The
Doctrine Of Humanitarian War
By Karel Glastra van Loon
and Jan Marijnissen
Spectrezine
01 July, 2003
Hugo Grotius, a 17th century
thinker, is often called the father of international law. He once said
that as soon as you diverge from international law you violate the foundation
of future peace and take the path that leads to chaos. It goes without
saying that those words are as relevant now as they were when they were
spoken for the first time. Many rightfully blame the United States and
her coalition of allies for ignoring the international law in their
war against Iraq. Nevertheless, this war has precedents. The protests
against these previous wars were less harsh. It is legitimated to ask
whether the NATO-attacks on Kosovo and Yugoslavia in the spring of 1999
were not the first steps on the path that led to chaos.
Everybody thought that the
Kosovo war would be over in a few days, yet it took three months of
heavy bombardment to put a formal end to the war. At that time we decided
to investigate how the Yugoslavian crisis had come to this point, and
to what extent the Kosovo war could be seen as a war against a criminal
regime, yet a war that did not have to be fought. This resulted in a
book - unfortunately not available in English - whose title translates
as The last war or The latest war. In this book we concluded among other
things that the fact that NATO had started the attack without permission
of the Security Council was at least of doubtful legality. We also argued
that the experiences of Bosnia showed that a high price had to be paid
for the interventions by NATO. The American intervention in the conflict
had not only prolonged the war by a year, even then it had not led to
an enduring peace. To this day Bosnia remains under some sort of UN
rule, with almost no prospect of a peaceful future if the UN troop would
be withdrawn.
Over a decade later, we can
say the same about Kosovo. The situation there has become even more
chaotic and explosive after NATO enforced a peace treaty. More than
200,000 non-Albanian Kosovars have had to flee the province since the
war. A handful of Serbs, Roma and other members of minority groups who
still live in Kosovo cannot safely leave their ghettos, secured as they
are by western troops. Add to this the completely insecure situation
in Serbia and one will see that even this war was not as useful and
easy as some would have us think.
After this there were the
attacks of the 11th of September and the ensuing war against Afghanistan.
The United States claimed that this war was a case of self-defence,
and thus allowed under international law. Yet from the start of the
war there had been great doubts about the effectiveness of the means
chosen. Instead of tracking down and trying the perpetrators, by means
of judicial investigations and with the help of international security
services, bombs and cruise missiles were the favoured solution. We now
know the consequences this brought. The Taliban regime was brought down
in no time, but the fight against terrorism was hardly successful. The
arrests made by the Americans in the last couple of months were all
done in co-operation with the security services. And the promise made
to the people of Afghanistan not to abandon them again after the war
seems to have been an empty promise. The international military force
is only able to provide limited security in the capital, Kabul. Most
of the money that was promised for the rebuilding has not been transferred;
and this even while experts say that the $ 4.5 billion that was promised
would never be enough.
Although the "fight
against evil" has found a new theatre in Iraq, it does not seem
likely that the situation in Bosnia, Serbia, Kosovo or Afghanistan will
substantially improve. The negative consequences of these "rightful
wars" threaten to become bigger than the positive effects that
provided the pretext for action in the first place. The international
legal order has become international disorder. The American war logic
that lies at the foundations of earlier interventions leads unavoidably
to new wars. It seems to become less and less important what the rest
of the world thinks of these wars. The moral authority of the United
States and following in its wake the whole western world have gone into
free fall: hate, anger, hunger for revenge and vindictive feelings are
on the increase among a growing number of groups in society. They tend
to form a fruitful base for extremism and terrorism. In the meanwhile
the war industry may become the only economic sector that can keep showing
positive growth figures.
Given this chaos it is time
to wake up to the fact that the doctrine of humanitarian warfare really
is a life threatening error. And yet so many political parties and opinion
formers have embraced this doctrine for so long. Militarism is not the
solution, but it is one of the main reasons for growing insecurity in
the world. As long as this truth is denied, real solutions will stay
hidden beyond the horizon.
(Karel Glastra van Loon is
a novelist. Jan Marijnissen is leader of the Dutch Socialist Party and
one of its nine MPs.)
This article was translated
by Hetty Telman