President Obama spoke to an audience consisting of european youth in Brussels on March 26, 2014, to whom he argued that the U.S. as a benevolent empire stands apart from Russia:
And Kosovo only left Serbia after a referendum was organized not outside the boundaries of international law, but in careful cooperation with the United Nations and with Kosovo’s neighbors. None of that even came close to happening in Crimea [1].
If we carefully examine Obama's words, we should ask: did the U.N. and Kosovo concur on a strategy whereby the latter declares its independence from Serbia that adhered to international law? Kosovo declared its independence on February 17, 2008, but the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declared no official legal ruling on this declaration until July 22, 2010 [2]. ICJ's final opinion that Kosovo's declaration of independence violated no international laws does not substantiate President Obama's aforementioned claim. Kosovo's independence declaration resulted not from a referendum as President Obama stated but from a measure passed by Kosovo's Assembly[3].
My comparing President Obama's word usage to the more explicit, historical truth would appear that I am just abusing semantics in order to justify an unfair criticism of him. I would agree with that view If President Obama commemorated an event in his speech with no intention of it being a reference point to justify the nature of the U.S. involvement in the Ukraine crisis. Instead, his comments further enflame hostilities of an ongoing conflict of which its resolution still evades us and may reveal a prologue to a military clash between superpowers or the Cold War 2.0.
President's Obama in his speech tested the limits of his rhetorical flourish and spoke in platitudes of the history of U.S. engagement into the geopolitics of Europe. This engagement showed the U.S. and Europe could endure bloodshed, tragedy, nationalisms, holocausts en route to learning painful yet profound lessons that, if heeded, offer moral guidelines with which to approach Russia's militaristic excursion into Ukraine and its annexation of Crimea.
So at least one lesson from this speech is that we should summarize history of the last few centuries in glowing, vague statements. This glorified narrative can certainly distract us from analyzing the critical factors affecting Russia's current handling of events in Ukraine. These factors if viewed in their full light offer little material for a speechwriter whose job is to write prose that casts America as the benevolent force resisting a resurgent Russian empire.
President Obama also informed the young europeans that in respect to the U.S. handling during 1999 of the Serbia/Kosovo conflict that:
In defending its actions, Russian leaders have further claimed Kosovo as a precedent -- an example they say of the West interfering in the affairs of a smaller country, just as they’re doing now. But NATO only intervened after the people of Kosovo were systematically brutalized and killed for years[4].
The NATO bombing began on March 24, 1999 and ended on June 10, 2014 days resulted in 500 civilian deaths in Serbia [5]. President Obama didn't state that NATO's bombing of Serbia occurred pursuant to "international law." Is that omission due to the U.N. Security Council not approving NATO's bombing campaign? Supporters of this bombing can either engage in verbal twisting in order to claim some provision within the U.N. Charter and its resolutions did justify this particular military campaign. Or, they can ignore recourse to international law and claim as President Obama has that NATO's actions protected ethnic Albanians from Serbian aggression. But, our being satisfied with both justifications of NATO's bombing ignores critical issues.
Many critical issues were integral components to the NATO bombing of Serbia, but I will mention two because they are the most directly related to President's comments about the U.S. justification for leading this particular military action.
First, President Obama's echoed many in the western media when he said "But NATO only intervened after the people of Kosovo were systematically brutalized and killed for years." A wide range of ethnic Albanian deaths in Kosovo were reported. But, the official figures settled at roughly 10,000. The list of establishment organs or agencies settling on this figure in 1999 include The New York Times, The British Secretary of State at the Foreign Office, The U.S. State Department, and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Republic of Yugoslavia (ICTY) [6]. Subsequent reviews conducted by the ICTY showed a much smaller figure of 2788 deaths [7]. The 2,788 figure refers to actual corpses exhumed from the ground. The number of actual number of deaths does not preclude their being a tragedy.
But, if the numbers were irrelevant then why constantly state them? The deaths are tragic; though, tragedies don't necessarily mean genocides. The former should be handled by diplomacy and the latter by military action. The last attempt of diplomacy was the "Rambouillet Agreement" that NATO attempted to impose on Serbia. Impositions are anathema to real diplomacy, and ultimately a meaningful and lasting peace. Peace occurred at the cost of NATO ignoring other atrocities. Peace accomplished in such an environment establishes a dangerous precedent that the U.S. will pose an impartial mediator while actually assisting one side who themselves are committing atrocities, escalating the subject conflict. This dangerous precedent should direct our attention to the second critical issue warranting review that President Obama didn't mention.
