PRINCIPLES AND VALUES

"The problem with war is with the victor." - A.J. Muste

Was the NATO bombing of Serbia and Kosovo guided by humanitarian concern "in the name of principles and values," as Vaclav Havel argued? Was it one in which historical precedent is irrelevant because we are now in a new era where, as Prime Minister Tony Blair put it, the United States and its allies fight "for a world where those responsible for [ethnic cleansing] have nowhere to hide"? Or was it something more crass and familiar? Crass and very familiar is what Noam Chomsky reveals in "The New Military Humanism: Lessons from Kosovo."

Consider a few inconvenient facts:
1) The Clinton administration knew that the bombing would almost certainly escalate Serbian atrocities rather than mitigate them, yet NATO went ahead anyway. House Intelligence Committee Chair Peter Goss put the matter directly: "Our intelligence community warned us months and days before [the bombing] that we would have a virtual explosion of refugees over the 250,000 that was expected as of last year [pre-bombing], that the Serb resolve would increase, that the conflict would spread, and that there would be ethnic cleansing." Notes Chomsky: "As far back as 1992, European monitors in Macedonia had ' predicted a sudden, massive influx of Albanian refugees if hostilities spread to Kosovo' . " Or, as General Wesley Clark, architect of the bombing put it: "The military authorities fully anticipated the vicious approach that Milosevic would adopt, as well as the terrific efficiency with which he would carry it out." These facts should at the very least cast doubt on the belief that the war was waged to end ethnic cleansing.

2) And escalate the casualties it did. Robert Hayden, director of the Center for Russian and East European Studies of the University of Pittsburgh, offers this assessment: "the casualties among Serb civilians in the first three weeks of the war are higher than all of the casualties on both sides in Kosovo in the three months that led up to this war, yet those three months were supposed to be a humanitarian catastrophe." Thus the war's commanders' predictions of casualties were accurate.

3) It has been speculated that the wording of the Rambouillet Agreement was designed so as to guarantee its rejection-and provide a pretence for war. Namely, that the NATO occupation forces were to have free reign not only of Kosovo but Serbia as well, "without obligation or concern for the laws of the country or jurisdiction of its authorities," notes Chomsky. Meanwhile, local authorities "are, however, required to follow NATO orders." "It is hard to imagine that any country would consider such terms except in the form of unconditional surrender," he points out. Further, Serbia's National Assembly had agreed to an international presence in Kosovo, whose size and character was to be negotiated. In a press briefing this was rebuffed by State Department spokesman James Rubin. Despite the efforts of the media watch group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting to get this fact reported, this portion of the press briefing was apparently not covered by the mainstream media.

These facts offer some indication of what the US wanted: not an end to Milosevic's cleansing, but a war.

4) How has the media shaped perceptions? Characterising the entire effort is the global analyst for the New York Times, Thomas Friedman, who writes, "From the start the Kosovo problem has been about how we should react when bad things happen in unimportant places." Further, that "once the refugee evictions began, ignoring Kosovo would be wrong and therefore using a huge air war for a limited objective was the only thing that made sense." That's all worth pondering, except, as Chomsky notes, "uncontroversially, 'the huge air war' was undertaken before ' the refugee evictions began' at a new level, and led to a rapid and vast escalation of evictions and other atrocities." Unsurprisingly, the media is a willing participant in painting US actions as having the highest of intentions, regardless of whether the facts support or dispute this interpretation.

5) "How we should react when bad things happen in unimportant places" varies according to reasons other than moral principle. Serbia, a disorderly miscreant impeding the institution of the U.S.-dominated global system, is the subject of impassioned arguments that the UN Declaration on Human Rights must be enforced. Meanwhile, Turkey is a "paying ally," as Alexander Solzhenitzyn aptly characterised the NATO member. Here, too, Turkey's current brutal ethnic cleansing of its Kurdish population elicited a swift and decisive US reaction, but of a different kind: to sell Turkey the arms necessary to carry out the job.


THE 7 HABITS OF A HIGHLY EFFECTIVE GLOBAL MAFIA DON

What is the guiding principle that results in the US resort to force? In "The New Military Humanism: Lessons from Kosovo," Noam Chomsky writes that one can "only speculate about how Washington's recent decisions were made" about Kosovo since "direct evidence is slight."

Nonetheless, one might distil his analysis of the actions and the history of US foreign policy into a few prescriptions for global domination.

1. First, be clear about which crimes are true threats to your interests and which ones are not. "Turbulence in the Balkans qualifies as a ' humanitarian crisis,' in the technical sense: it might harm the interests of rich and privileged people" Chomsky writes, which is different from "slaughters in Sierra Leone or Angola, or crimes we support or conduct ourselves."

2. Where clients are obedient, arm and train the "state security forces to suppress the unwanted turbulence, as in Turkey, Colombia, El Salvador and a long list of others." But where not obedient, they are unqualified for the task. Serbia is one case which, "whatever one thinks of it, is a last holdout of independence in Europe," writes Chomsky.

