South Texas Catholic Monthly (Corpus Christi, Tex.), Vol. 34, No. 6, Ed. 1 Tuesday, June 1, 1999 Page: 8 of 20
This newspaper is part of the collection entitled: Texas Gulf Coast Register/South Texas Catholic and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the UNT Libraries.
- Highlighting
- Highlighting On/Off
- Color:
- Adjust Image
- Rotate Left
- Rotate Right
- Brightness, Contrast, etc. (Experimental)
- Cropping Tool
- Download Sizes
- Preview all sizes/dimensions or...
- Download Thumbnail
- Download Small
- Download Medium
- Download Large
- High Resolution Files
- IIIF Image JSON
- IIIF Image URL
- Accessibility
- View Extracted Text
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
DESPAIR IN
YUGOSLAVIA-
A man screams in
despair in front of
'what is left of his
'what is left of his
house in Nis.
' Yugoslavia, following a
NATO air raid. This
month's Viewpoints
discusses
''humanitarian
intervention by
military force.
f N5 nhoto/llculcrs
June 1999
viewpoints
The Just-War criteria still applies
Bruce Russett,
Dean Acheson
professor of
international
relations at Yale
University, New
Haven, Conn.
By Bruce Russett
The traditional Christian standards for
a just war are designed to make resort to
war difficult, but not impossible. Apply-
ing them doesn't give simple answers, but
makes us ask the right questions — at
this writing, questions about the Kosovo
campaign.
1. Just cause? Preventing humanitarian
disaster provides a good reason, and
stopping genocide a stronger one.
Slobodan Milosevic’s ethnic cleansing may
well have qualified as genocide.
Well before the bombing, Milosevic
moved troops and equipment into
position to terrorize much of Kosovo’s
population into fleeing. NATO bombing
did not cause Milosevic’s ethnic cleansing,
but may have given him incentive to try
to do it thoroughly before he could be
stopped.
2. Discrimination? It is never permis-
sible to attack civilians deliberately.
NATO began with high marks here,
reflecting the enormous change in U.S.
strategic doctrine impelled by the U.S.
Catholic bishops' 1983 pastoral letter
“The Challenge of Peace.” Not targeting
civilians is now a major constraint on
how democracies fight.
3. Proportionality? Hundreds of
Yugoslavs died when bombs hit unin-
tended targets or civilians were in the line
of fire.
Many potential targets fall into a gray
area between tank and apartment houses.
Even if no civilians are killed directly
when bridges, oil refineries and electrical
plants are hit, the consequences for the
civilian economy arc dreadful. People die
from poverty.
A war to prevent a humanitarian
disaster confronts special difficulties.
Refugee columns mistakenly hit are the
least of it. The real problem: the ethnic
cleansing. Thousands of Kosovars may die
from hunger and disease.
And troubling questions arose when
American aircraft weren't allowed to
conduct low-flying attacks that could
seriously damage Serbian combat units
and avoid civilians; the planes might be
shot down, and Americans and Europeans
might turn against the war, President
Clinton and other NATO leaders implic-
itly made a political calculation to avoid
voter punishment for soldiers’ deaths —
at the risk of not achieving war aims, '
4. Fourth, the just-war criteria ask
whether a war can reasonably be expectfd
to achieve its goals.
The military had warned that no
bombing campaign was likely to break
Milosevic’s will or capacity — but virtu-
ally no one in Washington wanted a
ground attack. Wishful thinking ruled
The initial NATO air force was inad-
equate; it was more than doubled.
Refugee relief was improvised.
“Reasonable chance of success" docs
not mean certainty, and like other just-
war criteria cannot be applied in black-
and-white terms. With Yugoslavia, the
question asked was. Should anyone have
thought bombing had a "reasonable
chance" to succeed?
We may not agree whether this
Balkans’ campaign has met the just-war
See RUSSETT, page 15
OIJFSTION:
Does Humanitarian
Intervention Work?
