Dominique Moisi wrote for the Financial Times (he is deputy-director of the Paris-basied Institut Francais des Relations Internationales the following: Quote
"The world must be made safe for democracy...the right is more precious than peace"
President Woodrow Wilson's words to the US congress in April 1917 sound more modern than ever. A month into the military operations against Serbia one thing is clear: Nato may not have won the battle on the ground, but Slobodan Milosevic has already lost the war of images.
The Yugoslav president is fighting not only Nato but Hollywood, from Stephen Spielberg to Roberto Beningni. The millions of western viewers who have seen "Schindler's List" or "Life is Beautiful" cannot bear to watch, live and direct on CNN images of suffering in the Balkans.
An American friend of mine with a senior job at the state department in Washington summarized for me the feeling of most Americans: "My folks do not want to see people forced into sealed trains".
Historical memories refreshed by the power of cinema and reinforced by lingering guilt have created strong public support for the pursuit of the war in spite of the unfortunately unavoidable numerous "collatral damages" taking place. We may not know what we ar doing, but we are doing it together. Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac may disagree on tactics but increasingly they use the same words to define the conflict: "The struggle between democracy and barbarism."
The west is united by common values and emotions, which transcend traditional concerns over sovereignty in the case of France or a reluctance to use force in the case of Germany. This consensus is strong and is likely to last. But there are limits to it. The same images mobilize opinion constrain the way we conduct the war.
Mikhail Gorbachev's warning in 1989 to Erich Honecker, the East German president, on the eve of the fall of the Berlin wall --"he who comes last is punished by history" -- could well apply to Mr. Milosevic. Shrewd and brutal tactician though he may be, he is a figure from the past moving from defeat to defeat.
Compared with the Soviet Union under Stalin, Mr. Milosevic's Serbia is a minor threat: but it is nevertheless a great evil and a real challenge, one that is difficult to explain to non-westerners..
Yet selective emotions are preferable to universal indifference of cynicism. The war in Kosovo is not only a metaphor for the 20th century, an accelerated summary of our history; it constitutes for the US, for Nato, and above all for Europe, a defining moment. What price is the US willing to pay to maintain its status as the sole international superpower? Can an alliance such as Nato, with its global ambitions, afford to fail to solve regional problems?
For Europe, the challenge is even more fundamental: the war in Kosovo is transforming our preceptions of ourselves and our vision of our future.- and not only in geographic terms.
...To be a European has taken on a new, yet familiar, meaning: namely, the refusal to tolerate ethnic cleansing on our continent.
...So let us not delude ourselves: we will win, with or without ground troops, because this is a war we cannot afford to lose and because the Serbs deep down must know they cannot triumph as long as the west, convinced of the justness of its cause, remains steadfast and united. Perhaps Mr. Milosevic will one day be remembered as an unwilling and perverse founding father of Europe. Unquote
To the above I add, AMEN. |
