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POLITICA >>Kosovo | ||||
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Chomsky, N. 1999. The New Military Humanism - Lessons From Kosovo. Pluto Press, London, UK. Rating: JJJJ About the Author: Noam Chomsky is not only a political analyst, but also a well-known linguist. he is Institute Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . Books by
the same author: Profit
over People; The Common Good; The Fateful Triangle; Acts of Aggression
(with Ramsey Clark and Edward Said); 9-11, Manufacturing Consent;
Rogue States; Deterring Democracy; Powers and Prospects; World
Orders, Old and New;Year 501: The Conquest Continues; |
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Review Among those writers who attempt to deconstruct Western propaganda, Noam Chomsky is the most persuasive. In The New Military Humanism, he provides a new understanding of the NATO war in Yugoslavia. He accuses NATO of being responsible for the very same disaster it claimed to be trying to prevent: the mass exodus of the Kosovar population. He also criticises the western blindness when it came to the horrendous violence and subsequent exile of the Krajina Serbs by Franjo Tudjman's Croatian forces, which was "the most extreme single case of ethnic cleansing in the horrendous wars of secessionin Yugoslavia, but one that has not yet called for indictements". He then moves on to Kosovo, where he attempts to show how much more complex the problems there were, far more complex than portrayed by the Western media. For example, he reminds us that between 1966 and 1989, approximately 130,000 Serbs were forced to leave the province due to Kosovar Albanian harrassment. He also reminds us that the Kosovo Liberation Army was essentially a terrorist organisation. Chomsky wrote before the events of the 11th of September 2001, but in the light of George Bush's subsequent "war against terror" in Afghanistan, the brutal Serbian retaliation in Kosovo was mild in comparison. However, Chomsky does draw comparisons between NATO deafness to the cries of the Kurds, being heavily oppressed inside NATO member Turkey, with the hysteria concerning Kosovo. Worse, he convincingly argues that the NATO intervention in Kosovo, if anything, made things worse. In other words, "NATO had to bomb to prevent the ethnic cleansing that was 'the result' of its bombing, as anticipated". He cites clear evidence that NATO generals evidently knew about the results their bombing campaign would have, and cheerfully ignored the consequences. Chomsky then deconstructs the myth that the bombing heralded a new era of military humanism, of "humanitarian bombing" at the service of human rights. Deliberate bombing of civilian targets in Serbia clearly provide proof of the contrary. He also brings to our attention a very important clause of the Rambouillet Peace talks, which Serbia was accused of undermining. No wonder the Serbs refused the treaty, when Annex B is revealed: "NATO shall enjoy, together with their vehicles, vessels, aircraft, and equipment, free and unrestricted passage and unimpeded access throughout the FRY including associated airspace and territorial waters. This shall include, but not be limited to, the right of bivouac, maneuver, billet, and utilization of any areas or facilities as required for support, training and operations". Had NATO wished to sabotage the peace talks, they could not have devised a better provision. To those who then persist in believing that the NATO intervention was humanitarian, because Kosovo has no resources the Americans might want, Chomsky answers that the war was designed mostly to assert the military credibility of NATO, which was struggling to appear relevant after the end of the Soviet Union. Moreover, Serbia was one of the last bastions of resistance to American hegemony in the Balkans, which also happen to be a strategic location for US operations not only in Europe, but also the Middle East. In other words, Serbia was punished for not conforming to US plans for the region, and its destruction served as a warning to other potential rebels. At no point is Chomsky trying to justify Milosevic, but he is trying to set the record straight, and to show how the Western powers are committing unconscionable crimes in the name of "human rights and democracy". Unfortunately, the new “military humanism” has continued regardless, its latest victim being the thousands of Afghan civilians who died as a result of the American bombs this year. |
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