Why the left says "No!"
By Tariq Ali Western leaders assemble in Washington later this year to celebrate the 50th birthday of NATO. The aim of the summit is a new mission statement for NATO, transforming it from a defensive alliance into a zapping organisation which can hit a target state anywhere in the world to defend the interests of the United States, defined, of course, as 'human rights' and the 'free market'
Tony Blair is committed to the transformation of NATO. New Labour is harnessed to the chariotwheels of US military policy. Germany, Italy and France are skeptical. Oskar Lafontaine walked out of the German cabinet mainly because of Kosovo, arguing that it was reckless to follow the Americans. The Italian, Greek and Portuguese governments are divided.
What is taking place in the skies over Serbia is, therefore, of critical importance in determining who wins this argument.
In other words, the main concerns in this war are not the sufferings of the Kosovar Albanians. The USA's motives are much more sordid.
Even the most servile NATO apologists who fervently claimed that the bombing of Serbia was designed to help the Kosovars must, surely, be able to see the scale of the humanitarian disaster that this has unleashed. The bombing has been an abject failure.
The most sustained critique of the war has come from the rightwing commentators: Edward Luttwak, Andreas Whittam-Smith, William Rees-Mogg Alan Clark, Norman Stone, to name the most prominent. Most of Britain's traditional liberal and social-democratic antiwar left is, if anything, pro-NATO.
Since the bombing has failed, the liberal warmongers, who think nothing these days of violating national sovereignty (a crime for which Galtieri was crushed and Saddam is still being punished) will, no doubt, be calling for ground troops.
This option has so far been excluded. NATO soldiers prefer to kill rather than die, with one exception. The only NATO country whose leaders are not too worried about the body-bag problem is Turkey.
Perhaps a swap could be proposed.
Serbia could join NATO. Serb troops could liberate the Kurds and the Turks could save the Kosovars.
NATO bombing was supposedly designed to halt the flow of refugees. It has increased it a hundredfold. Pre-bombing spin had also implied that Milosevic wanted his country bombed so that he could quickly capitulate and isolate more hard-line nationalists. This turned out to be pure fantasy. Another reason was to weaken political support for Milosevic within Serbia. Instead, it has strengthened him.
If the bombing moves into Phase Three and civilian and economic targets are targeted, the war might well spread to other regions. If ground troops are dispatched, the result would be a long and bitter conflict.
There are only two serious alternatives for this region. Either a series of NATO protectorates imposed by war and bloody battles, which would lead to the remilitarisation of Europe and a new cold war with Russia, or a serious attempt to create a new regional framework. The latter would require an immediate cessation of hostilities, the return of monitors to Kosovo and the stationing of a UNsponsored peace-keeping force, which excludes both the NATO states that have waged war and the Serbians that have terrorised and driven out the population.
The long-term future of the region should be decided by a new Congress of Berlin, under the auspices of the UN Security Council and chaired by the SecretaryGeneral. This could, if the EU and US are willing, establish a stable basis for the region by setting up a new programme for reconstruction for all those who sign a comprehensive peace treaty, including the Kosovars, who must, within the new framework, be permitted their independence. If even half the billions spent by the West after aiding in the break-up of Yugoslavia had been spent on economic aid, we might have been been spared the traumas of the last decade. * Source: The Guardian (London and Manchester) 1 April 1999 http://www.guardian.co.uk © Copyright Guardian Media Group plc. 1999
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