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To: Kosovo Talk
From: George Kenney
Subject: Re: Welcome to Kosovo Talk/ first contribution

Negotiation was always an option. Remember, in Bosnia it was the U.S., more than the Bosnian Serbs, who resisted a negotiated settlement that fell short of the desires of the Sarajevo regime. Not until 1995, when the Europeans threatened to pull out their U.N. peacekeepers and thereby forced the U.S. to reassess its position, was a deal possible. The eventual settlement in Bosnia was very much like what had been offered before the war began (the Cutilheiro plan) and during the war (Vance-Owen). Very likely it could have been achieved much earlier had the U.S. been more amenable, instead of encouraging the Sarajevo regime to fight.

Anyway, in Kosovo there was a lot to be negotiated that should have been, but wasn't. Specifically, whether Kosovo or some part of it should become independent, and then what compensation the Serbs could expect. The whole issue of the Balkan crisis from the beginning, as I've argued for a long time, boils down to changes in borders -- the problem of why should I be a minority in your country when you could be a minority in mine. The borders of the region have changed, are changing, and will continue to change. So, the sensible thing is to help negotiate those changes rather than exacerbate the fighting over them. The U.S. government, however, has taken the opposite view since 1992: Balkan borders must not change and the U.S. will defend their inviolability with force. With such an entrenched attitude, the U.S. left itself with nothing to negotiate -- though in theory negotiation was possible -- and with no choice except forcing an outcome on the Serbs that was unacceptable. War was inevitable.

That said, it is important to take issue with the rhetoric of genocide. What was going on in Kosovo was not even junior genocide or genocide-light. From the beginning of this year, up until NATO's attack, probably a couple hundred were killed, about a quarter of them Serbs -- a mild form of ugly civil insurrection, the likes of which (with far worse examples) is to be found all over the place. It involved a lot of complicated nuances in the shade of gray. While, as usual, the Serbian regime acted brutally, so did the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), an entity described within the past year by the CIA and the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organization. One should note that, according to numerous reports, including in the London Times, the KLA's funding comes in large measure from heroin trafficking in Europe. And that, according to other reputable sources, it maintains active ties with terrorist organizations in the Middle East. Presumably the U.S. would react better than the Serbs did if faced with such an insurrection in, say, Texas, but on the other hand, within their own frame of reference, the Serbs probably felt they were showing restraint.

Moral imperatives cannot, by definition, apply only to specific circumstances. To date I have not seen, nor can I imagine, an argument for a moral imperative in Kosovo that would not apply even more aptly to at least half a dozen other conflicts around the world.

We seem to be talking not about the reality, but about the perception of a moral imperative. And -- I have a lot of trouble articulating this, because I don't want merely to say everybody is nuts -- why a very large, influential community of journalists, intellectuals, and policy-makers would whip themselves into a frenzy screaming for bloody vengeance over genocide in Kosovo. Having watched this intervention movement evolve from the middle of the scrum, it seems to me that many of those most directly involved have found that genocide crusades make a meal ticket. We are witnessing a sort of mega-meshing of selfish interests under the mantle of altruism. To put it bluntly, I know many (most) of the prominent interventionists. I think they are phonies. I just wish I could explain better, from a sociological point of view, how they happened to rally together.