Reasons Against Bombing

Anyone with the least bit of sense is afraid of bombing and is against it.  The Serbian Government, as usual under pressure, has taken a whole series of steps: it sent invitations to the OSCE Mission and to UN Security Council observers, it is visibly withdrawing armed forces from Kosovo...  In a fix for time it is calling upon UN Security Council Resolution 1199 and upon the agreement between Yeltsin and Milosevic.  It is not crystal clear what exactly the biggest world power is still demanding from Milosevic.  Perhaps it is something that only Milosevic and Holbrooke know.  The rest of the citizens of Yugoslavia believe that we will be bombed as an “act of God”.  It is not clear how Yugoslavia would become less of a threat to peace in the region if it were to be bombed now.  On the contrary, it seems that the threat to peace would only increase.  After air intervention, the number of victims would increase rapidly, the humanitarian crisis would become absolute, and the Government in Belgrade that much more brutal.  It appears that there is no clear reason — neither military, humanitarian or even political — for the cold war between the Serbs and the rest of the world to be solved with weapons.

The Albanians have no desire for negotiating for as long as they believe that someone else’s force will solve their problems.  The leaders of Kosovo’s Albanians are demonstrating pragmatic cynicism with which they are merely worsening the humanitarian crisis in Kosovo.  They are calling on intervention which would include ground troops being put in place, and negligible human casualties on the Albanian side, the Serbian side and the side of the intervention force.  They are undermining the readiness of Serbs to fight over Kosovo and are overestimating the American readiness to send Private Ryan to Drenica.   Regardless of how surgically precise they might be, strong air attacks would do just as much harm to the Albanians as to the Serbs.  A broken up state, overcome by impotent rage, would simmer with mean passions, while corpses on Balkan roads are always first reached by vultures, before sanitary measures can be taken.  Kosovo can hardly be a heavenly garden for as long as its soil is burnt.

The Serbian regime cannot be changed with bombs.  Nor will bombs change the radical element of the Albanian political scene, while any other element appears to be honestly lacking.  The western powers wont be any more democratic if they unload a cargo of bombs on the fire which is burning here.  Western public opinion, like a segment of our public opinion, is disgusted with the situation in our country.  However, the sense of disgust would only be that much more intense after intervention.  On the other hand, the great powers are defined as such because of their ability to carry out threats.  Threats have born fruit on one level: Milosevic and his satellites are only swaggering on the domestic scene, while they have made many concessions which can be interpreted as acceptance of attitudes held by the international community.  Is anyone in the west of the opinion that the political question of Kosovo ought to be resolved now while threats are in effect?  Such an arrangement requires at least two sides.  Even if Holbrooke were to wrap a scarf around his neck, he would still not strike a deal which would suit the KLA, one of the principal factors on ground.  What then is the political attitude of the Albanian side?  Has it been stated anywhere?  Are they unanimous in that attitude?  Who is authorized to negotiate in the name of the Albanian side?  Are they accepting any sort of autonomy or are they only accepting a solution which will give them a new national state?  What to negotiate and with whom?  Even when going shopping, the idea is to pay as little as possible, while the vendor’s job is to get the best price for his wares.  Does such a bomb exist at all which can synchronize Albanian-Serbian expectations on the political bazaar?  On whose side of the scales will the “tomahawks” fall?  Whose price needs to be lowered?  The Serbian or the Albanian?