NATO bombing of Yugoslavia

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LWD
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Re: NATO bombing of Yugoslavia

#16

Post by LWD » 21 Apr 2014, 20:28

Paul Lantos wrote: ... The OP did not claim there had been war crimes.
However by posting it in this subforum he certainly implied war crimes on the part of someone. Lacking any claims there of this thread should either be moved or closed IMO.

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Re: NATO bombing of Yugoslavia

#17

Post by David Thompson » 22 Apr 2014, 06:14

I agree. If there's not a war crime or direct connection to the holocaust, the thread is off-topic for this section of the forum.


little grey rabbit
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Re: NATO bombing of Yugoslavia

#18

Post by little grey rabbit » 22 Apr 2014, 09:49

The report Paul Lantos linked to concluded the war was illegal but justified.
THE NATO AIR CAMPAIGN
The Commission concludes that the NATO military intervention was illegal but legitimate. It was illegal because it
did not receive prior approval from the United Nations Security Council. However, the Commission considers that
the intervention was justified because all diplomatic avenues had been exhausted and because the intervention
had the effect of liberating the majority population of Kosovo from a long period of oppression under Serbian rule.
NATO believed that a relatively short bombing campaign would persuade Milosevic to sign the Rambouillet
agreement. That was a major mistake. NATO also underestimated the obvious risk that the Serbian government
would attack the Kosovo Albanians. NATO had to expand the air campaign to strategic targets in Serbia proper,
which increased the risk of civilian casualties. In spite of the fact that NATO made substantial effort to avoid
civilian casualties there were some serious mistakes. Some 500 civilian deaths are documented. The
Commission is also critical of the use of cluster bombs, the environmental damage caused by the use of depleteduranium
tipped armor-piercing shells and missiles and by toxic leaks caused by the bombing of industrial and
petroleum complexes in several cities, and the attack on Serbian television on April 17, 1999. The Commission
accepts the view of the Final Report of the ICTY that there is no basis in the available evidence for charging
specific individuals with criminal violations of the Laws of the War during the NATO campaign. Nevertheless some
practices do seem vulnerable to the allegation that violations might have occurred and depend, for final
assessment, on the availability of further evidence.
Critical to the belief of the Commission that NATO's illegal actions were justified was their contention that Serbia planned to depopulate Kosovo
This campaign is most frequently described
as one of “ethnic cleansing,” intended to drive many, if not all, Kosovar Albanians from Kosovo, destroy the
foundations of their society, and prevent them from returning.
The defense that Milosevic put forward at his trial that the exodus was caused by a number of factors: partly a desire to avoid a conflict zone, partly because the KLA spread leaflets saying Kosovo was going to be bombed by NATO and partly as a deliberate campaign to create an impression of genocide.

NATO governments have not undergone regime change, but Serbia has. Has any documents been uncovered that support the contention that the Serbia intended to depopulate Kosovo? A sort of General Plan Ost for the Balkans?

If it hasn't and there was no plan to depopulate Kosovo, then does the Commission's contention that NATO's illegal actions were justified appear a little shaky?

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Re: NATO bombing of Yugoslavia

#19

Post by BillHermann » 22 Apr 2014, 10:18

It is really easy to spin and post anti NATO. Rhetoric when the case is far more complex.

One would have to be far more connected to what was happening on the ground as a peacekeeper in 1992-1996 to come up with an objective opinion on the moral justification of NATOs involvement.

Frankly I am to the opinion that NATO or other organizations like the UN should just sit back and allow civil wars to destroy what is left. Allow the people to suffer. As any involvement gives the oppressor the propaganda and spin they need to become the victim and create more nationalist rhetoric.

As far as I am concerned NATO did go about it the wrong way, however it is a case of a Dutch Oven calling the kettle black. Example on a much lesser scale when a police officer breaks up a fight and the people fighting blame the officer.

We can nitpick all we want to try and make NATO the great evil, but then it is trendy at the moment.
Last edited by BillHermann on 23 Apr 2014, 06:19, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: NATO bombing of Yugoslavia

#20

Post by Paul Lantos » 22 Apr 2014, 17:21

BillHermann wrote:Frankly I am to the opinion that NATO or other organizations like the UN should just sit back and allow civil wars to destroy what is left. Allow the people to suffer.
Exactly what they did in Rwanda, which was as preventable a genocide as there has ever been. Sometimes there are gray areas -- Syria is a gray area (not because good and bad are unknown, but because the degree of commitment it would take to guarantee the outcome we want is not something the world will stomach). Libya was less of a gray area. Rwanda wasn't gray at all -- if not for the sheer pusilanimity of the world the genocide (and the after effects that are STILL being felt in eastern Congo) may never have happened.