“Humanitarian intervention through mili-
tary force may be an oxymoron," writes
Stephen Zunes, associate professor of
politics and chairman of the University of
San Francisco’s Peace and Justice Studies
program. He joins Bruce Russett, who is
Dean Acheson Professor of International
Relations at Yale University, to discuss
whether or not the NATO campaign in
Yugoslavia and Kosovo has met the Chris-
tian tradition’s criteria for a just war and
what the campaign suggests about humani-
tarian intervention’s future role in foreign
policy. Russett, who served as a consultant
for the U.S. bishops' 1983 pastoral letter on
war and peace, says we will confront hu-
manitarian disasters caused by dictator-
ships and ethnic hatreds again and again in
the future, and these disasters will continue
to present us with tough choices.
A third way is yet to be considered
Stephen Zunes,
associate profes-
sor of politics and
chairman of the
University of San
Francisco's Peace
and Justice Stud-
ies program, San
Francisco, Calif.
By Stephen Zunes
Military intervention for humanitarian
goals is a marked improvement over
traditional military interventions based on
narrow economic or strategic interests.
Indeed, the United States in recent
decades openly has supported allied
regimes engaged in atrocities as horrific as
those in Kosovo.
American double standards aside, few
would question that an international
response to Serbian aggression against the
Kosovar Albanians was a moral impera-
tive. Unfortunately, as became increas-
ingly apparent in the case of Yugoslavia,
“humanitarian intervention" through
military force may be an oxymoron.
NATO's bombing campaign against
Yugoslavia tragically illustrates the limits
of armed force in achieving even legiti-
mate political goals. After several weeks,
the bombing had hardened the Yugoslav
government’s position, marginalized
Serbian moderates, threatened the
stability of neighboring countries and
allowed the Serbs dramatically to increase
the oppression of the ethnic Albanians.
One traditional just-war criterion is
that going to war must have a reasonable
chance of success. No matter how just the
cause, the use of such a blunt and
ineffective instrument as military force
should not be utilized in the manner
witnessed in Yugoslavia.
Militarism builds on itself. Once again.
we saw national leaders deciding that if
bombing didn’t work, we'd just bomb
some more. This had nothing to do with
slopping Serbian atrocities against the
Kosovar Albanians. This was simply
foreign policy by catharsis, an act of
frustration. Increasingly, we heard that
continuing the bombing or even bringing
in ground troops was necessary for some
vague sense of “credibility" rather than
any practical and concrete objective.
Yugoslav President Slobodan
Milosevic’s power was based,on his
manipulation of the Serbs' historic sense
of victimhood. Their songs and epic
poems portray a willingness to be
martyred for the fatherland; indeed, such
a martyrdom often is seen as a higher
virtue than victor)'. NATO bombing
played right into the dictator's hands,
strengthening his popular support and
hardening his position.
The country's pro-democracy move-
ment — once the greatest hope for
pluralism and tolerance — has been set
back a decade or more. Ironically, the j
anti-Milosevic forces in Yugoslavia were
centered in Belgrade and other urban
areas which were the principal targets of ,
the bombing.
Indeed, from Eastern Europe to
Southeast Asia to Africa to Latin America
tyrants have been overthrown not
through outside military intervention but
through ordinary citizens Baking to the
streets nonviolently for the cause of
freedom and human rights. Support for
such movements in the tradition of
Solidarity in Poland and People Power in
the Philippines is where we can make a I
difference, not by bombing bridges and |
factories and television stations.
Grass-roots initiatives in conflict
resolution led by nongovernmental
organizations generally have been mote
See ZUNES, page 15
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This issue can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Newspaper.
Espitia, Paula. South Texas Catholic Monthly (Corpus Christi, Tex.), Vol. 34, No. 6, Ed. 1 Tuesday, June 1, 1999, newspaper, June 1, 1999; Corpus Christi, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth855660/m1/8/?q=%22%22~1: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .