Letter to Lynn Rivers, by Michael Dover.

Thank you for voting to require Congressional authorization for the use of U.S. troops in Yugoslavia; to invoke the War Powers Act and demand the cessation of the use of our military forces in Yugoslavia including our air forces; and for voting along with 212 other members of Congress against a resolution that would have supported our participation in the current N.A.T.O. air war.

You have taken a courageous stance that is clearly supported by your incisive analysis, thorough reading, and careful consideration, demonstrated in your Town Hall meeting. I am grieved to see that Rep. Conyers and Rep. Bonior and Rep. Stabenow have marched lock-step with President Clinton on a course of action that may still lead to a wider war and which daily causes more suffering and undermines the ability of the international community to devise proper, lawful and where necessary forceful measures to prevent genocide.

The current policy is the logical outcome of a misguided post-Cold War policy. In 1991, had the U.S. agreed to form a U.N. Command to respond to Iraq's invasion (rather than a "multinational force", albeit once authorized by the U.N.), I feel that Hussein would have agreed to withdraw his forces. The agreement by Shevardnadze, representing the U.S.S.R., to stop insisting that the force be under a U.N. Command, contributed to this slippery slide away from the ideals of the U.N., but it was the U.S. intransigence on this point which was the basic problem. Our civilian leadership caved in to military opposition to serving under any command but a U.S. command; although we now see that NATO is an apparent exception!

However, Hussein felt emboldened to defy the U.S., Europe and those Middle Eastern nations who supported the force. Likewise, Milosevic felt he could defy N.A.T.O.. Demagogues the world over can easily snub their noses at the U.S. and pose as anti-imperialists: it is harder to defy a united world body determined to insist on the principles of the U.N. charter. Our foreign policy in the post-Cold War world got on the wrong track then, and has now lead to real disaster. We must put it back on track. We must also insist that U.N. bodies and other international organizations such as the E.O.S.C. not be undermined or used as tools for the foreign policy of the U.S..

True, in the present case, a veto by the Soviet Union and China would have been likely for any military action merely designed to prevent Yugoslav federal forces from re-entering Kosovo this Spring for a repeat of last Summer's offensive against the K.L.A.. In any case, civil war per se (of which dozens rages world wide) is not normally considered a justification for international armed intervention. The international community should have insisted that both sides show restraint and engage in a ceasefire. The international community should have demanded conflict resolution and other measures, including stronger sanctions and measures if necessary to prevent escalation of the conflict. And the international community should have made clear that armed intervention would indeed occur IF widespread human rights violations such as ethnic cleansing or genocide occurred. But it didn't.

Instead, the U.S. and European nations (and to an extent, Russia) took sides. N.A.T.O. essentially sided with the same forces (including Germany, which first recognized Croatia) which had earlier stimulated the cessation of Croatia and the ethnic cleansings of the Serbs there, as well as the partition of Bosnia, in which literally every side was to blame.

We don't actually know whether a veto would have been in the offing had a Security Council resolution called for the formation of a U.N. Command, along with a resolution calling for the use of force only in order to STOP ethnic cleansing or genocide in Kosovo (with force to be used only if such mass displacement actually began); calling for the rejection of the use of force by both the K.L.A. and the federal troops; urging negotiations leading to the restoration of autonomy in Kosovo and the strengthening of the European Organization for Security and Cooperation monitors which were already in place. It would have been one thing for the U.N. to say to Milosevic: "if ethnic cleansing begins in Kosovo, our forces will go into action." But that is not what was said: N.A.T.O. said, "bend to our will and accept our troops on your soil or we bomb."

We don't know whether such a U.N. action would have worked because we did not even consider such a course of action, which might have been proposed jointly with Russia, Serbia's historic ally. Rather, our policy has been to undermine the U.N., not strengthen it as a force for world peace; to undermine the World Criminal Court, not strengthen it as a protection device for human rights; to isolate and encircle Russia not welcome it as a partner in peace; to adopt an offensive stance for an expanded N.A.T.O., etc.. It is realistic to have concerns that the U.N. is not NOW a reliable way to prevent genocide, due to the veto power of the superpowers, in this case of Russia and China both. Arguably, no other body but NATO was in place to prevent genocide or mass ethnic cleansing. Such a course of action would have been arguable if there were clear indications that the federal troops intended genocide or ethnic cleansing, rather than a repeat of last Summer's offensive with its unfortunate atrocities on both sides. A similar point is made in a Nation article, "The Case Against Intervention in Kosovo," 4/19/99, which I'm sure you have seen given how well informed you clearly are on this issue.

While according to most accounts these atrocities were mainly on the Serb side, there was no widespread ethnic cleansing, according to repeated findings by German Foreign Ministry officials as late as March 1999. In the present case there are reliable reports that none other than our own Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff warned Clinton specifically that it was likely that large scale ethnic cleansing would take place IF we started to bomb. Now this has happened.

We must continue to work to demand an immediate cessation of the bombing, a ceasefire by the K.L.A. and Yugoslav federal forces; the staged withdrawal of all federal forces with their staged replacement by an international force made up on non-N.A.T.O. nations; repatriation of all refugees but no arming and reinforcement of the K.L.A. as part of the repatriation of refugees; negotiations as to the character of any post-war Yugoslav federal force within the Kosovo province of Serbia; restoration of autonomy as previously agreed to; N.A.T.O. funding of the restoration of the civilian economy and infrastructure and international assistance to the refugees and to the families of all those killed and wounded and to all those who have suffered damage to their homes and property; recognition of the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia consistent with the Helsinki accords, etc..

We should pay our dues to the U.N. but work to amend the charter to permit the Security Council to act to prevent genocide with a super majority, thus creating such a single exception to the veto powers of the superpowers. The U.S. should offer to provide troops and logistic support to the formation of a permanent U.N. command capable of rapid response, but we should partner with other major powers and forces representing all the regions of the world. Bases all over the world which are now U.S. bases should be transferred to the U.N. to provide a realistic logistical basis for such a U.N. capability.

Would this be so bad? To a superpower bent on maximizing its power at the expense of creating a force for peace, apparently, yes. This need not prevent the U.S. from having it's own defense capability. We must also act bi-laterally to negotiate disarmament agreements with China, Russia and other nations, in order that this world becomes less dangerous. But the most dangerous course of all is for the U.S. to take on the main responsibility to police the world.

Clearly, we have a long way to go before we can restore to America the greatness it achieved in the war against fascism. We squandered that greatness on August 6, 1945. The survival of humanity has been at terrible risk since that day, yet until March 1999 N.A.T.O. feared a hot war, as it feared a nuclear war. Now, it appears, NATO is willing to take a calculated risk in the Balkans. In the Middle East as well, by our continued bombing in Iraq we are endangering Israel. It appears our national security elites have bought into a crude misuse of the "clash of civilizations" thesis of Samuel Huntington. In both Afghanistan and Kosovo, we supported Muslim guerrillas in an attack on the periphery of the Orthodox Christian world, without giving thought to the possibility that such a policy of playing civilization against civilization could backfire on our own. "Our own", that is, if we fail to accept that there is today one interdependent, global human civilization, and one which is at risk of war and environmental deterioration.

For example, even though Israel was targeted with chemical and biological warheads by Iraq and was hit by Iraqi missiles in 1991, were are willing to risk Israel's security and increase its vulnerability to terrorist attacks at a time of insecurity of the world's nuclear weapon stockpiles. As the bombing of the World Trade Center showed, our own mainland is at risk of terrorist attack. Our last two Presidents have been willing to take these risks, as we flirt with a goal of exercising dominance over world affairs. Accounts in the N.Y. Times indicate Russian generals have concluded that dominance is indeed our goal. I don't believe it is, but I believe it is tempting and that we are engaged in a hesitant, ambivalent attempt to test our powers. At a time when our own economy has been seemingly immune to economic crisis for all but the poor, perhaps we feel we are entitled to experiment with world peace.

I strongly suspect that hard times are ahead, and that whatever moral leadership we might have once exercised has now been squandered. We need a new generation of Democrats and independents and Republicans who yearn to restore that moral leadership in our foreign and domestic policies. That leadership will clearly not come from the Clinton/Gore administration. Sadly, it is not coming from the new social democratic leaderships of Britain, Germany and France. What is needed is bold, critical thinking of the kind you have exercised in this case.

Thank you again for exercising leadership at this time of crisis.

- Michael A. Dover