3. Forget about turning to international institutions and following treaty obligations as a means of enforcing international law--these organisations are outside your control. Instead, try NATO, which is at least dominated by the US

4. Control must be credible, so use force. As one White House official explained Clinton's goals in Kosovo: "From the first day, he said we would have to win this. It was absolutely clear. Because of the consequences for the U.S., for NATO, for his responsibilities as Commander in Chief, we had to win this." Threats to bomb quickly became a test of NATO's credibility. Blain Harden of the New York Times put it bluntly: "NATO's only alternative, then, was to bomb--a lot."

5. To maintain your perspective, think like a Mafia Don. As Chomsky puts it, "When some storekeeper does not pay protection money, the goons who are dispatched do not simply take the money; they beat him to a pulp, so that others will get the message. Global Mafia Dons reason the same way, and understandably so. The common argument that this intervention must have been humanitarian because Kosovo has few significant resources or other use for the West reflects a serious misunderstanding of the basic elements of policy and recent history. Did the instant move to undermine the Bishop government in Grenada, and later invade, grow out of concern about the nutmeg trade? Did the US cherish the resources of Guatemala, Indochina, Cuba, Nicaragua, and a long list of other targets of violence in recent years? It is true that in efforts to enlist support, such claims were sometimes made (the tin and rubber of Indochina, etc.), but surely not taken very seriously. And sometimes particular business interests may influence policy (e.g., United Fruit in Guatemala), but rarely as a primary factor."

6. Keep your eyes on the prize(s). First, use "credibility" to contain and remove the rotten apples that might spoil the barrel of the global system which you dominate. "The concern of the Kennedy intellectuals over ' the spread of the Castro idea of taking matters into one's own hands' is a case in point," Chomsky notes. The Soviet Union was another example. A second prize is incorporating Serbia, that unwelcome impediment to Washington's efforts to complete its substantial takeover of Europe, within U.S.-dominated domains. Third, war provides a big stimulus to your economy: "Raytheon alone expected about $1 billion in orders to replenish stocks of Tomahawk cruise missiles and other weapons employed ' to blast targets in the Balkans' ," Chomsky writes. The "real winners in wars" are military industry, observes a headline in the Financial Times. Military spending in high tech boosts the US lead in computers, electronics, automation, telecommunications and the internet, indeed the most dynamic components of the economy. And, don't forget the boon to the construction industry in the rebuilding of what you've just bombed. In short, Chomsky writes, "War may be ' the Health of the State,' as Randolph Bourne observed, but we have to understand ' state' in terms far broader than mere governmental functions."

7. Keep up to date on who you are deterring, and keep hold of those nukes. "The general framework is a shift of ' deterrence strategy' as the Cold War ended in November 1989: from Russia and China, to the Third World generally," Chomsky argues. Citing a partially declassified 1995 study, "Essentials of Post-Cold War Deterrence" by the US Strategic Command (STRAT-COM), Chomsky writes, "The reliance on nuclear weapons is to remain fundamentally unchanged The STRATCOM study stresses the need for credibility: Washington's ' deterrence statement' must be ' convincing' and ' immediately discernible.' " The study states "Unlike chemical or biological weapons, the extreme destruction from a nuclear explosion is immediate, with few if any palliatives to reduce its effect."

8. A bonus nugget: appear to think like a madman. One section of the STRATCOM study spells out the advantages of "Maintaining Ambiguity." As Chomsky writes, "It is important that ' planners should not be too rational about determining what the opponent values the most,' all of which must be targeted. ' [I]t hurts to portray ourselves as too fully rational and cool-headed.' ' That the US may become irrational and vindictive if its vital interests are attacked should be a part of the national persona we project.' " Chomsky continues, "These concepts resurrect the ' madman theory' attributed to Nixon, but this time with credible evidence that the theory is in place. Our enemies should recognise that the ' rogue superpower' is dangerous, unpredictable, ready to lash out at what ' they value the most.' They will then bend to our will."


KOSOVO: THE DENIAL SYNDROME

"The most ultimately righteous of all wars is a war with savages," establishing the rule of "the dominant world races." - Theodore Roosevelt describing the humanitarian motives of the conquest of the West, virtually eliminating its indigenous population.

Painting such intervention as "humanitarian" is routine: "Case books on international humanitarian law and other scholarly sources commonly recognise that genuine cases of intervention undertaken with humanitarian intent are hard to find, though humanitarian pretensions are common," Chomsky writes. Central to these pretensions is denial. Here are some examples of how it works.

One method links heinous criminal actions with "moral power," often lauding historical figures responsible for them, like Theodore Roosevelt. As Chomsky writes,
Theodore Roosevelt is introduced because "Clinton has reclaimed the moral power he admired" in his eminent predecessor. Praise of Clinton commonly adduces the TR model, for example, the inspirational words of Secretary of Defense William Cohen, introducing the President at Norfolk Naval Air Station for his first major address a week after the bombing began. Cohen opened by quoting Theodore Roosevelt, speaking "at the dawn of this century, as America was awakening into its new place in the world." In TR's own words: "Unless you are willing to fight for great ideals, those ideals will vanish." And "today, at the dawn of the next century, we' re joined by President Bill Clinton" who understands as well as his admired model that "standing on the sidelines as a witness to the unspeakable horror that was about to take place [in Kosovo], that would in fact affect the peace and stability of NATO countries, was simply unacceptable."

