On the Facts Noam Chomsky
Aryeh Neier's outrage over a "diatribe against NATO's military intervention" ("Inconvenient Facts," _Dissent_, Spring 2000) is understandable: the issues are too serious for that. His essay is presented as a review of my book _The New Military Humanism_ (_NMH_), which scarcely mentions the propriety of the NATO bombing. The topic is indeed brought up, three pages from the end, noting that what precedes -- the entire book -- leaves the question of what should have been done in Kosovo "unanswered," though it seems a "reasonable judgment" that the United States selected the most harmful of several options available. As explained clearly and unambiguously from the outset, even from the title, the book is about a wholly different topic: the import of the Kosovo events for the "new era" of "principles and values" led by the "enlightened states" (to quote from some of the rhetoric reviewed), a matter that must be sharply distinguished from the question of what should have been done.
I also stressed the point that any resort to force must be assessed in terms of its likely human consequences, whatever the motives or past record of the agent. To illustrate, I reviewed the major post-World War II examples of military intervention with benign consequences, along with the U.S. reaction to them, a matter directly relevant to the topic of the book, as is the matter of regular practice, which bears directly on motives and long-term import.
That these are the topics of the book cannot be missed, and has not been by others. The latest review I have seen opens by observing that "Chomsky, however, does not 'contribute to the debate about what should be, or should have been done in Kosovo.' As he explains, the aim of his writing is 'to examine the framework in which events proceeded on their course, with its terrible human toll."'
These are among the actual topics of the book, which also suggests easy ways to mitigate or terminate comparable or worse atrocities: for example, by withdrawing from participation in them. A leading thesis throughout is "a psychological truism. One of the hardest things to do is to look into the mirror. It is also one of the most important things to do." Neier passes over these matters with a few casual words, which seriously understate the crimes for which he and I share responsibility; Washington did not "tolerate" them, as he puts it, but took an active and decisive role in escalating them, a crucial distinction. It appears that my discussion of U.S. crimes and what we could easily do about them is of little significance to him in comparison with what should have been done about the other fellow's crimes.
I also discussed the reactions of commentators outside of the self-anointed "enlightened states," who warn that NATO's reversion to the "colonial era," "cloaked in moralistic righteousness," is "a danger to the world," and will lead to proliferation of weapons of mass destruction for deterrence (Israeli military analyst Amos Gilboa); and the high-level planning documents of the Clinton years that lend additional substance to these concerns. Significant questions, in my view, but apparently not in Neier's.
I also reviewed available documentation on the perceived circumstances under which the bombing of Kosovo was undertaken -- again, a matter highly relevant to motive and import, though it leaves "unanswered" the question of what should have been done. Since then a great deal of additional documentation has been provided by the U.S. State Department, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), NATO, the UN, and other Western sources. To a degree I found surprising, the new material undermines already dubious factual claims that bad been advanced to justify the bombing, including those Neier repeats, and lends support to my original judgment and perhaps even to the more extreme position of commanding general Wesley Clark, who informed the press as the bombing began that a sharp escalation of atrocities was "entirely predictable," and a few weeks later, that the NATO operation was "not designed as a means of blocking Serb ethnic cleansing" or "as a means of waging war against the Serb and MUP forces in Kosovo.... There was never any intent to do that."
By now, it is difficult to escape the conclusion of strategic analyst and former NATO planner Michael MccGwire that "while Serb forces were clearly the instrument of the unfolding 'humanitarian disaster,' NATO's long-trailered urge to war was undoubtedly a primary cause," and reference to the "bombing as 'humanitarian intervention"' is "really grotesque" (_International Affairs_, January 2000). A proper criticism of _NMH_ would be that the question was not as "unanswered' as I assumed.
Neier offers one argument to justify the bombing: the atrocities that were the anticipated consequence might have occurred anyway, given Milosevic's terrible record (and likely plans, as discussed in _NMH_). On Neier's principles, a far more humane course would have been to induce Albanian Kosovars to flee and then to bomb Serbs to permit their return. And from the same premises, it follows that we should have opposed the bombing, given Washington's terrible record.
But discussion is academic, since Neier wisely rejects the astonishing principle he puts forth to justify U.S. bombing. To mention only the most obvious illustration, while the campaign was being planned, Indonesian Kopassus commandos, renowned for their brutality, were entering East Timor to carry out "Operation Clean Sweep," renewing atrocities that had already eliminated more than a quarter of the population -- "reaching genocidal proportions" by Neier's standards -- with decisive U.S. military and diplomatic support for Indonesia's aggression and slaughters. The renewal of large-scale atrocities in early 1999 is reviewed in _NMH_, another topic Neier ignores. On August 6, the East Timorese Catholic Church reported that the army and its paramilitary forces had killed between three thousand and five thousand people in 1999 -- twice the number of Albanians and Serbs killed in Kosovo the year prior to the bombing. The Indonesian military also gave ample warning of worse to come, as it did. After the August 30 referendum, 750,000 people -- 85 percent of the population -- were brutally expelled while the country was largely destroyed. Throughout, U.S. military aid continued and the official stand remained that "it is their responsibility and we do not want to take it away from them" (reiterated September 8). Under increasing pressure, Clinton finally signaled to the Indonesian generals that they must cease, and they instantly reversed course. After their withdrawal, an Australian-led UN peacekeeping force entered the territory. Washington ensured that there would never be any intervention, and there was none. Our crimes continue in the aftermath, a matter I have reviewed elsewhere.
In the light of past performance and current actions, Neier's principle clearly called for bombing of Jakarta by early 1999 or long before, and bombing of Washington as well. And since the administration refused to adopt this course, his principle requires that honest citizens should have undertaken the task themselves. The same follows for other cases discussed in _NMH_, among them major atrocities within NATO, where right now the Turkish army is once again engaged in ground sweeps in regions of some of the worst ethnic cleansing and other atrocities of the 1990s, with decisive U.S. support (not "toleration") throughout, mounting as atrocities peaked. It is all too easy to add examples. Of course, distinctions must be made, but these only make the conclusions more stark. In short, Neier makes clear that he can think of no way to meet the heavy burden of proof that he agrees is required to support state violence.
As for the rest, I do not share Neier's easy tolerance of the refusal to lift a finger to mitigate ongoing genocide when the agent is a favored state, or the fulsome praise (including self-praise) for those who have once again been responsible for terrible atrocities, including the recent murder of leading dissident intellectuals, or the evasion of our awesome crimes by a posture of injured innocence. These hardly seem the proper reactions to crimes for which we share responsibility, and it is curious that a professed advocate of human rights should so strongly disagree.
NOAM CHOMSKY is Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.