From the Cold War to NATO's "Humanitarian Wars"
- The Complicity of the United Nations
By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
Global Research, April 4, 2012
URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=30114
Humanitarian
wars, especially under the guise of the “Responsibility to Protect
(R2P),” are a modern form of imperialism. The standard pattern that the
United States and its allies use to execute them is one where genocide
and ethnic cleansing are vociferously alleged by a coalition of
governments, media organizations, and non-governmental front
organizations. The allegations – often lurid and unfounded – then
provide moral and diplomatic cover for a variety of sanctions that
undermine and isolate the target country in question, and thereby pave
the way for military intervention. This is the post-Cold War modus
operandi of the US and NATO.
In
facilitating this neo-imperialism, the United Nations has been
complicit in the hijacking of its own posts and offices by Washington.
Former
UN secretary-general Kofi Annan has been appointed a “special peace
envoy” with a mediating role in Syria. Yet, how can Annan be evaluated
as an “honest broker” considering his past instrumental role in
developing the doctrine of R2P – the very pretext that has served to
facilitate several US/NATO criminal wars of aggression? Furthermore, the
evidence attests that the US and its allies – despite mouthing support
for Annan’s supposed peace plan – are not interested in a mediated,
peaceful solution in Syria.
From the Cold War to Humanitarian Wars
As
the Cold War began to wind down in the late-1980s and early-1990s, NATO
saw the opportunity that would arise from the geopolitical vacuum
following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of the
Eastern Bloc. Not only did NATO begin transforming from a defensive
organization into an offensive military body, the US-led alliance began
to embrace a supposed humanitarian mandate for this purpose. It is
through this purported embrace of humanitarianism that the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization was able to change into an offensive,
interventionist military force – indeed the largest such force ever in
the history of the world.
NATO’s
biggest military operation up until a decade after the Cold War was
the First Persian Gulf War following the invasion in 1991 of Kuwait by
Iraqi forces under the command of Saddam Hussein. The invasion of Kuwait
by Iraq, at the time a US ally, was mired in a territorial oil dispute
over colonial-era borders to which Washington at first appeared to show
cool indifference. Immediately after Iraqi forces entered Kuwait,
however, a strident US government and media campaign was mounted
claiming the sanctity of Kuwait’s sovereign territory and the “defence
of small nations.” There were also lurid media reports – later shown to
be fabrications – of atrocities committed by Iraqi troops, such as the
butchering of babies taken from hospital incubators. The international
public was successfully manipulated to accept a US-led war against
Iraq to iconically liberate the Emirate of Kuwait only to reinstate an
absolute and despotic monarch.
Equipped
with UN resolutions, the US-led NATO powers – along with a “coalition
of willing” Arab states – launched a war on Iraq supposedly in the name
of “humanitarianism.” Operations exlusively run by several NATO powers
in Iraqi Kurdistan would also become the basis for NATO’s future
humanitarian mandates. The precedent and tempo was now set for NATO’s
subsequent “humanitarian” wars. The no-fly zones and legal semantics
that were innovated by the Western powers to justify their intervention
in Iraq were also applied by these same powers with regard to the former
Yugoslavia. Variants of this humanitarian pretext for war included
“upholding international law” and “international security” and were
deployed for the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and again against Iraq
in 2003 – the Second Persian Gulf War – this time to justify the all-out
conquest of that country. The
same rhetorical justification for military intervention was used by NATO
powers to unleash a seven-month aerial bombing campaign in Libya in
2011 that led to the overthrow of the government and to the murder of
the country’s leader Muammar Qaddafi. The thematic R2P is currently
being amplified to decibel levels by NATO state governments and
mainstream media with regard to Syria, where a NATO-led intervention is
also covertly underway.
Yugoslavia: Srebrenica’s Sacrifice for NATO Intervention
On
July 11, 1995, the forces of the Bosnian Serbs would march into the
so-called UN Srebrenica Safe Area. The official NATO narrative is that
UN troops agreed to withdraw from Srebrenica and let the Bosnian Serb
forces take care of the local Bosniaks, but that once the Bosnian Serbs
entered the area they proceeded to slaughter 8,000 Bosniaks. This would
be billed as the worst massacre in Europe since the Second World War.
In
reality, the events of Srebrenica would be used and warped to justify a
massive NATO response on the basis of public outrage. Bosniak leaders
would also refuse to give the Red Cross the names of people who had fled
Srebrenica, thus resulting in an inflated number of missing people. The
number of the dead would later turn out to be significantly lower than
originally reported. Media estimates also changed over time. The most
senior UN official inside Bosnia-Herzegovina, Philip Corwin, would also
lend his voice to those saying that the events in Srebrenica were
distorted for political gain and military intervention by NATO.
