Indian Rationalist Association
P O Box 9110, New Delhi 110 091, India
Phone: +91-11-2253255
Answerphone: +91-11-8539526
Fax: +91-11-2256042
New e-mail: edamaruk-@yahoo.com
_________________________________________________________________________
ALLIANCE BULLETIN - 9
27 April 1999
_________________________________________________________________________
In this issue:
--------------
o International Rationalist Conference in Kerala, India.
o Rationalist Press Association Centenary Conference in Birmingham, UK.
o Wave of racial tension in Britain.
o More arrests in Madalyn O'Hair disappearance case.
o Chomsky on Kosovo bombings.
_________________________________________________________________________
Announcement
------------
GOLDEN JUBILEE CELEBRATIONS OF
INDIAN RATIONALIST ASSOCIATION
AND THE
SECOND INTERNATIONAL RATIONALIST CONFERENCE
26-31 December 1999
Kerala, India
A conference where atheists, freethinkers, humanists, rationalists,
secular humanists, secularists and skeptics from all over the world
meet together. Meet like-minded people from different states of India
and all continents of the world, despite their nomenclatures.
Indian Rationalist Association was founded in 1949. Fifty years later,
it is the most visible and actively fighting organisation for human
dignity and against religious dogmas in Asia. Rationalists counter
superstition, aim to promote an open and just society, defend
tolerance and freedom of speech, endorse the scientific method
and also recognise the importance of emotions and imagination.
Explore the lush green southern coastal Indian state Kerala,
the land of spices which provoked the geographical discoveries
and the opening up of the New World in the 15th century and changed the
course of global history.
Kerala is a narrow strip, extremely fertile and almost impossibly green
throughout. The slender green silver land that clings to the south-
western plank of the Indian peninsula, as it lies between the high
western ghats in the east and the vast Arabian sea in the west.
This small emerald crescent of land contains jungles, beaches,
mountains, lakes and some of the most romantic natural resources
of the world.
The International Rationalist Conference is scheduled at Trivandrum,
the capital of Kerala. It is a beautiful sea-side city built on
seven hills.
This sprawling city has an international airport. Trivandrum is linked
by flights to Bombay (Mumbai), Delhi, Madras (Chennai), Cochin and Goa.
International flights operate directly to Colombo, Male, Dubai,
Abu Dhabi and Kuwait. It is easy to reach Trivandrum from all
international centres - New York, London, Amsterdam, Paris and
Frankfurt. Ask your travel agent to get you a connection flight from
Bombay, Delhi, Madras or Colombo. There are daily flights connecting
all these cities to Trivandrum.
Kovalam, India's most spectacular beach resort is just 14 kms from
Trivandrum. Kovalam is a sheltered natural bay. It is a beach paradise.
The boundless blue of the Arabian sea and the unwinding miles of fine
sanded beaches washed by the surf which roars and hisses at the feet
of the stalwart coconut palms!
Accommodation for the delegates are arranged at the Kovalam beach.
There are plenty of hotels to stay and a choice of simple restaurents,
many of which stand right on the water's edge, and most of which offer
excellent sea food. Hotel tariff vary from approximately US $ 70 to
15 per night depending on the type of accommodation you want. Many
inexpensive hotels are clean and neat. There will be conference bus
service everyday to the Conference venue and back to the beach.
Kerala is unique in many ways. It is the first Indian state reaching
nearly 100% literacy. English is understood almost everywhere. Public
health is in European standards. The tourist campaigners call Kerala
"Gods own country". In fact, Kerala is a stronghold of Atheist and
Rationalist movement. Population growth is in control. Clean.
Unpolluted.
The International Rationalist Conference will be inaugurated on the
evening of 26 December 1999. There will be seminars, symposia, group
discussions, academic sessions, an interesting boat journey in the
back waters, traditional and classical dances and music. The closing
plenary will be held on 31 December followed by a banquet (optional:
$ 40 per person). Witness the birth of the new millennium
-more reasonable, tolerant and free from religious dogmas.
The conference fee is kept low. Registration fee for a single delegate
is US $ 150 or Pounds Sterling 100 (This includes working lunch on
27, 28, 29, 30 and 31, tea/coffee during conference breaks and all
conference documents). Every additional accompanying participant
(if paid together) will have to pay only US $ 100 or Pounds Sterling 67.
