The Second Lebanon War (2006) is the specific military conflict between the paramilitary organization Hezbollah and the state of Israel associated with the question of the Lebanon’s territories and the states’ control over them.
Although there are no controversies about the trigger of the conflict, it is possible to pay attention to the radical opposition of the visions of the conflict presented by the representatives of Hezbollah in their newspaper Al-Intiqad, by the Israeli media as it is in the articles from the Haaretz, and by the independent observers from the authoritative newspaper the Gulf News.
It is important to note that the conflict between Hezbollah and the Israeli military forces has its roots in the conflict of Israel with the Arab world, and this fact influences the presentation and discussion of the Lebanon War in the media.
In her article on the aspects of the Lebanon War, Erika Solomon presents the commentaries on several articles from Hezbollah’s Al-Intiqad. The author states that the presentation of the war in Al-Intiqad is based on accentuating the victorious actions of Hezbollah.
Thus, according to the Lebanese authors, the Lebanon War became the “liberation day and a victory” for the whole country (Solomon, 2009). Moreover, the authors of Al-Intiqad focus on the negative role of Israel in developing the conflict in spite of the fact the trigger of the war is closely associated with the actions of Hezbollah (Solomon, 2009).
If the authors of Al-Intiqad are inclined to mask the aggressive character of Hezbollah’s actions against Israel under the proclamations of the liberty, the position of the Israeli journalists is rather opposite. However, it is important to pay attention to the significant detail that it is typical for the Israeli media to criticize the actions of the former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in relation to the Lebanon War (U.S. court drops Lebanon War victims’ lawsuit, 2011).
Thus, Harel emphasizes the inappropriateness of Olmert’s actions when he “sent the Israel Defense Forces to launch an attack near the Litani River, even though he already had a cease-fire agreement in his possession” (Harel, 2012). It should be stated here that the similar commentaries were presented in the Gulf News on 03 May 2009.
The authors state that “many Israelis view Olmert’s decision to go to war as a knee-jerk reaction by a leader with little security experience, unlike his predecessor, former general Ariel Sharon” (Israeli PM says Lebanon war was pre-planned, 2009). This information was presented with references to the authors of the Haaretz.
The materials provided in the Gulf News during the war conflict and after it are characterized by the definite level of neutrality. From this point, the article ‘Details of the Conflict’ is remarkable. The authors concentrate on listing the aspects of the conflict stating the trigger, causes, details, and consequences of the Lebanon War (Details of the conflict, 2007).
The neutral position of the authors of the Gulf News with accusing the Hezbollah’s forces as well as the actions of the Israeli Defense Forces during the Lebanon War can be explained with references to the absence of the direct involving of the UAE in the conflict.
It is possible to state that the presentation of the aspects of the Second Lebanon War in 2006 by different journalists in Israel, Lebanon, and the UAE depends on the impact of the conflict on the country. Thus, the Israelis concentrate on the figure of the Prime Minister in developing the conflict and on the aggression of Hezbollah when the representatives of Hezbollah justify their actions basing on the concept of liberation of the territories.
The emphasis of peaceful interactions among the nations cannot be undermined at any cost. Peace is one of the fundamental factors that influence growth in economic activities, development of political governance, among other important aspects of living. Without peace, many areas of human existence are affected. Peace is the essence of living, and the lack of it can be termed as the opposite of life. When people cannot interact peacefully, there will be chaos and disarray. Therefore peace is supreme in the world, and without it, nothing is achievable. This essay seeks to outline several evidences to prove that peace is the most important thing in the world.
World War II
The Second World War was one of the most destructive battles in the world. Its effects especially in Japan are felt up to date. The war broke out form a simple conflict between nations, and it eventually turned into a global conflict. As seen in the picture, American soldiers are kissing and celebrating with their wives their victory against Japan. Looking at the picture, one can clearly see that all the people captured are happy and excited to know that their spouses are back home safe and sound. Peace brings happiness to families and among nations. It took years before Iraq became a fully politically run state (Dumas and Thee 89).
World War II had greatly destabilized Europe, and all that people wanted to be an end to the fighting. This photograph was taken in Times Square on the 14th of august 1945, and it has been used in many occasions to commemorate the day of peace in America (History.com par. 2). The conflict between 30 countries including Japan, Germany, the Great Britain, France among others led to a war that lasted for six years and caused millions of deaths both military and civilians (History.com par 2). Considering such damage, peace is therefore one of the most important things in the world today.
Effects or war/lack of peace
Where there is no peace, there is war. War can be among people from different races, clans, tribes, religion among other profiling strategies. Nonetheless, when war occurs in a particular region or country, the effects are horrible. One of the major effects of war is hunger and starvation. the World War II was greatly influenced by the instability that was created by the first world war which had only ended two decades earlier (History.com par. 8).Adolf Hitler’s greed for power and his urge to dominate the world led him to rearm his nation. As Germany invaded Poland, the Great Britain and France reacted in protest declaring war against Germany (History.com par. 8).
This regional conflict ended up in a global and the destruction caused was beyond measure. As Hitler rose to power, he believed that the only way for humans to acquire enough living space was through war (History.com par. 8). Unfortunately, he was obsessed with the idea of domination and he believed that pure Germans were the only race worth of the living space. Such a mentality can ruin and comprise any efforts to achieve peaceful coexistence among nations.
Importance of peace
Peace is a very crucial aspect of human life. Peace allows people to interact in civilized and planned structures which give life a meaning. Through peace, people are able to shear common values and enhance the promotion of common decency through laws and policies (Acharya 45).
Governance and political structures are products of peaceful agreements brokered with the best interests of the people at heart. Peace has enabled the world to come together in many occasion and to work together to fight some of the deadly vices in the world. For instance, the United Nations that was formed as a result of an end to a deadly conflict among nations is a product of peace. It is very important to foster peaceful relations among nations because it allows interaction and through such interactions there are major benefits that may accrue. Peaceful nations for instance trade together and they allow their citizens to trade in better terms of trades.
Conclusion
In every country, peace is the major influence of any positive development. Whether it is political, economic, social or infrastructural success, peace is the key to achieving it. Without peace the world can achieve nothing. According to the evidenced given in this essay, one can evidently connect peace to other areas of growth in a country. For instance, Somalia has been mentioned and clearly one can understand the impacts of peace just by looking at the country’s development and infrastructural growth. Somalia is one of the poorest countries in terms of GDP while its wealth in fuel is one of the bets world’s known.
Therefore, this essay shows that regardless of a country’s natural resources, peace is paramount. Rwanda has also been used in this essay as an example and clear the country’s fertility was compromised the 1994 genocide where conflicting communities were starving in a land of great agricultural potential.
Works Cited
Acharya, Amitav. Constructing a Security Community in Southeast Asia: ASEAN and the Problem of Regional Order: ASEAN and the Problem of Regional Order, New York, NY: Routledge, 2014. Print.
Dumas, Lloyd J., and Marek Thee. Making peace possible: the promise of economic conversion, New York, NY: Elsevier, 2014. Print.
The war is the first in the history of Europe, which occurs during the time of the existence of social networks, and cell phones. Thus, from devices, it is possible to control satellites from which everything on earth can be viewed, nuclear power plants, combat drones, and other technological components of modern civilization. The Russian invasion is accompanied by many violations of the rules and methods of warfare. At the same time, Russian soldiers kill, rape, torture people and violate the rights of civilians (The BBC News, 2022). Therefore, it is essential to establish the significant military, humanitarian crimes, and violations of international law occurring in Ukraine.
The Background Information
The preconditions for the tension in relations between Russia and Ukraine and the war launched on February 24 have been compiled over a period of more than a decade (Kirby, 2022). Russian President Vladimir Putin cites arguments that reach even further back to the Middle Ages when parts of present-day Ukraine and Russia were the domain of Kyivan Rus. Thus, the thesis of the head of the Kremlin is about “one nation,” which includes the Belarusians (Kirby, 2022, para. 2). At the same time, the Russian president rarely mentions that Russians and Ukrainians have not always had the same path and that two languages and cultures were formed that were related but different (Kirby, 2022). When the two republics became separate countries after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, one more difference emerged a political one (Kirby, 2022). Kyiv chose the path of Western democracies, while Moscow wanted to re-establish a totalitarian regime.
The current conflict is a consequence of the policies of the past thirty years and the invasion of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions eight years ago. In March 2014, Russia annexed Crimea, which was a pivotal moment, the beginning of an “undeclared war” (Poiarkova, 2022, p 20). Meanwhile, the Russian and domestic paramilitary agencies gave rise to separatism in Donbass, and national republics were announced in Donetsk and Luhansk, headed by persons arriving from Russia in uniforms without identifying signs. Kiev responded slowly, waited until the presidential campaign in late May, and only then resolved to apply significant military force, which called an anti-terrorist operation (Poiarkova, 2022). The Ukrainian military began pushing separatists away from the two regions in the summer. Still, by the end of August, Russia had used its army in the Donbas on a large scale. Ukrainian troops were destroyed, which was the peak of the conflict.
The war along the full front lines culminated in the September agreement reached in Minsk on a cease-fire, which Russia quickly disrupted. Thereafter, positional warfare began, and in early 2015, the separatists initiated a significant offensive (Poiarkova, 2022). Ukrainian forces were destroyed near the hub city of Debaltsevo, which they had to leave. Meanwhile, with the assistance of Germany and France, Minsk-2 was negotiated, an agreement that continues to be the primary document for the settlement of the dispute. In 2021 the Russian Federation twice withdrew troops to the borders of Ukraine, and in December, President Putin for the first time, voiced his demand to the U.S. and NATO as an appeal (Poiarkova, 2022). It concerned not accepting Ukraine and other post-Soviet countries into the North Atlantic Alliance and not providing them with military assistance; the Alliance responded by refusing.
On February 21, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized the independence of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics. The country’s parliament ratified the relevant documents; Putin announced that the territories of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions of Ukraine belong to these entities (Poiarkova, 2022). This is much more than the region controlled by the separatists. On the morning of February 24, the head of the Russian state proclaimed the beginning of a “special military operation” against Ukraine; he described its purpose as the “demilitarization” of the country (Poiarkova, 2022, p. 20). The Russian Armed Forces began to attack Ukrainian cities and military infrastructure throughout the state.
The Violation of Human Rights
The Russian invasion of Ukraine is characterized by indiscriminate shelling and destruction of residential and critical infrastructure, resulting in numerous technological disasters. Rocket attacks led to fires at oil depots in Vasylkiv, Akhtyrka, Chernihiv, and Lutsk, and the bombing of a gas pipeline in Kharkiv. Russian troops have attempted to seize the Chernobyl and Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plants and other critical energy infrastructure (World Organisation Against Torture, 2022). At the same time, they have bombarded and destroyed military and critical infrastructure and environmentally hazardous enterprises. On which chemicals and industrial waste are deposited, causing cross-border threats to environmental safety. Such deliberate gross violations of the laws and customs of war constitute war crimes, which are crimes under international law. They are prosecuted by the International Criminal Court, based in The Hague World Organisation Against Torture, 2022). Russia’s attack on Ukraine is a direct violation of the Charter of the United Nations and an act of aggression that is an offense under international law.
An Amnesty International team, headed by the organization’s secretary-general, recently visited the region to interact with survivors and families of the victims. The delegation also met with high-ranking Ukrainian officials and bureaucrats. Amnesty International demands that all those responsible for war crimes in Borodyanka, Bucha, and other Ukrainian cities be prosecuted. The Russian military is responsible for criminal air raids on Borodyanka and extrajudicial performances in many Ukrainian towns and villages, particularly Bucha, Andreevka, Zdvizhevka, and Vorzel, including humanitarian routes, and engaging different other war offenses (Amnesty International, n.d.). The secretary-general made this statement of the international human rights organization Amnesty International. In April, Amnesty International professionals spent about two weeks in the northwest Kyiv region (Amnesty International, n.d.). They collected proof of Russian involvement in war offenses executed from late February to early March 2022 during the Russian armies’ offensive on Kyiv. It is significant to mention that the Russian army commits such crimes across Ukraine, especially in Kherson and Mariupol (Amnesty International, n.d.). At the moment, Kherson and Mariupol are occupied by Russian troops, which is why international bodies cannot assess the level of bestiality.
When visiting one of the areas of Bucha, where civilians were presumably murdered, AI experts discovered two armor-piercing 9×39 mm cartridges with black tips. According to the weapons specialists of the organization, this is the type of ammunition used in the special assault rifles of specific luxury Russian army units (Amnesty International, n.d.). When the experts of AI observed the adjacent towns and villages, they reported that some of the departed had their hands tied behind their backs, and there were other indications of suffering (Amnesty International, n.d.). They also recorded the testimony of an eyewitness who described the firing of a convoy of vehicles trying to remove civilians. Amnesty International appeals for the trial of all war criminals in Ukraine from all parts of the armed conflict.
It is interesting to consider the actions and reactions of the United Nations Organization. The United Nations argues that Russia’s actions in Ukraine, including the shooting of civilians, can be considered war crimes. The Russian armed forces have indiscriminately shelled and bombed populated areas, killing civilians and destroying hospitals, schools, and other civilian infrastructure. Accordingly, such actions may amount to war crimes, stated Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UN Human Rights Office, n.d.). She explained that a UNHCR mission documented that 50 civilians were killed there, including by shooting, in the town of Bucha near Kyiv. As of April 20, the UN confirmed the deaths of 2,345 and the wounding of 2,919 civilians due to Russia’s war on Ukraine (UN Human Rights Office, n.d.). However, the real numbers are significantly higher, and the casualty data are not definitive because of the intensity of fighting across the country.
Crucially, the UN Human Rights Council voted to initiate an investigation into alleged human rights violations and profound breaches of international humanitarian law by Russian forces in the liberated territories of Ukraine. The Council voted to strengthen monitoring of the deteriorating human rights situation in Ukraine due to Russian aggression, especially considering the events in Mariupol and several other cities (UN Human Rights Office, n.d.). Significantly, representatives of the Ukrainian authorities also report the scale of human rights violations and crimes committed by the Russian Federation. In Ukraine, 40 hospitals were destroyed during the full-scale Russian invasion and cannot be rebuilt (Kirby, 2022). It is crucial to emphasize the international organization’s most recent actions in May.
The First Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine, Emine Japarova, attended the 34th special session of the UN Human Rights Council on the aggravation human rights situation in Ukraine as a result of Russian aggression (UN Human Rights Office, n.d.). The First Deputy Minister drew international attention to the horrific human rights violations in parts of Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, and Kharkiv regions under Russian occupation in late February and March of this year (UN Human Rights Office, n.d.). She mentioned the consequences of the Russian army’s continuous shelling of Ukrainian territory using aerial bombs, heavy artillery, and rockets. She emphasized the complicated situation in Mariupol and stated that the ash-turned city of Mariupol, like dozens of other cities leveled to the ground, had become impossible to live in (UN Human Rights Office, n.d.). Thus, there are reports of destroying entire Ukrainian towns and people’s major life support facilities.
The Refugees
The Russian aggression on Ukraine has resulted in an unprecedented humanitarian crisis. The flood of refugees from Ukraine into Europe is the most significant migration wave since World War II. According to the UN, more than 6 million Ukrainians, mostly females, and children, were forced to flee Putin’s bombs and shells to European countries after the fighting began (The BBC News, 2022). In response to the situation, the EU activated, for the first time, the Temporary Protection Directive, which grants Ukrainian refugees the right to enter EU territory. In addition, they have the right to reside and receive essential social services, including medical care, education, and employment. This directive is valid for one year, with the possibility of extension until 3 years (The BBC News, 2022). At the same time, this document may be suspended early if the situation in Ukraine allows for the safe return of Ukrainian refugees to their homes.
Individuals fleeing the war spend several days at the border with neighboring states to preserve their lives. They often drive to the neighboring countries of Poland, Hungary, Moldova, Romania, and Slovakia (The BBC News, 2022). However, other countries worldwide are ready to receive temporarily displaced persons from Ukraine. Since Ukraine has declared mobilization, men aged 18-60 cannot leave the country (The BBC News, 2022). At the same time, the UN recorded a trend of the return of refugees to Ukraine, 870,000 people have already arrived. The organization stressed that the mass resettlement of refugees complicates humanitarian problems inside Ukraine (The BBC News, 2022). It should be stated that even for those who have fled abroad to escape war, there are certain dangers. The UN warns that refugee and resettled children are at risk of trafficking and exploitation. International agencies, together with representatives of host governments, are expanding Blue Dot centers in refugee host countries. Blue Dots are places that provide information to traveling families and support identifying unaccompanied and separated children (The BBC News, 2022). They work to protect refugees from potential exploitation and are a hub for access to essential services.
However, it is significant that the people who left their homes after their return to Ukraine will need new housing. This is because it has been destroyed due to military action or robbery. There are facts that the Russian military stole household appliances, cell phones, jewelry, and other offerings from abandoned houses (The BBC News, 2022). After which, they would send them home as presents to their relatives. Consequently, refugees who return to Ukraine already face such a problem.
The Political Assassinations
Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion, there have been numerous cases of enforced disappearances of community activists, volunteers, journalists, and local authorities. According to the UN, civilians are selectively detained in regions of Ukraine controlled by the Russian military, after which some disappear. Families of those arrested are usually denied information about the fate of their relatives. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights described that the victims of such actions by the Russians are primarily local community leaders, journalists, and anyone who expresses their pro-Ukrainian stance (Mackinnon et al., 2022). The UN cannot yet confirm whether the choice of detention victims is coincidental or if all of them are from a special list of the Russian special services.
It is important to determine that Western intelligence is actively working to prevent such cases. In February, U.S. officials informed the United Nations that Russian authorities had compiled a “black list” of Ukrainians to be killed or arrested after the Russian army invasion. For instance, several regional and city officials have been detained in occupied parts of Ukraine (Mackinnon et al., 2022). In particular, the mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov, was kidnapped by the Russian military right from the temporary office of the mayor’s office in the middle of a workday. With a bag over his head, he was transported to a building controlled by the Russians and later exchanged for nine Russian military conscripts. After his release, he testified in an interview with the local press that other detainees who had been held in the same building where he had been held appeared to have been tortured (Mackinnon et al., 2022). Abductions are also reported in other cities, particularly in Nova Kakhovka, in northern Ukraine, where the head of the city council, Dmytro Vasiliev, was arrested. Thus, Russian troops kidnap political leaders, torture them, and even murder them.
Export of Ukrainian Property
The Russian side grossly violates international norms and UNESCO conventions in preserving objects of cultural heritage and art collections. In addition to the destruction, there is an acute threat of misappropriation and export of movable cultural property from the museum collections of Ukraine to the territory of the Russian Federation. The future of the collection of the destroyed Ivankiv History and Local History Museum, where a collection of works by Maria Priymachenko, and the collection of the Arkhip Kuindzhi Art Museum in Mariupol are still unidentified. The active hostilities threaten other cultural treasures of museum collections, in particular in Odessa and Kharkiv (Gettleman & Chubko, 2022). It is essential to emphasize that the Ukrainian government monitors the departure of the artifacts and is appealing to the global association for help.
At the same time, the Russian military is stealing food supplies. Ukrainian grain hijacked by Russian troops is on dry cargo ships in the Mediterranean Sea. According to the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, it is most probably being prepared for shipment to Syria. The stolen grain can be smuggled to other countries in the Middle East, thus organizing a black market (Hrudka & Maryn, 2022). Russian troops are preparing to transport grain and sunflower seeds from the Zaporizhzhia region to Russian territory. Grains are transported toward the Russian border from the Kharkiv region, and another 1,500 tons of grain were removed from the Kherson region to Crimea (Hrudka & Maryn, 2022). Ukrainian media have frequently stated that Russia is stealing farm machinery and thousands of tons of grain from Ukrainian agricultural workers in the captured territories (Hrudka & Maryn, 2022). Consequently, the Russian Federation not only expropriates cultural monuments from Ukraine but also steals grain to organize a black market.
Cyberattacks
It is important to distinguish that Russia uses a cyber front to conduct warfare. In recent months, Russian-linked hacker groups have conducted 237 cyberattacks against Ukrainian businesses and government institutions (Burt, 2022). The attempts were often aimed at destroying computer systems, but some were also aimed at gathering intelligence or spreading disinformation. EU High Representative Josep Borrell believes that cyberattacks targeting Ukraine, particularly critical infrastructure, could spread to other countries and cause systemic consequences that threaten the security of European citizens. For the first time in its history, the Russian Federation has transformed itself from aggressor to victim in cyberspace (Burt, 2022). The occupants faced cyberattacks of unprecedented power and scale because of the war that began against Ukraine. Anonymous, an international network of activists and hacktivists, took responsibility for them and contributed to suppressing Russia’s aggression.
Conclusion
Thus, a considerable number of violations of international humanitarian law and human rights committed by Russian troops can be classified as war crimes. Almost all civilized nations have condemned violations of international law and human rights in the territory. The Ukrainian authorities and military are struggling to regain control within the legitimate boundaries of the state’s territory. At the same time, the international community monitors human rights violations and prepares to bring the perpetrators to justice.
In What Sense Is War a Drug and Who Are Its Peddlers?
The majority of people believe that war is a horrible thing. Wars bring millions of deaths and devastation of the land, they separate families and turn friends into enemies, and they change the course of life in the whole countries and continents. However, there have always been people who wanted to start wars and who wanted to win them. The motives of war may be slightly different in every particular situation, but the basic driving force has always been the desire of one side to take away something from the other. The second side’s purpose is, consequently, the wish to defend its property.