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Re: NATO bombing of Yugoslavia

#21

Post by LWD » 22 Apr 2014, 17:40

little grey rabbit wrote:The report Paul Lantos linked to concluded the war was illegal but justified. ...
I'm not sure at all that "illegal" is the correct word. In any case "illegal" doesn't necessarily mean "war crime". So exactly what conventions/treaties do they contend were broken?

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Re: NATO bombing of Yugoslavia

#22

Post by Ironmachine » 22 Apr 2014, 18:28

little grey rabbit wrote:The report Paul Lantos linked to concluded the war was illegal but justified. ...
It may be possible to reach an objective conclusión about legal/illegal, but justified/unjustified is in the eye of the beholder.

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Re: NATO bombing of Yugoslavia

#23

Post by Paul Lantos » 22 Apr 2014, 18:34

Ironmachine wrote:It may be possible to reach an objective conclusión about legal/illegal
Even that seems to be a gray area when the international community is evaluating something unprecedented (unprecedented in its geopolitical and its on-the-ground details). This means that legality is really a function of case law and not estalished law. Secondly, legal obligations and judgements often hinge on semantics, like whether you call it "genocide" or "ethnic cleansing".

So it may be possible to aspire to an objective legal conclusion, but I don't think it's possible to reach an objective conclusion.

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Re: NATO bombing of Yugoslavia

#24

Post by LWD » 22 Apr 2014, 19:42

In this regards is NATO a signator to the UN conventions/treaties? I don't think so but am not sure. If it is a seperate entity and decides to do something that is contrary to those conventions/treaties what force do they have? If a country has to decide to honor it's NATO obligations or its UN obligations does one have priority or is their any penalty for not full filling one or both?

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Re: NATO bombing of Yugoslavia

#25

Post by David Thompson » 22 Apr 2014, 19:48

Paul Lantos wrote:
little grey rabbit wrote:The report Paul Lantos linked to concluded the war was illegal but justified. ...
I'm not sure at all that "illegal" is the correct word. In any case "illegal" doesn't necessarily mean "war crime". So exactly what conventions/treaties do they contend were broken?
The International Commission (which had an international membership but was commissioned by the government of Sweden) concluded that the failure of NATO to get the permission of the United Nations Security Council, or, failing that, a resolution from the UN General Assembly approving the war was a technical violation of the United Nations Charter section 2(4):
4. All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.

See the discussion at The Kosovo Report, http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.in ... report.pdf, pp. 163-179. The Commission doesn't spend any time on the issue of whether the "threat or use of force" by NATO was against "the territorial integrity or political independence" of Serbia, which might be construed as a limitation in the language of the UN Charter provision.

The Commission also notes (at p. 178) that the Final Report of the Committee of the ICTY Established to Review the NATO Bombing Campaign Against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, on the basis of a detailed examination of the evidence presented to it by the FRY, and by its reliance on sources in the public domain, concluded that the most serious allegations against NATO relating to the law of war were not of sufficient merit to warrant further investigation.

The executive summary of the Commission has this statement (at p. 4), which is about as clear as mud:
The Commission concludes that the NATO military intervention was illegal but legitimate.
For the ordinary reader, who may find it difficult to see how a "legitimate" act can also be "illegal," the Commission offers this explanation (at p. 164):
In responding to these challenges, the Commission considers the international law controversy provoked by the NATO campaign. It also puts forward an interpretation of the emerging doctrine of humanitarian intervention. This interpretation is situated in a gray zone of ambiguity between an extension of international law and a proposal for an international moral consensus. In essence, this gray zone goes beyond strict ideas of legality to incorporate more flexible views of legitimacy.

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Re: NATO bombing of Yugoslavia

#26

Post by LWD » 22 Apr 2014, 21:18

Thanks for that. Fortunatly I have a big bottle of Ibuprofin at my desk so to deal with the after effects of trying to consider what they just said.

