The Written Word
for August 23, 2000

 I have been very uneasy about the Nato attack on Serbia and Kosovo from the beginning. This is not because of some anti-American bias and it certainly isn’t out of any squeamishness about attacking Slobadan Milosovic. No … my concerns are grounds in three areas.

First, I cannot accept that Nato is the appropriate body to be authorizing attacks on anyone. This organization was set up 50 years ago - with Canada as a charter member - to provide defence comfort for all the nations involved.

Of course the defence argument can be quickly twisted. The best defence is a good offence etc but the fact remains that Nato has taken a proactive role in the Balkans.

What does this say to the United Nations and its Security Council of which Canada is a member? The Korean War was undertaken in the name of the United Nations and was under a United Nations resolution. The two Gulf Wars were under the UN umbrella. Here the UN has been circumvented and I believe this weakens the UN’s prestige perhaps permanently.

My second concern is the lack of any consultation with Canadians before Canada signed on. What this tells us is an unpalatable truth - Canada’s parliament doesn’t matter much so why even bother with the formality of consulting it? The House of Commons has been held in contempt by the Liberal party since the early Trudeau days - this lack of consultation tells Canadians that their Parliament is only a talk shop which is ignored at the whim of the Prime Minister.

My third concern, expressed at the outset, is that this action violated all the rules of military intervention. There must be a clear objective, it must be achievable, and it must get the job done. From what I’ve seen this adventure fails on all counts. Nato is, of course, putting up a very brave front but unless the objective was to strengthen the hand of Milosovic and drive thousands of Kosovars into exile while those remaining get killed by the thuggish Serbian dictator it’s hard to see how much is being accomplished.

The Balkans has a centuries old tradition of blood feuds. It was the cradle of the First World War and bodes strong to be the precursor of the third.

The argument is, I suppose, that with China and Russia opposed to intervention the only way to get the job done was through Nato. This displays a serious flaw in reasoning. Either the UN has the authority to administer international justice or it does not. If it does, its authority must not be eroded by actions of smaller groups. There might have been some justification for all this if Serbia and Kosovo were members of Nato but they aren’t. What this says it that international organizations are perfectly at liberty to attack nations outside their sphere if the UN isn’t willing or fast enough off the mark to do it. The fact that the body the world selects to be the policeman is not terribly efficient and contains within it points of view which don’t necessarily coincide with those of Nato may be very good reasons to reform the United Nations but they do not justify what is really a rogue elephant on the rampage.