War is compared to a drug in the sense that it has the power to engage even those who at first consider it wrong and unacceptable. Gradually, under the influence of propaganda and close people’s opinions, a man can change from a pacifist into a soldier who is ready to deprive others of their lives. In the story “Editha” by William Dean Howells, we can see how the main character, George, “seemed to despise it [war] even more than he abhorred it” (Howells 1). However, under the impact of his fiancée Editha, he decides to enlist. When he tells his girlfriend about his decision, he remarks, “It’s astonishing how well the worse reason looks when you try to make it appear the better” (Howells 4). Just like drug addicts justify their behavior, this character is trying to persuade himself that he has made the right choice.
If we consider war a drug, there is a need to identify its peddlers. Generally, they are some ideas or ideals which people rush to defend when governed by their own principles or by propaganda methods. While approved by some people, the drug of war is strongly opposed by others. The movie Paths of Glory (1957) is one of the best examples of the absurdity of war. Another film, MASH (1970), ridicules the very essence of war although it has a sad context at its core. These two powerful pieces of cinematography are just a drop in the ocean of great examples of the idiocy of war. Unfortunately, not everyone understands that war is not noble but catastrophic. Too many people are still under the influence of the war “drug.”
The Positions and Actions of the Weather Underground
“The Company You Keep” by Neil Gordon describes the activity of an organization called The Weather Underground which aimed at overthrowing the US government as it considered the government’s actions wrong. While there is something noble in their purpose (for instance, they emphasized that they wanted to make the people’s life in the US better), I cannot agree with their methods.
The main character says that “every single day” the situation “has gotten worse” (Gordon n. p.), and the nation needed a change. However, I do not think that radical actions threatening the lives of people can be considered positive. The Weather Underground employed some terroristic approaches, which contradicts my pacifistic views. It is indeed good to fight for equality and life improvement. Still, I prefer more peaceful methods.
When James expresses his position that “all Weather was saying was that this government should follow what the Constitution says” (Gordon n. p.), Rebecca contradicts him. She says that the Weather is morally responsible “for encouraging the lefties that did kill” (Gordon n. p.). I support her opinion as I am convinced that promoting others to kill is not less a crime than killing. Throughout the book, some characters are trying to convince us that the activity of the Weather Underground was beneficial and would lead to positive changes in the country. However, I think that nothing positive can arise from the deaths of innocent people who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Defending his organization, James says that the Weather was not just “a bunch of spoiled brats who survived only by the grace of the FBI’s incompetence” (Gordon n. p.). He emphasizes the wisdom of the members and their outstanding loyalty to each other even after many years. He says that even though not all of them liked him, they never justified against him. James tells his daughter, “find me another group of former friends, anywhere, who has never betrayed each other” (Gordon n. p.). While I like this particular feature about the Weathermen, I am opposed to the organization’s activity in general. They did have a noble aim, but they failed to reach it with peaceful methods.
The Sense of Self-Identification in Slavenka Drakulić’s “S. A Novel about the Balkans”
When depicting the tortures which the women had to undergo during the Bosnian war, the author states that “each of them had ceased to be a person” when the soldiers came, and that they have been diminished “to a collection of similar beings of a female gender, of the same blood” (Drakulić n. p.). The author then remarks that “blood alone” bears significance: the soldiers’ “right” blood against the women’s “wrong” blood (Drakulić n. p.).
However, Drakulić notices that not only the women have undergone a significant change with the arrival of the war. She says that the soldiers “are no longer people either,” only they have not realized it yet (Drakulić n. p.). By this statement, the author means that there is no personal identification for those who have become the raping and killing machines, without any feelings, or at least display of feelings. The women see the soldiers as “dangerous envoys of a suprapersonal power which is forcing them to do what they are doing” (Drakulić n. p.). The main character of the book, S., understands that the soldiers are also captives, and they have no face or individuality. They do not own themselves – their willpower and their bodies are governed not by them but by “somebody else – the army, the leader, the nation” (Drakulić n. p.).
The author’s opinion is that the soldiers are not entirely aware of their position. She states that they merely do what they are told, “obey and execute the orders” of those who they are scared of or “in whom they believe” (Drakulić n. p.). Those who do not have their own will and the right to make decisions by themselves are not free to be called people. The soldiers do not realize it; they think they have power and they “are something else” (Drakulić n. p.). When they are standing in front of the “women’s room,” just before entering it, they think for a second that they are the “masters” of the situation (Drakulić n. p.).
The main character is wondering whether the soldiers realize that they are also victims of the war: they cannot “run away” or “hide,” they can be murdered any second, and they are not humans any longer (Drakulić n. p.).
The Demoralizing Power of War
One of the characters of Shakespeare’s “Troilus and Cressida” describes war as an act involving “too much blood and too little brain” (Shakespeare 172). At the same time, it has often been mentioned that even those who begin a war with honorable intentions are eventually corrupted by it. War inevitably changes people, and the change is usually for the worse. Whether it is a physical pain or mental ache, greed or depression, disappointment or eagerness to kill more, the outcomes of taking part in a war are always adverse.
Shohei Ooka’s “Fires on the Plain” as a Manifestation of War’s Destructive Power
The book “Fires on the Plain” by a Japanese author Shohei Ooka depicts the horrors of World War II experienced by a Japanese soldier in the Philippines. Many of the destructive impacts of war are represented in the book: Private Tamura fights exhaustion, starvation, dementia, and self-perception. The book describes the gradual decline of feelings after experiencing too many war atrocities. If in the beginning Tamura “felt a shock of fear” (Ooka 22) and was “easily frightened of anything new” (Ooka 79), by the end of the book he is no longer shocked by seeing the random body parts of his mates (Ooka 179).
There is an example of how unneeded the soldiers become when they cannot fight any longer: “the only concern of the doctors was how to get rid of their patients and save food” (Ooka 31). This case shows the unacceptable treatment of the government – the power encouraging people to enlist. It, too, is an adverse impact of the war: people give away their lives for the country and then are left to cope with the problems by themselves. However, Tamura mentions that even in the worst circumstances the native land is better to meet the hardships. He says, “in our own country, even in the most distant or inaccessible part, this feeling of strangeness never comes to us” (Ooka 18).
The soldier’s contemplations being him to the conclusion that he has no right to enjoy the world’s beauty but only needs to consider it from a professional standpoint. Tamura says that an infantryman should view “a gentle hollow in the ground” as “a shelter from artillery fire” and the “beautiful green fields” as “dangerous terrain” (Ooka 19).
Shohei Ooka’s book is a powerful illustration of the demoralizing power of war. It shows how war can irrevocably change a person and how unnecessary it is.
The Abhorrent Pictures of War in Slavenka Drakulić’s “S. A Novel about the Balkans”
It is difficult to understand the motives of the soldiers going to war, but they can be explained at least somehow. What cannot be justified, however, is the lot of the women during a war. Having no sufficient strength to take part in the fighting, the female part of the population is left without any support or defense, exposed to many dangers beginning with the attacks and ending with horrific raping and cruelty of the opposing army. Drakulić’s book “S. A Novel about the Balkans” describes this side of the war: outrageously merciless treatment of Bosnian Muslim women by the Serbian soldiers.
The description of the terrible things done to the women makes the blood run cold. The main character is used “to the pain of being hit by a rifle butt, slapped, tied up, to the dull pain of her head being banged against the wall, or being kicked in the chest by a boot” (Drakulić n. p.). At the beginning of the book, S. is at the hospital after giving birth to a baby whose father was an unknown soldier who had raped her. Such cases were not rare in those years: S. became so used to brutal treatment that she “no longer had a will of her own, it has been replaced by something else, as if a robot has taken control of her body” (Drakulić n. p.).
The central theme and the details of this book emphasize the atrocious character of any war and remind us that it is necessary to be humans. The war has the power to turn people into animals, heartless creatures who forget the primary aim of defending their country’s interests and destroy everything and everyone in their way.
“The Company You Keep” by Neil Gordon: Is a Good War Better than a Bad Peace?
Gordon’s book is dedicated to the Weather Underground – an organization which claimed to have people’s interests as its priority. However, the means employed by its activists were far prom peaceful. Therefore, a question arises: is it worthwhile to gain peace and a better life for the country by killing people? Gordon’s character James Grant is trying to persuade his daughter (and the readers) that they were trying to do a good thing. While writing to his daughter about “the bad people murdering each other horribly from Sierra Leone to Bethlehem” (Gordon n. p.), he does not consider his organization guilty of several deaths and other crimes.
I do not think that radical organizations like the Weather Underground deserve to be called democratic. If they employ force in their activity, they cannot say they want to ensure peace. James argues that “if this country had made the three central ideas of the Port Huron Statement – anti-war, anti-racism, and anti-imperialism – the law of the land, today we’d be living in a safe, just, and prosperous society” (Gordon n. p.). However, I believe that they could have chosen a more pacifistic way to show their dissatisfaction with the government.
Conclusion
As we can see from numerous examples in the books and movies, war has the power to corrupt and irrevocably change people. Even if they enter it with noble intentions, they end up becoming either too much hurt and depressed or too much cruel and ready to destroy. Whichever direction we may consider, it will be a bad one. War alters people, it destroys their physical and mental health, and it undermines the good that had been in people’s minds. Shakespeare’s character was right saying that war involves “too much blood and too little brain” (Shakespeare 172). If people were wiser, they would realize that war is the worst method to achieve their plans. The Machiavellian principle of the aim justifying the means is not suitable here. In my opinion, war cannot be justified by any aims.
Works Cited
Drakulić, Slavenka. S. A Novel about the Balkans. Penguin, 2001.
Gordon, Neil. The Company You Keep. Pan MacMillan, 2013.
Howells, William Dean. “Editha.” Washington State University. Web.
MASH. Directed by Robert Altman, performances by Donald Sutherland, Elliot Gould, Tom Skerritt, Sally Kellerman, and Robert Duvall, 20th Century Fox, 1970.
Ooka, Shohei. Fires on the Plain. Tuttle Publishing, 2000.
Paths of Glory. Directed by Stanley Kubrick, performances by Kirk Douglas, Ralph Meeker, Adolphe Menjou, George Macready, and Wayne Morris, United Artists, 1957.
Shakespeare, William. Troilus and Cressida. Filiquarian Publishing, 2007.
A humanitarian war is generally defined as the trans-boundary use of military force for the main purpose of protecting citizens undergoing abuse from their government, either directly, or by allowing and aiding extreme mistreatment (Heinze 8).
The invasion of Kosovo by NATO military forces in 1999 is widely perceived by many as the almost perfect example of a humanitarian war given that it is the first war to have been declared on humanitarian grounds (Bacevich and Cohen 79).
It is therefore the best war to analyze and investigate to find out if the use of force can be justified as a humanitarian war.
In March 1999, the forces of NATO under the command of General Wesley Clark of the US army invaded Serbia and attacked Serbia’s military forces with the aim of rescuing innocent civilians from a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing (Badsey and Latawski 135).
As much as the war was staged based on genuine humanitarian concerns, it is widely acknowledged that, as a legal matter, NATO indeed violated chapter seven of the UN Charter by using force without authorization from the UN Security Council (Segell 210).