Conference registrations are to be made in advance by cheque
favouring "INTERNATIONAL RATIONALIST CONFERENCE" payable at Delhi.
Postal address:
Indian Rationalist Association
779, Pocket 5, Mayur Vihar I,
New Delhi 110 091, India.
Phone +91-11-2253255
Answerphone: +91-11-8539526
Fax: +91-11-2256042
New e-mail edamaruk-@yahoo.com
_________________________________________________________________________
Announcement
------------
RATIONALIST PRESS ASSOCIATION
CENTENARY CONFERENCE
25-27 June 1999; Birmingham
The Rationalist Press Association (RPA) of the UK is celebrating its
centenary on 25-27 June 1999 at Westhill college, Birmingham. The
conference is expected to consider the prospects for rationalism and
the threat of irrationalism in the next hundred years. The theme of
the centenary conference is "Thinking Ahead: Rationalism in the 21st
century.
The RPA was founded in May 1899. The chief founder was late Charles
A Watts. Primarily a publicity and publishing organisation,
the RPA was well known for publications throughout the first half of
the 20th century. First the Cheap Reprints, then the Thinkers' Library,
both of which sold several million copies and inspired formation of
rationalist associations all over the world, including Indian Rationalist
Association, one of the most active and vibrant organisations of its
kind in our times.
The RPA aims to argue for a rational approach to human problems, to
suggest reasoned alternatives to religious dogmas, to advance a secular
system for education, to defend freedom of thought and civil liberties,
and to encourage activities in support of those aims. The RPA adheres
to the principles of rationalism, defined as the mental attitude which
accepts the primacy of reason and seeks to establish a system of
philosophy and ethics verifiable by experience and independent of all
arbitrary assumptions of authority.
The speakers of the RPA centenary conference include:
Philip Campbell: Irrationality in the public communication of science.
Editor of Nature. He is a specialist in astrophysics
and atmospheric physics. Before becoming editor of Nature in 1995,
he was founding editor of Physics World for the institute of
Physics.
Lewis Wolpert: Belief and the unbelievable.
Professor of Biology as Applied to Medicine at
University College, London, broadcaster and author, whose most
recent publication is "Malignant sadness: the anatomy of
depression."
Antony Flew: Against the New Irrationalism.
Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Reading University.
Among his books are "God: a philosophical critique of God,
Freedom and immortality."
Diana Brown: Population -Is there a rational solution?
Past chairman of the UK charity Population Concern and
co-founder of the World Population Foundation in the Netherlands.
Hazhir Teimourian: Fundamentalism in the next century.
Journalist and broadcaster, specialising in the Middle East.
Sanal Edamaruku: Rationalism in the Third World in the 21st century.
Secretary General of Indian Rationalist Association. President
of the International Alliance Against Fundamentalism. Leading
campaigner against superstitious practices in India.
Helen Haste: Are we irrationally frightened of the irrational?
Professor of Psychology in Bath University. Many publications
and broadcasts including "The Sexual Metaphor -a book on gender".
Colin Campbell: The Easternization of the West: The threat to rationalism
in the new millennium.
Reader in sociology and Head of Department at the University of
York. His books include "Toward a Sociology of Irreligion" and
"The Myth of Social Action".
Helena Cronin: Natural born co-operators -Darwinism for policy makers.
Co-director of LSE's Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social
Science. Also a Senior Research Associate in the Zoology Department
at Oxford University. Her book "The Ant and the Peacock has been
received with wide acclaim.
Babu Gogineni: Humanism and Ketchup.
Executive Director of the International Humanist and Ethical Union.
Nicholas Walter: Launch of his "History of the RPA."
Director of Publicity for the RPA. Author of "Humanism: What's
in the Word?" and frequent contributor to the correspondence
columns of newspapers.
The RPA centenary conference will include the Annual Humanist Lunch
preceded by the key-note speech on Sunday 21 June at 11.30 "What hope
for Rationalism in the 21st Century" by Professor Colin Blakemore, FRS.
Registration: 3-5 p.m. Friday 25 June.
Conference will close after lunch on Sunday 27 June.
Prices in Pounds Sterling:
Residential delegates (including Humanist Lunch) 140
Non-residential delegates (including Humanist Lunch) 82
Extra delegate fee for non-members of the RPA 10
Humanist Lunch and lecture only 20
For registration and other details, please contact:
Rationalist Press Association
47 Theobald's Road, London WC IX 8SP
United Kingdom
Phone: (0171)4301371
Fax: (0171) 430271
_________________________________________________________________________
A report from the UK
--------------------
WAVE OF RACIAL TENSION IN BRITAIN
Abhik Sen
The nail bomb attack on Saturday 24 April in Brick Lane, a stronghold
of the Bangladeshi community in London, days after a similar explosion
in an Afro-Caribbean neighbourhood of the city, has unleashed a wave
of racial tension in Britain.
Police alerts of possible similar attacks in other places with
ethnically diverse population have left minorities fearing more planned
attacks from white racist groups.
The police anti-terrorism squad was handed over a letter addressed to
civil rights groups and minority communities purportedly from Combat 18,
a neo-Nazi outfit which claimed responsibility for the Brick Lane
explosion. The letter - addressed to "dear black bastards" - named
places like Southall, Slough and Birmingham, which have a heavy
concentration of Indians and Pakistanis, as next on their hitlist.
Another group, the White Wolves, has issued threats to several
organisations including Jewish and anti-racist groups, ethnic media
outfits and the Black Labour Party MP Oona King. a letter to Ms King
from the Wolves read: "Jews and non-whites who remain after 1999
has ended will be exterminated. When the clocks strike midnight on
the 31st of December 1999, the White Wolves will begin to howl and
when the Wolves begin to howl the Wolves begin to hunt. You have
have been warned. Hail Britannia."
Piara Khabra, MP for Southall - London's little Punjab" - read out in
British House of Commons a few days ago samples of racist hate mail
he regularly receives. One of the letters to Khabra read: "When we
had an empire trying to make scum like you better, you did not want
us in your country. But after the British had left, you all realised
what a stinking shower you all are and you want to come to our
stinking country and make it like a pig hole, like your country..."
Meantime, over a hundred volunteers from anti-racist groups and the
India and Pakistani communities have decided to patrol Southall next
weekend - the next likely target of the racist groups.
(Asian Age)
________________________________________________________________________
A report from the USA
----------------------
MORE ARRESTS IN
MADALYN O' HAIR DISAPPEARANCE CASE
San Antonio Express News reports that a second ex-convict has been
arrested in Michigan on a federal weapons count as investigators try
to determine whether he and a former prison mate had any role in the
1995 disappearance of American Atheist leader Madalyn Murray O' Hair.
Gary P Karr, 50 of Novi, Michigan was held after FBI agents and police
searched his suburban Detroit apartment and found two loaded hand guns,
court papers say.
The authorities searched David Water's apartment in Austin and
arrested him after reportedly finding 1.9 rounds of ammunition.
Waters was once O' Hair's office manager in Austin and was convicted
in 1995 of theft in his stealing $ 54,000 from the American Atheist
organization.
Both men, who for eight months in the mid 1980s were inmates at the
same minimum security prison in Vienna, Illinois, were charged with
weapons counts under a federal statute barringg felons from possessing
ammunition or firearms.
Karr served more than 20 years in Illinois prisons after a 1974 crime
spree that included rape, kidnapping and armed robbery. He left prison
in May 1995, four months before the disappearance of O' Hairs -the
founder of American Atheists Inc. as well as her son Jon Garth Murray
and grand daughter Robin Murray O' Hair.
Police have been investigating Waters since the headless, handless
body of his friend Danny Fry was found near Dallas in 1995 around the
same time of the "disappearance" of the O' Hairs. Patrik Ganne, attorney
of David Waters told reporters that US attorney Gerald Carruth had
informed him "snitches" were linking Waters to O' Hair's possible death.
"The allegations are that he was involved in a larger conspiracy to
do away with Mrs O' Hair." Genne said.
________________________________________________________________________
Chomsky on Kosovo bombings
---------------------------
THE CURRENT BOMBINGS
Noam Chomsky
There have been many inquiries concerning NATO (meaning primarily
US) bombing in Kosovo. A great deal has been written about the topic,
including Znet commentaries. I'd like to make a few general
observations, keeping to facts that are not seriously contested.
There are two fundamental issues: (1) What are the accepted and
applicable "rules of world order"? (2) How do these or other
considerations apply in the case of Kosovo?