In making his casual statement explaining NATO's military involvement, President Obama ignores the diplomatic agreements currently in effect in the former Yugoslavia prior to NATO's bombing that began on March 24, 1999. This agreement predated the terms presented at Rambouillet. For example, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke proposed a cease fire agreement that was announced during October 1998. Two important stipulations of this cease fire agreement did require Serbia to withdraw troops "from all areas of the province that had been occupied since the upsurge in fighting in early 1998" [8.] And, the "Yugoslav authorities had to allow an international mission to supervise the troop pullback" [9].
A critical review of the The U.S. and European led diplomatic initiatives proposed and applied showed they did not act as impartial mediators. Rather, the substance of these initiatives presupposed that Serbia was solely guilty for the bloodshed and instability. Many of the U.S. and European actors involved in shaping these diplomatic initiatives and who subsequently supported NATO's bombing of Serbia have acknowledged that Serbia mostly abided by the terms of the diplomatic agreements in effect prior to the beginning of said bombing. One example of the NATO establishment acknowledging that Serbia worked in good faith to adhere to Holbrooke's agreement occurred during the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in 2002 when General Naumann, Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, stated that the:
"Yugoslav authorities honored the Holbrooke agreement...I think one has to really pay tribute to what the Yugoslav authorities did. This was not an easy thing to bring 6,000 police officers back within 24 hours, but they managed [10]."
General Naumann later confirmed to the BBC that William Walker, then Ambassador to the North Atlantic Council (NAC), had commented that rather than the Serbs the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) committed more actions that undermined the Holbrooke agreement:
"Ambassador Walker stated in the NAC that the majority of violations [of the Holbrooke agreement] was caused by the KLA [11].
President Obama didn't mention these observations lest he suggest to his audience of young europeans that the U.S. failed to act as an impartial facilitator of a diplomatic solution.
The U.S. posed as an impartial facilitator yet negotiated from an anti-Serbian position. This partiality exhibited in favor of the KLA and ethnic Albanians continued in the post-war Kosovo. This post-war environment emboldened the KLA and Albanian majority to maintain unwelcome living conditions for the Serb minority. The BBC report wherein they cite a review completed by Amnesty International of the post-war living conditions in Kosovo for ethnic minorities informs us accordingly:
"Of more than 230,000 Serbs, Roma and other minorities who fled Kosovo in 1999, only 5,800 have returned [12]."
President Obama reveals U.S. indifference to the plight of these exiled minorities by neglecting to mention them in his speech. This omission would make sense if he were speaking with the explicit understanding that the scope of his discussion would focus solely on the Serbian atrocities committed against ethnic Albanian population in Kosovo. Obviously, this was not the case. Instead, he engaged in historical revisionism to justify morally the 78-day NATO bombing campaign of Serbia. Furthermore, this moral justification if believed weakens Vladmir Putin's case to sanction his handling of Crimea by citing the U.S. and NATO's handling of Kosovo as a historical precedent.
President Obama's uttering platitudes in lieu both of the facts and a comprehensive explanation of the geopolitical conditions in the former Yugoslavia show that Emperors still wear no clothes. This is no new observation, yet one we shouldn't forget given the modern empires' pathological efforts currently underway to ignite World War III.
1. U.S. President Barak Obama. "Remarks by the President in Address to European Youth." Palais des Beaux Arts. Brussels Belgium. Speech delivered 03/26/2014. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/03/26/remarks-president-address-european-youth
President Obama also informed the young europeans that in respect to the U.S. handling during 1999 of the Serbia/Kosovo conflict that:
In defending its actions, Russian leaders have further claimed Kosovo as a precedent -- an example they say of the West interfering in the affairs of a smaller country, just as they’re doing now. But NATO only intervened after the people of Kosovo were systematically brutalized and killed for years[4].
The NATO bombing began on March 24, 1999 and ended on June 10, 2014 days resulted in 500 civilian deaths in Serbia [5]. President Obama didn't state that NATO's bombing of Serbia occurred pursuant to "international law." Is that omission due to the U.N. Security Council not approving NATO's bombing campaign? Supporters of this bombing can either engage in verbal twisting in order to claim some provision within the U.N. Charter and its resolutions did justify this particular military campaign. Or, they can ignore recourse to international law and claim as President Obama has that NATO's actions protected ethnic Albanians from Serbian aggression. But, our being satisfied with both justifications of NATO's bombing ignores critical issues.
