Bombing stopped Milosevic: it will stop, bin Laden, too

THE rapid collapse of the Taliban after weeks of bombing reminds me of Slobodan Milosevic's sudden capitulation in 1999. The military operation in Afghanistan is far from over, but otherwise the parallels are many.

When evil struck America on September 11, all of Kosovo's people were appalled by the tragedy. There were spontaneous demonstrations in the streets, as our heartfelt sympathies went out to one of the nations that stood by us in our hour of need. When we were attacked, it did not matter to America and its Nato allies that many of us were Muslims. All they saw was that we were wronged and they could help.

Now, once again, America, Britain and their coalition partners are taking determined action against international terrorists based in Afghanistan. To describe it as a war against Islam, as Osama bin Laden and his associates have done, is as senseless as describing the Nato air campaign as a war against Orthodox Christianity.

As I listen to reports of American air strikes over Afghanistan, I can remember when Nato aircraft were in action in the skies above Kosovo. We saw them as our saviours, defending us because we were at risk. But some people in Nato countries criticised their governments for intervening. Fortunately for us, they were ignored. For all Kosovo Albanians trapped inside Kosovo, the Nato air strikes held the promise of our future freedom from oppression and danger. We knew that, if the bombing stopped, Milosevic would win and we would all pay a dreadful price.

To a Kosovo Albanian, the criticisms of the military campaign in Afghanistan are strikingly familiar. When Milosevic refused to capitulate after only a few days of bombing, the critics queued up to say the military campaign was flawed and failing. I never thought Milosevic would give up on Kosovo after only a limited bombing campaign. And because of that experience, I have never thought the Afghanistan campaign would be over in a few days. But that does not mean I ever thought the coalition's military strategy was not working. On the contrary, Kosovo shows us that when victory comes, it comes quickly and with little warning. Events over the past week have made that clear again.

Another criticism of the Nato air campaign in Kosovo at the time was that it created, rather than averted, a humanitarian crisis there. People are today saying the same thing about the military campaign in Afghanistan. But in Kosovo, as in Afghanistan, what many people failed to realise was that the humanitarian crisis had begun much earlier. In Kosovo, many thousands of people were displaced by Milosevic's security forces the year before. In Afghanistan, the situation is even more stark: more than 4.5 million Afghans had been forced to flee their homes in the years of conflict before September 11.

In Kosovo, as I believe to be the case in Afghanistan, what many also failed to realise was that military action was the only way to create the conditions for resolving the humanitarian crisis. Following the successful conclusion of the Nato air campaign, nearly all the one million displaced Kosovo Albanians were able to return home and rebuild their lives in relative peace. Without Nato's intervention and determination, hundreds of thousands would still be living in refugee camps all over Europe.

The only real chance that 4.5 million Afghan refugees have of returning to their towns and villages is if America and its allies can see this action through to help create the situation where Afghanistan has a competent and representative government, which wants to live in peace. Only then will the international aid and reconstruction agencies be able to operate freely and help rebuild the country.

Many in the Muslim world are cynical about whether America and its allies will really undertake the long and expensive business of making Afghanistan a viable country again. I can speak only of our experience in Kosovo. Britain, America and their allies did not abandon us when the Nato campaign was over. In total, more than $1.5 billion has been invested in Kosovo's future by the international community over the past two years - more than $750 for each person here.

The uncomfortable reality is that military force is sometimes necessary to protect human rights and enforce the rule of law. In the Balkans, military force brought an end to four years of suffering in Bosnia. It reversed the ethnic cleansing that had begun in Kosovo on a massive scale in 1998. And Nato forces have delivered many of those indicted for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia to justice in the Hague.

To use military force in the pursuit of just objectives poses stark moral choices. But I believe that America and its allies are right to use force in Afghanistan. How else can bin Laden and his lieutenants be held to account for what even his own spokesmen all but admit they carried out on September 11? How else can the Taliban's sponsorship of terrorism be ended? How else can Afghanistan take its place again in the family of nations? Those who are against military action have no credible answers to these questions.

Of course nobody wants the campaign to go on any longer than it has to. Using force is never popular, and requires America's allies to face up to difficult choices. But I believe leaders around the world have a duty to explain what would happen if al-Qa'eda is not stopped. This is a conflict not only between moderates and extremists within Islam, but also against those who want to slam the door shut on progress in our world.

We should not forget that the allies are not only holding the perpetrators of the September 11 atrocities to account in Afghanistan. They are also defending the modern world from the forces of extremism. We should all be thankful for that.