(1) What are the accepted and applicable "rules of world order"?
there is a regime of international law and international order,
binding on all states, based on the UN Charter and subsequent
resolutions and World Court decisions. In brief, the threat or use of
force is banned unless explicitly authorized by the Security Council
after it has determined that peaceful means have failed, or in self-
defense against "armed attack" (a narrow concept) until the Security
Council acts.
There is, of course, more to say. Thus there is at least a tension,
if not an outright contradiction, between the rules of world order
laid down in the UN Charter and the rights articulated in the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UD), a second pillar of the
world order established under US initiative after World War II. The
Charter bans force violating state sovereignty; the UD guarantees the
rights of individuals against oppressive states. The issue of
"humanitarian intervention" arises from this tension. It is the right
of "humanitarian intervention" that is claimed by the US/NATO in
Kosovo, and that is generally supported by editorial opinion and news
reports (in the latter case, reflexively, even by the very choice of
terminology).
The question is addressed in a news report in the NY Times (March
27), headlined "Legal Scholars Support Case for Using Force" in
Kosovo (March 27). One example is offered: Allen Gerson, former
counsel to the US mission to the UN. Two other legal scholars are
cited. One, Ted Galen Carpenter, "scoffed at the Administration
argument" and dismissed the alleged right of intervention. The third
is Jack Goldsmith, a specialist on international law at Chicago Law
school. He says that critics of the NATO bombing "have a pretty good
legal argument," but "many people think [an exception for
humanitarian intervention] does exist as a matter of custom and
practice." That summarizes the evidence offered to justify the
favored conclusion stated in the headline.
Goldsmith's observation is reasonable, at least if we agree that
facts are relevant to the determination of "custom and practice." We
may also bear in mind a truism: the right of humanitarian interven-
tion, if it exists, is premised on the "good faith" of those
intervening, and that assumption is based not on their rhetoric but
on their record, in particular their record of adherence to the
principles of international law, World Court decisions, and so on.
That is indeed a truism, at least with regard to others. Consider,
for example, Iranian offers to intervene in Bosnia to prevent
massacres at a time when the West would not do so. These were
dismissed with ridicule (in fact, ignored); if there was a reason
beyond subordination to power, it was because Iranian "good faith"
could not be assumed. A rational person then asks obvious questions:
is the Iranian record of intervention and terror worse than that of
the US? And other questions, for example: How should we assess the
"good faith" of the only country to have vetoed a Security Council
resolution calling on all states to obey international law? What
about its historical record? Unless such questions are prominent on
the agenda of discourse, an honest person will dismiss it as mere
allegiance to doctrine. A useful exercise is to determine how much of
the literature - -- media or other -- survives such elementary
conditions as these.
2) How do these or other considerations apply in the case of Kosovo?
There has been a humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo in the past year,
overwhelmingly attributable to Yugoslav military forces. The main
victims have been ethnic Albanian Kosovars, some 90% of the
population of this Yugoslav territory. The standard estimate is 2000
deaths and hundreds of thousands of refugees.
In such cases, outsiders have three choices:
(I) try to escalate the catastrophe
(II) do nothing
(III) try to mitigate the catastrophe
The choices are illustrated by other contemporary cases. Let's keep
to a few of approximately the same scale, and ask where Kosovo fits
into the pattern.
(A) Colombia. In Colombia, according to State Department estimates,
the annual level of political killing by the government and its
paramilitary associates is about at the level of Kosovo, and refugee
flight primarily from their atrocities is well over a million.
Colombia has been the leading Western hemisphere recipient of US arms
and training as violence increased through the '90s, and that
assistance is now increasing, under a "drug war" pretext dismissed by
almost all serious observers. The Clinton administration was
particularly enthusiastic in its praise for President Gaviria, whose
tenure in office was responsible for "appalling levels of violence,"
according to human rights organizations, even surpassing his
predecessors. Details are readily available.
In this case, the US reaction is (I): escalate the atrocities.
