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Kosovo - What should Americans be asking?

" I can report to the American people that we have achieved a victory for a safer world, for our democratic values, and for a stronger America. … We have sent a message of determination and hope to all the world. Think of all the millions of innocent people who have died in this bloody century because democracies reacted too late to evil and aggression. … In a world too divided by fear among people of different racial, ethnic, and religious groups, we have given confidence to the friends of freedom and pause to those who would exploit human differences for inhuman purposes. …So tonight I ask you to be proud of your country and very proud of the men and women who serve it in uniform, for in Kosovo we did the right thing. We did it the right way, and we will finish the job."

Excerpts from President Clinton's speech to the nation, June 10, 1999

All the right words

As the NATO engagement in Kosovo has moved from that of combat to one of peacekeeping, Americans need to ask themselves some serious questions about what has happened and what remains ahead for us. The words in the President's speech were well crafted, as Clinton sought to provide a closure of sorts to the controversial bombing of Yugoslavia and move on to something less likely to draw critical fire. The president's message, taken by most at face value, allows us as a nation to feel good about what we have done. The administration has declared victory and taken the wind out of the sails of most critics of the Kosovo campaign.

Columnist William Safire, former Nixon speechwriter and conservative spokesman, claimed in his June 14^th column that the president's phrase, "We did it the right way…" was a direct challenge to Safire (and by implication, his acolytes and other Republican critics of the war in Kosovo). Safire's column of June 7^th had summarized that Clinton had done "the right thing in the wrong way." Safire enumerated 8 lessons to be learned, all of which hearken back to traditional Ronald Reagan cold war philosophy. Safire's list is headed by an admonishment that the president should never have stated publicly that he did not intend to use ground troops. ("Never tell the criminals what you will not do.") That was the heart of the position taken by one of the few remaining legitimate warriors in public life, Arizona Senator John McCain. Opposition to U.S. bombing in the Congress seemed to be centered more on Clinton's competence in running a war than as it did on the wisdom of U.S. policy.

Thus the debate is framed. We can now deliberate on what America can learn from this intervention to help us execute the next intervention more effectively. We do not really ask the fundamental question that every ordinary American has the perfect right to ask.

Mr. President, why is the United States investing large sums of money and risking American lives intervening in a civil war, trying to solve extremely complex problems in a remote corner of Europe? Have we not problems right here at home that better warrant our attention?

As United States presidents since Lincoln have known, it is not only necessary to insure that military and diplomatic bases are covered in waging war; the American public needs to be sold on the policy as well. American citizens have always been a pretty wary bunch in this respect, but in the end, we are almost always willing to buy the argument. An appeal to us that we can at least do something to bring about a slightly better world (and do so with almost no U.S. casualties) is the message that could be sold here. The average American has bought the president's message, and continued U.S. presence in the Balkans will not meet serious opposition, barring an unexpected disaster. For the moment, at least, the administration can go about its business counting on at least the cautious support of the American people.

Selling skills a used car dealer would be proud of

In reality, there are very few scenarios where ordinary Americans have a stake in war. Dating from the days when feudal lords conscripted their serfs to do battle against the serfs of other lords, the larger issues which lead to war have nothing to do with common citizens. This was certainly true in Kosovo. When you consider the absolute lack of any threat to United States interests, you have to admire the way in which the Clinton administration pulled it off.

The need to "sell" war in a free society is not new and has always required a good salesman. Abraham Lincoln had the cause of freeing the slaves at his disposal, and it still wasn't easy for him. History tells us of the difficulty both Wilson and Roosevelt faced in explaining to congress and the American people why we needed to get ourselves involved in European wars. Those were the days when congress still declared war as required in the Constitution. Starting with the Korean War (make that Korean conflict), we seem to have adopted a new means of legitimizing our military engagements. We have evolved from a nation founded on a very cautious view of outside meddling, to one in which engagement is the rule. Because we still remain an open society, we the people must be given at least the illusion that we can have some veto power over executive branch decisions to engage us militarily. After all, it is our money they're spending, and our lives they're risking.

As citizens get more sophisticated, the selling skills must improve. When there weren't enough real reasons to engage, we weren't above manufacturing them. The Gulf of Tonkin incident, which provided the rationale for early escalation of U.S. involvement in Viet Nam, turned out to be provoked and not at all what it was presented to be at the time. President Bush, in his efforts to build consensus for his re-taking of Kuwait, did a masterful job of bringing together the largest coalition of nations ever assembled. Late in the process, told by his advisors that public approval still wasn't where they wanted it, steps needed to be taken to "whip up support" among the American people. These efforts eventually included propaganda campaigns by the Kuwaiti royal family whereby American public relations firms were contracted to publicize bogus stories of Iraqi soldiers removing babies from incubators in hospitals. By means foul or fair, effective leaders will find ways to keep the people "in check" as they go about their meddling ways.