Many critical issues were integral components to the NATO bombing of Serbia, but I will mention two because they are the most directly related to President's comments about the U.S. justification for leading this particular military action.
First, President Obama's echoed many in the western media when he said "But NATO only intervened after the people of Kosovo were systematically brutalized and killed for years." A wide range of ethnic Albanian deaths in Kosovo were reported. But, the official figures settled at roughly 10,000. The list of establishment organs or agencies settling on this figure in 1999 include The New York Times, The British Secretary of State at the Foreign Office, The U.S. State Department, and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Republic of Yugoslavia (ICTY) [6]. Subsequent reviews conducted by the ICTY showed a much smaller figure of 2788 deaths [7]. The 2,788 figure refers to actual corpses exhumed from the ground. The number of actual number of deaths does not preclude their being a tragedy.
But, if the numbers were irrelevant then why constantly state them? The deaths are tragic; though, tragedies don't necessarily mean genocides. The former should be handled by diplomacy and the latter by military action. The last attempt of diplomacy was the "Rambouillet Agreement" that NATO attempted to impose on Serbia. Impositions are anathema to real diplomacy, and ultimately a meaningful and lasting peace. Peace occurred at the cost of NATO ignoring other atrocities. Peace accomplished in such an environment establishes a dangerous precedent that the U.S. will pose an impartial mediator while actually assisting one side who themselves are committing atrocities, escalating the subject conflict. This dangerous precedent should direct our attention to the second critical issue warranting review that President Obama didn't mention.
In making his casual statement explaining NATO's military involvement, President Obama ignores the diplomatic agreements currently in effect in the former Yugoslavia prior to NATO's bombing that began on March 24, 1999. This agreement predated the terms presented at Rambouillet. For example, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke proposed a cease fire agreement that was announced during October 1998. Two important stipulations of this cease fire agreement did require Serbia to withdraw troops "from all areas of the province that had been occupied since the upsurge in fighting in early 1998" [8.] And, the "Yugoslav authorities had to allow an international mission to supervise the troop pullback" [9].
A critical review of the The U.S. and European led diplomatic initiatives proposed and applied showed they did not act as impartial mediators. Rather, the substance of these initiatives presupposed that Serbia was solely guilty for the bloodshed and instability. Many of the U.S. and European actors involved in shaping these diplomatic initiatives and who subsequently supported NATO's bombing of Serbia have acknowledged that Serbia mostly abided by the terms of the diplomatic agreements in effect prior to the beginning of said bombing. One example of the NATO establishment acknowledging that Serbia worked in good faith to adhere to Holbrooke's agreement occurred during the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in 2002 when General Naumann, Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, stated that the:
"Yugoslav authorities honored the Holbrooke agreement...I think one has to really pay tribute to what the Yugoslav authorities did. This was not an easy thing to bring 6,000 police officers back within 24 hours, but they managed [10]."
General Naumann later confirmed to the BBC that William Walker, then Ambassador to the North Atlantic Council (NAC), had commented that rather than the Serbs the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) committed more actions that undermined the Holbrooke agreement:
"Ambassador Walker stated in the NAC that the majority of violations [of the Holbrooke agreement] was caused by the KLA [11].
President Obama didn't mention these observations lest he suggest to his audience of young europeans that the U.S. failed to act as an impartial facilitator of a diplomatic solution.
The U.S. posed as an impartial facilitator yet negotiated from an anti-Serbian position. This partiality exhibited in favor of the KLA and ethnic Albanians continued in the post-war Kosovo. This post-war environment emboldened the KLA and Albanian majority to maintain unwelcome living conditions for the Serb minority. The BBC report wherein they cite a review completed by Amnesty International of the post-war living conditions in Kosovo for ethnic minorities informs us accordingly:
"Of more than 230,000 Serbs, Roma and other minorities who fled Kosovo in 1999, only 5,800 have returned [12]."
