The following is the best commentary on Kosovo that I have run across.
(And, yes, I believe the usual spelling is with one 's')

Richard Harris
McMaster University

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The Current Bombings by Noam Chomsky

>>There have been many inquiries concerning NATO (meaning primarily US)
>>bombing in Kosovo. A great deal has een written about the topic,
>>including Znet commentaries. I'd like to make a few general
>>observations, keeping to facts that are not seriously contested.
>>
>>There are two fundamental issues: (1) What are the accepted and
>>applicable "rules of world order"? (2) How do
>>these or other considerations apply in the case of Kosovo?
>>
>>(1) What are the accepted and applicable "rules of world order"?
>>there is a regime of international law and international order,
>>binding on all states, based on the UN Charter and subsequent
>>resolutions and World Court decisions. In brief, the threat or use of
>>force is banned unless explicitly authorized by the Security Council
>>after it has determined that peaceful means have failed, or in
>>self-defense against "armed attack" (a narrow concept) until the
>>Security Council acts.
>>
>>There is, of course, more to say. Thus there is at least a tension, if
>>not an outright contradiction, between the rules of world order laid
>>down in the UN Charter and the rights articulated in the Universal
>>Declaration of Human Rights (UD), a second pillar of the world order
>>established under US initiative after World War II. The Charter bans
>>force violating state sovereignty; the UD guarantees the rights of
>>individuals against oppressive states. The issue of "humanitarian
>>intervention" arises from this tension. It is the right of
>>"humanitarian intervention" that is claimed by the US/NATO in Kosovo,
>>and that is generally supported by editorial opinion and news reports
>>(in the latter case, reflexively, even by the very choice of
>>terminology).
>>
>>The question is addressed in a news report in the NY Times (March 27),
>>headlined "Legal Scholars Support Case for Using Force" in Kosovo
>>(March 27). One example is offered: Allen Gerson, former counsel to
>>the US mission to the UN. Two other legal scholars are cited. One, Ted
>>Galen Carpenter, "scoffed at the Administration argument" and
>>dismissed the alleged right of intervention. The third is Jack
>>Goldsmith, a specialist on international law at Chicago Law school. He
>>says that critics of the NATO bombing "have a pretty good legal
>>argument," but "many people think [an exception for humanitarian
>>intervention] does exist as a matter of custom and practice." That
>>summarizes the evidence offered to justify the favored conclusion
>>stated in the headline.
>>
>>Goldsmith's observation is reasonable, at least if we agree that facts
>>are relevant to the determination of "custom and practice." We may
>>also bear in mind a truism: the right of humanitarian intervention, if
>>it exists, is premised on the "good faith" of those intervening, and
>>that assumption is based not on their rhetoric but on their record, in
>>particular their record of adherence to the principles of
>>international law, World Court decisions, and so on. That is indeed a
>>truism, at least with regard to others. Consider, for example, Iranian
>>offers to intervene in Bosnia to prevent massacres at a time when the
>>West would not do so. These were dismissed with ridicule (in fact,
>>ignored); if there was a reason beyond subordination to power, it was
>>because Iranian "good faith" could not be assumed. A rational person
>>then asks obvious questions: is the Iranian record of intervention and
>>terror worse than that of the US? And other questions, for example:
>>How should we assess the "good faith" of the only country to have
>>vetoed a Security Council resolution calling on all states to obey
>>international law? What about its historical record? Unless such
>>questions are prominent on the agenda of discourse, an honest person
>>will dismiss it as mere allegiance to doctrine. A useful exercise is
>>to determine how much of the literature - -- media or other --
>>survives such elementary conditions as these.
>>
>>2) How do these or other considerations apply in the case of Kosovo?
>>There has been a humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo in the past year,
>>overwhelmingly attributable to Yugoslav military forces. The main
>>victims have been ethnic Albanian Kosovars, some 90% of the population
>>of this Yugoslav territory. The standard estimate is 2000 deaths and
>>hundreds of thousands of refugees.
>>
>>In such cases, outsiders have three choices:
>>
>>(I) try to escalate the catastrophe
>>
>>(II) do nothing
>>
>>(III) try to mitigate the catastrophe
>>
>>The choices are illustrated by other contemporary cases. Let's keep to
>>a few of approximately the same scale, and ask where Kosovo fits into
>>the pattern. (A) Colombia. In Colombia, according to State Department
>>estimates, the annual level of political killing by the government and
>>its paramilitary associates is about at the level of Kosovo, and
>>refugee flight primarily from their atrocities is well over a million.
>>Colombia has been the leading Western hemisphere recipient of US arms
>>and training as violence increased through the '90s, and that
>>assistance is now increasing, under a "drug war" pretext dismissed by
>>almost all serious observers. The Clinton administration was
>>particularly enthusiastic in its praise for President Gaviria, whose
>>tenure in office was responsible for "appalling levels of violence,"
>>according to human rights organizations, even surpassing his
>>predecessors. Details are readily available.
>>
>>In this case, the US reaction is (I): escalate the atrocities.
>>
>>(B) Turkey. By very conservative estimate, Turkish repression of Kurds
>>in the '90s falls in the category of Kosovo. It peaked in the early
>>'90s; one index is the flight of over a million Kurds from the
>>countryside to the unofficial Kurdish capital Diyarbakir from 1990 to
>>1994, as the Turkish army was devastating the countryside. 1994 marked
>>two records: it was "the year of the worst repression in the Kurdish
>>provinces" of Turkey, Jonathan Randal reported from the scene, and the
>>year when Turkey became "the biggest single importer of American
>>military hardware and thus the world's largest arms purchaser." When
>>human rights groups exposed Turkey's use of US jets to bomb villages,
>>the Clinton Administration found ways to evade laws requiring
>>suspension of arms deliveries, much as it was doing in Indonesia and
>>elsewhere.
>>
>>Colombia and Turkey explain their (US-supported) atrocities on grounds
>>that they are defending their countries from the threat of terrorist
>>guerrillas. As does the government of Yugoslavia.
>>
>>Again, the example illustrates (I): try to escalate the atrocities.
>>
>>(C) Laos. Every year thousands of people, mostly children and poor
>>farmers, are killed in the Plain of Jars in Northern Laos, the scene
>>of the heaviest bombing of civilian targets in history it appears, and
>>arguably the most cruel: Washington's furious assault on a poor
>>peasant society had little to do with its wars in the region. The
>>worst period was from 1968, when Washington was compelled to undertake
>>negotiations (under popular and business pressure), ending the regular
>>bombardment of North Vietnam. Kissinger-Nixon then decided to shift
>>the planes to bombardment of Laos and Cambodia.
>>
>>The deaths are from "bombies," tiny anti-personnel weapons, far worse
>>than land-mines: they are designed specifically to kill and maim, and
>>have no effect on trucks, buildings, etc. The Plain was saturated with
>>hundreds of millions of these criminal devices, which have a
>>failure-to-explode rate of 20%-30% according to the manufacturer,
>>Honeywell. The numbers suggest either remarkably poor quality control
>>or a rational policy of murdering civilians by delayed action. These
>>were only a fraction of the technology deployed, including advanced
>>missiles to penetrate caves where families sought shelter. Current
>>annual casualties from "bombies" are estimated from hundreds a year to
>>"an annual nationwide casualty rate of 20,000," more than half of them
>>deaths, according to the veteran Asia reporter Barry Wain of the Wall
>>Street Journal -- in its Asia edition. A conservative estimate, then,
>>is that the crisis this year is approximately comparable to Kosovo,
>>though deaths are far more highly concentrated among children - --
>>over half, according to analyses reported by the Mennonite Central
>>Committee, which has been working there since 1977 to alleviate the
>>continuing atrocities.
