Some people are starting to realize :
A BOSTON GLOBE EDITORIAL
NATO's dumb bombs
Many things about the war for Kosovo are complicated. It may be that each side completely and disastrously misread the intentions of the other. And it seems now that neither Slobodan Milosevic nor the leaders of the NATO countries can bring themselves to pull the proper diplomatic levers to end a war that is doing more and more damage to all parties concerned.
But one thing should be simple. Precisely because NATO's justification for making war against Milosevic has been moral and humanitarian, NATO should not be dropping its precision-guided missiles and bombs on power plants and water pumps in Serbia.
The intended effect of targeting electrical generators and water supplies is not to harm the Serbian army or police. As the targeters know full well, the military and Milosevic's security forces have their own generators and their own water sources. NATO's intent is rather to make Serb civilians suffer.
The theory behind the crescendo of NATO's disabling strikes against the electrical grid and the water pumps in Serbia is that the resulting hardship imposed on hospitals, homes, and schools will demoralize the population, and a demoralized population will prevail upon Milosevic to accept NATO's terms for peace.
President Clinton alluded to this intention in an unusual op-ed piece that appeared under his name in Sunday's New York Times. NATO's bombing campaign, Clinton said, will confront Milosevic with ''the prospect of having to answer to his people for starting an unwinnable conflict that is bringing military failure and economic ruin.''
As in other wars, however, the primary result of targeting the civilian population is to make the people suffering under the bombardment despise an enemy who appears incapable of distinguishing a despot from his captive subjects.
It is simply wrong for the Western democracies to respond to Milosevic's tactic of taking 1.8 million Albanian Kosovars hostage by making hostages of 10 million Serbs. |
