by axel cruickshank

i was at a social gathering with some academic types one night earlier this year. that night, the united states of america had again begun bombing iraq. i was stunned by the fact that the raining down of cruise missiles onto a second or third-rate middle east power did not enter the conversation. had a television, radio or newspaper been visible (or audible), there would have been a plethora of pictures from baghdad, that somehow would have reminded me of one of the window mattes from natural born killers.

somehow, we have become inured to the onset of a war. no, not a declared war, that just isn't done, not for the past half of the waning twentieth century. but scant real attention is given, there are no "marching off to war" ballads, there's not even a draft. we have the professional soldiers, and if things get really heated, we'll call up the weekend warriors of the national guard. what we mainly have substituted is the "smart bombs," cruise missiles and laser-guided warheads. the teevee war, indistinguishable from game systems. warfare as distraction, in an uncanny and eerie echo of wag the dog.

as i write, nato, is attempting to punitively bomb the serbian-dominated yugoslavia into compliance. our news entertainment services are rife with stories of the ethnic-cleansing genocide being perpetrated by the yugoslav military and serbian "irregulars" on ethnic albanians in kosovo. much ado about the moral reprehensibility of the serbs is the order of the day. and i am nonplussed, perhaps numbed by the months and years of delivering "humanitarian aid" by force. i think that the likelihood of an inconclusive "cease fire in place" type result is predictable.

with the one exception of japan in 1945, i know of no bombing campaign that has won a war. the japanese succumbed to unknown quantities and unprecedented effects of the atomic bomb. the british, germans and japanese (up until hiroshima and nagasaki) in world war 2 all endured bombing campaigns without surrendering. north vietnam, laos and cambodia suffered a severe cratering at the hands of u.s. "carpet bombing" in the sixties and early seventies. who thinks that that "secret war" was a success? the iraqi government of saddam hussein continues to defy ever-more formidable weaponry and economic sanctions in the nineties.

can this strategy can achieve goals of fostering peace and the observance of human rights in kosovo?

why do this in kosovo? in his article, the current bombings, noam chomsky cites comparable contemporary atrocities in colombia and turkey. the governments of colombia, turkey and yugoslavia explain their actions as defending their countries from terrorist rebels. i doubt that the reader will have much difficulty coming up with a list of other places and situations where such intervention as currently underway in kosovo could be imagined with similar justifications; the khmer rouge killing fields of 1970's cambodia, the serbians in bosnia, the hutu massacres in rwanda. the evidence in central american countries such as el salvador, guatamala and niceragua supports a conclusion that forces supported and trained by the u.s. engaged in genocidal killings of thousands, principally targeting as their victims ethnic mayan indians.

i am having the troubling thought that some other motivation than the altruistic heights of a moral high ground is being applied. i would suggest that the united states of america is not the appropriate guardian of the world’s oppressed. the primary underlying force guiding american policy is economic interest; the preservation of the rights of property and capital. it seems all too clear that these interested economically-vested parties are not even necessarily based in north america. with the advent of the world economy, and the ability of corporate entities to transcend mere national boundaries, the concept of the nation-state seems increasingly irrelevant. so it seems quite necessary to consider that there is a need to keep in mind the real question: who stands to profit from the situation?

the economic engine of this conflict is primed to consume billions in hardware, supplies and human labor. much is being destroyed that will, one day, have to be rebuilt. i suggest that the money to be made in such enterprises does not encourage a peaceful resolution to conflict.

if there was a mission aside from the addictive consumption of obscene quantities of resources, what would it be, and how best could it be accomplished, and by whom?

who? would have to be some viable international authority with a supportable consensus which takes into account the long-term collective interests of human beings.

what? would be to enhance economic, political and personal self-determination.

how? would be to remove those who are a threat to such freedoms as can and should be enjoyed by all. the means would most likely have to involve going in, placing forces on the ground, suffering casualties and establishing something better.

the risk of placing such authority in any hands is enormous. the probability of diversion of such authority to less lofty goals is predictable. which is the exact danger that nato (and the u.s.) runs in kosovo. failure to apply such force appropriately creates the perception that it is the united states which is a "rogue" superpower and the greatest threat to peace in the world.

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