Skeptic Project

I've often heard several criticisms from people like Chomsky about American involvement in Kosovo, and I was wondering your thoughts.

1. There was no genocide or attemps at it in Kosovo.

2. There were atrocities, but most happened after the American bombing campaign occurred.

3. There were other attrocities in other nations and America did nothing.

4. NATO involvement was illegal.

1. Injust cruelty? Sure. Genocide? Probably not. The numbers (100,000 and 500,000) turned out to be wrong by a factor of 40 and 200 respectively and the violence was mainly directed at the UÇK, not civilians, which makes the genocide label further deceptive.

2. The bombing did increase Serbia's aggression and pretty much everyone expected this outcome.

3. Meh.

4. The question is whether it was necessary, i.e., the only promising option and Chomsky argues that it wasn't. I'm far from being an expert on either military strategy or diplomacy, so I can't judge whether he has a point or not.

1. Read Herman and Peterson's "The Politics of Genocide" for the details of Kosovo as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina and the issues involved therein. What was a huge issue was that during Kosovo there were reports of Concentration Camps in Kosovo throughout major media sources. In the 13th issue of Germany's Der Spiegel in 1999 there was a report where Bundeswehr intelligence was able to pin point the alleged site of the camp and discovered that no such camp existed. Applying the term "genocide" is not particularly easy, but Kosovo was beyond a shadow of a doubt a war against civilians. We should also be clear that there is a legal and terminological difference between "ethnic cleansing" and "genocide"

2. This is not true when we consider that the conflict in Kosovo really extended BEFORE Kosovo and notably with Bosnia Herzegovina. The Srebrenica Massacre of 1995 made it clear that Serbian forces and paramilitary groups were intent on their policy of ethnic cleansing (driving out ethnic groups either by displacing them or murdering them). Also, consider that the Kosovar forces in Kosovo used the NATO air strikes as cover to counter attack Serbian forces, thus spiking the rate of violence de facto.

3. This is a fairly obvious point, but this is true of every epoch and every moment in global history.

4. NATO involvement was not illegal in that it it fell firmly within NATOs area of operation. Again, I can inform this best by way of explaining German involvement. German politicians had, for years, refused to join operations like the Gulf War because they were "out of area" missions. Kosovo did not fail this test, and indeed the Bundestag, which is very concerned with the legality of international operations, deemed that Kosovo did fall within NATO mandate. You can actually read the NATO charter yourself and justify the position.