Article 2(4) of the UN Charter prohibits the use of force on humanitarian grounds although there are exceptions included in the Charter which allow for the employment of force. As noted by Malone (30), chapter seven of the Charter allows for force by any member of the UN in situations that threaten international security and peace.
Article 51 also allows for the use of force if it is for the purpose of self-defense. NATO’s use of force did not satisfy any of the above conditions.
This therefore implies that when the war is examined from a legal perspective, the use of force in the invasion was as a matter of principle, in breach of international law and therefore was unjustified (Wilson 49).
The invasion was even criticized by China and Russia, though they lost the vote to stop the invasion (Rushefsky 142), and after the invasion, NATO was accused of falsifying genocide charges so it could find the excuse to engage in the war.
Be that as it may, by examining the invasion from a moral perspective, the illegality of the war can be challenged.
To determine whether the use of force was justified morally, one has to examine whether or not a humanitarian emergency existed before the intervention by NATO forces, and whether a humanitarian crisis would have taken place, perhaps over a number of years had the situation been left to continue without intervention.
A close examination of the situation in Kosovo results in an affirmative answer for both considerations. This is so because tensions between the communities in Kosovo and Serbia were present for a lengthy time period in the 20th century and at times, these tensions culminated into wars (Totten and Parsons 441).
Just before the invasion, the administration of President Milosevic was accused of carrying out cruel acts against innocent citizens (Ham and Medvedev 17).
There were reports of mass killings and numerous refugees seeking solace from the oppression they were being subjected to by the Serbians and this clearly indicated a humanitarian emergency.
At the rate at which the seriousness of the situation was escalating, had NATO had not intervened, there is high chance that many more in innocent civilians would have ended up being refugees and at work been killed by the Serbs.
This therefore leads to the conclusion that the invasion of Kosovo through the use of military force by NATO, though unjustified under international laws, was justified on moral grounds.
Works Cited
Bacevich, Andrew and Cohen, Eliot. War over Kosovo: Politics and strategy in a global age. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2001.
Badsey, Stephen and Latawski, Paul. Britain, NATO, and the lessons of the Balkan conflicts, 1991-1999. London, Taylor & Francis, 2004.
Ham, Peter and Medvedev, Sergei. Mapping European security after Kosovo. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002.
Heinze, Eric. Waging humanitarian war: the ethics, law and politics of humanitarian intervention. New York, NY: SUNY Press, 2009.
Malone, Linda. International Law. New York, NY: Aspen Publishers, 2008.
Rushesfsky, Mark. Public policy in the United States: at the dawn of the twenty-first century. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2002.
Totten, Samuel and Parsons, William. Century of genocide: critical essays and eyewitness accounts. London: Taylor & Francis, 2008.
Wilson, Stephanie. Effectiveness, Legitimacy, and the Use of Force in Modern Wars: The Relentless Battle for Hearts and Minds in NATO’s War Over Kosovo. Berlin: VS Verlag, 2009.
No man is an island entire of itself…. any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
John Donne, Meditation XVII, 1624
Nothing is more essential, than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular Nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded.
George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796
A just war has to be just. Yet, to defend a just war is not the same as saying that all wars are just. War – the use of calculated, organized violence to achieve political objectives – is an unpleasant and brutal endeavor. But in certain instances, the use of force is justified.
In some cases, the use of force is morally justified. The case of Kosovo is that example. The NATO use of force in Kosovo 1999 was morally and legally justified to halt genocide and ethnic cleansing.
Human beings have always fought – for and over power, religion, and cultural beliefs, race, ethnicity, resources, land, wealth. The struggle often occurs between brother-nations, which is, at times, the worst example of human violence.
Since one force is usually superior to the other, the threat of full extinction and massacre arise in military conflicts. In such situations, it is appropriate to seek outside forces for assistance, even if this assistance challenges international law of national sovereignty and the problematic outlook of violence to establish peace.
Such cases have acquired the name of “humanitarian war.” A humanitarian war is the use of force to deter or prevent the aggressor from harming innocent people, and to protect their inherent human rights. The purpose of humanitarian wars is to avert human suffering, genocide, rape and other crimes against humanity (Roberts 1).
Though it is not a completely peaceful undertaking, and presupposes proactive and even offensive military activities from the side of peacemakers, humanitarian war is appropriate in cases when it is necessary to alleviate human suffering and arrest abuse of human rights. (Heinze 4,8,15).
Various definitions of humanitarian war exist. In our paradigm of analysis, we narrow it down to four essential criteria: 1) just cause, 2) right intentions, 30 last resort, and 4) proportionality and distinction. First, the humanitarian war needs to be a just cause, such as alleviating great human suffering. Second, this war has to have the right intentions – saving people, stopping massacre, and establishing peace.
Third, the use of force should be the last resort after having exhausted all non-violent means. Lastly, the use of force has to be proportional to the level of aggression already launched. Moreover, the war has to be conducted in such a manner that military combatants and civilians are treated distinctively. The intervention in Kosovo meets all four criteria.
The allied forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) deployed their forces and attacked the forces of the then Yugoslavia to prevent them from further committing acts of crime against Albanians (Kosovars), as the population of Kosovo had been struggling for its secession from Yugoslavia (Rizer 1).
In Kosovo, the gravity of the offenders’ atrocities obliterated all reasonable boundaries, rendering the non-intervention principle invalid.1
Genocide was the primary cause for intervention. President Bill Clinton repeatedly voiced the right intentions – to save Albanians from genocide by ethnic cleansing. The NATO intervention was the last resort for the Albanians.
Though there was unfortunate collateral damage, NATO war fighters took extraordinary measures in targeting to ensure distinction between military and non-military targets. In a way, such distinctions influenced NATO’s sense of proportionality. That is, NATO forces never targeted Milosevic himself.
This paper will argue that the war in Kosovo was legitimate and legal. The origins and developments of the war will be examined, before and after the NATO intervention, the consequences of the war will be outlined, and the opposing opinions will be considered to produce a comprehensive overview of the ethical, moral, and legal implications of the humanitarian intervention.
War in Kosovo
The outbreak of the war, violence and genocide revealed. The contention over Kosovo, a former province of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, spanned over six centuries. The Kosovars desired secession from the Slavs, who had consistently oppressed and committed atrocities against them. The struggle for independence began with the first Balkan war and continued during WWII.
Military activities and violent opposition in Bosnia were the instigators of the war in Yugoslavia, since the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina was also based on the religious grounds, and was very severe.
As Schatzmiller notes, the losses for Bosnians were great, and after signing the Dayton Peace Accord on the 14th of December, 1995 (which was the fragile peace settlement) still 90,000 people were displaced or refugees to the neighboring regions (Schatzmiller 156).
Seeing the success of the religious and ethnic opposition in Bosnia, Slobodan Milosevic initiated the nationalist opposition against Albanians residing in Kosovo, in the Yugoslavian territory. Up to 1998, the military opposition led by Milosevic escalated in Yugoslavia, with displacement of thousands of Kosovar Albanians (Independent International Commission on Kosovo 148).
The key players in the war were the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), the Milosevic government and the Serbian army, various organized militia groups that had close links with the government, and NATO forces. (Lutz and Lutz 119-120).
There was a significant international effort to curb the violence and terror organized by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), and Milosevic pledged to terminate the violence against Albanians in the June 1998 Moscow agreement.
However, no pledges were observed by him, and the scale of human suffering increased; even the UNSC Resolution 1199 did not make the Yugoslavian forces stop the massacre, after which the NATO authorities started their urge for the humanitarian intervention (Independent International Commission on Kosovo 148).
Kosovo existed in the context of other developments – Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia and Croatia claimed independence. Slobodan Milosevic fueled slavic nationalism from the early 1990s and encouraged violent conquests in the name of Serbia. The Serbian attack on civilians in Sarajevo, and its attacks on the Red Cross and convoys with food supplies for the peaceful population were horrific. (Yoder 88).
The Serbs initiated the massacre against the civil population, a breach of fundamental human rights. Milosevic instigated national hatred towards Albanians and converted nationalism into racism, in essence, engaging in ethnic cleansing of non-slavs, non-Serbs.
The main casualties were the unarmed civilians of Kosovo. The world community was shocked by these atrocities, the likes of which had not been seen since WWII (Totten and Parsons 423).
Yugoslavia consisted of four provinces: Kosovo, Serbia, Montenegro and Vojvodina where Orthodox Christian, Islam and the minority Roman Catholics resided (Wilson 21). From the very start of the conflict, it was clear that the war was asymmetrical, pitting an ill-armed Kosovo militias agitating for independence, against the well-armed Serbian forces.
The Kosovo fighters also could not match Milosevic’s troops in terms of weapons and number of troops. The residents of Kosovo (the Albanians) considered the Kosovo Liberation Army to be freedom fighters while the Serbs considered them terrorist militias aiming to create chaos and anarchy.
Russian mercenaries allegedly participated in the war on the side of the Serbs while Kosovo received help from Albania and Saudi Arabia (Herbst 70). The gravity of atrocities became unacceptable. The Albanian part of the country would never be able to protect themselves without outside intervention.
The international community tried to establish some semblance of peace in Yugoslavia, but it was inadequate. The UN Security Council (UNSC) had planned to impose sanctions on the country, particularly an arms embargo. But China and Russia opposed any military resolution and threatened to veto any measures that could undermine the sovereignty of Yugoslavia.
The longstanding integrity of national and sovereign borders was the main mitigating factor in the activities against genocide and massacre. The two permanent members of the UN Security Council argued that the country had undertaken no aggression against another nation, and that it was acting within its boundaries and therefore, should be left alone.
Thus, no agreement was visible, and the divide in the Security Council, as well as the escalating massacres in Yugoslavia forced NATO members to attack without the UN consent. (Mertus 306).
(How does this paragraph support your thesis? It does not seem to have any relevancy on the justification of the war).
Religious and ethnic reasons for the war. The Kosovo conflict was mainly a religious one with reconciliation and negotiations coming to a dead end by the late 1990s. Religious and ethnic wars of independence have a long tradition in the region, with Slovenia seceding in 1990, Croatia following in 1991 and Bosnia-Herzegovina following suit in 1992.
During the early 1990s, Croats mainly practiced Catholicism, Serbs were Orthodox Christians, and Islam dominated the Bosnian population. All these groups had a Slavic ethnic origin, but their religious inclination made them consider themselves as distinct people, especially in regard to the recent military activities and separation.
As Shatzmiller points out, religion has intimate connections with the expression of ethnic/national identity that distinguishes Serbs, Croats, and Bosnians from each other (Shatzmiller 33).
Each of these groups held extremist views with no religious tolerance. Such lack of tolerance sowed the seeds for the 1998 Kosovo war when Milosevic fueled intolerance towards Albanians with their free practice of religion and bourgeois attitude to life (Mertus 38).
The severity of the conflict, and the critical escalation that saw no peaceful resolution came primarily from the fundamental differences between Serbs and Yugoslavians (????), and the inability to reach any consensus but the full extinction of one of the parties.
