[Salon] Comment by John Whitbeck: How the US broke Kosovo and what that means for Ukraine

FM: John Whitbeck

Transmitted below is a highly informative investigative report on the consequences for Kosovo of NATO's 1999 illegal war of aggression to separate this Serbian province from Serbia and to demonstrate that NATO still had a reason to exist, albeit then and ever since as an offensive rather than a defensive alliance.

While relatively lengthy, this report is relevant to current events and likely future events and worth reading.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, this war's primary architect, who structured the ultimatum served on Serbia at the Rambouillet conference so as to make it impossible for Serbia to accept, and other supporters of this war argued at the time that this war was a sui generis case in a unique set of circumstances and did not constitute a precedent.

Of course, it did constitute a precedent, opening the way to a succession of other illegal wars of aggression, including, exceptionally, one physically launched on February 24, 2022 by a non-NATO country.

All of these wars have made a virtual laughing stock of multilaterally agreed and, in theory, universally applicable international law, effectively replacing it with its antithesis, the American-dictated "rules-based order" (https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/04/28/what-is-the-rules-based-order).

Both "Madeleine's War" (so labeled on a famous TIME Magazine cover) and "Putin's War" (so labeled in virtually every Western media report or commentary on the current conflict) have prioritized the principle of the self-determination of peoples over the principle of the territorial integrity of states (https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/02/24/the-territorial-integrity-of-states-vs-the-self-determination-of-peoples), every state preferring whichever of these two contradictory "principles" promises to produce the result which it prefers.

On February 25, 2002, the day after Russia launched its "special military operation", I wrote in an optimistic state of mind:

"While it is difficult to imagine any potential silver lining in the events of this week, I will offer one:

"The extremely robust and 'principled' condemnations of Russia's military assault against Ukraine -- in stark contrast to the international reactions to the military assaults by the United States (with or without its Nato allies) against Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, which had already dealt near-fatal blows to international law and the UN Charter -- should make it difficult, at least for a decent interval, for any country to behave in the future as the United States has behaved repeatedly in the recent past and as Russia is behaving now and, consequently, could produce a more peaceful and less violent world in the years immediately ahead. The nature of violent acts could start to matter, not just who is doing it to whom."

Two days later, still in an optimistic state of mind, I wrote:

"On February 25, I offered a 'potential silver lining' to the Russian military assault against Ukraine. With each passing day of intensifying Western condemnations and sanctions, I grow more optimistic that, however the Russian war of aggression in flagrant violation of international law ends (and the sooner the better), there will indeed be a 'decent interval' (hopefully encompassing the rest of my life) during which the United States and NATO will refrain from resuming their own habitual wars of aggression in flagrant violation of international law, thereby producing 'a more peaceful and less violent world in the years immediately ahead,' one in which 'the nature of violent acts could start to matter, not just who is doing it to whom.'

"While many commentators are currently suggesting that the events of the past week presage a darker future for the world, they could actually presage a less dark world than the one that we have been experiencing in recent decades, a world in which political leaders are more open-minded to seeking cooperation on the genuine threats facing mankind and feel less compelled to seek confrontation and conflict.

One must hope."

Two years on, it is difficult to maintain such optimism, but the better world that I imagined then remains conceivable.

One must hope.

https://www.politico.eu/article/how-the-us-broke-kosovo-and-what-that-means-for-ukraine/