The deadly semantics of NATO bombings by Howard Zinn

James Farmelant farmelantj at juno.com
Fri May 28 14:24:27 PDT 1999


The deadly semantics of NATO bombings

By Howard Zinn, 05/28/99

Isn't it time we stopped using the word ''accidental'' to

describe the NATO bombing of Yugoslavian hospitals, residential

neighborhoods, buses, trains, trucks, and refugees on roads that has

killed or maimed at least 1,000 civilians, including children?

The word ''accident'' is not an accurate description of the mayhem we

have caused in Yugoslavia. True, the world ''deliberate'' does not fit

either. It is understandable that Serb leaders would call it

''deliberate,'' just as it is understandable that our leaders would

call it an ''accident.'' Both words are propaganda devices that blur a

reality more complex than that two-word vocabulary can convey.

An accident implies something unforeseen. True, a recent bombing - to

take an example of the hospital bombed in Belgrade - may have been

unforeseen as a specific consequence of bombing the city. But it was

foreseeable, given the magnitude and nature of the bombing, that some

hospital, school, village, or bus would at some point be hit, and

civilians would die.

If I drive my car at 80 miles an hour down a street crowded with

children, and 10 of them are killed, I cannot dismiss this as an

accident, even if I had not intended to kill these particular

children. When an action has inevitable and terrible consequences, it

cannot be excused as ''accidental.''

That is an imaginary situation, but let me describe a real one. Just

before the end of World War II, flying as a bombardier with the Eighth

Air Force, I dropped canisters of napalm on a French town on the

Atlantic coast of France. I have no idea how many civilian inhabitants

died because of what I did - my target was ''military,'' that is, a

bunch of German soldiers waiting for the war to end. But can I claim

that the deaths I caused - how many were children I have no way of

knowing - were the result of an ''accident''?

When Serbian troops in Kosovo kill Albanians, the proper word is

''deliberate.'' But when our planes drop cluster bombs on a

residential neighborhood and children are either killed or left in

agony because of the steel fragments penetrating their bodies, that

should not be passed off as an accident, even if it is not

''deliberate'' in the same sense as Milosevic's evil deeds. Both are

war crimes, legally and morally.

I am focusing on children as victims because they are true innocents.

We are bombing Yugoslavia every night, and citizens there report that

their children cannot sleep and live in constant fright. Bombing a

city at night is a form of terrorism, because even if the target hit

is a ''military'' one, the entire population must live in fear.

Indeed, whether in World War II or Vietnam, the terrorizing of the

civilian population has always been an objective of bombing, no matter

how official propaganda denies it.

We can expect NATO and US officials to use language intended to

absolve their guilt. But why do reporters, who are not supposed to

parrot the propaganda of governments, keep using words like

''accidental'' and ''mistake,'' which suggest an innocence not

appropriate to the massive bombing of towns and cities?

The attempts by officials to defend the deaths of civilians border on

the absurd. In defending an airstrike on a village, the administration

said that Kosovars were used as ''human shields.'' Do ordinary

civilians not live in villages? Were the patients who died in the

devastated hospital forced into their beds? Were the civilians killed

on the bombed train deliberately sent on that trip?

That explanation brought back the ugliest of memories of My Lai and

other Vietnam massacres, justified by ''the Vietnamese babies are

concealing hand grenades.'' It also brought Secretary of State

Madeleine Albright's response afer Pakistani troops had fired into a

crowd of Somali citizens: ''They are using civilians as shields.''

Another explanation used by the administration is that the deaths

caused by NATO bombings don't compare to the numbers that Milosevic

has killed. Does one horror excuse another? In the simplest of moral

mottoes told to all of us as children: Two wrongs do not make a right.

For us to react to violence with more violence is especially

reprehensible when our violence has no effect in stopping a

catastrophe and, indeed, makes it worse, as it is clear our bombing

has made things worse for the Kosovars we claim to care about.

If we cannot deny culpability in the killing of large numbers of

innocent people by claiming ''accident,'' if these deaths are the

inevitable result of our policy, the conclusion should be clear: We

must stop our bombing. And we must go to the negotiating table - not

deliver ultimatums with the arrogance of a superpower - to end the

horrors committed by both sides in Yugoslavia.

Howard Zinn is professor emeritus at Boston University and author of

''A People's History of the United States.''

This story ran on page A19 of the Boston Globe on 05/28/99.

© Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company.

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