>>
>>There have been efforts to publicize and deal with the humanitarian
>>catastrophe. A British-based Mine Advisory Group (MAG) is trying to
>>remove the lethal objects, but the US is "conspicuously missing from
>>the handful of Western organisations that have followed MAG," the
>>British press reports, though it has finally agreed to train some
>>Laotian civilians. The British press also reports, with some anger,
>>the allegation of MAG specialists that the US refuses to provide them
>>with "render harmless procedures" that would make their work "a lot
>>quicker and a lot safer." These remain a state secret, as does the
>>whole affair in the United States. The Bangkok press reports a very
>>similar situation in Cambodia, particularly the Eastern region where
>>US bombardment from early 1969 was most intense.
>>
>>In this case, the US reaction is (II): do nothing. And the reaction of
>>the media and commentators is to keep silent, following the norms
>>under which the war against Laos was designated a "secret war" --
>>meaning well-known, but suppressed, as also in the case of Cambodia
>>from March 1969. The level of self-censorship was extraordinary then,
>>as is the current phase. The relevance of this shocking example should
>>be obvious without further comment.
>>
>>I will skip other examples of (I) and (II), which abound, and also
>>much more serious contemporary atrocities, such as the huge slaughter
>>of Iraqi civilians by means of a particularly vicious form of
>>biological warfare -- "a very hard choice," Madeleine Albright
>>commented on national TV in 1996 when asked for her reaction to the
>>killing of half a million Iraqi children in 5 years, but "we think the
>>price is worth it." Current estimates remain about 5000 children
>>killed a month, and the price is still "worth it." These and other
>>examples might also be kept in mind when we read awed rhetoric about
>>how the "moral compass" of the Clinton Administration is at last
>>functioning properly, as the Kosovo example illustrates.
>>
>>Just what does the example illustrate? The threat of NATO bombing,
>>predictably, led to a sharp escalation of atrocities by the Serbian
>>Army and paramilitaries, and to the departure of international
>>observers, which of course had the same effect. Commanding General
>>Wesley Clark declared that it was "entirely predictable" that Serbian
>>terror and violence would intensify after the NATO bombing, exactly as
>>happened. The terror for the first time reached the capital city of
>>Pristina, and there are credible reports of large-scale destruction of
>>villages, assassinations, generation of an enormous refugee flow,
>>perhaps an effort to expel a good part of the Albanian population --
>>all an "entirely predictable" consequence of the threat and then the
>>use of force, as General Clark rightly observes.
>>
>>Kosovo is therefore another illustration of (I): try to escalate the
>>violence, with exactly that expectation. To find examples illustrating
>>(III) is all too easy, at least if we keep to official rhetoric. The
>>major recent academic study of "humanitarian intervention," by Sean
>>Murphy, reviews the record after the Kellogg-Briand pact of 1928 which
>>outlawed war, and then since the UN Charter, which strengthened and
>>articulated these provisions. In the first phase, he writes, the most
>>prominent examples of "humanitarian intervention" were Japan's attack
>>on Manchuria, Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia, and Hitler's
>>occupation of parts of Czechoslovakia. All were accompanied by highly
>>uplifting humanitarian rhetoric, and factual justifications as well.
>>Japan was going to establish an "earthly paradise" as it defended
>>Manchurians from "Chinese bandits," with the support of a leading
>>Chinese nationalist, a far more credible figure than anyone the US was
>>able to conjure up during its attack on South Vietnam. Mussolini was
>>liberating thousands of slaves as he carried forth the Western
>>"civilizing mission." Hitler announced Germany's intention to end
>>ethnic tensions and violence, and "safeguard the national
>>individuality of the German and Czech peoples," in an operation
>>"filled with earnest desire to serve the true interests of the peoples
>>dwelling in the area," in accordance with their will; the Slovakian
>>President asked Hitler to declare Slovakia a protectorate.
