Ten years ago we were near the end of the seventy-eight days of air operations against Serbia and the other components of what was known then as the Federal Yugoslavian Republic (FYR). Casting even the slightest respect for either the immunity of civilians from deliberate targeting as well as the Doctrine of Proportionality into the scrap heap, the US and others of the NATO partnership waged unethical, unjustifiable aggressive war from the air against the civilian population of the FYR. At the time the MSM of the US and at least some other countries were filled with cheers for the war and nary a peep about the fate of those down range.
Like Saddam Hussein was and would be again, Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic was widely portrayed as Adolph Hitler's more evil twin. That characterisation was totally unfair--to both Hitler and Milosevic. At the same time the MSM sung hosannas onto the Clinton administration for taking firm and effective action to stop "genocide" in Kosovo. The Americans failed to see a reality quite apparent to their European colleagues. The real bloodletting in Kosovo started after the first US bombs and missiles hit Serb cities, towns, villages.
The media and politicians here ignored the impact of CBU-87/B, which delivered hundreds of sub-munitions over an area of several hundred square yards spreading awesome wounds over the "soft targets" of Serb civilians. These leaders, movers and shakers, the lot of them, blamed the parliament of the FYR for the "necessity" of the war.
The intellectually honest person then or now can only reply, "Crap!"
The responsibility for the "war" with its unending air assaults upon civilian targets (there were darn few genuinely military targets to hit) lies solely and strictly with the US and, to a lesser extent, its NATO partners. Take a look at the Rambouillet Accords which were signed shortly before Clinton and Company launched the high-tech air attack on the FYR. Specifically take a close, hard look at Annex B.
Take your time, the Geek is happy to wait. This deadly document has slumbered unexamined for entirely too long. And, too many people died wrongly, unethically, because of it for it to mould away in the archives unnoticed.
This document is in large measure the product of Richard Holbrooke, who became a legend in the Clinton years for his astute diplomacy in the morass of former Yugoslavia. He has been brought back as the American Special Envoy with a brief for Afghanistan, Pakistan and, at least implicitly, India.
Annex B constitutes an ultimatum. The demand for a NATO occupation in all but name only is clearly meant to be unacceptable to the Serbian government. It is on a par with the ultimata presented by the US to Spain before the "Splendid Little War" at the turn of the Twentieth Century, or that presented by the Dual Monarchy to Serbia which touched off the "Great War" of 1914-1918, or those handed to Baghdad in 1991 and 2003. The wording was carefully calculated in each case to provide a cause for war and a way of displacing responsibility for the effects of war later.
While the genuine motivations of the Clinton administration for desiring and provoking "war," which is to say an exercise in "regime change" before the term was coined, can be debated. And, hopefully will be.
The results are not debatable although they were not given any attention by the MSM at the time--or later. The seventy-eight days of attack by the most advanced manned and unmanned air platforms in the possession of the US (and some others) were massively employed in killing civilians and turning essential civilian infrastructure--power grids, water supply systems, roads, bridges, railroads and public buildings, including hospitals--into bloody rubble. In at least some attacks, anti-personnel munitions including the amazingly deadly CBU-87 Bravo were used on the marketplaces of small towns and villages.
All of this slaughter and devastation took place below the radar of the media and most observers, including the same human rights monitors which are so vocal today with far less cause or justification. Talking heads were bedazzled by the "gee-whiz" nature of the Pentagon's advanced technology munitions and their delivery systems. Government spokespersons gravely and falsely placed the responsibility for any collateral damage on the Belgrade regime and broke their arms patting themselves on the back for having halted genocide and prevented aggression.
Three years later the administration of George W. Bush applied the "lessons" of Operation Allied Force in the implementation of the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. The aerial destruction of the FYR's civilian infrastructure gave rise to the misguided "shock and awe" approach to war on the cheap of Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. The prostitution of the media was continued and improved upon by the administration and Pentagon planners. Misled and bamboozled with dissent and debate disallowed by flag waving jingosim of the same sort which had sped the bombers and cruise missiles on their way in 1999, the American public stood and cheered as the unnecessary invasion and concomitant destruction of Iraq took place.
This time the human rights community was not silent. This time the advocates of the civilians caught in the crosshairs were quickly on the job. But, this time, in Iraq and even more in Afghanistan these advocates have demonstrated the sort of extreme pendulum swing that so often characterises Americans of passionate empathy. This time the human rights crew has ignored with peril to both their credibility and ultimate effectiveness the responsibility of entities other than the American military for civilian death, misery and fear.
This time around the voices which were so conspicuous by their absence during the seventy-eight days of airborne slaughter in the FYR have been equally silent about the responsibility of the Islamist jihadists for civilian deaths in Iraq and, even more, in Afghanistan. In both cases, now and ten years ago, the human rights community has acted, inadvertently or otherwise, to harm the cause of limiting war, restricting the ways in which wars are fought, sparing civilians from use as targets, shields or sacrifices.
For those of us who realise that not only are there conditions and requirements which make the waging of war a necessity of international politics or national self-defense and who are desirous of limiting the destruction and death which is a part of war, it is time to reflect on the lessons of the not too distant past.
It is time to ask ourselves: What did we do, say, think as the bombs rained down on the women and children of Serbia?
No comments:
Post a Comment