The Religion became a symbol of national identity and unity in the newly-formed states, and manifested itself in the language and communication forms used. For example, in Serbia, Orthodox Christianity became a part of being a citizen of the nation.
Unlike in these nations, where religion was the main catalyst of secession, the war in Kosovo had both ethnic and religious origins. Before the massacres and ‘ethnic cleansing.’ most of the population in Kosovo were Albanians who had lived in the area since Roman times with a language different from other languages of the area. Kosovars were predominantly Muslims.(Shatzmiller 66).
NATO attacks and occupation. Prior to the Kosovo intervention, NATO had not participated in any military operations. Operation Allied Force (OAF) lasted for eleven weeks, from March to June 1999. The main aim of the attack was to stop the crimes against humanity committed by an independent state within its borders. The international community had been reluctant to take action but the escalating atrocities could not be ignored.
The context for a humanitarian intervention pre-existed in the international community. The authoritarian rule of the Chilean leader Pinochet prompted the UN Security Council to recognize his crime against humanity. The British Appeal Chamber had just approved Pinochet’s extradition to Spain on charges of crimes against humanity (resolution 827 (1993)).
This ruling paved the way for the philosophical justification of the NATO attack and raised the issue that some crimes were too severe to be ignored or overlooked despite existing international law that stipulated that all nations are sovereign. To wit, any nation committing crimes against humanity was subject to the international effort for the sake of establishing peace and stopping the massacre and alleviating human suffering.
On the day of enactment of the resolution on Pinochet, NATO forces from most of the member countries attacked Kosovo for the sake of preserving peace and precluding genocide (Roberts 53).
It is very positive about the NATO peace troops’ intentions of deterrence and defense had been the main agendas of NATO prior to the war – this fact speaks eloquently about the right intentions of NATO forces. NATO, the world’s most effective and efficient military alliance, felt it was time for a change in policy and approach to atrocities.
The main reason for failure to establish peace by non-offensive means was the unwillingness of the Yugoslavian government to reach any agreement; the objectives of the conflict included extermination and not agreement.
Hence, after a series of unsuccessful efforts to establish peace without military actions, bombing of enemy forces became the last resort of Albanians. NATO failed to effectively deal with previous atrocities; yet it undertook the role of establishing peace in Yugoslavia, so it continued with more offensive measures taken (Boyne 33).
The actual military operation lasted eleven weeks and involved all NATO members except Greece.2 OAF’s objective was to make Kosovo free from Serbian invaders, and to involve international peacekeepers in the rebuilding and reconciliation process. NATO decided to launch air strikes limiting ground combat to secure the lives of peacemakers. The attack was to last only a few days, but it lasted much longer for a variety of reasons.
The initial aim of OAF was to destroy the Serbs’ aerial attack. The initial attacks intensified the conflict. Serbs reacted to the attack by intensifying their ethnic cleansing activities. In the very first week of the attack, more than quarter million people fled from their homes and by April, almost a million had fled, resulting in the overflow of refugees to neighboring countries (Meggle 283).
OAF forces bombed everything that looked suspicious or that could be dual-use by Serbian forces. NATO warfighters accidentally bombed refugees escaping from their homes and killed more than forty of them.
Though NATO forces admitted the mistake, it remained wary of the Serbian practice of mixing the civilian caravan with military conscripts. The Serbs claimed the bombing was deliberate due to the intentions of the U.S. to take over Yugoslavia. (Meggle 180-181). But these claims were groundless as there was no interest in exploiting the country’s resources.
International tensions heightened after the accidental and embarrassing bombing of the Chinese Embassy which resulted in the death of three reporters. The bombing resulted in angry Chinese mobs demonstrating outside NATO members’ embassies in Beijing.
However, the representatives of NATO retracted the claim by admitting their mistake and claiming that they has the wrong map coordinates, which resulted in the mistaken bombing.
One more challenging situation occurred as a result of bombing the prison causing hundreds of prisoners’ deaths – people from various countries not interested in the conflict were held there, as well as many oppressed Albanians had also been put to prison in the process of their prosecution in Yugoslavia, so the prisoners were mostly innocent people, those whom NATO forces pledged to protect.
OAF did not seem to be attaining its set goal of peace-making and civilians’ release from the burden of violence and oppression. Consequently, allied forces started weighing the option of an infantry attack, showing that they pursued their initial peaceful aim and tried to adjust their activities to make the result as effective as possible (Krieger 3).
After witnessing much of the damage done to his country, Milosevic accepted the various conditions of the mediation team still striving to the peaceful resolution of the conflict. These conditions included the deployment of UN peacekeepers to Kosovo, which he had earlier rejected (Heinze 30).
Obviously, the victory of allied NATO forces was not easy; even after the 11-week bombing, Milosevic did not agree to participate in the negotiations over the destiny of Kosovo. Hence, all NATO and UN member states, Russia included (though Russia has been the opponent of the military intervention, it was also interested in establishing peace in Kosovo).
It was only at the G8 meeting in Cologne that the member states worked out a seven-point peace plan, and Victor Chernomyrdin, the Russian envoy, held negotiations with Milosevic on May 19, 1999 (Independent International Commission on Kosovo 95).
Only after that, having taken into consideration the continuous discussions of unleashing ground troops to Yugoslavia, Milosevic finally agreed to the peace plan on June 3, 1999 and left Kosovo with his military troops and the KFOR (the NATO Force) entered Kosovo on June 12 for the sole aim of peacemaking (Independent International Commission on Kosovo 96).
End of the war and its consequences. The allied forces and peacekeepers occupied Kosovo, the Yugoslavian forces finally withdrew from Kosovo and Yugoslavia as a country suffered the beginning of its disintegration. The air strike strategy proved to be very effective.
The infrastructure of the country was left in disastrous conditions as roads, bridges and railway lines had been ruined by NATO bombings. Amenities like schools, hospitals and churches also suffered from bombing because of the NATO forces’ attempt to prevent their usage in housing government forces; factories and industrial capacities were in a similar condition (Independent International Commission on Kosovo 4).
The Kosovo rebels proved to be very effective; their land attacks lured the government forces out of hiding, which in turn enabled the allied forces to bomb them. The achievement of the Kosovo Liberation Army propelled the group to the limelight and they became actively involved in the national building process (Knudsen 77).
Nonetheless, the establishment of war cessation was not the end of the Kosovo’s story. The international tension regarding the issue grew, and multiple opponents of the intervention insisted on reconsidering the case with the NATO’s voluntary actions and the sanctions towards the NATO forces.
The relationship between the West and the East deteriorated with China accusing the West of infringing on the sovereignty of other states. Claims about the arrogant display of military might and economic prowess on the side of the NATO nations became common, similarly to the Korean War that the USA unleashed.
The countries opposed to the operation stressed the need of discussing any sort of future military operations in the UN Security Council. Russia tried to propose a draft for the withdrawal of foreign forces, but was unsuccessful. Yugoslavia accused the NATO forces of crimes against humanity, the country filed a case at The Hague for the International Court of Justice to arbitrate on the matter.
The case was never opened as the accuser was said to have no capacity to file a case because at the time of the atrocities, she was not a member of the UN, which is a minimum requirement for a case to be heard (Edwards and Samples 228). Despite these misgivings, one cannot deny that the war stopped ethnic cleansing. Kosovo became autonomous and in 2008 declared its formal independence.
Arguments for Opposition to the War
The attack of Yugoslavia by NATO was viewed as one way of Western powers extending their imperialist activities to ensure other countries do their bidding.
They also ague that such intervention helps the powerful countries to actively exploit the natural resources of other countries (Kosovo has large deposits of natural resources and thus critics view this as a way of ensuring the powerful countries will be involved in the exploitation of these resources). However, no obvious exploitation ever took place, and the question can be asked – if the interventions should be prohibited, who will dare to save suffering nations?
As in case of Kosovo, the majority of superpowers prefer to engage in the political demagogy but not save the people in real crisis and horror. The world sat on its collective hands as some 800,000 people in Rwanda were massacred.
NATO forces did not get the assent of the UN Security Council, yet the war was to enforce the Council’s resolutions and ensure observation of humanitarian laws of the Geneva Convention and Genocide Convention. However, every analysis of the NATO decision to intervene should stipulate the value of the human life at first, and decide whether human rights trumps national sovereignty.
The case of Kosovo shows that it does. There is no pretext to remain ignorant to the mass violations of rights by a stronger force inside a single country, the rights’ abuse by state authorities, the violence and genocide taking place with the authorization by a nationalistic government.
Undoubtedly, NATO forces made mistakes during the Kosovo war, accidentally bombing innocent civilians like the convoy of refugees. OAF also killed neutral parties as they bombed Chinese journalist. Nonetheless, these facts only show that the war was not well-planned or was utilizing unreliable sources for executing their mission. It does not find that NATO warfighters made no distinction between civilians and combatants.
Arguments for the Support of the Humanitarian War
The decisions of NATO to overlook the authorization of the UN Security Council left experts and international community divided. However, this was not just any war. The UN Security Council resolutions were one of the two arguments to support the attack.
The UN Security Council Resolution 1203 (1998) of 24 October 1998 and Resolution 1160 (1998) demanded that Yugoslavia halt and cease all actions affecting the civilian population and if the country failed to observe the resolution, then any measure was legal to compel the country to adhere to the resolution (Krieger 292).
Resolution 1244 (1999) demanded that the Serbs were to observe and adhere to the various resolutions from the past negotiation meeting in Belgrade, which Serbs had agreed to observe, and also respect the fact that Kosovo was of great concern to the international community (Krieger xxxii).
By predefining the consequences of a breach of fundamental human rights, the UN Security Council paved the way for force to be legitimately used in Kosovo. On a national and international basis, on legal and moral grounds, OAF was authorized. Immediately after the bombing began, Russia sponsored a draft resolution in the UN Security Council that demanded the immediate withdrawal of foreign forces from a sovereign Yugoslavia.
Out of the fifteen-member country, only three supported Russia while twelve opposed. The Security Council’s refusal to support Russia’s call for withdrawal was an indirect support of the intervention that buttressed the intervention’s legality and legitimacy.
Proponents of the military intervention claimed that the UN was the primary body in maintaining world peace, but was not absolute. Hence, the UN Security Council cannot make ultimate decisions on the legitimacy of NATO’s actions, as NATO is not subordinate to the Council and can make individual decisions on peacemaking activities, especially when the NATO members agree to the necessity of intrusion and rescuing people.3
Another major legal basis for the support of the intervention is general international law. The international community has legalized the use of force to deter crimes against humanity, although some requirements had to be met. There are certain criteria that the humanitarian war should fit in order for it to be justified.
The international community had to agree unanimously that there was clear evidence of massive human suffering. Force could only be the last resort after all other ways to stop the suffering had failed or were found to be ineffective.
The force had to be objective with focus being on minimizing human suffering. The use of force also had to be reasonable and proportionate to the course of establishing peace (Krieger xxxii). The war in Kosovo met and exceeded all of these criteria.