President Obama reveals U.S. indifference to the plight of these exiled minorities by neglecting to mention them in his speech. This omission would make sense if he were speaking with the explicit understanding that the scope of his discussion would focus solely on the Serbian atrocities committed against ethnic Albanian population in Kosovo. Obviously, this was not the case. Instead, he engaged in historical revisionism to justify morally the 78-day NATO bombing campaign of Serbia. Furthermore, this moral justification if believed weakens Vladmir Putin's case to sanction his handling of Crimea by citing the U.S. and NATO's handling of Kosovo as a historical precedent.
President Obama's uttering platitudes in lieu both of the facts and a comprehensive explanation of the geopolitical conditions in the former Yugoslavia show that Emperors still wear no clothes. This is no new observation, yet one we shouldn't forget given the modern empires' pathological efforts currently underway to ignite World War III.
1. U.S. President Barak Obama. "Remarks by the President in Address to European Youth." Palais des Beaux Arts. Brussels Belgium. Speech delivered 03/26/2014. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/03/26/remarks-president-address-european-youth
2. "Accordance with international law of the unilateral declaration of independence in respect of Kosovo." International Court of Justice. http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/141/16010.pdf
3. "Facts Only: Kosovo vs Crimea-'Good Independence' vs 'Bad Referendum.' RT. http://rt.com/news/kosovo-crimea-referendum-recognition-441/
4. Obama, "Remarks......Belgium."
5."Final Report to the Prosecutor by the Committee Established to Review the NATO Bombing Campaign Against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia." International Criminal Tribunal for the former Republic of Yugoslavia (ICTY). http://www.icty.org/sid/10052#IVA5
6. "Eight Years of Imprecision: Estimating the Kosovo War's Death Toll." Defense and Foreign Affairs Special Analysis. August 24, 2007. Published by Defense and Foreign Affairs/International Strategic Studies Association. http://Www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/dfasa082407.htm
7. Ibid. This figure generated controversy because this source cited further elaborates that Patrick Ball, a U.S. statistician testifying on behalf of the ICTY prosecution conceded that the actual confirmed death and missing toll was less than 5,000. But, Mr. Ball still estimated that the total could be as high at 10,356. He bases this figure on the premise that deaths occurred that were simply not reported. This same source undermines the efficacy of that estimate by pointing out "the ICTY provided his-Ball's-expert team with more than 10,000 reports (not confirmed cases) of killings in Kosovo. His team sifted through the reports and found that only 4,400 pertained to unique individuals. The same individuals were reported time and time again so that the majority of the reports were duplicates."
8. Gibbs, David N. First Do No Harm: Humanitarian Intervention and the Destruction of Yugoslavia. Vanderbilt University Press. Nashville, TN. 2009. Kindle Edition location 2638 of 5179.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid. Kindle edition location 2650 of 5179.
11. Ibid. location 2657-2659.
12. "Kosovo minorities 'under threat.'" BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2983509.stm August 28, 2003.
4. Obama, "Remarks......Belgium."
5."Final Report to the Prosecutor by the Committee Established to Review the NATO Bombing Campaign Against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia." International Criminal Tribunal for the former Republic of Yugoslavia (ICTY). http://www.icty.org/sid/10052#IVA5
6. "Eight Years of Imprecision: Estimating the Kosovo War's Death Toll." Defense and Foreign Affairs Special Analysis. August 24, 2007. Published by Defense and Foreign Affairs/International Strategic Studies Association. http://Www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/dfasa082407.htm
7. Ibid. This figure generated controversy because this source cited further elaborates that Patrick Ball, a U.S. statistician testifying on behalf of the ICTY prosecution conceded that the actual confirmed death and missing toll was less than 5,000. But, Mr. Ball still estimated that the total could be as high at 10,356. He bases this figure on the premise that deaths occurred that were simply not reported. This same source undermines the efficacy of that estimate by pointing out "the ICTY provided his-Ball's-expert team with more than 10,000 reports (not confirmed cases) of killings in Kosovo. His team sifted through the reports and found that only 4,400 pertained to unique individuals. The same individuals were reported time and time again so that the majority of the reports were duplicates."
8. Gibbs, David N. First Do No Harm: Humanitarian Intervention and the Destruction of Yugoslavia. Vanderbilt University Press. Nashville, TN. 2009. Kindle Edition location 2638 of 5179.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid. Kindle edition location 2650 of 5179.
11. Ibid. location 2657-2659.
12. "Kosovo minorities 'under threat.'" BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2983509.stm August 28, 2003.
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