It is interesting that they didn't address at all the fact that NATO isn't technically a memeber of the UN and may produce conflicting committments. That could be a real can of worms though as one could see organizations forming simply to get around treaties at least if they took the view that it allowed for such conduct. Of course the rational above also seems to be the one that is currently be used and shall be left unstated to avoid drawing the conversation off topic and into current politics.

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Re: NATO bombing of Yugoslavia

#27

Post by BillHermann » 23 Apr 2014, 06:18

Paul Lantos wrote:
BillHermann wrote:Frankly I am to the opinion that NATO or other organizations like the UN should just sit back and allow civil wars to destroy what is left. Allow the people to suffer.
Exactly what they did in Rwanda, which was as preventable a genocide as there has ever been. Sometimes there are gray areas -- Syria is a gray area (not because good and bad are unknown, but because the degree of commitment it would take to guarantee the outcome we want is not something the world will stomach). Libya was less of a gray area. Rwanda wasn't gray at all -- if not for the sheer pusilanimity of the world the genocide (and the after effects that are STILL being felt in eastern Congo) may never have happened.
Well said' indeed

Any action or non action will undoubtedly cause a problem, that is the challenge

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Re: NATO bombing of Yugoslavia

#28

Post by trekker » 23 Apr 2014, 07:58

emil d. kjerte wrote: What would be the political and economic interests in this case?
In 1999 Kosovo was part of Serbia with Serbian forces in control.
In 2014 Kosovo is not part of Serbia with NATO forces in control from the military base Bondsteel. (Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Bondsteel)

I am sure that in 1999 NATO planners and decision-makers forsaw the present situation and valuated it positively according to their military and other interests. If the evaluation from NATO's interests point of view had been negative they would have not intervened. Therefore humanitarian abuses from the Serbian side were not the only and I believe not the main reason to intervene – yet, they were presented as such so that other reasons were not exposed to public questioning. I cannot deny that the intervention had positive humantiarian effects but they were side effects. Which simply means that it is naive to believe it was the humanitarian abuses by the Serbian regime that motivated NATO intervention.
I stop here. Others have gone further:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/kosovo-s-m ... rope/30262

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Re: NATO bombing of Yugoslavia

#29

Post by little grey rabbit » 24 Apr 2014, 00:42

It is interesting that they didn't address at all the fact that NATO isn't technically a memeber of the UN and may produce conflicting committments.
I don't quite see your point in this instance. Since NATO wasn't evoking self-defense being no credible threat - then there can't be a cause of some members having a traditional grounds for war and the others not. NATO might be a criminal organization as the Gestapo was found to be, but being a member of NATO does not void individual responsible for their actions anymore than a member of the Gestapo could say a finding that the Gestapo was a criminal organization voided their responsibility for their actions. In fact that opposite was the case.
The Commission doesn't spend any time on the issue of whether the "threat or use of force" by NATO was against "the territorial integrity or political independence" of Serbia, which might be construed as a limitation in the language of the UN Charter provision.
That is because either it was still Yugoslavia or Kosovo was part of the territory of Serbia. It lost its autonomy in 1981 and I believe it was always an autonomous part of Serbia and not republic in the Yugoslav federation.
In responding to these challenges, the Commission considers the international law controversy provoked by the NATO campaign. It also puts forward an interpretation of the emerging doctrine of humanitarian intervention. This interpretation is situated in a gray zone of ambiguity between an extension of international law and a proposal for an international moral consensus. In essence, this gray zone goes beyond strict ideas of legality to incorporate more flexible views of legitimacy.
I don't dispute that there could be grounds of legitimacy on the basis of human rights, I just think that the grounds that the Commission and Nato justified the aggression weren't legitimate - namely the claim that Serbia desired to depopulate Kosovo in total or in part can not be upheld.
I don't see that Serbia's campaign against the KLA was any more devastating than that of Nato and Allies against the Taliban in Afghanistan - indeed it probably was a lot less, as I don't recall any wedding parties being bombed in Kosovo.

The problem is NATO encourages such insurgencies with the promises that they will pull their chestnuts out of the fire down the track. It is bad even when it works such as Kosovo and Libya, when they suddenly get cold feet - such as Syria - it is appalling.

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Re: NATO bombing of Yugoslavia

#30

Post by David Thompson » 24 Apr 2014, 01:21

little grey rabbit -- Please stay on topic (the NATO bombing of a portion of former Yugoslavia), and please avoid bringing your personal political notions about modern historical events to our apolitical forum.

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