US interests in Kosovo

Here is a strange and disturbing thought: our propensity is to appeal to that which is least known as justification for our most important actions.

When historians try to tell a story of what will happen in southern Yugoslavia, many will claim to have found the 'real' economic factors, some will know the 'real' reason the US is involved, others may have the 'real' scoop on the political structure of NATO, or the broader balance of power, or the cohesion of our alliances.

I don't know the 'real' economic factors of anything, I don't know what the CIA is doing, I don't know what fears drive the powerful, I don't know who holds the real power in this country or any other country. And you know what? You don't either.

These arguments, which are the only arguments we're likely to hear through this whole ugly ordeal, are nothing less than appeals to indeterminate authority, to the unresolvable least well known.

What is well known to we in America is the means by which any military activity has or has not gained popular support. This is well known to us because arguments in justification of such actions are necessarily offered in popular terms, and because we talk about it in these popular terms all the time.

The argument by the American government is that involvment in the fight is necessary for US interests, presumably in regard to the strength of our alliance with NATO, and that humanitarian reasons for stopping a genocide are obvious. The opposition charges that there is no end game, that there are no non-NATO US interests at stake in eastern Europe, that we are intervening in a civil war, imposing rules neither side wants.

But we need go no further: their hands are revealed. It is clearly demonstrated by their arguments and by their actions that they are not at all really concerned with our prioritiy: human suffering and death. Europeans are understandably concerned with human suffering and death, which is why they say they are asking for US involvement. But not our government. Not our power culture. Not really.

US interests - economic interests - have suddenly become paramount to those who once argued that Iraq's attack on Kuwait was wrong on a humanitarian level, and should be stopped for that reason. Now they've completely flip-flopped, suggesting that no military action should ever be taken without economic US interests at stake. And the Clinton Administration, which argues that involvement is necessary for humanitarian reasons, completely ignores the masses of Albanians stuck in the snow at the Macedonian border. What can we believe about such things?

What would it take to rescue these Albanians? Ground troops. But then there would be US deaths over nothing more than giving aid to those who would otherwise die. Such would be intolerable to those who like to call counter-culture types 'narcissistic'. Here again is our culture war. I'm on the side that thinks dying for another is a noble act, and dying for another's wealth is a waste of life.

If we will not take steps, even dangerous steps, to secure the real safety of real people in danger, then humanitarian excuses are nothing more than lies - and there truly are no US interests in Kosovo.

March 21, 1999