Then
US President Bill Clinton had actually instructed Alija Izetbegovic
that 5,000 Bosniaks would need to be sacrificed to bring NATO into the
war as a combatant. Surviving members of the Bosniak delegation from
Srebrenica have stated on the record that Izerbegovic said that NATO
would militarily intervene against the Republika Srpska if at least
5,000 dead bodies could be produced. The Fall of Srebrenica, a
UN report issued on November 15, 1999, casually mentions this in
paragraph 115. The Bosniak police chief of Srebrenica has also confirmed
Clinton’s demand for a “sacrifice” from Izerbegovic to open the doors
for NATO attacks against the Bosnian Serbs.
In
the Bosnian War, all sides committed horrific atrocities. But the crime
of the Bosnian Serbs that appeared to rouse NATO was not ethnic
cleansing. The crime of the Bosnian Serbs was that they were fighting to
preserve Yugoslavia. Even Croats and Bosniaks in both Croatia and
Bosnia-Herzegovina who wanted to preserve Yugoslavia and inter-ethnic
peace were targeted, demonized, or killed. For example, the Bosniak
Fikret Abdic was charged as a war criminal in Croatia after he fled
Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Josip Rejhl-Kir, the Croat police chief of
Osijek, was murdered by Croat nationalists for working to preserve the
harmony between Croats and Croatian Serbs.
NATO
intervened in Bosnia-Herzegovina to change the balance of power. The
Bosnian Serbs were up until then the superior military force. Had NATO
powers not internationalized the fighting and intervened, the Bosnian
Serbs would have taken control of the country and maintained it as an
integral part of Yugoslavia. This would have crippled or halted
Euro-Atlantic expansion in the Balkans.
On
January 15, 1999, the fighting in Racak between Serbian forces and the
outlawed Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which the US State Department
itself labelled a terrorist organization, would be used to paint a
similar picture of genocide and ethnic cleansing to justify war. By this
time, the Serbs had successfully been demonized by NATO and the media
as the perpetrators of ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia, so
NATO’s efforts to vilify the Serbs were made relatively easy. It is a
matter of public record that US Secretary of State Madeline Albright and
the KLA leadership were working to create a humanitarian pretext for
intervention. It was in this context that the US and NATO had pressured
the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to accept an arrangement where their
military forces would leave Kosovo, but allowed the KLA to continue its
attacks. This stoking of tensions is what NATO has tried to replicate in
Syria through the so-called Free Syrian Army, which in reality is a
terrorist organization linked to NATO and the Gulf Cooperation Council
(GCC).
In the Arab World: Libya and Syria
In
2011, the humanitarian card would be played again by NATO, this time in
the North African country of Libya. Colonel Qaddafi was accused of
massacring his own people in Libya, particularly in Benghazi. Packaged
with unverified claims of jet attacks and foreign mercenaries, this
prompted the UN to permit the US and its NATO allies to impose another
no-fly zone, as in Iraq and Yugoslavia. Illegally, the NATO powers
arrogated the no-fly zone provision of UN Security Council Resolution
1973 to mount an aerial bombing campaign. The massive onslaught
involving over 10,000 bombing missions was conducted in concert with
NATO special forces and proxy militias on the ground. NATO warplanes
targeted civilian population centres and civilian infrastructure, such
as food stores and water and power utilities – acts that are war crimes
under international law. Such a blatant campaign of state terrorism –
obscenely in the name of “protecting human rights” – was instrumental in
overthrowing the sovereign government in Tripoli and installing a proxy
regime composed of an extremely volatile amalgam of opportunist
para-militaries, terrorists, NATO intelligence operatives, and fractious
tribal warlords. Recent reports of internecine bloodletting and revenge
killing erupting across Libya, “post-NATO liberation,” attest to the
real criminal enterprise of NATO’s regime change in Libya that was
cynically perpetrated under the guise of protecting civilians.
Meanwhile,
in Syria, the US and its cohorts have sought to replay the city of Homs
like another Srebrenica, Racak, and Benghazi. They have sought to use
the same tactic for inciting sectarian tensions and then blaming the
government of President Bashar Al-Assad for conducting a “brutal
crackdown.” The US and its allies are demanding that the Syrian Army
stops fighting while the insurgent forces of the Syrian National
Council’s Syrian Free Army are given a free hand to launch attacks, just
as the NATO power demanded of the Yugoslav military while giving a
green light to the KLA. Russian and Chinese demands that both sides
observe a ceasefire offset this strategy.
What
stands in the way of yet another NATO intervention is a firm resolve by
Moscow and Beijing at the UN Security Council as well as the alliance
between Syria and Iran. Damascus and its allies, however, should be wary
of more traps to tie Syria down politically and legally through
one-sided agreements. Nor should the Syrians place their trust in the
United Nations to act as an “honest broker.”