Judgement: success or failure

No one should really be surprised that Clinton has succeeded like his predecessors before him in making what could easily be seen as misguided foreign policy look like a heroic American effort. As part of the rhetoric to convince us that it was worth American treasure and lives to engage the Serbs, President Clinton referred to Slobodan Milosevic as another Hitler and recounted how the Europeans had not acted to stop Hitler in the 1930s and later regretted it. While Milosevic certainly can't be defended and deserves condemnation for what his forces have done in Kosovo and elsewhere, to compare him to Hitler is to use a hyperbole that most reasonable people would consider absurd. (President Bush had already played the Hitler card with Saddam Hussein, whom you may notice is still holding office.)

Albanians in Kosovo, the victims this action was launched to protect, fared very badly despite the bombing, making any claim of a successful mission questionable. NATO officers in Kosovo estimate that at least 10,000 ethnic Albanians were murdered, and the actual figure could be much higher. Details of what happened there are so horrible that most Americans simply can't absorb them. In the end, our judgement on the rightness of our intervention rests with the question of whether we actually prevented an even worse scenario from taking place. The reality of the world is that ethnic groups often share geography and intermingle for years without hostility and suddenly find themselves on opposite sides as leaders seek to extend their own power by exploiting ethnocentricity and xenophobia, qualities occurring quite naturally in human beings. Given that Milosevic (or any other Serb leader) was willing to do this, did our intervention produce a less horrible scenario than if we had held back and used only non-military pressure? That is a debate which has no clear answer.

Clinton did sense correctly that Americans would have no tolerance for U.S. casualties. Americans can take some small comfort in knowing that their veto power worked in a limited if very imperfect fashion. We'll go along with your war, but only with conditions - limited cost in American lives and limited culpability for civilian casualties. It is a reality that no future president, no matter how good his (or her) selling skills are, will ever again be able to convince us that finding a solution to these kinds of problems in far-away lands are worth American lives. For future situations, we can expect the question to be: "Given that we are not willing to lose lives in causes like these, does it make any sense to engage at all?"

Points to ponder

If our political leadership is dismayed by our skepticism in these foreign adventures, they must recognize that they have given us much to be skeptical about. As Clinton said in his speech, one of the reasons we went to Kosovo was our own democratic values. If we indeed are a government of the people, let us think more closely what policy we the people are fostering.

On the positive side: American citizens can take some pride in the fact that we were willing, even in a limited way, to challenge a Serb regime which had gone beyond the bounds of acceptable behavior. Selective as it may be, our willingness to engage here could have some deterrent effect on other small-scale tyrants in the future. It is a reasonable argument that says you must engage from time to time if your diplomatic pressures are to be effective. We can also speculate with some validity that by engaging with force in Kosovo, we may have indeed avoided the Balkan domino effect of war spilling over to Macedonia and drawing in the Turks and the Greeks. This kind of parlor room diplomatic guessing game is hard to dismiss, mostly because it can't be disproved.

We all have a right to be suitably impressed that our men and women in our military and our high-tech weaponry were able to deliver heavy damage with no combat loss of life on our side. Civilian casualties did occur, but in smaller numbers than might have been the case. The courage and skills of all those who carried out the missions deserves our respect.

Even though Congress was unable to provide any clear counter message, to their credit, both Georgia senators, Paul Coverdell and Max Cleland, each in their own way, made it clear that they thought this military action was ill-advised.

What's wrong with the picture?

In a word, plenty. First of all, Americans need to try and understand how the rest of the world sees us when we choose to flex our muscle. While it may be presented in our press as a policy driven almost exclusively by humanitarian reasons, not everyone gets that picture. We need to understand that by attacking a smaller country without provocation, our president invites the resentment of hundreds of millions people worldwide, as well as the active interest of terrorists who might want to react to such a bellicose foreign policy. Did you ever wonder why the United States has increasingly become the target of terrorism? We perceive ourselves as a generous, helpful nation, and in many cases this is true. Every time we choose to bomb, we make new enemies. All the generous efforts of USAID and other federal and private American agencies is negated by the killing and brutality we reign on the world when we resort to the same violence we claim to abhor in others.

