Kosovo Conflict Essay, Research Paper

The Balkans have been a very unstable region for hundreds of years. The reason

for contention is because of ethnic origin and disputes of which race owns which

land.. That is the reason for the dispute over Kosovo is because of the same

thing. This is a very complicated situation, that I don’t really know everything

about. I just kind of know the basics. Back in the 1500 hundreds, the Serbs

conquered the Kosovo area, slowly and gradually over the years the Ethnic

Albanians started occupying the territory, until before the bombing began,

Kosovo consisted of 90% Ethnic Albanians. Well, the Serbs didn’t like this,

especially Milosevic who is the ruler over Serbia. Since Kosovo has many

historical ties to the Serbs, and the Serbs conquered that territory back in the

1500 hundreds, Milosevic wanted to reclaim their rightful territory. And his

method to do this was through "ethnic cleansing" Kosovo. Stats: -Milosevic

has been doing this subtlety for years, and as of last fall has increased his

killing of "ethnic Albainians". To date, there are now 200,00 people

dead as a result of Milosevic’s ethnic cleansing. That is probably a very low

figure. 100,000 Kosovar men are now missing, which might be the reason for the

"mass graves" that have been pictured. Nearly one half a million

people have been expelled from their homes, many forced out at gunpoint, while

the Serbian troops destroyed their identity papers, making them unable to return

to their homes. This flood of refugees have overwhelmed neighboring countries,

who are economically weak, and are unable to take in all the refugees. 600,000

Kosovars are surviving off the land in mountains nearby. Controversy: -You might

wonder what business the U.S. has in a country on the other side of the world,

where it seems to be no political interest whatsoever. That is a big

controversery of whether or not NATO should be involved. At first I was against

NATO involvement for just those reasons, why should NATO get involved where

there would be no benefit to us, because this was more of a humanitarian issue.

But as I researched this and read more about it, I am in favor of NATO

involvement. I believe that we should do everything possible to help stop

Tyrants from killing innocent people. Which is what was and is occuring in

Kosovo. -But I am against NATO in who, why and how NATO is handling this

conflict. Who: -NATO is very hypocritical by saying they got involved in this

situation purely because of humanitarian reasons. There have been many occasions

where the U.S. looked the other way on bigger humanitarian disasters. In West

Africa, there was a similar "ethnic cleansing" situation where the

U.S. did not get involved. Why: -In the begging, where NATO was on the verge of

bombing Kosovo, Clinton spoke in a public meeting about why we were getting

involved. He said, trying to get public approval, that the reason the U.S. is

getting involved is largely an economical reason. He said that this war would

help the U.S. financially. By getting involved, we would become partners with

Europe, thus increasing a trade relationship. That is what I am against. I am

against the U.S./Clinton thinking more about how much money we can get, rather

than saving innocent lives from being brutally murdered. -After the bombing had

dragged on for longer than expected, which was only about a week in some

people’s opinion, the objectives were stated as follows: "To stop ethnic

cleansing, stop flood of refugees into nieghboring countries, stop NATO from

splitting, prevent Milosevic from strengthening his grip on the Balkan

region." And, after over 2 months of involvement, NATO has not been able to

meet those objectives. -Bob Bennet said that the current bombing has "been

no help to the Albanians and Macedonians, who have seen hundreds of thousands of

refugees flood across the borders into their ill-equipped countries. It has been

of no help to NATO, an alliance that has seen its military stocks drawn down to

dangerously low levels, with no effects on the atrocities going on in the

killing fields." -One speculated reason to get involved was because of the

military stategic point in the Balkans. After NATO wins, the U.S. would put

troops in the area to secure it. That was one reason why Russia is against U.S.

involvement. How: This is my biggest controversy to NATO’s actions. NATO’s

strategy to stop Milosevic from killing innocent people, was to bomb him into

submission. Military officials predicted this "war" would last less

than two weeks. NATO underestimated milosevics tolerance. (VIETNAM CARTOON) Many

people compare this war to vietnam. The U.S. underestimated what Vietnamise were

willing to take. Also, both sides did not fully explore the possiblity of a

peaceful negotiation. After the Vietnam war, there was a study on the conflict

where a group of researchers tried to find out if there was a better way of

handling the conflict. They talked with both U.S. government and the vietnamese

government, they found that both sides were much more open to negotiations than

previously thought. The U.S. just assumed that there was no peaceful solution,

and thought bombing would solve all problems. Which in the end, made things much

worse. That is the question being raised in this conflict, could there have been

a peaceful negotiation? -quote from New York Times-"This century has been

the bloodiest in history. Over 160 million human beings have been killed in

various conflicts, and that number rises each day. It is a dark history, but

unless we look at it and seek to learn from it, it will only get darker."

