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Feinstein Condemns Bombing of Embassy
She voices doubt about NATO's air campaign
Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington Bureau
Tuesday, May 11, 1999
�1999 San Francisco Chronicle
URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-
bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1999/05/11/MN87405.DTL
Senator Dianne Feinstein lashed out yesterday against NATO's
accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, calling
for a temporary halt to allied air attacks on urban areas.
The California Democrat, a long- time and vocal supporter of
greater U.S. openness toward China, first strongly condemned the
stray attacks during a radio interview, saying she thought ``the
mission ought to be brought to an end.''
Feinstein later issued a much more restrained press release that
criticized NATO ``errors'' but reiterated her earlier position
that ``our cause in this conflict is just and that our resolve
must continue.''
Feinstein spokesman Howard Gantman said the comments used from
the radio interview ``are not inaccurate, but the senator wanted
to really show exactly what are the issues for her.''
Gantman said Feinstein spoke with National Security Adviser
Sandy Berger yesterday to urge the administration to ``reassess
their procedures in targeting and intelligence before moving
ahead with intensive bombing in urban areas.''
During the interview with KCBS radio, Feinstein said, ``I don't
believe you can win wars by tossing bombs around like popcorn.''
``I'm beginning to get very concerned about how this campaign is
being carried out,'' Feinstein added. ``It seems to be right now
just about how much destruction we can create.''
The embassy bombing has sparked violent anti-American street
protests in Beijing -- with tacit support from the Chinese
government -- and has also damaged U.S.-China relations on
several critical fronts.
China has broken off talks on human rights and arms control, and
a raft of valuable trade concessions China offered in an effort
to gain entry to the World Trade Organization are now in doubt.
In her press release, Feinstein said she had ``very serious
concerns'' about ``flaws in intelligence and bombing procedures.
These have taken far too many innocent lives and caused far too
much collateral damage.''
But Feinstein added a strong condemnation of Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic's attacks on the Kosovo province.
President Clinton ``has expressed the nation's deep regrets''
for the embassy bombing, Feinstein said, ``but he also
rightfully pointed out that the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo --
which has led to the killing of thousands of people, the use of
rape as an instrument of war, and the relocation of over 600,000
people -- is an ongoing, deliberate and systematic crime.''
In a Chronicle interview April 12, when the NATO air war was
just a few weeks old, Feinstein was strongly supportive, ticking
off the number of air sorties run, the percentages of
Yugoslavia's oil refining and ammunition production that had
been destroyed and the number of clear nights that allied pilots
had experienced.
But Feinstein also is an ardent supporter of China, having
forged closer ties to the Chinese government than perhaps any
other U.S. politician. Feinstein has cultivated a personal
relationship with Chinese President Jiang Zemin that dates back
to the early 1980s, when the two met as mayors of ``sister
cities'' San Francisco and Shanghai.
She has met with Zemin many times over the years, once making a
personal appeal to Zemin on behalf of Tibet's Dalai Lama.
Representative Barbara Lee, an Oakland Democrat who has opposed
the NATO air war from the beginning, also condemned the embassy
bombing yesterday, saying, ``Massive bombing raids are a morally
unacceptable way of achieving peace.''
Lee said war ``is defined in part by its collateral damage'' and
that the Chinese Embassy bombing ``is particularly upsetting''
given China's veto power in the United Nations Security Council,
which could oversee a potential peace settlement between NATO
and Yugoslavia.
``Given the utter failure of the NATO bombing strategy,'' Lee
said, ``there can be no question that our best hope for peace
and stability in Yugoslavia is the negotiation of an immediate
cease-fire.''
�1999 San Francisco Chronicle Page A13
>From LA Times
Tuesday, May 11, 1999
International Law May Halt the Bombing
<Picture>Serbia: NATO attacks on nonmilitary targets, deliberate or otherwise, may be
deemed war cr
imes.