The report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) supported the humanitarian reason for intervention stating that overwhelming crimes constituted the only aim of peace troops in Kosovo. The existence of bodies like the International Court of Justice further stressed the need for the observation of human rights.
The Geneva Convention and Genocide Convention were created to prevent the reoccurrence of the atrocities of both world wars. From a basic human rights’ position, one may find it reasonable to argue that any means is possible if that is the only method effective in preventing genocide.
In the name of purity and nationalism, fascists killed millions of Jews in a similar fashion as the one that was going on in Yugoslavia. After World War II, the international community put measures to ensure that such incidents never occurred again.
Such measures, internationally accepted, endorsed, and signed to be part of the national laws. International Courts emerged to ensure members or leaders who acted against the international laws were tried. The NATO intervention was thus justified as it was trying to ensure observation of and adherence to existing international laws.
Genocide exists elsewhere but in most cases, the international community overlooks these occurrences. The League of Nations’ failure to enforce international laws was one of the reasons Benito Mussolini attacked Ethiopia, a sovereign country, and forcefully occupied it. The failure of the League to contain leaders like Mussolini and Hitler led to the outbreak of WWII.
The intervention in Kosovo was carried out to neutralize leaders like Milosevic who created a political climate in his country similar to Hitler. Failure to deal firmly with such leaders who have no respect for international laws would encourage other leaders to follow suit, and eventually a world without order will emerge. (Laureij 88).
There have been many cases of deafness towards genocide and mass murders, but the case of Kosovo caused a divide in opinions, mostly due to the fact that it involved serious political concerns. Nonetheless, the key to the issue is a value of the human life, and the universal value of the human rights that was protected by NATO, thus making the intervention legal in all points for the sake of saving the humanity.
The War in Kosovo is the first war of its kind, as it set precedent of a ‘humanitarian war’. This means that the war had no other reason other than to save the civilians from the atrocities of the Yugoslavian government.
The proponents of the war have cited this as a commendable act, and the NATO forces should be praised for their efforts. War is a risky venture, and any country that commits its troops to fight for humanitarian reasons has a great passion for justice, puts the observation of Human Rights above all (Mertus 67).
Evaluation of the Humanitarian War’s Propriety on the Example of Kosovo.
The situation in Kosovo fits the criteria of a humanitarian war completely: genocide and massacre were only intensifying by the time NATO forces intervened, but the hatred, segregation, and discrimination had revealed itself some years earlier due to the overall tension in the region.
The official reports clearly show how many victims of the religious and ethnic struggle there were, and how negligent the authorities were about the situation. Actually, there were no authorities interested in peace, as Milosevic was gaining force, and his aim was to destroy, kill, and oust Albanians from Yugoslavia.
The nation of Yugoslavians, namely the Albanian part, suffered tremendously from rapes, kidnapping, murders, violent attacks, and other mistreatment that led to the great tension within the country.
No resolution for the situation was seen until there would be no Albanians in the region. Therefore, the humanitarian intervention in Kosovo was justified under the conditions of the unfair, unequal struggle of Albanians and well-trained, organized, and sponsored troops of Milosevic.
No one claims that everything went according to plan in OAF. Nonetheless, one should always keep in mind the broader context. It is a tragedy that innocent people died and failed to flee to neighboring countries because of the broad nature of the bombing, but the country was saved from the extinction. Milosevic did what he pleased, without care or adhering to any international laws.
Thus, the conflict in this particular region presupposed the universal threat to the security of other nations. As Rizer states, this is a legitimate pretext to interfere – for the sake of the civilians in Yugoslavia, and to preclude the spread of the epidemic of violence further throughout Europe (Rizer 37-38). NATO therefore had no other effective alternative measures to ensure international accords were respected.
Looking back at the events of 1999, one can surely say that NATO made the right decision as no other authority seemed to be willing to make it. The situation in Kosovo was subject to a great number of political intriguing and struggle for power, which precluded the advanced nations to help the nation in need of protection and peace.
The USA was the only country that dared to help, and not only talk about help despite the common disagreement in the UN Security Council. The NATO forces revealed the decisiveness that does not cause much approval in the world of politics, but looks highly humane and justified from the lens of morality and compassion.
Hence, while the UN Security Council was still hesitant to participate in the internal conflict, NATO dared to stop the series of silent murders and genocide that the world has seen in excess within the past century.
The claims about utility and profitability have no sense in the case of the NATO intervention, as the activities of NATO peacemakers constituted only the establishment and maintenance of peace. It is clear from the attacks of the US opponents that it were they who first of all thought of the profit from the intervention, as the USA has not been exploiting the Yugoslavian resources even during the peacemakers’ stay in the region.
They used no oil or gas deposits, and preserved the integrity of the country’s riches, which dissolves the opponents’ criticism fundamentally. The only serious claim against the intervention of such kind is the absence of an authority that would be able to approve of such measures legally.
Conclusion
The value of every human life – codified in laws of universal human rights – is inviolable. Geographical divisions in the name of nation-states cannot eradicate the fact that the human community is one. (Clark 122) The Kosovo internvetion demonstrates eloquently that fundamental human rights trumps national sovereignty.
In this case where mass atrocities and authorized murders were undertaken by the state, the use of external force to establish justice and peace was justified.
Humanity is universal and human rights transcend all barriers. Thus it is moral failure of the highest kind to fail to take action when a nation, an ethnic group or an individual commits crimes against humanity. Moreover, one can argue that failing to take action has the effect of indirectly supporting the aggressor.
At times, in certain cases like Kosovo, war is necessary to compel nations like to observe the rights of individuals and prevent injustice being committed. If the international community had acted promptly and swiftly, over six million Jews persecuted by Hitler would not have died.
The international community has thus properly become cautious so as to avoid being blamed for inadvertently supporting regimes that have no respect for universal human rights. (Meggle 113).
The humanitarian war in Kosovo was necessary to ensure that the dictatorial regime of Milosevic was ousted. In this case, war was necessary to dethrone a tyrant regime that did as it pleased with impunity. Democracy the fundamental right of a people to choose their leaders – is the wave of the 21st century.
Dictatorships and dictators have no place in the modern world. During the Cold War, dictatorial regimes were tolerated for their steadfastness in the pursuit of proxy wars by the U.S. and the USSR. Such assumptions of the Cold War are anachronistic. (Amstutz 45).
There is no dispute that NATO intervention resulted in the removal of the radical nationalist regime of Milosevic, and rescued millions of people, both Serbs and Albanians, who did not take any part in the fight whose only dream was to live peacefully.
In the absence of an external military intervention, Kosovo would have faced devastating consequences. More people would have died and the situation may have called for an intervention after the situation had become far worse than in March 1999.
The NATO intervention in Kosovo resulted in a pragmatic and moral victory. Yugoslavia seized to exist, the Kosovo people were saved and peace was restored. The territory now has a new name and its people can look forward to a new history of its own making due to the efforts of the NATO warfighters. The NATO intervention forced religious and ethnic groups to reach a reasonable consensus on how to co-exist amicably.
And the NATO intervention in Kosovo demonstrated the unity of the West in upholding the principles of universal human rights. “Never again” was the operating moral principle by which the Western powers guided it foreign policy after the experience of Nazism. That principle of universal human rights was appropriately and legitimately implemented in the case of Kosovo.
References
Amstutz, Mark. International Ethics. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, Publishers. Inc, 2005. Print.
Antizzo, J. Glenn. U.S. military intervention in the post-Cold War era: how to win America’s wars in the twenty-first century. Baton Rouge, LA: LSU Press, 2010. Print.
Bellamy, J. Alex. Kosovo and International Society. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. Print.
Boyne, J. Walter. Air Warfare: an International Encyclopedia: A-L. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2002. Print.
Byers, Michael. War Law: Understanding Law and Armed Conflict. London: Atlantic Books, 2005. Print.
Chomsky, Noam. The new military humanism: lessons from Kosovo. London: Pluto Press, 1999. Print.
Clark, Howard. Kosovo work in progress: closing the cycle of violence. Coventry: Coventry University, 2002. Print.
Daalder, Ivo,.O’Hanlon. Winning Ugly: NATO’s War to Save Kosovo. Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2000. Print.
Edwards, R. Chris, and John Curtis Samples. The Republican revolution 10 years later: smaller government or business as usual? Washington DC: Cato Institute, 2005. Print.
Glennon, Michael. Limits of Law, Prerogatives of power: Interventionism after Kosovo. New York; PALGRAVETM, 2001. Print.
Heinze, Eric. Waging Humanitarian War. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2009. Print.
Ignatieff, Michael. Virtual War: Kosovo and Beyond. Toronto: Penguin Books. Print
Independent International Commission on Kosovo (2000), Kosovo Report. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Print.
Judah, Jim. Kosovo: War and Revenge. Yale: Yale University Press, 2002. Print
Knudsen, Tonny. Kosovo between War and Peace. New York: Taylor and Francis, 2007. Print.
Krieger, Heike. The Kosovo Conflict and International Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Print.
Laureij, Milo. Conflict Coverage in Kosovo. Lap Lambert Academic Publishing, 2010. Print.
Lutz, M. James, and Brenda J. Lutz. Global Terrorism. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis, 2008. Print.
Mertus, Julie. Kosovo: How Myths And Truths Started A War. London: University of California Press Ltd. Print.
Peters, E. John. European contributions to Operation Allied Air Force: implications for transatlantic cooperation, Issue 1391. Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, 2001. Print.
Ptontl, Jochen. The UN Security Council and Informal Groups of States. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Print.
Rizer, Kenneth. Human Resistance to Humanitarian War in Kosovo and Beyond. Alabama: Air University Press, 2000. Print.
Roberts, Adams. Humanitarian War: Military Intervention and Human Rights. Staffordshire: Keele University, 1993. Print.
Shatzmiller, Maya. Islam and Bosnia: conflict resolution and foreign policy in multi-ethnic states. Quebec (Canada): McGill-Queen’s Press – MQUP, 2002. Print.
Totten, Samuel, and William S. Parsons. Century of genocide: critical essays and eyewitness accounts. 3rd ed. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis, 2008. Print.
Wilson, Stephanie. Effectiveness, Legitimacy and the Use of Force in Modern Wars. Wiesbaden: GMBH, 2009. Print.
Yoder, Amos. The evolution of the United Nations system. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis, 1993. Print.
Footnotes
1 Since then humanitarian wars have taken place with the latest one being the intervention of Libya by NATO to prevent the government forces from annihilating the rebel forces (Rizer 43). However, the question of the legitimacy and legal basis for the humanitarian interventions remains in dispute as some have characterized the NATO intervention as “illegal but legitimate” (Heinze 1).
2 The Greek Orthodox Church largely opposed the NATO activities, and the public opinion poll showed 90% of people disapproved the bombing decision (Peters 42).
3 Additionally, the support is evident in the Security Council Resolution 1244 (1999) (Krieger xxxii)
Resistance and collaboration in the World War II took various forms in Europe. The war led to the death of very many people. Some countries, most notably Yugoslavia, resisted the urge of supporting the Germany and Italian invasion.