If we are to have any hope for a more stable world, we need to be willing to stand by the rules, even when it prevents us from exercising our super-power prerogatives. The attack on Yugoslavia was totally outside the charter of NATO, which was assembled as a defensive alliance. The debate should have been how best to reduce or disassemble NATO after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Instead, we expanded membership, and then expanded mission. Why?

Our decision to engage in Kosovo is a continuation of the pattern that goes back several administrations. In short, the mobilization for war that took place in 1940 has never really stood down. We remain a country prepared for war and it should be no surprise that we find one every few years. Let's look at the recent history.

Most Americans cheered (or at least failed to object) when President Reagan sent troops into Grenada in 1982. By doing so, we endorsed the idea that the President of the United States, at his own discretion, is free to wage war against anyone he chooses, for any reason he chooses. He need not get a declaration of war, and America need not be threatened with attack. Why was there no public outcry ?

If you thought President Bush was "standing tall" when he sent troops to kidnap Panama's Manuel Noriega or rescue Kuwait from Saddam Hussein, you said, in effect, that Presidents should be free to attack anyone they want. Is that what you want your country to stand for?

Did you find yourself saying, "We can't allow a communist government to be in the Western Hemisphere, or a drug dealer to rule Panama, or naked aggression to succeed in the Middle East," and now, " …or a dictator to oppress his subjects in Kosovo." The cause may seem noble when wrapped in these words, but in each case, no one really asked you - and no one ever will. When we acquiesced and supported the earlier U.S. actions, we as a people said that a president should be free to choose his own targets - without the constitutional requirement that Congress deliberate long enough to issue a formal declaration of war. We didn't force the common-sense requirement that our land and lives must be threatened before we send our troops off into battle.

If we thought it was right when President Reagan took a stand against terrorism by bombing Libya, we shouldn't have been surprised when President Clinton took a stand against terrorism by bombing a Sudanese perfume factory. Presidents and their advisors don't have any superior abilities to distinguish between right and wrong in this imperfect world.. Once the power to wage war is granted, it will be used -- and used for whatever purpose pleases whoever has it. And the greater the power, the more likely that ruthless people will seek control of it.

If our policy is selective engagement, why here, why now? Selective engagement needs to have at least some viable argument that vital U.S. interests are at stake. In Bosnia, and in Kosovo, any argument that vital U.S. interests are at stake rings weakly on the ears. If there needed to be an action, why did it need to be American-led? Why did the U.S. assume an estimated 85% of the cost of the bombing campaign? The European Union has an economic might equal to ours. The Serbs didn't have such advanced weaponry that the Europeans couldn't effectively handle it. In short, what are the forces at work that bring the American military into the lead role in what is clearly a European problem, addressable by Europeans?

There are too many Kosovos, too many Bosnias. We simply must find another way to effect a better world than bombing selective enemies into submission. It becomes hard to distinguish the schoolyard hero from the schoolyard bully if both are willing to beat the hell out of somebody, just because they can.

Written by William H. Bozarth. Bill Bozarth is 56 years old and was born in Arkansas. He is a graduate of Columbia University. Bill is retired from IBM and has worked for other companies in the computer industry. He is now a freelance writer and teacher. Having lived and worked in Europe, he has been a resident of Atlanta since 1988, and participates regularly in the International Issues Forum discussion group.

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Rebuttal: Kosovo - What should Americans be asking?

In response to the position paper by Mr. William H. Bozarth, the following points are offered:

"The right thing to do…"

By couching justification for action in Kosovo in moral terms the President used rather successfully one of the only two remaining rationales for US military intervention. And this is not the first time that he has done so, apparently building on his personal belief that taking the moral high ground is the legacy he needs to leave. Understandably, many Americans feel rather uncomfortable with the contradiction this implies, specifically for this President.

This does not invalidate the fact that moral justification is likely the only one that Americans can find acceptable, even if it is an imperfect solution. It would be difficult to feel good about the cynical views that this was all about fabricating a threat in order to justify increased defense spending or that this was all about distracting the attention from a troubled presidency. Of course it is difficult to ignore the blatant disregard of the UN in the process and the burning questions it leaves about the unwillingness to have the moral justification scrutinized by skeptical members on the Security Council.

Unfortunately the moral justification served only as means to an end; once the US became involved as a NATO member the support, congressionally and in general, was predictable. Since Viet Nam American support for their troops has recovered substantially and once troops are deployed most Americans will rally around them even if they oppose the cause, Senator McCain being an example.

"The right thing to do" can here only be taken to refer to "ethnic cleansing", as the humanitarian plight of the Kosovars (both Serbian and Albanian) was certainly not alleviated by the NATO action. How the US is to defend moral high ground in this respect further remains problematic in the light of the refusal to sign the International Criminal Court Treaty or failure to bring to justice those already indicted for earlier "crimes" in this ongoing conflict. Let alone other blatant incidents of gross violation of human rights of significant magnitude that remain unaddressed.