By JONATHAN M. MILLER
<Picture><Picture><Picture><Picture>
ADVERTISEMENT
<Picture>
<Picture: Subscribe to the Times>
<Picture>
<Picture: For the Best of LA, visit Calendarlive.com>
<Picture: I>nternational law now constrains U.S. military operations in Serbia in ways
that the Uni
ted States has never faced before. The Clinton administration's plan of constantly
increasing bombi
ng pressure until Serbi
a submits will fail, not because air power cannot bring a nation to its knees, but
because long bef
ore that point, international law will force the bombings to a halt.
In 1993, the United Nations Security Council created the International War Crimes
Tribunal for
the Former Yugoslavia. Responding to initiatives from the U.S. and its NATO allies,
the Security C
ouncil acted to end the
impunity of the perpetrators of atrocities in the former Yugoslavia. The tribunal is
the first int
ernational war crimes tribunal since Nuremberg. It now has an active trial calendar,
with 26 indivi
duals in custody, and h
as issued indictments against more than 80 suspects. All major NATO countries have
actively support
ed the tribunal. However if NATO is not careful, its leaders could find themselves
threatened with
indictments.
The initial premise of NATO's bombing campaign was that if it inflicted
sufficient damage on t
he Serbian military, the Serbians would eventually withdraw their forces from Kosovo
to escape furt
her punishment. Moreove
r, an extreme variant of this proposition, that the infliction of enough damage on
Serbia will forc
e its withdrawal from Kosovo, is undoubtedly correct. An indiscriminate NATO bombing
campaign, targ
eting not just the Serb
ian military, but gradually including all Serbian infrastructure, factories and
government building
s, would probably produce results. After enough suffering, any nation will surrender.
The catch is that simply inflicting suffering without the justification of
military necessity
violates the law of war. An air force may reasonably bomb a bridge to impede military
supplies and
may bomb a refinery to
block the supply of fuel for military vehicles, regardless of the discomforts the loss
imposes on t
he civilian population.
At a certain point, however, bombing crosses the line from merely causing
collateral effects o
n the civilian population to being directed at the civilian population. Recent
decisions to tempora
rily deprive most of Se
rbia of electric power and to bomb a cigarette plant, a television station and a
political party he
adquarters are hard to describe as military necessity. Moreover, errors like the
bombing of the Chi
nese Embassy (in seekin
g to bomb a nondescript government building) will increase as nonmilitary urban sites
get targeted.
The war crimes tribunal has jurisdiction over any individual responsible for
serious violation
s of the law of war in the former Yugoslavia since 1991. Among the crimes to be
prosecuted is the w
ar crime of "wanton des
truction of cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military
necessity." NATO of
ficials, senior military officers and even common servicemen could be prosecuted by
the tribunal if
bombings are not dicta
ted by military necessity.
The tribunal's prosecutor, former Canadian judge Louise Arbour, works closely
with the NATO al
lies in gathering evidence on the crimes being committed by the Serbian forces in
Kosovo. She recen
tly met with the U.S. s
ecretary of State and the secretary of Defense to receive further commitments of
assistance. Howeve
r the need to maintain impartiality will inevitably also require her to caution NATO
officials on t
heir bombing targets, i
f she has not already.
Judge Arbour's warnings will carry weight. The United States and its NATO allies
recognize tha
t under the U.N. Charter, they are legally bound to cooperate with the tribunal. For
the first time
in its history, the Un
ited States finds itself engaged in an armed conflict in which an international court
may correctly
insist that it may try U.S. officials and servicemen.
Not that the tribunal would likely issue indictments to make its point. Long
before any indict
ments would come a public pronouncement that in itself would split the alliance.
The result is good for international law, but bad in terms
of President Clinton's options. Because bombings must satisfy a
military necessity, bombing as a form of pressure is illegal--
and that increases pressure on NATO to either free Kosovo using
ground troops or to accept a Russian compromise.
International law does not allow a war directed against a
people. NATO is constrained by the international legal order it
has pushed to establish, especially in a war fought for
humanitarian principles.