Marshal Petain led one of the most memorable official collaboration in France called the Vichy regime. The Third Reich signed several alliances with Denmark, Greece, Norway, and Hungary after Germany military occupation. Other countries, such as Austria were politically inclined to Germany because of the strong Nazis support by her citizens.
Countries that collaborated had to hand over Jews to the Nazis to be killed. In Poland, three million Jews disappeared in camps (Merriman 29). France was another example in which the Vichy administration handed more than seventy-five thousand Jews to the murder fields in Germany, including Auschwitz.
Other countries like Denmark showed mixed signals where the government refused to enforce certain laws against the Jews while at the same time yielding into some of the demands by the Jews.
Civilians in the nations that collaborated did odd job like washing clothes for the Germans to get food for their families. In addition to working for the Germany soldiers, the civilians were expected to give information about the Jews and other betrayers who resisted the Germany authorities.
Others were recruited to form paramilitary militias, which were used to consolidate mass murder. This was particularly in Ukraine, for instance, where the recruited civilians together with the police mercilessly killed more than thirty thousand Jews.
The citizenry resisted Germany and Italian occupation in some countries. The citizens used different means of resistance. These methods could be divided into two. There were those that used the peaceful means, for instance the Railway workers in France. These methods included bureaucratic, obstruction, go-slows at work and small-scale sabotage groups among others (Merriman 64).
These methods were more effective in countries that never experienced armed resistance. Other groups took up arms in resistance. However, they were few and existed in Spain, Greece, and Yugoslavia.
The biggest of them all were the Soviet forces in Ukraine that used guerilla tactics to fight fascism. The White Rose was another resistance movement formed by students in Germany to oppose the Nazi regime. Resistance was met with brutality from Hitler.
The Grand Alliance was signed in June 1941 and lasted for four and a half years. By the end of that period, it had succeeded in a few areas. It had brought down Hitler, his lieutenants had been charged in Numberg, and Germany was divided into four administrative units. Nations that signed were the US, Britain, and the Soviet Union. It was in fact an anti-Nazi alliance.
Britain was the first to declare her support to Russia if it was attacked by Germany when the US was still neutral. The strength of Japan and Hitler’s declaration of war against the US was what pulled them into the war. The Grand Alliance formed the foundation for the formation of the United Nations.
The US and Britain signed the Atlantic Charter that later incorporated the Soviet Union. The charter declared its support to aid any of their members if it was attacked by Germany. The Grand Alliance was to break later own because of the hidden interests of Russia. Russian did not want Poland to be an independent country. Stalin had been a master of deceit
Works cited
Merriman, John. A History of Modern Europe. New York: W. W Norton & Company, 2010. Print.
The Greater War changed the structure of the western world in different ways as the political landscape and order took a new direction. Assassination of Franz Ferdinand, Austrian archduke, and his wife triggered the war leading to its eruption. The assassination just triggered the war, and there were some underlying causes that are still debated by historians to date.
The causes of the Greater War include alliances made by different countries, imperialism, militarism and nationalism of the European countries. A clear break of the previous social order and new path for European political change was a result of the Greater War. The factors that changed the political structure of Europe are outlined in the subsequent paragraphs.
Ceasing of Empires
The defeat of allies ensured they were weakened, and no longer had influence in the European politics. Germany, Austro-Hungary and Russian Empires were ceased after their defeat in the Greater War. They were not able to control and expand their empires as it had been their tradition and this led to war. Similarly, the Empire of Ottoman ceased to operate because it was weakened during the Greater War in Europe.
New Nations
New nations emerged after the end of Greater War leading to change in the political landscape in Europe. Boundaries were redrawn after the defeat of the allies, and they had to lose some of their territories to other nations.
The Soviet Union emerged from the Russian Empire and European map redrawn to smaller states. Countries such as Finland, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia gained their independence after the war. The emergence and redrawing of the international boundary changed the traditional social order to a new begging in Europe.
Treaty of Versailles
Allied forces signed the treaty of Versailles after defeating the allies in the Greater War. The main goal of the treaty was to bring peace and avoid future occurrence of similar war.
The peace conference was meant to neutralize threat that Germany posed to European nations from their naval power and to the oversee empires. It was also meant to punish Germany so that it does not destroy the newly created international boundaries. Versailles treaty was important in shaping and re-arranging the social order through taming Germany who was very aggressive.
Paris Peace conference
Paris peace conference led to postwar international order, which minimized the emergence of conflicts among the participating nations. The conference condemned the actions by Germany of ceasing larger territories of other nations.
The conference discussed issues to stop disputes by each participating nation on what they can do to maintain peace. The nations present during this peace meeting included Australia, Japan, Italy, United Kingdom and US issues to bring peace. They gave it different approaches at ensuring there was a break at the social order as well as to bring new political change.
Conclusion
The Greater War changed the political structure and social order in Europe as it laid a path for a political change. The defeat of the Allies led to changes as more nations became independent as well as emerging of new nations.
Independence of other nations was essential in bringing peace and making them autonomous in their actions. Similarly, the Versailles treaty and Paris peace conference led to the creation of order that changed the political and social order of the western countries.
The campaign for liberation of Algeria took place over fifty years ago. However, the wars that characterized the liberation war of Algeria where the French fought against the Algerians who were seeking independence from their colonizers. The liberation war in Algeria lasted for eight years and in the end, the natives achieved independence against the French.
Nevertheless, the war in Algeria had no definitive winners. In the end, the destruction of the Algeria meant that both the natives and the European colonizers won nothing of value. For instance, the French citizens who were famously known as “Pieds Noirs” reacted to the defeat by the natives by burning hospitals, fuel-storage reserves, libraries, and any destructible infrastructure. The aim of the French citizens was to ensure that they ‘left Algeria as they found it’- a desolate desert land.
Other than the wanton destruction of the country, there are many other mistakes that occurred during the Algerian war, some of which have acted as lessons in latter liberation conflicts. It is also important to note that by the end of the war, the French citizens had to free Algeria because they could not co-exist with the residents of their former colony.
The war in Algeria is one of the most notable conflicts of the last century. The war is also a source of mixed feelings from both sides of conflict. This paper is a review of the Algerian liberation war in respect to its notable historical lessons and mistakes.
The War and its Background
Algiers, the capital of Algeria was a thriving city in the 1950s and it was one of the most sophisticated cities in Africa. The city was a cosmopolitan cultural hub that featured a predominantly Muslim population with various European elements in its midst. Some of the cultures that thrived in Algiers there were Italians, Spanish, Maltese, Catalan, and French (Evans 47).
The Algerian population was tolerant of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. Given the strife that was being witnessed in most colonies across Africa in the 1950s, it was widely believed that Algiers would eventually become the African equivalent of California where diversity could be the main driver of progress. The oil resources also provided the country with an impetus of economic progress.
The trigger of the liberation war was an incident that occurred in November of 1954. In this incident, several conflicts involving French-Christian and Native-Muslim population occurred spontaneously across Algeria. Consequently, from the day of the initial conflict “the situation escalated following the known spiral of provocation and retaliation” (Horne 103). The fast war-centric faction was the National Liberation Front (FLN).
The FLN’s initial acts of violence led the French authorities to retaliate with what can be termed as ‘unnecessary force’. These initial engagements were all it took to create the environment of a revolution. Although this is the short version of the story of how the liberation war of Algeria broke out, experts believe that the underlying causes date back to the early 1940s (Galula 80).
In 1945 when local Muslims were celebrating the victory of the Allies in World War II, clashes broke out between the celebrating crowds and the French authorities. In the aftermath of this conflict, French police are thought to have shot and killed approximately 15,000 native Muslims.
On the other hand, approximately a hundred French settlers were killed. The violence that occurred in 1945 and its underlying massacre eventually died down on the account of the French authorities overcoming the local inhabitants. Nevertheless, this event became a source of mistrust between the natives and French settlers.
Following this initial conflict between the inhabitants and the French settlers, there were various attempts to mend the broken relationships between these two quarters. However, the attempts bore no fruit and there were evident tensions between the two sections of the population. For instance, it was not until the year 2005 when France issued a formal apology to Algeria for the 1945 massacre.
From the onset of the liberation war in Algeria, there were obvious mistakes in regards to perceptions. First, the population of Algeria had a ratio of one French settler to nine mostly Muslim inhabitants. The situation of translated to the minority having so much power over the majority. The local Algerian population rarely took part in the active administration and development of their nation even though they were the majority.
This ‘indifference’ was the main cause of the wanton destruction of the country’s infrastructure by the settlers because they felt that they had ‘single-handedly built Algeria. Nevertheless, it is not easy to access why the local population had so little interest in nation building because prior to 1940s relationships between the natives and the settlers were mostly cordial.
Another point of misunderstanding between the Algerian settlers and the French nationals was the notion that the French settler was an ‘entitled individual’ who had access to unlimited land. Consequently, most of the events that happened in relation to French settlers in Algeria were rarely reported back in France.
For example, most people in France were not aware of the violence that broke out in Algeria in 1945. The truth of the matter was that the first generation of French settlers who moved to France encountered various challenges. Most of the French settlers who were in Algeria in the 1950s were second and third generation, and they no longer had any strong ties with their homeland.
The failure to adopt formal education among the local inhabitants was also another mistake that could have precipitated the liberation war in Algeria. It is important to note that “illiteracy among the Muslim population was widespread and nothing was being done to reverse this situation” (Stam and Shohat 282). However, there were no formal systems that were preventing the Muslim children from attending school.
This situation was exacerbated by high levels of unemployment mostly among the unskilled workers. The gradual urbanization in Algeria led to the development of shantytowns that bordered every major town in the country. Most French settlers were under the impression that the Muslim population had adapted to its poor living conditions.
The most important factor in the case of French and Muslim populations was that all citizens were the same under their French heritage and they had equal rights and responsibilities. Nevertheless, the country’s healthcare and education systems were more inclined to serve the settler population.
The political systems allowed all citizens the right to vote although the “native Algerians could only vote in different polling stations and their votes counted as half that of French settlers” (Fanon 46). Most native Algerians had low stakes in their country’s political system and they mostly chose to excuse themselves from voting. In the course of this political quagmire, there was no intention or drive to harmonize citizenry from either the settlers or natives.
To assess whether the political arrangement in Algeria was enough cause for the country to prepare for unrest, it is important to look into other African-European systems of governance. In the United States, segregation and inequality were part of life. Therefore, the mild segregation and inequality in these areas meant that the situation in Algeria was relatively good.
After the end of the Word War II, most of the African countries under the British Empire focused their attention on forming native-militias to fight against oppression by British colonizers. In the 1950s, Algeria was part of the French territory. However, France treated Algeria in a different way than it treated it other African colonies such as Morocco, Ghana, and Tunisia. When things began going wrong in other regions, France should have utilized the relative calm in Algeria to initiate relative changes.
