Aid to Rep. Sanders (D-VT) Resigns Over War
May 4, 1999
Congressman Bernie Sanders
2202 Rayburn Building
Washington, DC, 20515
Dear Bernie,
This letter explains the matters of conscience that have led me
to resign from your staff.
I believe that every individual must have some limit to what
acts of military violence they are willing to participate in or
support, regardless of either personal welfare or claims that it
will lead to a greater good. Any individual who does not
possess such a limit is vulnerable to committing or condoning
abhorrent acts without even stopping to think about it.
Those who accept the necessity for such a limit do not
necessarily agree regarding where it should be drawn. For
absolute pacifists, war can never be justified. But even for
non-pacifists, the criteria for supporting the use of military
violence must be extremely stringent because the consequences
are so great. Common sense dictates at least the following as
minimal criteria:
The evil to be remedied must be serious.
The genuine purpose of the action must be to avert the evil, not
to achieve some other purpose for which the evil serves as a
pretext.
Less violent alternatives must be unavailable.
The violence used must have a high probability of in fact
halting the evil.
The violence used must be minimized.
Let us evaluate current U.S. military action in Yugoslavia
against each of these tests. Evil to be remedied:
We can agree that the evil to be remedied in this case --
specifically, the uprooting and massacre of the Kosovo
Albanians -- is serious enough to justify military violence if
such violence can ever be justified. However, the U.S. air war
against Yugoslavia fails an ethical test on each of the other four
criteria.
Purpose vs. pretext: The facts are incompatible with the
hypothesis that U.S. policy is motivated by humanitarian
concern for the people of Kosovo:
In the Dayton agreement, the U.S. gave Milosevic a free hand
in Kosovo in exchange for a settlement in Bosnia.
The U.S. has consistently opposed sending ground forces into
Kosovo, even as the destruction of the Kosovar people
escalated. (While I do not personally support such an action, it
would, in sharp contrast to current U.S. policy, provide at least
some likelihood of halting the attacks on the Kosovo
Albanians.)
According to the New York Times (4/18/99), the U.S. began
bombing Yugoslavia with no consideration for the possible
impact on the Albanian people of Kosovo. This was not for
want of warning. On March 5, 1999, Italian Prime Minister
Massimo D'Alema met with President Clinton in the Oval
Office and warned him that an air attack which failed to subdue
Milosevic would result in 300,000 to 400,000 refugees passing
into Albania and then to Italy. Nonetheless, "No one planned
for the tactic of population expulsion that has been the currency
of Balkan wars for more than a century." (The New York
Times, 4/18/99). If the goal of U.S. policy was humanitarian,
surely planning for the welfare of these refugees would have
been at least a modest concern.
Even now the attention paid to humanitarian aid to the Kosovo
refugees is totally inadequate, and is trivial compared to the
billions being spent to bomb Yugoslavia. According to the
Washington Post (4/30/99), the spokeswoman for the U.N.
refugee agency in Macedonia says, "We are on the brink of
catastrophe." Surely a genuine humanitarian concern for the
Kosovars would be evidenced in massive emergency airlifts and
a few billion dollars right now devoted to aiding the refugees.
While it has refused to send ground forces into Kosovo, the
U.S. has also opposed and continues to oppose all alternatives
that would provide immediate protection for the people of
Kosovo by putting non-or partially-NATO forces into Kosovo.
Such proposals have been made by Russia, by Milosevic
himself, and by the delegations of the U.S. Congress and the
Russian Duma who met recently with yourself as a participant.
The refusal of the U.S. to endorse such proposals strongly
supports the hypothesis that the goal of U.S. policy is not to
save the Kosovars from ongoing destruction.
Less violent alternatives: On 4/27/99 I presented you with a
memo laying out an alternative approach to current
Administration policy. It stated, "The overriding objective of
U.S. policy in Kosovo -- and of people of good will -- must be
to halt the destruction of the Albanian people of Kosovo. . .
The immediate goal of U.S. policy should be a ceasefire which
halts Serb attacks on Kosovo Albanians in exchange for a halt
in NATO bombing." It stated that to achieve this objective, the
United States should "propose an immediate ceasefire, to
continue as long as Serb attacks on Kosovo Albanians cease. . .
Initiate an immediate bombing pause. . . Convene the U.N.
Security Council to propose action under U.N. auspices to
extend and maintain the ceasefire. . . Assemble a peacekeeping
force under U.N. authority to protect safe havens for those
threatened with ethnic cleansing." On 5/3/99 you endorsed a
very similar peace plan proposed by delegations from the US
Congress and the Russian Duma. You stated that "The goal
now is to move as quickly as possible toward a ceasefire and
toward negotiations." In short, there is a less violent alternative
to the present U.S. air war against Yugoslavia.
High probability of halting the evil: Current U.S. policy has
virtually no probability of halting the displacement and killing of
the Kosovo Albanians. As William Safire put it, "The war to
make Kosovo safe for Kosovars is a war without an entrance
strategy. By its unwillingness to enter Serbian territory to stop
the killing at the start, NATO conceded defeat. The bombing is
simply intended to coerce the Serbian leader to give up at the
negotiating table all he has won on the killing field. He won't."
(the New York Times, 5/3/99) The massive bombing of
Yugoslavia is not a means of protecting the Kosovars but an
alternative to doing so.
Minimizing the consequences of violence. "Collateral damage"
is inevitable in bombing attacks on military targets. It must be
weighed in any moral evaluation of bombing. But in this case
we are seeing not just collateral damage but the deliberate
selection of civilian targets, including residential neighborhoods,
auto factories, broadcasting stations, and hydro-electric power
plants. The New York Times characterized the latter as "The
attack on what clearly appeared to be a civilian target." (5/3/99)
If these are acceptable targets, are there any targets that are
unacceptable?
The House Resolution (S Con Res 21) of 4/29/99 which
"authorizes the president of the United States to conduct
military air operations and missile strikes in cooperation with
the United States' NATO allies against the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia" supports not only the current air war but also its
unlimited escalation. It thereby authorizes the commission of
war crimes, even of genocide. Indeed, the very day after that
vote, the Pentagon announced that it would begin "area
bombing," which the Washington Post (4/30/99) characterized
as "dropping unguided weapons from B-52 bombers in an
imprecise technique that resulted in large-scale civilian
casualties in World War II and the Vietnam War."
It was your vote in support of this resolution that precipitated
my decision that my conscience required me to resign from
your staff. I have tried to ask myself questions that I believe
each of us must ask ourselves:
Is there a moral limit to the military violence you are willing to
participate in or support? Where does that limit lie? And when
that limit has been reached, what action will you take?
My answers led to my resignation.
Sincerely yours,
Jeremy Brecher |