"It was once famously said that the United States did not have 10 years of

experience n Vietnam, but one year of experience 10 times over. Will we say the

same about the Balkans?" -This is a quote from a military spokesman,

"NATO strikes continue to cause serious damage to the Serb military and

will further degrade their capability to commit atrocities against the Kosovo

Albanian population" "We are also seeing increased evidence of ethnic

cleansing"-Same spokesman, same briefing, same day, one minute later. This

is also a characteristic of Vietnam, where there was very questionable news

being sent back to the public. There is very vague reports of what NATO bombed,

and how bad the damage was. It doesn’t seem as though we are getting all the

information. There has been much use of double speak in the news. The death of

innocent men, women and children from bombs and missiles launched by over a

thousand warplanes are labeled as "Unintentional collateral damage".

Bakeries and water pumping stations blown to pieces by NATO’s barrage are

"dual-use facilities" because soldiers, like civilians, eat and drink.

And, of course, deliberate terror bombing is a "humanitarian" war.

-Another big controversy of this war is whether or not to bring in ground

troops. The U.S. did not even consider ground troops before the war began; they

didn’t even have the threat of using them. This gave Milosivic the advantage.

Without even the threat of ground troops coming in, Milosevic had all the

freedom he wanted to "ethnically cleanse" Kosovo. Milosevic was

allready killing ethnic albanians before the bombing began, but not to the

degree he was after bombing started. NATO bombing gave the serbs a good reason

to start kicking all the Ethnic Albanians out. So, you could argue that NATO

involvement has only worstened the situation in Kosovo. – The reason why NATO

picked air raids as there strategy to win was because they did not want to lose

allied lives. As in Somalia, the U.S. was involved as long as no U.S. soldiers

lives were not lost. Then in one day, when 15 soldiers died, the U.S. backed out

of Somalia. "The single most remarkable fact about this "war" is

this: Not one allied soldier engaged in combat has even been seriously injured

in 2 months of the campaign." Has there ever been such a war anywhere? -It

seems as though NATO’s biggest objective in this war is to make sure that no

allied lives are lost, not to save the thousands of Kosovars that are dying and

millions that are going homeless. This is by far my biggest objection to this

war. If the U.S. is going to get involved in a war, then I believe that we

should do whatever is necessary to accomplish the objectives. In this case, to

save the ethnic albanians. -A recent pole showed that 63% of the American people

think that NATO is right in getting involved. When asked about sending in ground

troops this dropped to only 41% thinking that ground troops should be used. This

means that the majority of people are allright with being involve in a conflict,

just as long as no allied soldier’s lives are lost. And this is exactly how

Clinton is going about this war. Clinton, I believe, is too concern with public

opinion. In general, the average american citizen is not going to have an

in-depth knowledge of the Kosovo situation, and what strategy would be the best

to use to save the most amount of lives. -NATO is not even willing to air drop

desperately needed food and medicine to the tens of thousands of Albanians still

trapped inside Kosovo. The reason for this is because the planes would have to

fly low and they might be shot down. I guess this didn’t apply to the f-117

stealth fighter pilot who was shot down over enemy territory. NATO actually got

together an entire rescue team, flew over enemy territory in a helicopter, much

more vulnerable than a plane, and rescue the single pilot taking an incredible

risk of being shot down. Is this supposed to mean that a single allied life is

worth more than thousands of albanian lives? My view: -I think that the U.S.

should use the Powell strategy used in Desert Storm. "To use as much force

as possible to overwhelm the opposition." I believe that a human life is

worth the same no matter where that person is from. I believe that if the

President is not willing to sacrifice allied lives to achieve military

objectives, then we have no business.