<html> <font face="Courier New, Courier" size=2>Wednesday, May 5, 1999<br> <br> As the Innocent Die, Where Are All the Voices of Protest?<br> Balkans: The liberals' silence on the NATO bombing and its<br> <br> 'collateral damage' is keeping us from talking about alternatives.<br> <br> By TOM HAYDEN<br> <br> [W]here are the voices of protest against the<br> suffering inflicted on civilians and children by<br> our bombardment of Serbia?<br> <br> The moral rationale provided by the Clinton<br> administration at the outset of the bombing was that<br> the brutal ethnic cleansing of Kosovo could be<br> stopped in a short military campaign. That promise<br> was either a deception or a delusion. The war has<br> turned into a horrific quagmire, and yet even liberal<br> Democrats remain strangely tongue-tied about the<br> suffering, which our government lamely calls<br> "collateral damage."<br> <br> Every day seems to bring news of civilians being<br> killed and the White House apologizing. Worse,<br> according to the Wall Street Journal, President<br> Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair pushed<br> in mid-April for a wider definition of targets that<br> would increase the danger to civilians. The result is<br> the death of cleaning ladies and bus drivers,<br> evacuation of 85,000 people from Belgrade<br> neighborhoods poisoned by toxic chemicals, the<br> unemployment of 100,000 Serbs and laying waste of<br> Serbia's civilian infrastructure with what the New<br> York Times calls "greater effects on the gross<br> domestic product than the Nazi and, then, the Allied<br> bombing of Yugoslavia" during World War II.<br> <br> And the silence continues. Perhaps the silent<br> ones think these are all regrettable accidents, or<br> that war is hell, or that bombing Serb civilians who<br> have opposed Milosovic in the past will help them to<br> overthrow him now.<br> <br> What then of the intentional indiscriminate<br> infliction of shrapnel wounds on children? Unexploded<br> cluster bomb units are turning whole areas of<br> Yugoslavia into a "no man's land," wounding large<br> numbers of children in the process. According to the<br> Los Angeles Times, the director of Pristina's<br> hospital says he has never done so many amputations<br> as he has since victims of the weapon started coming<br> in.<br> <br> I keep an early model of the cluster bombs used<br> in Vietnam on my shelf as a reminder of the evil done<br> in the name of good intentions. The bombs are dropped<br> over a broad landscape, where they explode via timers<br> or the simple vibration of a passerby. The blast<br> causes up to 300 pieces of deadly shrapnel to scatter<br> in all directions. The shrapnel is very difficult to<br> remove because of its deliberately jagged design.<br> <br> Liberal silence on these issues allows Pentagon<br> and NATO spokesmen to systematically and routinely<br> utilize doublespeak and refuse to discuss the kinds<br> of weapons they are using.<br> <br> There seem to be two reasons for the Democratic<br> war fever.<br> <br> First, invocation of the Holocaust analogy has<br> led many to accept Ted Koppel's admonition to "get<br> used to the idea of civilian casualties." But is this<br> the Holocaust or is it intervention in a<br> long-standing Balkan religious and ethnic war?<br> Whatever the answer, is there no level of civilian<br> suffering that makes the bombing unjustifiable? And<br> most important, isn't the U.S. and NATO military<br> commitment to stop ethnic cleansing in the Balkans<br> even slightly suspicious given the ethnic cleansing<br> that they tolerate in Tibet, Turkey, Guatemala,<br> Rwanda and Angola? Is this war really about human<br> rights or about consolidating the U.S. and NATO as an<br> alternative to the United Nations?<br> <br> Second, the fact that President Clinton and his<br> European social democratic allies started the bombing<br> leads a majority of Democrats to rally behind their<br> party leader. This was acceptable when the issue was<br> belittling the president's sexual indiscretions to<br> avoid impeachment, but it is quite something else to<br> become apologists for the killing of children with<br> anti-personnel bombs to shore up Western<br> "credibility."<br> <br> The Democratic Party's domestic agenda will be<br> unraveled by the new liberal militarism. Already the<br> Republican Congress has forced Clinton to accept $13<br> billion in military funds, twice what the president<br> requested. By contrast, the president will ask for<br> just $1 billion this year for new teachers and $5<br> billion over five years for school overcrowding.<br> <br> I want to continue deepening and expanding the<br> president's domestic agenda of investing in schools<br> and jobs in the inner city, providing health care and<br> restoring the natural environment.<br> <br> Three decades ago, I was pursuing the same<br> agenda when the Democratic Party started the Vietnam<br> War and abandoned its commitment to a great society.<br> That experience should not be repeated.<br> <br> Before this becomes a Vietnam in the Balkans, it<br> is time for liberals to start breaking their silence.<br> The Jesse Jackson mission, opposed by the White<br> House, plainly proves that diplomatic alternatives,<br> like a partitioned Kosovo under the U.N., have not<br> been exhausted.<br> <br> Instead, the much-touted Apache gunships with<br> American crews are preparing to escalate the<br> conflict. The real Apaches, the Native Americans,<br> were victims of a brutal, even genocidal, ethnic<br> cleansing by the U.S. armed forces in the last<br> century. That our government can self-righteously go<br> to war to save Kosovo with helicopters named after<br> the victims of our own ethnic cleansing measures the<br> state of denial we are in.<br> <br> - - -<br> <br> Tom Hayden Is a Democrat Representing Parts of West<br> Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley in the State<br> Senate<br> <br> Copyright 1999 Los Angeles Times. All Rights Reserved<br> <br> (happy Karl Marx's birthday!)<br> </font><br> <div>Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & <a href="http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/JDevine.html" EUDORA=AUTOURL>http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/JDevine.html</a></div> Bombing DESTROYS human rights. US/NATO out of Serbia now! </html>
