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It is certainly true that innocent civilians

The U.S. Air Force commander in charge of

were killed in Kosovo both before and after

the Kosovo campaign, Lt. Gen. Michael

the NATO bombing.2 The New York Times

Short, admitted that NATO was trying to do

estimated that, as of the end of May 1999,

more than just hurt the Yugoslav military.

4,600 ethnic Albanians had been killed in

The larger goal was to break the will of the

Kosovo by Serbian forces since the NATO

Serbian people and make ordinary Serbs so

bombing commenced on March 24.3 And

miserable and fearful that they would force

many ethnic Albanians fleeing Kosovo

Milosevic to pull out of Kosovo. NATO plan-

admitted that NATO air strikes were what

ners, the general explained, hoped that Serbs

triggered the Serbian backlash of ethnic

would react to the economic devastation of

cleansing. As one refugee explained, "It's like

their country in the following way: "If you

this: The Serbs can't fight NATO, so now

wake up in the morning and you have no

they are after us."4

power to your house and no gas to your stove

and the bridge you take to work is down and

In addition, an unknown number of eth-

will be lying in the Danube for the next 20

nic Albanians (and Serbian civilians) in

years, I think you begin to ask, `Hey, Slobo,

Kosovo were killed, not by Serbian forces, but

what's this all about? How much more of this

as a result of NATO air strikes, including

The Clinton

do we have to withstand?' And at some point,

what appears to have been the indiscriminate

administration

you make the transition from applauding

use of anti-personnel cluster bombs.

Serb machismo against the world to thinking

(Moreover, many Serbian civilians, victims of

was explicitly

what your country is going to look like if this

"collateral damage," were killed during

warned by the U.S.

continues."5

NATO's bombing of Yugoslavian cities.)

intelligence com-

The death of noncombatants in wartime

The Kosovo Conflict: A Typical

is lamentable. Unfortunately, civilian deaths

munity of the

Secessionist War

are an inescapable part of warfare. War is an

KLA's ulterior

inherently brutal enterprise and has been

The war that had been taking place in

especially so during the last 200 years.

Kosovo prior to the NATO bombing was a

motives.

Modern warfare erased the distinction that,

particularly brutal form of modern conflict: a

in the era before industrialization, national-

counterinsurgency campaign by a sovereign

ism, and conscript armies, had delineated

government, Yugoslavia, against a guerrilla

civilians from combatants. During World

force, the KLA. In counterinsurgencies, civil-

War I, for example, the Allied naval blockade

ians inescapably become targets because the

sought to force Germany's capitulation by

guerrillas draw their manpower, material sus-

starving its civilian population. In World War

tenance, and political support from the pop-

II, the United States and Britain had no

ulation in whose name they fight. Insurgent

qualms about deliberately inflicting wide-

forces often deliberately provoke the authori-

spread casualties among innocent civilians

ties into harsh reprisals against their own

by conducting indiscriminate terror bomb-

civilian allies to strengthen domestic support

ing against German and Japanese cities. That

for the insurgency and to gain outside sym

-

the end--crushing Hitler and Japan's mili-

pathy and support for their cause. From early

tarists--may have justified the means does

1998 until the commencement of the NATO

not change the fact that civilians of cities like

bombing, the KLA engaged in such tactics of

Dresden, Tokyo, and Hiroshima were dead.

provocation in an attempt to trigger NATO

There is evidence suggesting that what the

intervention on behalf of the guerrillas. The

Clinton administration and NATO adver-

Clinton administration was explicitly warned

tised as an air war against Yugoslavia's mili-

by the U.S. intelligence community of the

KLA's ulterior motives.6

tary capabilities was really a war of attrition

against the Serbian people to get them to

As the New York Times reported, the civil

force Milosevic to do what the West wanted.

war in Kosovo between the KLA and the

3