Nationalism Is More Alive--And Legal--Then Ever

Yesterday the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that the unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) by Kosovo three years ago was and is legal. The ICJ, as well as assorted proponents of Kosovo's independence including the US, maintains that the decision does not constitute a precedent. Instead, it has been argued, the unique threats presented to the Albanian Muslim majority population of Kosovo by the Serbian government and military dictate the decision is not broadly applicable.

Duh.

Certainly there are ethnic groups such as the Kurds in Iraq, Turkey, Iran, and Syria would disagree violently. The Kurds of Iraq insist with total accuracy that they have been the recipients of armed repression by every indigenous Iraqi regime from the 1930s to the present. This representation could be--and is--echoed by the Kurds of Turkey, Iran, and Syria with only slight differences in detail.

If the test of legality for any unilateral declaration of independence is that of violence perpetrated or threatened by a central government against a region and its people on racial, ethnic, linguistic, or religious grounds then a Kurdish UDI would be as legal as that of Kosovo. So would UDIs issued by other definable groups which constitute a majority in a given region but a minority in the country overall.

There are a number of such today. The Hungarian minorities in defined and narrowly circumscribed areas of Romania and Slovakia are in that number. So also are the Armenians of Azerbaijan's Nagorno-Karabah. While the degree of armed repression or informal but tacitly approved violence directed against these groups is both less than that suffered by the Kurds and even arguable as to existence, a plausible case for justifiable UDI can be made.

There are numerous other ethno-linguistic minorities constituting majorities in definable regions throughout Europe. The Basques are one. So also are the inhabitants of Catalonia. The Scots might say they merit more independence than the amount offered by devolution. The German speakers of the Italian Alps may suddenly discover they have a unique national consciousness and identity.

Nor are other parts of the world immune to the virus of nationalism. Russia is willing, even eager, to see South Ossetia and Abkhazia as genuine national entities deserving of both sovereignty and Russian protection but are not of a similarly generous view when confronted by nationalist insurgencies in the North Caucasus. China is flatly opposed to new nationalisms--when such inflame Tibet or the predominantly Muslim provinces of west China.

Indonesia is currently facing nationalism within its large and diverse in all things except religion population. The provinces of Aceh (which is increasingly Islamist leaning) and West Papua have found they are incompatible with the rest of Indonesia.

The list can go on, but this is enough to outline some of the implications resident in the central part of the ICJ ruling: The protection of the territorial integrity of an established state is no longer unassailable, no longer automatically paramount. This is a seismic shift.

A cardinal principle for years has been dethroned from unquestioned legitimacy. States are no longer sacrosanct. Provided a identifiable and circumscribed region is inhabited by an identifiable and self-conscious majority which is simultaneously a minority subject to persecution at the hands of the larger population and government, its rights of self-determination (and, by implication) self-defense allow for UDI. The provisos of minority status in the larger state and liability to persecution seem to be the critical limit to the ICJ decision as regards applicability or status as a precedent.

Whether this limit is meaningful in the real world outside of courtrooms and chanceries is debatable at best. However, even if the limit defined by the Kosovo decision is observed, there is no bar to the Kurds issuing a UDI without delay. There is no doubt but the Kurds in all four countries where they constitute a regional majority but national minority have been at the totally untender mercies of the central regimes for generations.

Other self-conscious and easily definable minorities such as the Muslims in China and the Tibetans can do the same with legality even if without success. So can the folks in West Papua.

For other self-aware minorities such as the Basques and Catalonians to say nothing of the Scots, Welsh, and German-speakers of the formerly Austrian Alps the same does not apply. There is no recent history of repression or persecution. The Hungarians of Slovakia and Romania fall somewhere in the middle. These ethnic and linguistic minorities have suffered repression in the past and still labor under unofficial and technically illegal disabilities and prejudice. The Kosovo decision is not relevant to any of these groups or the context in which they live.

Now for the Department of Irony. There is a whole bunch of irony resident in the ICJ decision and the reactions of various governments to it. The Russians have already been alluded to. The Kremlin is flatly schizophrenic in the matter. UDI is good for South Ossetia and Abkhazia but very, very bad for the North Caucasus states.

In Washington we see the utter irony of the post-modern, post-nationalist Obama administration eagerly embracing the Kosovo decision and urging all countries which have not yet recognized Kosovo as an independent, sovereign state to do so immediately. At the same time the administration in keeping with its predecessors sees no justification for Kurdish independence.

The Obama administration is generally of the view that the era of the nation-state has (thankfully) come to an end. Except for Kosovo. In its double think the administration not unlike the internationalist minded elites of the European Union is out of step with many, if not most, of humanity. The devolution of power to lower levels, to smaller groups of people sharing history, language, traditions, religion, and defining mythology has been on the upsurge for several decades now. And, it shows no sign of abating let alone reversing.

For some years now there has been a growing reaction against central governments which are seen rightly or wrongly as remote, uncaring, arrogant, and disconnected with the needs, hopes, and fears of the common folks. One symptom of this phenomenon is the push to governments made up of "people like us." That is people who speak the same language, share the same values, hold the same traditions dear, and believe in the same defining mythology. This in its turn implies a move toward ethnic, religious, linguistic, and cultural identity as the primary means of defining legitimate government and a legitimate state representing the self-conscious nation.

In the Kosovo decision the ICJ has put itself willingly or not, knowingly or not, on the side of this specific historical trajectory. In being selective as to approval of the Kosovo ruling, the Obama administration and others of similar mind in Western Europe have shown a total obliviousness to the emergence and power of this still new and growing trajectory.

As a final irony it is interesting to see the "progressives" being the most reactionary.

Remember Serbia, 1999

The contretemps over American use of air delivered fire in Afghanistan, which appears to be a story with undeservedly long legs, has served to remind the Geek of the worst abuse of aerial operations by the US and other NATO countries in the years since World War II. In making that assessment the Geek is in no way ignoring the arguable excesses of Linebacker I and II and Rolling Thunder. Nor is he overlooking the widespread, militarily unjustifiable use of air strikes on civilian infrastructure targets far removed from the area of combat operations in Desert Storm or in the more recent invasion of Iraq.

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?