceful alternative proposed by the Serbs would have been more popular.
Therefore number 3 is ruled out.
This shows that every reason given for the NATO bombing was a lie. What was the actual motivation? Well, before getting into that, I would like to see if anyone objects to the reasoning in this post, or can point to another motivation that I missed.