The presidential candidacy of Vermont Senator Bernie
Sanders has excited many liberals throughout the country, but there’s been very little analysis of his foreign policy
positions. This past Sunday Sanders criticized Hillary Clinton for her
support of the Iraq war, declaring, “On foreign policy, Hillary Clinton voted
for the war in Iraq … Not only I voted against, I helped lead the effort
against what I knew would be a disaster.” Sanders assertion about Clinton is
obviously true, but the difference between the two
candidates on war is hardly substantial and his political closet is filled with
as many skeletons. Notably he supported NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, a
stance which caused one of his staffers to resign in protest.
In his resignation letter to Sanders, former staffer Jeremy Brecher explained the Clinton administartion’s position
at the time. ”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,” wrote Brecher, “...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.”
Brecher’s note to Sanders closes with a set of
rhetorical questions, “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.”
The attack on Kosovo is hardly the extent of Sanders’ hawkishness.
While it’s true he voted against the Iraq War, he also
voted in favor of authorizing funds for that war and the one in
Afghanistan. More recently, he voted in favor of a $1 billion aid package for the coup government Ukraine and
supported Israel’s assault on Gaza. At a town hall meeting
he admitted that Israel may have “overreacted”, but blamed Hamas for the entire
conflict. After a woman asked why he refused to condemn Israel’s actions, he
told critics: “Excuse me! Shut up! You don’t have the microphone.”
Brecher’s entire letter to Sanders can be read below.
The bombing of Kosovo killed between 489 and 528 civilians.
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
No comments:
Post a Comment