- - -
Jonathan M. Miller Is a Professor of Law, Teaching International
Protection of Human Rights at Southwestern University School of
Law
Copyright 1999 Los Angeles Times. All Rights Reserved
>From VillageVoice
http://www.villagevoice.com/columns/9919/hentoff.shtml
May 12 - 18, 1999
Nat Hentoff
War Crimes as Spectator Sport
<Picture><Picture>Birth Defects and Leukemia Ahead
<Picture>According to Yugoslav authorities, the charred remains
of an ethnic Albanian man killed after a NATO plane hit a
caravan of refugees (photo: AP/Wide World) <Picture>
Refugees are now providing accounts of "throat cutting, cutting
out eyes, cutting off breasts, nose, fingers, hands and/or feet,
slicing of body parts, and carving of Serb nationalistic marks
on the chest, forehead, or other parts of the body."
�Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, The
Washington Post, April 22
Serbian paramilitaries reportedly rampaged through two ethnic
Albanian villages last Sunday, killing as many as 40 people,
including four or five young women who were raped and then
executed, refugees said today.
�The New York Times, April 25
Even after American military involvement in Vietnam increased,
it took a considerable amount of time before most Americans had
a clear, vivid sense of the killing and other atrocities
there�on both sides.
But in 1999, at the very beginning of the bombing to "save" the
people of Kosovo from ethnic cleansing (George Orwell should be
alive), there has been no escaping the daily and indeed hourly
news of the results of that calamitous rescue operation. Death
rains not only on the ethnic Albanians being "cleansed," but
also on civilians in Yugoslavia and even Bulgaria.
None of us can say we do not know what is going on in terms of
rampant violations of the most fundamental human rights. But
there will be additional devastating effects from the great NATO
adventure that generals Bill Clinton and Tony Blair are
commanding.
Already, as The Nation reported in its May 10 issue, "There are
credible reports from Belgrade of NATO strikes on petrochemical
plants, as well as in the vicinity of a nuclear power plant. And
both Britain and the United States include in their Yugoslav war
arsenal depleted uranium weapons, which have been linked to
leukemia and birth defects in the Persian Gulf region since
Desert Storm." These environmental degradations know no borders,
as the Serbs say.
So deformed children and slowly dying parents will be part of
the long-range harvest of our maximum leader's "humanitarian"
strategy. Just about every expert in military matters warned
that massive bombing would not accomplish our goals, whatever
they were. But Clinton refused to listen.
In the same issue of The Nation, Alexander Cockburn�a Voice
alumnus�writes that, as part of an effort to make the punishment
of Yugoslavia and its inhabitants more severe, there will be
"ever-increasing resort to cluster bombs, which are cheap." And
the "dumb" bombs to be used cause more injuries than the "smart"
bombs.
"Cluster bombs," Cockburn continues, "tend to kill civilians,
not soldiers. About 25 percent of them fail to detonate, thus
littering the terrain with land mines for years to come."
The Serbs have already planted land mines of their own along
their borders, and these have killed Kosovo refugees attempting
to reach safety from Milosevic's hit men in SWAT teams and death
squads.
A footnote: When most nations finally agreed not long ago to
destroy all land mines and never to use them again, the most
significant holdout was the United States�by order of William
Jefferson Clinton.
Friends of mine tell me it is wrong to call what's happening
"genocide." It's only "ethnic cleansing." I ask them what number
of corpses has to be reached to justify a less antiseptic term
than "ethnic cleansing." No one has given me the magic number
yet.
In meticulous, systematic interviews with refugees, the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe collected
"testimonies of torture" and stories of "victims separated from
the group and later found dead or not accounted for" (The New
York Times, April 24).
And in the April 22 Washington Post, there is a report that a
Kosovo Liberation Army "guerrilla unit...came across the bodies
of 35 men, women, and children in one group and 13 in another
group�all of whom were reportedly killed on the night of March
26, two days after NATO air strikes began."
If any of their relatives survive, I doubt it will be a comfort
for them to be told that it was not genocide.
Arianna Huffington (New York Post, April 24) provides a telling
example of the true loyalties that will be part of Clinton's
legacy. It will not be found in his presidential library. She
writes:
"There has been no White House call to corporate America to
allocate some of its record profits to support the refugees�only
an appeal to support the NATO celebration.