The net effect of the questionable use of the moral defense of NATO action and US involvement is that even this justification of intervention has been tainted. This appeal to "our democratic values" and the plight of "millions of innocent people who have died in this bloody century because democracies reacted too late to evil and aggression…" has in fact silenced their plight and mortgaged "our democratic values."

"… a victory for safer world…"

The one remaining justification then is the national security or "threat to American lives or territory," taken in a larger sense. It is true that organizations like NATO have a cunning ability to outlive their original purpose; and yet, it is also possible to still consider the survival and expansion of NATO as an essential component of national security. History teaches that events can take rather quick turns and a threat like the Soviet Union could reappear in as short time as it took the Soviet Union to disintegrate. One does not have to be paranoid to see value in a strong, well-integrated alliance across the North Atlantic. How far to the east this alliance should reach is another question.

Giving NATO leadership the benefit of the doubt, one may argue that the situation in Kosovo was a potential threat to NATO security. It may be a parlor room guessing game from the western border of the Atlantic, but this is not the case at the southeastern reaches of the alliance. This view is supported by the European consensus on NATO action and the notable difference in approach of the members closer to the action as opposed to those further away.

It is the nature of alliances that decisions made by the alliance, as the whole, have to be decisions for the members. The decision by NATO to act meant that the US was drawn into the conflict. There is no sitting on the sidelines.

Actually, most Americans are trapped by the mistaken belief that NATO here served as "deputies to sheriff USA." This is possibly the biggest threat to constructive US involvement in international issues. As long as Americans perceive NATO as "our" alliance, the conflict in Kosovo as "our" war and the justification to be "our" (read American) democratic values there will be no "… victory for safer world…" Instead we will indeed always be trapped in the role of schoolyard hero or schoolyard bully, depending on the perspective, and deservedly so.

" ... and for a stronger America."

This last qualifier in the report of the President leaves one with the uneasy feeling that somewhere in the background this is all really about nationalism, and not just Serbian nationalism. This is a difficult issue to discuss, as it is the nature of nationalism that it does not allow questioning of the own. But, please indulge me in asking the question as to the difference between defending "our values" as defined by William Jefferson Clinton or by Slobodan Miloševic. This question is not asked out of lack of patriotism, neither as a defense of the atrocities committed in the name of the "values" of Milosevic. It is imperative that we ask this question because it is not only a privilege to live in a country where free and open public debate is allowed. It is indeed a moral imperative to ask if "we (are) do(ing) the right thing." Asking this question is indeed what makes "for a stronger America" and not the "(qualified) victory" in Kosovo.

… and we will finish the job."

It is true that Slobodan Miloševic actually gave up less in the agreement to end the bombing than he would have if Yugoslavia signed the Rambouillet accord. Seen from this limited perspective it may seem as if Miloševic is the victor. It is also true that accepting Rambouillet was never a realistic goal as it was fundamentally an effort to deny Yugoslavia its sovereignty. Under Rambouillet, to "finish the job" would have meant an independent Kosovo. That is no longer an option and with good reason.

Clearly, to finish the job means to rebuild what was destroyed. Call it a "Marshall Plan" for Yugoslavia. And the responsibility for the vast majority of the cost involved in the rebuilding rightfully belongs to the European partners in NATO. The US contributed the majority of effort in the military phase of NATO's action. This is the natural result of the fact that the US is the best-armed NATO member and most European members feel much more comfortable with this arrangement. They still feel that it is better for everybody if no European country arms itself to the extent necessary to take on the leading role in similar future action.

The true test of a job well done will lie in the long-term outcome of the action in Kosovo. Will we have Miloševic still holding onto power with no prospect of change and no viable new leadership? Or worse, will a nationalistic or radical leader replace Slobodan Miloševic? After all, he was the "moderate" in the previous election. Will we nine years from now have a Serbia where virtually every child is malnourished as in Iraq?

Written by Jacobus F. Boers. Jacobus Boers was born and raised in the Republic of South Africa. Jacobus has lived mostly in Atlanta since 1983 except for assignments in Munich, FRG and Charlotte, North Carolina. He has traveled extensively worldwide on business and conducted business with firms on five continents. Today he provides internatnational business development and marketing services on a consulting basis. He is a graduate of the University of Pretoria, EMORY University and Georgia State University. He is a regular participant in the International Issues Forum. Jacobus can be found on the web at www.jfboers.com

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