(B) Turkey. By very conservative estimate, Turkish repression of
Kurds in the '90s falls in the category of Kosovo. It peaked in the
early '90s; one index is the flight of over a million Kurds from the
countryside to the unofficial Kurdish capital Diyarbakir from 1990 to
1994, as the Turkish army was devastating the countryside. 1994
marked two records: it was "the year of the worst repression in the
Kurdish provinces" of Turkey, Jonathan Randal reported from the
scene, and the year when Turkey became "the biggest single importer
of American military hardware and thus the world's largest arms
purchaser." When human rights groups exposed Turkey's use of US jets
to bomb villages, the Clinton Administration found ways to evade laws
requiring suspension of arms deliveries, much as it was doing in
Indonesia and elsewhere.
Colombia and Turkey explain their (US-supported) atrocities on
grounds that they are defending their countries from the threat of
terrorist guerrillas. As does the government of Yugoslavia.
Again, the example illustrates (I): try to escalate the atrocities.
(C) Laos. Every year thousands of people, mostly children and poor
farmers, are killed in the Plain of Jars in Northern Laos, the scene
of the heaviest bombing of civilian targets in history it appears,
and arguably the most cruel: Washington's furious assault on a poor
peasant society had little to do with its wars in the region. The
worst period was from 1968, when Washington was compelled to
undertake negotiations (under popular and business pressure), ending
the regular bombardment of North Vietnam. Kissinger-Nixon then
decided to shift the planes to bombardment of Laos and Cambodia.
The deaths are from "bombies," tiny anti-personnel weapons, far
worse than land-mines: they are designed specifically to kill and
maim, and have no effect on trucks, buildings, etc. The Plain was
saturated with hundreds of millions of these criminal devices, which
have a failure-to-explode rate of 20%-30% according to the
manufacturer, Honeywell. The numbers suggest either remarkably poor
quality control or a rational policy of murdering civilians by
delayed action. These were only a fraction of the technology
deployed, including advanced missiles to penetrate caves where
families sought shelter. Current annual casualties from "bombies" are
estimated from hundreds a year to "an annual nationwide casualty rate
of 20,000," more than half of them deaths, according to the veteran
Asia reporter Barry Wain of the Wall Street Journal -- in its Asia
edition. A conservative estimate, then, is that the crisis this year
is approximately comparable to Kosovo, though deaths are far more
highly concentrated among children - over half, according to analyses
reported by the Mennonite Central Committee, which has been working
there since 1977 to alleviate the continuing atrocities.
There have been efforts to publicize and deal with the humanitarian
catastrophe. A British-based Mine Advisory Group (MAG) is trying to
remove the lethal objects, but the US is "conspicuously missing from
the handful of Western organisations that have followed MAG," the
British press reports, though it has finally agreed to train some
Laotian civilians. The British press also reports, with some anger,
the allegation of MAG specialists that the US refuses to provide them
with "render harmless procedures" that would make their work "a lot
quicker and a lot safer."
These remain a state secret, as does the whole affair in the United
States. The Bangkok press reports a very similar situation in
Cambodia, particularly the Eastern region where US bombardment from
early 1969 was most intense.
In this case, the US reaction is (II): do nothing. And the reaction
of the media and commentators is to keep silent, following the norms
under which the war against Laos was designated a "secret war" --
meaning well-known, but suppressed, as also in the case of Cambodia
from March 1969. The level of self-censorship was extraordinary then,
as is the current phase. The relevance of this shocking example
should be obvious without further comment.
I will skip other examples of (I) and (II), which abound, and also
much more serious contemporary atrocities, such as the huge slaughter
of Iraqi civilians by means of a particularly vicious form of
biological warfare --"a very hard choice," Madeleine Albright
commented on national TV in 1996 when asked for her reaction to the
killing of half a million Iraqi children in 5 years, but "we think
the price is worth it." Current estimates remain about 5000 children
killed a month, and the price is still "worth it." These and other
examples might also be kept in mind when we read awed rhetoric about
how the "moral compass" of the Clinton Administration is at last
functioning properly, as the Kosovo example illustrates.
Just what does the example illustrate? The threat of NATO bombing,
predictably, led to a sharp escalation of atrocities by the Serbian
Army and paramilitaries, and to the departure of international
observers, which of course had the same effect. Commanding General
Wesley Clark declared that it was "entirely predictable" that Serbian
terror and violence would intensify after the NATO bombing, exactly
as happened. The terror for the first time reached the capital city
of Pristina, and there are credible reports of large-scale
destruction of villages, assassinations, generation of an enormous
refugee flow, perhaps an effort to expel a good part of the Albanian
population -- all an "entirely predictable" consequence of the threat
and then the use of force, as General Clark rightly observes.
