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Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: BillCh who wrote (40755)	3/30/1999 12:41:00 PM
From: JBL	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 67261

From Carter's NSA, for information : To Stop the Serbs Washington Post Tuesday, March 30 Zbigniew Brzezinski NATO is currently engaged in primarily a strategic bombing campaign against Serbian command centers and air defenses. The problem with such a campaign is that it gives the Serbs time to engage in mini-genocide and in mass ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. Moreover, a strategic air campaign mobilizes not only Serbian but international public opinion against a perceived attack on civilians. Last but not least, it conditions the Serbs to dig in their heels and wait for a break in Western resolve. To overcome this condition, three major steps are necessary, each entailing risks but each contributing to a higher probability of eventual success. The first involves an immediate shift to a combined strategic as well as tactical air campaign. Presumably this is happening already, but the point is that the tactical air campaign has to be extensive, intensive and persistent. Its object has to be the infliction of maximum casualties on Serbian military formations, and especially on heavy tank and artillery concentrations. To the extent that Serbian forces are deprived of such assets, the remaining Serb units will gradually lose their mobility, and their firepower will be drastically decreased. The asymmetry between them and the Kosovo Liberation Army will thus be significantly reduced. A tactical air campaign cannot be conducted without some loss of aircraft. Here, too, an adjustment in the prevailing Western outlook is needed. One cannot expect to wage war (and mostly with professionals -- i.e., volunteers) without suffering casualties. The more intensive the tactical air campaign and the earlier it comes, the higher will be the allied losses. Yet, not to undertake such a campaign means a much more massive number of Albanians killed by the Serbs and a higher level of Serbian confidence that Serb forces on the ground will be able to achieve Slobodan Milosevic's fundamental political objective: the "cleansing" of Kosovo of its Albanian population. The trade-off, however painful for the West, is thus clearly in favor of undertaking the tactical air campaign at the earliest possible moment, and doing it to the maximum tactical military benefit possible. The second major step that is necessary is to deprive the Serbs of any illusion that they may be able to retain Kosovo by force of arms, even while absorbing Western air bombardment. That means, in the first instance, a deliberate decision by the West to arm the KLA. Such a decision is both politically and morally justifiable, for the Albanians in Kosovo are currently facing the prospect of social extinction. The KLA is not a force capable of matching the Serbs on the ground, and it is currently woefully underarmed, particularly in anti-tank weaponry. Anti-tank weapons presumably could even be airdropped to some KLA units. A prompt injection of Western arms would boost Albanian morale and send an unmistakable signal to Belgrade that there is no prospect of a Serbian victory on the ground, either politically or militarily. Should the efforts to arm the KLA and to engage in sustained tactical air attacks prove inadequate, at some point Western public opinion may reach the conclusion that NATO ground forces have to be injected. A decision to that effect can only be made with strong public support, but the political case for such intervention should begin to be made now, especially in view of the atrocities being committed. The third needed step is to face the fact that Milosevic's dictatorship has now forfeited any moral or political right to continued sovereignty over Kosovo. The original proposed "compromise" formula involved retention of nominal Serbian sovereignty over Kosovo. The barbaric conduct of Milosevic's military and police has terminated such rights. It is therefore timely for NATO to make it clear that the alliance will not consider any solution that entails the retention of Milosevic's authority over Kosovo. The purpose of the continuing military operation now has to be political self-determination for the Kosovars, and only a democratic government in Belgrade can be a party to any transitional arrangements that might involve less than that. Whether one likes it or not, the events of the past week have transformed both the military and political dimensions of the Kosovo problem. A failure to prevail would precipitate a fundamental crisis of unity within NATO and a more anarchic global state of affairs. That fact should be faced squarely. Whatever one may think of Western diplomacy and of American leadership over the past few months, the issue now has been joined. If the words "never again" are to have any meaning, a civilized Euro-Atlantic community cannot tolerate genocidal barbarity in its own midst. The writer was national security adviser to President Carter.