The stated aim of the latest US bombing was not, initially, the Prevention of a Humanitartian Catastrophe.
    Serbia had been told that if it did not sign the Rambouillet 'Agreements' it would be bombed - in flagrant disregard of Article 52 of the Vienna Convention of the Law of Treaties [ Coercion of a State by the threat or use of force: A treaty is void if its conclusion has been procured by the threat or use of force in violation of the principles of international law embodied in the Charter of the United Nations. ]

   Nobody familiar with the contents of Rambouillet, in particular Appendix B, would expect any sovereign state to sign such a preposterous document. The imposition of free market economics on a socialist economy is also worthy of note. Serbian refusal necessitated NATO action in order to restore NATO credibility and to force Milosavich back to the negotiating table. The unstated possibility of unilateral action by US (plus its war puppy) effectively emasculating NATO ensured NATO compliance with US wishes.

   Those who warned that such a bombing would inevitably result in a degradation of the humanitarian situation were ignored. Its contravention of international law was deemed irrelevant. A short sharp punitive strike was necessary in the interests of future peace, NATO gleefully opened its toy box.

   The predicted escalation in atrocities by Serbian security forces and use of Kosovars as warpawns duly followed, providing the humanitarian justification for the continuation and escalation of NATO agression. Billions of dollars worth of weapons were fired in a wargasm of product placement while Blair and Clinton basked in gory glory.

   The Right To Kill Innocents for a Cause is not attained without being Prepared To Die for that Cause, Just Wars require commitment. NATO's placing of the lives of its pilots above the lives of Serbian civilians violates this basic principle. If lives must be risked to hinder a war machine then the risks are to borne by those who are paid to take them, not by innocent third parties. To the extent that Serbian citizens are culpable for the crimes committed by their government against the Kosovans, so too are NATO personnel culpable for the crimes aided and abetted by their government against the Guatemalan Mayans or East Timorese.

   The US use of depleted uranium weaponary with concomitant collateral damage to future generations is so clearly Evil that all pretence of humanitarian concern is revealed to be the vile hypocrisy of moral decreptitude.

   That so many of the public can be duped into so deluded a state as to believe that the US is motivated by such concerns as ethics or morality in the presence of so much documented evidence of its vile rapaciousness ( Cambodia, Nicaragua...), or that the UK has any role in NATO beyond fawning endorsement of US policy, is a measure of the culpability and servility of US/UK media interests,.

   Arms dealing nations are morally unfit to claim humanitarian motivation for military operations.

   Eventually a settlement substantially similar to the original Serbian counter proposal to Rambouillet was accepted by NATO. One of the few remaining socialist economies has been bombed to rubble. Reconstruction funds are, of course, conditional on adoption of Western economic precepts.

   Kosovo was not a Just War, it was just war.

   I recommend Zmag and Peace In The Balkans for insightful and honest commentory on this issue.

Copyright (c) Ian Bell 1999
Permission granted to copy and distribute this material.

Back to the Vortex
Back to Ian Bell's home page