Humanitarian Intervention?
By Jim Burkholder, Past-President, Veterans for Peace
© 2002 Veterans for Peace Posted April 17, 2002
The public relations gurus of our government (Departments of State, Defense, Congress, and the White House) are making wide use of the term “humanitarian intervention” when they speak of our military activity in Kosovo and the rest of Yugoslavia.
When we wish to disguise a distasteful medicine we sugar coat it. When we wish to disguise the factual aspects of war we now call it humanitarian intervention, an oxymoron of the highest order.
How do we intervene in a conflict in which we were the principle instigator? How can one call it humanitarian when we fire high explosive weaponry such as cruise missiles, cluster bombs, and depleted uranium shells on a populated target.
Those whose lives were affected adversely even those whom we professed to be helping, could not call our assistance humanitarian. We never will know how high the civilian casualties in the target areas were, But, we profess great pride in that, for us, it was a bloodless war..
Our intervention in the Balkans began in the late 1980’s at the instigation of our financial and industrial interests. Quietly our government set about destabilizing the relatively good economy of Yugoslavia.
On November 5, 1990, Congress passed the 1991 Foreign Operations Appropreations Act which became law when President Bush signed it. One section of that law stopped all financial assistance from the US to Yugoslavia within six months. Its provisions were so stringent that it has been referred to by the CIA as a signed death warrant and was also cited in their analysis stating that a bloody civil war would ensue in Yugoslavia..
Other provisions of that law required a cessation of financial activity favorable to Yugoslavia on the part of the Word Bank and International Monetary Fund. We also promoted secession of the various Yugoslav Republics by requiring separate elections within each of those republics and demanding US State Department approval of election procedures and returns before any further aid could be resumed to individual republics..
As time passed, and it did not take long, the Yugoslavian economy deteriorated, industries failed, unemployment vastly increased, and old ethnic tensions which had lain dormant for fifty years began to emerge once more.
Hastening the demise of the Yugoslav Federation, sanctions and embargoes were instituted by the US, the European Community (EC) and the UN. In January, 1992, Slovenian and Croatian independence was recognized by the EC and US, stirring up further secessionist hopes by groups within Bosnia-Herzegovinia and Macedonia..
Despite the sanctions which barred the furnishing of military assistance and weaponry to Yugoslavia, in 1993 arms and military intelligence were furnished to Croatia by the US. That same year, Croatia was given military advisors from the corporation titled Military Professional Resources, Inc. (MPRI), a group of US retired high ranking military personnel with close ties to the Pentagon.
With their assistance, the Croatian Army, in July, 1995, was judged combat ready. That month the US Secretary of State and the German Foreign Minister at a meeting in London approved a plan for Croatian military action against Serbs living in Bosnia and Croatia.
On August 4, 1995, with air cover provided by NATO aircraft, the Croatian forces attacked the Serbs who were long time residents in the Krajina area of Croatia, displacing somewhat in excess of 350,000 Serbs and murdering about 14, 000. The US ambassador to Croatia hastened to state that this action was not ethnic cleansing since that was done only by Serbs.
In the meantime, our government was actively courting the Albanians to grant us bases within their territory for which we would, and did, provide arms and assistance to their offspring, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)..
We and our principal allies in the EC avoided bringing the UN into the negotiations with Yugoslavia prior to our military campaign because we knew that humanitarian means would be invoked to solve the conflict. We and our allies were intent on imposing our military prowess over Yugoslavia to the extent that we were willing to profane the defensive mission of NATO by using its aircraft to destroy the cultural, economic, and industrial infrastructure of a nation with whom we were not at war..
Webster defines the adjective humanitarian as helping humanity, and the noun intervention as interference of one state in the affairs of another. War with all of its violence and destruction can never qualify as humanitarian and it is a very obtrusive interference in someone else’s affairs.
The actions of the US and its allies culmination in the seventy eight days of bombing Kosovo and Serbia could, and should, instead be recognized as war crimes against humanity, as has been alleged from many sources..
ABOLISH WAR submitted by Jim Burkholder.