Concludes Chomsky, "One has to wonder what must pass through the mind of someone invoking this famous racist fanatic and raving jingoist as a model of ' moral power' and ' American values' even recalling the cause that illustrated his cherished ' great ideals' as he issued the ringing declaration quoted: the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Filipinos who had sought liberation from Spain, shortly after Roosevelt's own contribution to preventing Cubans from achieving the same goal" by intervening in 1898, "just in time to prevent its liberation from Spain, turning it into a ' virtual colony of the United States' "

Denial, of course, is a craft whose practice is not restricted to elected officials. Another method is to circumscribe what counts for moral outrage. Speaking of Kosovo, Chomsky writes (next several paragraphs are his words directly):
Other moral leaders also enlisted in the cause, among them Elie Wiesel, who was sent to visit refugee camps in Macedonia, administration officials said, "to focus attention on the moral argument that they say underpins NATO's bombing campaign." A spokesperson for the US embassy explained that "You need a person like Wiesel to keep your moral philosophy on track." Kosovo is a "moral war," Wiesel affirmed: "When evil shows its face, you don't wait, you don't let it gain strength. You must intervene."

Sometimes, at least. Wiesel has remained faithful to his guiding principle that silence is obligatory in the face of ongoing atrocities, however enormous, if they are carried out by an approved agent. On this matter, he has been forthright. Thus he informed the Israeli press that he had been given documentation (from the Israeli press) by a fellow Nobel Laureate on Israel's critical role in implementing horrendous atrocities in Guatemala, as a US proxy, at a time when direct US engagement was hampered by congressional oversight and public opinion. The documentation was accompanied by a suggestion that he might use his prestige and contacts to keep "evil from gaining strength" to a level that many regard as genocidal. Asked about the matter in an interview in Israel, Wiesel "sighed," the journalist reported, saying that "I usually answer at once, but what can I answer to him?" Not that the documentation is flawed, because he recognised that it was not, but [he cannot answer] because even private communication exceeds the limits of subordination to state power and violence to which "The Prophet from New York" is committed.

Wiesel's dedication to silence extends to the past as well. Thus he resigned as chair of a (non-governmental) 1982 Tel Aviv conference on genocide at the request of the government, which did not want to anger its Turkish ally by inclusion of the Armenian genocide in the historical survey. The well-known Holocaust historian Yehuda Bauer later informed the press that he had withdrawn from the conference--"a very serious error" he had come to believe--under pressure from the Israeli Foreign Office and after receiving "a telephone call from Elie Wiesel from New York urging me not to participate."

It is understandable, then, that as the war began,
[quoting from the Boston Globe:] the White House invited a small clutch of guests to join Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor and Nobel Prize recipient, in an East Room discussion on millennial issues. There, where Theodore Roosevelt's children once romped indoors on their ponies, the Clintons listened to the Boston University scholar deliver an address called "The Perils of Indifference" and then lead a conversation about the nexus between morality and politics. [end Boston Globe quote]

--as in Guatemala, Lebanon, and the occupied territories, indeed almost everywhere that the moral truisms mentioned earlier highlight the perils of indifference. One may surmise that these were not the focus of the discussion, and that it remained within the bounds of the art that is practised with great skill by approved moralists, as can readily be determined.

Having reviewed some examples of how denial works from Chomsky's book, it becomes easy to see it at work elsewhere. Take this instance from Todd Gitlin, writing in Mother Jones, September/October 1999. Here we can add a third method of denial: rewrite the record of crimes so that they are mistakes, or miscalculations, and ignore the documentary record. As Gitlin writes:
"And clearly, Rejectionists [people who objected to the NATO bombing in the Former Republic of Yugoslavia] added once the bombing began, the NATO attacks produced a disaster for the Kosovar Albanians. Well, NATO's miscalculation was plain, Milosevic having brutalised the Kosovars tenfold or a hundredfold once the air campaign began. Still, I thought, if NATO did miscalculate, that was grievous but not a crime. The crime was Milosevic's. NATO didn't choose its dismal options."

Gitlin's argument that NATO "miscalculated" can be compared with the actual record of its calculations spelled out by General Wesley Clark, chief architect of the bombing:
"The military authorities fully anticipated the vicious approach that Milosevic would adopt, as well as the terrific efficiency with which he would carry it out."

Further, the General stated, the NATO operation planned by the "political leadership" "was not designed as a means of blocking Serb ethnic cleansing. It was not designed as a means of waging war against the Serb and MUP forces in Kosovo. Not in any way. There was never any intent to do that. That was not the idea."

Writes Chomsky, "The Commanding General, in short, regarded the ethnic cleansing operations of Serbia as ' entirely predictable' and ' not in any way' a concern of the political leadership who ordered the bombing that evoked the atrocities: doubtless an exaggeration but close enough to the mark to allow reasonable people to draw some conclusions."

[Adapted from the Political Literacy Course of Common Courage Press. Subscribe by sending a blank mail to PolitLit-subscribe@listbot.com © Common Courage Press]