Kosovo is therefore another illustration of (I): try to escalate the
violence,with exactly that expectation. To find examples illustrating
(III) is all too easy, at least if we keep to official rhetoric. The
major recent academic study of "humanitarian intervention," by Sean
Murphy, reviews the record after the Kellogg-Briand pact of 1928
which outlawed war, and then since the UN Charter, which strengthened
and articulated these provisions. In the first phase, he writes, the
most prominent examples of "humanitarian intervention" were Japan's
attack on Manchuria, Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia, and Hitler's
occupation of parts of Czechoslovakia. All were accompanied by highly
uplifting humanitarian rhetoric, and factual justifications as well.
Japan was going to establish an "earthly paradise" as it defended
Manchurians from "Chinese bandits," with the support of a leading
Chinese nationalist, a far more credible figure than anyone the US
was able to conjure up during its attack on South Vietnam. Mussolini
was liberating thousands of slaves as he carried forth the Western
"civilizing mission." Hitler announced Germany's intention to end
ethnic tensions and violence, and "safeguard the national individ-
uality of the German and Czech peoples," in an operation "filled
with earnest desire to serve the true interests of the peoples
dwelling in the area," in accordance with their will; the Slovakian
President asked Hitler to declare Slovakia a protectorate.
Another useful intellectual exercise is to compare those obscene
justifications with those offered for interventions, including
"humanitarian interventions," in the post-UN Charter period.
In that period, perhaps the most compelling example of (III) is the
Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in December 1978, terminating Pol
Pot's atrocities, which were then peaking. Vietnam pleaded the right
of self-defense against armed attack, one of the few post-Charter
examples when the plea is plausible: the Khmer Rouge regime
(Democratic Kampuchea, DK) was carrying out murderous attacks against
Vietnam in border areas. The US reaction is instructive. The press
condemned the "Prussians" of Asia for their outrageous violation of
international law. They were harshly punished for the crime of having
terminated Pol Pot's slaughters, first by a (US-backed) Chinese
invasion, then by US imposition of extremely harsh sanctions. The US
recognized the expelled DK as the official government of Cambodia,
because of its "continuity" with the Pol Pot regime, the State
Department explained. Not too subtly, the US supported the Khmer
Rouge in its continuing attacks in Cambodia.
The example tells us more about the "custom and practice" that
underlies "the emerging legal norms of humanitarian intervention."
Despite the desperate efforts of ideologues to prove that circles
are square, there is no serious doubt that the NATO bombings further
undermine what remains of the fragile structure of international law.
The US made that entirely clear in the discussions leading to the
NATO decision. Apart from the UK (by now, about as much of an
independent actor as the Ukraine was in the pre-Gorbachev years),
NATO countries were skeptical of US policy, and were particularly
annoyed by Secretary of State Albright's "saber-rattling" (Kevin
Cullen, Boston Globe, Feb.22). Today, the more closely one approaches
the conflicted region, the greater the opposition to Washington's
insistence on force, even within NATO (Greece and Italy).
France had called for a UN Security Council resolution to authorize
deployment of NATO peacekeepers. The US flatly refused, insisting on
"its stand that NATO should be able to act independently of the
United Nations," State Department officials explained. The US refused
to permit the "neuralgic word `authorize'" to appear in the final
NATO statement, unwilling to concede any authority to the UN Charter
and international law; only the word "endorse" was permitted (Jane
Perlez, NYT, Feb. 11).
Similarly the bombing of Iraq was a brazen expression of contempt
for the UN, even the specific timing, and was so understood. And of
course the same is true of the destruction of half the pharmaceutical
production of a small African country a few months earlier, an event
that also does not indicate that the "moral compass" is straying from
righteousness -- not to speak of a record that would be prominently
reviewed right now if facts were considered relevant to determining
"custom and practice."