>>
>>Another useful intellectual exercise is to compare those obscene
>>justifications with those offered for interventions, including
>>"humanitarian interventions," in the post-UN Charter period.
>>
>>In that period, perhaps the most compelling example of (III) is the
>>Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in December 1978, terminating Pol
>>Pot's atrocities, which were then peaking. Vietnam pleaded the right
>>of self-defense against armed attack, one of the few post-Charter
>>examples when the plea is plausible: the Khmer Rouge regime
>>(Democratic Kampuchea, DK) was carrying out murderous attacks against
>>Vietnam in border areas. The US reaction is instructive. The press
>>condemned the "Prussians" of Asia for their outrageous violation of
>>international law. They were harshly punished for the crime of having
>>terminated Pol Pot's slaughters, first by a (US-backed) Chinese
>>invasion, then by US imposition of extremely harsh sanctions. The US
>>recognized the expelled DK as the official government of Cambodia,
>>because of its "continuity" with the Pol Pot regime, the State
>>Department explained. Not too subtly, the US supported the Khmer Rouge
>>in its continuing attacks in Cambodia.
>>
>>The example tells us more about the "custom and practice" that
>>underlies "the emerging legal norms of humanitarian intervention."
>>
>>Despite the desperate efforts of ideologues to prove that circles are
>>square, there is no serious doubt that the NATO bombings further
>>undermine what remains of the fragile structure of international law.
>>The US made that entirely clear in the discussions leading to the NATO
>>decision. Apart from the UK (by now, about as much of an independent
>>actor as the Ukraine was in the pre-Gorbachev years), NATO countries
>>were skeptical of US policy, and were particularly annoyed by
>>Secretary of State Albright's "saber-rattling" (Kevin Cullen, Boston
>>Globe, Feb.22). Today, the more closely one approaches the conflicted
>>region, the greater the opposition to Washington's insistence on
>>force, even within NATO (Greece and Italy). France had called for a UN
>>Security Council resolution to authorize deployment of NATO
>>peacekeepers. The US flatly refused, insisting on "its stand that NATO
>>should be able to act independently of the United Nations," State
>>Department officials explained. The US refused to permit the
>>"neuralgic word `authorize'" to appear in the final NATO statement,
>>unwilling to concede any authority to the UN Charter and international
>>law; only the word "endorse" was permitted (Jane Perlez, NYT, Feb.
>>11).
>>
>>Similarly the bombing of Iraq was a brazen expression of contempt for
>>the UN, even the specific timing, and was so understood. And of course
>>the same is true of the destruction of half the pharmaceutical
>>production of a small African country a few months earlier, an event
>>that also does not indicate that the "moral compass" is straying from
>>righteousness -- not to speak of a record that would be prominently
>>reviewed right now if facts were considered relevant to determining
>>"custom and practice."
>>
>>It could be argued, rather plausibly, that further demolition of the
>>rules of world order is irrelevant, just as it had lost its meaning by
>>the late 1930s. The contempt of the world's leading power for the
>>framework of world order has become so extreme that there is nothing
>>left to discuss. A review of the internal documentary record
>>demonstrates that the stance traces back to the earliest days, even to
>>the first memorandum of the newly-formed National Security Council in
>>1947. During the Kennedy years, the stance began to gain overt
>>expression. The main innovation of the Reagan-Clinton years is that
>>defiance of international law and the Charter has become entirely
>>open. It has also been backed with interesting explanations, which
>>would be on the front pages, and prominent in the school and
>>university curriculum, if truth and honesty were considered
>>significant values. The highest authorities explained with brutal
>>clarity that the World Court, the UN, and other agencies had become
>>irrelevant because they no longer follow US orders, as they did in the
>>early postwar years.
>>
>>One might then adopt the official position. That would be an honest
>>stand, at least if it were accompanied by refusal to play the cynical
>>game of self-righteous posturing and wielding of the despised
>>principles of international law as a highly selective weapon against
>>shifting enemies.