"It cost a quarter of a million dollars to reserve a place on
the board of directors of the summit host committee [for the
celebration]�dominated by the same communications and defense
companies that spend millions of dollars on lobbying each year."
Among the military manufacturers paying for the "honor" were
Boeing, GM, Honeywell, TRW, AmeriTech, and DaimlerChrysler.
That obscenity aside, what can be done to remedy Clinton's
disaster? The only hope I can see is to intensify pressure on
Russia to push for a partition of Yugoslavia that will create a
truly independent Kosovo state. Widespread chaos in the
countries near Russia would hardly be in its interest,
especially when chaos is increasingly the norm at home.
Moreover, Russia is in great need of continued financial help
from the West.
But why would Milosevic bend? Well, he can't afford to lose
Russia as an ally�unless he's prepared to commit personal and
national suicide. That's possible, too. Remember der F�hrer.
Tell us what you think. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>From wsws.org
WSWS : News & Analysis : Europe : The Balkan Crisis
London demonstration against the war in the Balkans
By our own reporter
11 May 1999
<Picture>On Saturday May 8, over 5,000 participated in the London demonstration
against the war in the Balkans. Coaches from around the country brought protestors to
the capital, where they marched from the Embankment to
a final rally in Hyde Park.
Throughout the length of the march, people carried wooden crosses bearing the names of
some of those killed by NATO bombs.
As the marchers walked, many joined in the chants: "NATO out! Stop the bombing!
Welfare, not warfare! New Labour, new war!" The demonstration, which had been called
by the Committee for Peace in the Balkans, included a wi
de spectrum of organisations: CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament), the Quakers,
several local trade union branches, the Greens and various other radical parties.
Young people and students, as well as pensioners and the
unemployed supported the demonstration.
It also included a number of ex-service personnel who opposed the US-NATO action. A
former British army recruit who served during World War II said that British Prime
Minister Tony Blair could "be leading us into a Third
World War". He angrily denounced the biased media coverage, saying, "We are not
getting the truth about how many women and kids are dying in Serbia every night
because of this stupid bombing. It has got to stop! As far as
I am concerned, the quicker we get rid of Blair, the better."
A small counter-demonstration of some 100 supporters of the Kosovo Liberation Army
(KLA) had assembled outside Hyde Park. They waved British and American flags and
chanted: "Long live the KLA. Good luck NATO!"
Inside Hyde Park, at the closing rally, Alice Mahon, Labour MP and chairwoman of the
Campaign for Peace in the Balkans, called the attack on Yugoslavia "a mad policy of
indiscriminate bombing". She said, "The only way to
stop this madness is for the UN to talk, with the support of China and Russia, for a
negotiated settlement, but the bombing has to stop."
Former CND leader Bruce Kent denounced the bombing campaign as "an absolute
catastrophe which is just getting worse and worse". Labour MPs Tony Benn and Tam
Dalyell, Tory MP John Randall, and author Germaine Greer were al
so among those who took part in the demonstration.
Tony Benn said: "NATO is engaged in a war of aggression which is
against the UN charter. What is happening amounts to war crimes.
They will say they did not mean to bomb the Chinese Embassy, but
they have also bombed a civilian hospital and market."
See Also:
Balkan war: Embassy protests reflect deeper currents
[11 May 1999]
German protests condemn NATO onslaught against Serbia
[11 May 1999]
Mass demonstrations in China express outrage at NATO bombing
[10 May 1999]
How could the bombing of the Chinese embassy have been a
mistake?
[10 May 1999]
Lord Skidelsky's criticism of NATO: the driving forces of
"ethical imperialism"
[10 May 1999]
The fraud of NATO humanitarianism
What are the reasons for the war in Yugoslavia?
[5 May 1999]
US-NATO attack on Yugoslavia
[Complete list of WSWS articles]
Top of page
Readers: The WSWS invites your comments. Please send e-mail.
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