Kofi Annan and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P)
Much
praise is being given to Kofi Annan as the special envoy of both the
Arab League and United Nations. There should, however, be caution
applied when dealing with Annan. In this regard, his history with regard
to humanitarian interventions needs to be assessed.
According
to American diplomat Richard Holbrooke, who was intimately tied to the
balkanization of Yugoslavia, Annan was one of the most supportive
figures for US foreign policy in the Balkans. Annan was actually
instrumental in helping to put together the R2P doctrine with Canadian
diplomats. Furthermore, the Ghanian-born career diplomat owes his rise
to power to senior Washington connections and specifically to the events
of Srebrenica and the fighting in the former Yugoslavia.
Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali was pushed aside by Washington
to make way for Annan as the head of the United Nations.
Kofi Annan is also openly supportive of R2P. He participated as a panelist in a discussion about R2P (The Responsibility to Protect – 10 Years On: Reflections on its Past, Present and Future)
held at the University of Ottawa on November 4, 2011. A week prior to
this event, Allan Rock, president of the University of Ottawa and former
Canadian ambassador to the UN, together Lloyd Axworthy, president of
the University of Winnipeg and former Canadian foreign
minister co-authored an article about R2P in the Ottawa Citizen (October
25, 2011). Both Axworthy, who was on the panel with Annan and Allan
Rock, praised the war in Libya, calling it a victory for R2P.
At
the panel, Annan was joined by the decidedly pro-NATO Canadian
parliamentarian Christopher Alexander. Alexander is the parliamentary
secretary to Peter MacKay. Mackay is the current defence minister of
Canada and has voiced support for open wars against Syria and Iran.
Christopher Alexander was also a Canadian diplomat in Russia for several
years, the former Canadian ambassador to NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan,
and the deputy special representative of the United Nations Assistance
Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA). The R2P panel was moderated by Lyse
Doucet, a correspondent for the British Broadcasting Corporation
(BBC) and a friend of Alexander.
What
is important to note about the R2P Ottawa panel is that it was largely
supportive of R2P. Kofi Annan also voiced his support for NATO’s
military intervention in Libya. When asked about using R2P in Syria, no
firm answer was given by Annan. He did, however, appear to give his
tacit support to intervention against Syria. Finally, both Annan and
Axworthy proposed that regional organizations be given R2P mandates. For
example, the African Union should be able to intervene on the behalf of
the international community in African countries, such as Uganda and
Sudan, or that the Arab League likewise be given an R2P mandate in
countries, such as Syria.
These
points are key factors. They should not be overlooked. Annan’s
impartiality with regard to his latest pivotal task in Syria should be
questioned, especially in light of his stated position on Libya and his
generally supportive views for NATO military interventions.
Humanitarianism: The Face of Modern Imperialism
The
NATO military interventions in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and Libya were
and are colonial invasions masquerading as humanitarian endeavours.
Moreover, what NATO did in Yugoslavia was to intervene incrementally to
divide and conquer the country. According to General John Galvin, the
former supreme commander of NATO, this was done because NATO officials
knew that an all-out invasion during the disintegration of the country
would result in a massive guerrilla war with high costs for NATO. It can
also be added that such a NATO intervention would have had the inverse
effect of unifying Yugoslavia instead of allowing the federal state to
dissolve.
At
the start of 2011, both Libya and Syria were holdouts to NATO’s
Mediterranean Dialogue and they also had reservations about the EU’s
Union for the Mediterranean (UfM). This effectively means that they were
both resistant to Euro-Atlantic expansion. While popular protests in
Bahrain and Jordan went unnoticed, all public eyes were directed by NATO
state governments and corporate media towards Libya and Syria. This is
because of imperialist interests to subvert both the latter Arab states –
while the former mentioned states are allies and therefore must be
bolstered despite their well-documented repressive conducts.
Atlanticism
is on the march. Both NATO’s operations in the Balkans and the Arab
World are intended to expand the Euro-Atlantic Zone. Its involvement in
African Union missions in East Africa are also tied to this. For all
observers who take a detailed look at the restructuring of states
vanquished by NATO, this should be clear. Humanitarianism has become the
new face of modern imperialism.
And former UN secretary general Kofi
Annan is a man whose face fits the deceptive humanitarian agenda of
modern imperialism.
The above text is an adaptation of an article from the Journal of the Strategic Cultural Foundation (SCF).
The above text is an adaptation of an article from the Journal of the Strategic Cultural Foundation (SCF).
Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
is a Sociologist and award-winning author. He is a Research Associate
at the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal. He
specializes on the Middle East and Central Asia. He has been a
contributor and guest discussing the broader Middle East on numerous
international programs and networks such as Al Jazeera, Press TV,
teleSUR and Russia Today. His writings have been published in more than
10 languages. He also writes for the Strategic Culture Foundation (SCF),
Moscow. He is also the author of a forthcoming book about Libya, The War on Libya and the Re-Colonization of Africa (2012).