Very few individuals in France were objecting the inequality in Algeria and other African colonies. However, the few individuals who protested European treatment of the colonies were often labeled as intellectuals or communists. The initial mistake that happened in the pre-conflict period was that both the French settlers and the local population did not attempt to pursue any formal channels of maintaining their peaceful co-existence.
Consequently, when the violence broke out both sides remained as parallel entities that had almost no shared development or social history. Overall, the French were unable to ‘comprehend the aspirations of the third world’.
This particular mistake was common throughout the history of colonization whereby the colonial powers attempted to perpetuate their imperial agendas against third world revolutions (Fanon 29). By the time the war was ending, most of the contributions that the French had made in Algeria came undone all because the settlers failed to notice social changes.
The War and its Mishaps
When the liberation war of Algeria started, most of the stakeholders in France were under the impression that this was a simple revolt that would soon die down, as it was the case in 1945. Consequently, the first batch of troop reinforcement that was sent to Algeria was mostly made up of fresh army recruits. This development contradicted the French policy of not sending recruits to war zones as a result of the defeat that the troops had encountered in the Indo-China war.
Officially, the situation in Algeria had not been recognized as a full-blown military war. The mindset of the troops that were sent to Algeria was that “they would simply be spending a few months in sunny vacation spots, but the young squad was terrified by the situation it encountered on the Algerian fields” (Evans 47).
The French authorities reacted by declaring a state of emergency and assigning an army general to remedy the situation in Algeria. France cluelessness in regards to the situation in Algeria was responsible for the various tragic events that characterized the liberation war. For instance, throughout the war, France was merely reacting to the actions of the opposition. Consequently, the French troops were barely under control in regards to having first-rate information during the eight-year war period.
The unpreparedness of the French authorities in regards to the war was also reflected by the United Nation’s discussion of peace agenda in Algeria. France initially interpreted the United Nation’s peace agenda in Algeria as a vote of no confidence against the country’s actions. Nevertheless, it is important to note that the actions of the UN had no regard to Algeria’s need for independence from France.
FNL’s offensive against French interests officially began in 1956 under General Massu. The very first battles took place in Algiers and they prompted the French troops to ask for back up from the French government. However, these early requests for more trooped were rebuffed by the French government because they went against public interest and also because Algeria was not considered as a significant economic or political interest by France, hence a waste of resources.
Nevertheless, the liberation war caught the attention of France when it threatened to spillover to French territory. By the time Charles de Gaulle was elected as leader of France, Algeria was already a pressing issue. Gaulle’s first action as leader was going on a strategic tour to Algeria in France where he was received positively. Gaulle had an obvious advantage because both sides of the conflict considered him to be a liberator (Horne 70).
On one side, the settlers were hoping that the general would be compassionate to their plight. On the other hand, the Muslims were aware of Gaulle’s contributions in the World War II and they adored him for that. When Gaulle gave his first public address in Algiers he uttered words of hope to the crowd when he said “I understand you…I know what has been going on here” (Merom 44).
The newly elected leader was also prompt in his attempts to stem the conflict in Algeria. Consequently, Gaulle started instituting social changes among the Muslims and offered amnesty to the FLN’s operatives in 1958. The nobleness of Gaulle’s action brought little changes in the conflict because by this time both sides of the conflict were too invested in the conflict.
After Gaulle’s efforts appeared to bear no fruits, he attacked the problem directly and for the first time he uttered the words ‘self determination’ in regards to the liberation war. The leader’s actions were most likely prompted by the fact that he was quick to see the signs of the time. The liberation war was also taking its toll on the France’s economy, a situation the leader wanted to resolve as quickly as possible.
Throughout the actions of the French leader, various things that were expected to happen failed to transpire. First, the popularity of Gaulle within the two sides of the conflict failed to translate into any tangible results. The conflict between the “Pieds Noirs” and the FNL was at its prime and input of Gaulle was not enough to neutralize the situation.
Another ‘historical mistake’ that features in the events of the liberation war in Algeria was that General Gaulle failed to address the underlying issues of the conflict in the first place. The leader attempted to use his political clout to bypass the real issues in the Algerian war. Thirdly, the General assumed that the “Pieds Noirs” would eventually adopt his way of thinking.
The Insurgency
When General De Gaulle made the promise of self-determination in respect to Algeria’s quest, the settlers interpreted his actions as outright betrayal. According to historians, “the ‘Pieds Noirs’ felt betrayed by everyone; the French people, the army as an institution, the French government, and above all General Gaulle” (Allen 12). The reaction of the settlers was immediate and significant. The settlers set up barricades, started a revolt against their own government, and fought against the French troops.
Furthermore, in 1961 the settlers created a secret terrorist organization that was known as the (Secret Army Organization) OAS. The OAS’s main instrument was terror and the group attempted to carry out mass bombings in both France and Algeria (Stam and Shohat 282). Nevertheless, the force of the OAS was a mere reaction to the inevitability of self-determination in Algeria. In 1962, a referendum led to the self-determination of Algeria and France consequently recognized the country’s independence.
The insurgency in Algeria has provided a framework for fighting this form of uprising in an established society. The French government considered the insurgency of the French settlers to be a threat against not only the sovereignty of Algeria, but also a major hazard towards the institutions of France.
Consequently, the insurgency in Algeria was met by unimaginable forces towards France and the FNL. For instance, at one time there were over 400,000 troops fighting against the insurgency of a few thousand settlers. The use of force as opposed to military tactics proved to be a major mistake on the side of the French government. The tactics of the OAS became more bold and calculated in response to the pressure of French troops.
Consequently, Algeria lost strategic resources and infrastructure in the process of the clandestine warfare. The situation in Algeria was replicated 50 years later when the United States began fighting against the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan and Iraq (Porch 239). Incidentally, President Bush’s administration repeated the same mistakes that the French government had made in Algeria in the late 1950s.
France instituted a war that appeared endless and one where the insurgents were in control of the situation most of the time. However, the ‘zero tolerance against terrorism’ policy only served the purpose of strengthening the insurgency.
It never occurred to the French government to pursue diplomatic measures a move that could have saved most of Algeria’s strategic interests. In addition, the end of the war meant the settlers could not co-exist with the local Muslim population because one faction had already been labeled as terrorists (MacMaster 117).
Conclusion
The liberation war in Algeria brought about new dimensions in revolutionary struggles. Until today, most aspects of the liberation war remain mysterious to most people due to the high levels of secrecy that characterized this conflict. In the end, the conflict pitted French against their fellow countrymen but it is Algerians that paid the price of this infighting. Innocent citizens were the victims of bomb blasts and the infrastructure that made Algiers a great city was left desolate.
Furthermore, some of the stereotypes that fuelled the conflict between settlers and the local Muslim population have not yet disappeared. The reconciliation that was expected to take place after the liberation war was over never took place. As a result, Algeria has failed to benefit from the cooperation that mostly occurred between most African countries and their former colonial masters. There are fears that the element of the ‘Pieds Noirs’ terrorism might haunt Algeria forever if the issue is not revisited in a sober manner.
Works Cited
Allen, Samuel. “David Galula, Frantz Fanon, and the Imperfect Lessons of the Algerian War.” Journal of Warfare 8.7 (2014): 12-16. Print.
Evans, Martin. Algeria: France’s Undeclared War, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Print.
Fanon, Frantz. A Dying Colonialism, New York: Grove P, 1967. Print.
Galula, David. Pacification in Algeria 1954–1962, California: The RAND Corporation, 2006. Print.
Horne, Alistair. A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962, New York: Pan Macmillan, 2012. Print.
MacMaster, Neil. Burning the Veil: The Algerian War and the ’emancipation’ of Muslim Women, 1954-62, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009. Print.
Merom, Gil. How Democracies Lose Small Wars: State, Society, and The Failures of France in Algeria, Israel in Lebanon, and the United States in Vietnam, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Print.
Porch, Douglas. “The Dangerous Myths and Dubious Promise of COIN.” Small Wars & Insurgencies 22.02 (2011): 239-257. Print.
Stam, Robert, and Ella Shohat. “History, Empire, Resistance.” Postcolonial Film: History, Empire, Resistance 30 (2014): 282. Print.
The Second World War became the period when Australia got to participate in a massive armed conflict for the first time in its post colonial history. It is also important to mention that at that time Australian troops had to take part in two wars. They fought on the Second World War against Germany and Italy, and they also participated in the battled of the Pacific War fought against Japanese invasion.
Around a million of Australian men and women started their military service in order to protect their motherland and its allies. Over twenty thousand of Australian people were killed during these conflicts, and over twenty thousand were wounded and injured.
In the beginning of the Second World War in 1939, when Great Britain declared war to Germany the Australian troops headed to Europe to assist their allies, but a new threat occurred in the South Pacific.
Since Great Britain joined the war in Europe, Australia immediately became its ally, the political leaders of both countries announced that Australia and Great Britain should be associated as a solid union, so if one of these states is at war, then so is the other one. After 1939 the troops of Australia were mainly based in Europe.
The divisions stationed on the Australian territory were quite weak and could not resist the Japanese invasion that happened in the South Pacific in 1941. This was the time when another ally of Australia, the United States, arrived to the rescue.
The two massive wars Australia took part in at that time were very different. Both of them were a threat for the people of Australia, its land and independence. Australia entered both wars as an ally of Great Britain, protecting its influence and authority in the world, fighting to save the imperial defense system that was crucial for the Australia as a guarantee of protection during the conflict with Japan in the South Pacific.
The main difference between the Second World War and the Pacific War is the fact that the latter became a direct threat for the Australian lands and people.
The horrors Australian troops had to go through during the battle for the Kokoda Track in Papua were unavoidable because the Australian troops had to prevent the Japanese invaders from taking over the Port Moresby, which would open them a way towards a great part of North Eastern Australia (Long, 1973). Kokoda campaign was one of the most dangerous operations that Australian protectors had to deal with.
First of all, the climate in that area is very harsh and rainy, there is a high danger of catching various diseases and infections, besides, the road through Kokoda Track is very complicated and dangerous due to its geographical features (Brune, 2004).
Both the Australians and the Japanese took a huge risk entering that zone, but the risk was worthy because losing Port Moresby meat losing a part of their territory for the Australians.
That war for Australia was complicated by the fact that the Japanese spies have been investigating strategically important regions of New Guinea since 1930s, their operations and campaigns were carefully prepared and thought through, and their men were highly motivated by the country’s political ideology (Williams, 2012).
During the Pacific War Australian people’s patriotism and self-identify shifted quite a lot, they started to view themselves as an independent and authentic nation. The experience of fighting for their own territory, protecting their motherland increased the Australian proud spirit. Besides, the active international relationships created a higher diversity and density within the population of the country.
References
Brune, P. 2003, A Bastard of a Place: the Australians in Papua, Kokoda, Milne Bay, Gona, Buna, Sanananda, Allen & Unwin, Sydney.
Long, G. 1973, The Six Years War: Australia in the 1939-45 War, Australian War Memorial, Canberra.
Williams, P. 2012, The Kokoda Campaign: myth and reality, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.