Editorial Sit tight
have no dog in this fight. He was right. American national interests, defined in classically narrow terms of secure borders and material survival, were not at stake in 1991; and arguably they...
...That expectation proved wrong and the bombing campaign has been extended to new targets...
...The photos of mutilated bodies, concentration camps, and endless columns of refugees were simply more than the human eye could bear to watch over and over and over again...
...Would a ground war any more than the air war assure the return of the Kosovars...
...Let them sit there and wait...
...Even now, Vietnam remains a painful example of military arrogance and overreaching...
...In saying that we have no national interest in the war over Kosovo, we are not saying there is no interest whatsoever...
...Why give them the chance to slaughter more Kosovar Albanians along with NATO troops...
...Most of Europe held the same view...
...Now we see the atrocities, for it is also a war born of round-the-clock TV coverage...
...Let them decide when they have had enough bombing...
...The expectation that Milosevic would accept a negotiated settlement after a token show of force was not unreasonable...
...This is a war of a very different kind than the West has fought before, born of the movement for human rights and their increasing observance in international law...
...Let the Serbs consider the tragedy they have let loose on the Kosovars and on themselves...
...It is their war...
...And here, justwar analysis requires that the means be in concert with the ends for which this war is being conducted...
...Being a reluctant warrior has, at least this merit: It makes everyone very cautious...
...Civilians are hit, nonetheless, and ultimately the destruction of infrastructure, even military-related infrastructure, will affect many more civilians...
...NATO tank and infantry assaults would have to hold their fire in the face of such tactics...
...Given that NATO was born of a war where carpet bombing of cities was practiced by both Allies and Axis nations, it is progress to have a war where targets are carefully chosen, missiles are remarkably accurate, and civilians are not the primary targets of direct bombing...
...Reluctant warriors are also prudent...
...Why provide them with any more opportunities than they now have...
...There followed the Dayton Accords, masterminded by Richard Holbrooke with the acquiescence of Slobodan Milosevic...
...The shelling of Sarajevo by the Serbs was the most infamous of the crimes televised around the world, but it was not the only city destroyed...
...a ground war in Kosovo evokes those dreadful memories...
...Let the bombing campaign against legitimate targets continue...
...They started it...
...So Yugoslavia ripped itself apart while the West stood by...
...Today there is a big difference...
...A modicum of peace is maintained in Bosnia by an international force of armed troops...
...While it goes on, we must do everything we can to observe those human rights: we must do all we can to feed and protect the refugees and we must strive scrupulously to avoid civilian casualties, among the Serbs no less than others...
...We also need to reflect on the practices of the Yugoslav army as well as police and paramilitary groups who show no compunction in using civilians as human shields and hostages...
...The carnage became intolerable, all sides were exhausted, and finally the UN intervened...
...Commonweal May 7,1999...
...The viability of NATO may be on the line, as many argue...
...Bruce Russett, professor of international relations at Yale, will offer a full analysis in our next issue, May 21...
...The Serbs pride themselves on their capacity for resistance and their ability to disperse men and materials and to fight a guerrilla war...
...and arguably they are not at stake now...
...But so is the viability of a worldwide movement to acknowledge the dignity of every human person, and their right to life and to security—even from attacks by their own government or former government...
...The lesson of ethnic cleansing, at least the one the West took to heart, was that should intervention come, it had to be sooner rather than later, when lives might actually be saved and atrocities prevented...
...As we struggle to balance means and ends in this conflict, we need to consider the loss not only of civilian lives in Kosovo, Serbia, Montenegro, and perhaps neighboring Albania and Macedonia, but the lives of NATO troops as well...
...There will have to be armed troops on the ground at some point, certainly to usher the refugees back home and to safeguard what will likely be a fragile peace, or as the phrase goes, a semi-permissive environment...
...Not as we did in Bosnia...
...NATO is, nonetheless, a reluctant warrior and the United States perhaps among the more reluctant of its members...
...It is no defense against this war to argue that these slaughters have gone on before, and ended only when both sides had exhausted themselves...
...We cannot turn away from the evidence...
...Human rights are what the war in Kosovo is all about...
...That the bombing campaign began slowly—hampered in part by bad weather—may have been a mistake, but one based on a legitimate moral calculation: Milosevic no more than anyone else wanted a repeat of Bosnia...
...Secretary of State Madeleine Albright shared it with many others, including Richard Holbrooke...
...Serbs too were driven from their homes...
...What then of the call for ground troops...
...Finally, just because soldiers are paid to fight and are willing to fight does not mean that their lives are any less precious...
...Let NATO talk about and plan for the use of ground troops...
...But before that...
...Nor were the Muslims and Croats the only victims, as John Garvey points out in his column (page 7...
Vol. 126 • May 1999 • No. 9