Ibrahim Rugova's Democratic League of Kosovo won Saturday's parliamentary elections

Arf! General Michael Rose reviewed Wesley Clarke's book in last weeks Sunday Times:

A military plan that bombed: Waging Modern War by General Wesley Clark

MICHAEL ROSE

WAGING MODERN WAR by General Wesley Clark
Public Affairs, £19.99, pp465
Shortly after the end of Nato’s war against Yugoslavia, General Wesley Clark was summarily dismissed from his dual post of Supreme Allied Commander Europe and Commander in Chief Europe by a ungrateful country. He thus added his name to a long list of generals who have been similarly treated, including his fellow American, General MacArthur. Although he admits to “half expecting something”, his sacking evidently came as something of a shock. However, his fate is unlikely to surprise readers of his book — if a general loses the confidence of both his political masters and military chiefs, as he did in Nato’s war against Yugoslavia, then his fate, win or lose, will be sealed. In this detailed, unusually revealing book, Clark not only claims victory for Nato, but seeks to vindicate the strategic use of air power, believing that it is capable, by itself, of delivering the sort of strategic goals demanded by Nato in 1999. Clark is wrong in both instances, for neither was the result of the war a victory in the classic sense, nor were Nato’s specific objectives met. These were, first, the prevention of more civilian suffering in Kosovo, second, the disruption and destruction of the Serb forces carrying out atrocities against the Kosovo Albanians, and third, the enactment by Milosevic of the demands set out at Rambouillet by the international community.

Tragically, in the 11 weeks following the onset of hostilities on March 24, 1999, thousands of people were massacred and 1m driven from their homes in a programme of ethnic cleansing by the Serbs that accelerated after Nato began its bombing campaign. Militarily, the Serb army was scarcely damaged. Finally, at a political level, the one remaining point of disagreement at Rambouillet that led to the war (that of giving unrestricted freedom of movement for Nato troops in Yugoslavia) was never conceded by Milosevic.

Furthermore, far from not waging war on the Yugoslav people as Nato politicians had originally promised, because of the failure of the air strikes against the Serb military machine in Kosovo Clark widened his target lists to include bridges, electric power plants, fuels depots and TV stations. The resulting civilian casualties finally started to threaten the cohesion of the Alliance as member states rightly began to question the overall strategy being pursued.

By the end of the war, with the arrival of the Russian forces at Pristina airfield seriously threatening Nato’s claim to have achieved anything at all by its air campaign, maintaining Nato’s credibility was pre-occupying strategic planners. It is clear that the solution to Kosovo always lay in “democracy in Belgrade”, as Biljana Plavsic, former President of Republika Srbska, once explained to Clark. Unfortunately, the bombing of Yugoslavia not only weakened the existing domestic opposition to Milosevic but delayed the start of the democratic process.

Clark is clearly a courageous man but one driven by a Messianic determination to see his mission succeed. Whilst still an undergraduate at Oxford, he had determined that “if there’s nothing worth fighting and dying for, then there’s nothing worth living for”. These are noble sentiments, but somewhat dangerous in a military commander. Throughout the book, however, one cannot help but have a sneaking feeling of sympathy for him. Tirelessly “working” problems, sometimes going 36 hours without sleep, he becomes embroiled in every level of command. Never once does he appear to lose faith in his own judgment.

He appears in his book as a lonely but heroic figure fighting a war on three fronts — against Milosevic, Washington and foot-dragging Europeans. Even when fired, he determines “to give everything I had until the end”.

At a Nato defence ministers’ meeting held a few months after the war, one defence minister stated that the most fundamental lesson of the war was that “we must never do this again”. No one laughed. Although in his book Clark warns against “extolling” the air operation in Kosovo as a future pattern of war, it is abundantly clear that he wants us to believe that the bombing in Yugoslavia worked. By doing so, he lends support for a strategy of air power that has dangerous implications. It will be a lasting tragedy if our politicians and generals continue to believe that bombing can deliver solutions in such complex humanitarian situations. Hopefully, they will not allow themselves to be too beguiled by this book — because even in Afghanistan today the real victories are being won by soldiers on the ground.

General Sir Michael Rose was the head of theUN Protection force in Bosnia. Waging Modern War is available at the Books Direct price of £15.99 plus £1.95 p&p on 0870 165 8585

VRN

If loving and caring people get riled up about ultra-violent muslim expansionists and their enablers and sympathizers, maybe it's because their hearts go out to the muslims' many, many victims. And maybe there REALLY IS A PROBLEM with international islam and its world-domination agenda.

Ultra violent muslim expansionists. Hmm, there are such people among many other religions, yet I don't go on calling a whole religion as such, or demonize them all. And Muslims can be victims as well. As those 8000 in Srebrenica. It's not a black-white world, and it's not as simple and obvious as you would like to see it.

And when I hear people speaking about international Islam being a problem and world domination agenda, I can't help but think of the same rhetorics that Hitler and the Nazi's used for Jews during WW2.

The same irrational fear, similar mentality - treating certain people as second grade, calling them all evil,blaming them for destroying the (western/Christian) society, those are all the things that I have been hearing regarding Muslims lately. As though they are all responsible for terrorism, and as though non-Muslims are all innocent, and have never been responsible for terrible things, or even contributing to the present situation in the Muslim world.

Being self-critical, trying to see a bit further can be good for a person. Realising that it's not a one-sided world, that we're not always absolutely right or rightious and that being tolerant can also be a great thing. At least that's how I see it.

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