>>
>>While the Reaganites broke new ground, under Clinton the defiance of
>>world order has become so extreme as to be of concern even to hawkish
>>policy analysts. In the current issue of the leading establishment
>>journal, Foreign Affairs, Samuel Huntington warns that Washington is
>>treading a dangerous course. In the eyes of much of the world - --
>>probably most of the world, he suggests -- the US is "becoming the
>>rogue superpower," considered "the single greatest external threat to
>>their societies." Realist "international relations theory," he argues,
>>predicts that coalitions may arise to counterbalance the rogue
>>superpower. On pragmatic grounds, then, the stance should be
>>reconsidered. Americans who prefer a different image of their society
>>might call for a reconsideration on other than pragmatic grounds.
>>
>>Where does that leave the question of what to do in Kosovo? It leaves
>>it unanswered. The US has chosen a course of action which, as it
>>explicitly recognizes, escalates atrocities and violence --
>>"predictably"; a course of action that also strikes yet another blow
>>against the regime of international order, which does offer the weak
>>at least some limited protection from predatory states. As for the
>>longer term, consequences are unpredictable. One plausible observation
>>is that "every bomb that falls on Serbia and every ethnic killing in
>>Kosovo suggests that it will scarcely be possible for Serbs and
>>Albanians to live beside each other in some sort of peace" (Financial
>>Times, March 27). Some of the longer-term possible outcomes are
>>extremely ugly, as has not gone without notice.
>>
>>A standard argument is that we had to do something: we could not
>>simply stand by as atrocities continue. That is never true. One
>>choice, always, is to follow the Hippocratic principle: "First, do no
>>harm." If you can think of no way to adhere to that elementary
>>principle, then do nothing. There are always ways that can be
>>considered. Diplomacy and negotiations are never at an end.
>>
>>The right of "humanitarian intervention" is likely to be more
>>frequently invoked in coming years -- maybe with justification, maybe
>>not -- now that Cold War pretexts have lost their efficacy. In such an
>>era, it may be worthwhile to pay attention to the views of highly
>>respected commentators -- not to speak of the World Court, which
>>explicitly ruled on this matter in a decision rejected by the United
>>States, its essentials not even reported.
>>
>>In the scholarly disciplines of international affairs and
>>international law it would be hard to find more respected voices than
>>Hedley Bull or Leon Henkin. Bull warned 15 years ago that "Particular
>>states or groups of states that set themselves up as the authoritative
>>judges of the world common good, in disregard of the views of others,
>>are in fact a menace to international order, and thus to effective
>>action in this field." Henkin, in a standard work on world order,
>>writes that the "pressures eroding the prohibition on the use of force
>>are deplorable, and the arguments to legitimize the use of force in
>>those circumstances are unpersuasive and dangerous... Violations of
>>human rights are indeed all too common, and if it were permissible to
>>remedy them by external use of force, there would be no law to forbid
>>the use of force by almost any state against almost any other. Human
>>rights, I believe, will have to be vindicated, and other injustices
>>remedied, by other, peaceful means, not by opening the door to
>>aggression and destroying the principle advance in international law,
>>the outlawing of war and the prohibition of force."
>>
>>Recognized principles of international law and world order, solemn
>>treaty obligations, decisions by the World Court, considered
>>pronouncements by the most respected commentators -- these do not
>>automatically solve particular problems. Each issue has to be
>>considered on its merits. For those who do not adopt the standards of
>>Saddam Hussein, there is a heavy burden of proof to meet in
>>undertaking the threat or use of force in violation of the principles
>>of international order. Perhaps the burden can be met, but that has to
>>be shown, not merely proclaimed with passionate rhetoric. The
>>consequences of such violations have to be assessed carefully -- in
>>particular, what we understand to be "predictable." And for those who
>>are minimally serious, the reasons for the actions also have to be
>>assessed -- again, not simply by adulation of our leaders and their
>>"moral compass."









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