It could be argued, rather plausibly, that further demolition of the
rules of world order is irrelevant, just as it had lost its meaning
by the late 1930s. The contempt of the world's leading power for the
framework of world order has become so extreme that there is nothing
left to discuss. A review of the internal documentary record
demonstrates that the stance traces back to the earliest days, even
to the first memorandum of the newly-formed National Security Council
in 1947. During the Kennedy years, the stance began to gain overt
expression. The main innovation of the Reagan-Clinton years is that
defiance of international law and the Charter has become entirely
open. It has also been backed with interesting explanations, which
would be on the front pages, and prominent in the school and
university curriculum, if truth and honesty were considered
significant values. The highest authorities explained with brutal
clarity that the World Court, the UN, and other agencies had become
irrelevant because they no longer follow US orders, as they did in
the early postwar years.
One might then adopt the official position. That would be an honest
stand, at least if it were accompanied by refusal to play the cynical
game of self-righteous posturing and wielding of the despised
principles of international law as a highly selective weapon against
shifting enemies.
While the Reaganites broke new ground, under Clinton the defiance of
world order has become so extreme as to be of concern even to hawkish
policy analysts. In the current issue of the leading establishment
journal, Foreign Affairs, Samuel Huntington warns that Washington is
treading a dangerous course. In the eyes of much of the world - --
probably most of the world, he suggests -- the US is "becoming the
rogue superpower," considered "the single greatest external threat to
their societies."
Realist "international relations theory," he argues, predicts that
coalitions may arise to counterbalance the rogue superpower. On
pragmatic grounds, then, the stance should be reconsidered. Americans
who prefer a different image of their society might call for a
reconsideration on other than pragmatic grounds.
Where does that leave the question of what to do in Kosovo? It
leaves it unanswered. The US has chosen a course of action which, as
it explicitly recognizes, escalates atrocities and violence --
"predictably"; a course of action that also strikes yet another blow
against the regime of international order, which does offer the weak
at least some limited protection from predatory states. As for the
longer term,consequences are unpredictable. One plausible observation
is that "every bomb that falls on Serbia and every ethnic killing in
Kosovo suggests that it will scarcely be possible for Serbs and
Albanians to live beside each other in some sort of peace" (Financial
Times, March 27). Some of the longer-term possible outcomes are
extremely ugly, as has not gone without notice.
A standard argument is that we had to do something: we could not
simply stand by as atrocities continue. That is never true. One
choice, always, is to follow the Hippocratic principle: "First, do no
harm." If you can think of no way to adhere to that elementary
principle, then do nothing.
There are always ways that can be considered. Diplomacy and
negotiations are never at an end.
The right of "humanitarian intervention" is likely to be more
frequently invoked in coming years -- maybe with justification, maybe
not -- now that Cold War pretexts have lost their efficacy. In such
an era, it may be worthwhile to pay attention to the views of highly
respected commentators -- not to speak of the World Court, which
explicitly ruled on this matter in a decision rejected by the United
States, its essentials not even reported.
In the scholarly disciplines of international affairs and internat-
ional law it would be hard to find more respected voices than Hedley
Bull or Leon Henkin. Bull warned 15 years ago that "Particular states
or groups of states that set themselves up as the authoritative
judges of the world common good, in disregard of the views of others,
are in fact a menace to international order, and thus to effective
action in this field." Henkin, in a standard work on world order,
writes that the "pressures eroding the prohibition on the use of
force are deplorable, and the arguments to legitimize the use of
force in those circumstances are unpersuasive and dangerous...
Violations of human rights are indeed all too common, and if it were
permissible to remedy them by external use of force, there would be
no law to forbid the use of force by almost any state against almost
any other. Human rights, I believe, will have to be vindicated, and
other injustices remedied, by other, peaceful means, not by opening
the door to aggression and destroying the principle advance in
international law, the outlawing of war and the prohibition of
force."
Recognized principles of international law and world order, solemn
treaty obligations, decisions by the World Court, considered
pronouncements by the most respected commentators -- these do not
automatically solve particular problems. Each issue has to be
considered on its merits. For those who do not adopt the standards of
Saddam Hussein, there is a heavy burden of proof to meet in
undertaking the threat or use of force in violation of the principles
of international order. Perhaps the burden can be met, but that has
to be shown, not merely proclaimed with passionate rhetoric. The
consequences of such violations have to be assessed carefully -- in
particular, what we understand to be "predictable." And for those who
are minimally serious, the reasons for the actions also have to be
assessed -- again, not simply by adulation of our leaders and their
"moral compass."
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