Illegal war in Kosovo
President Clinton addressed the people of the United States on June 10, 1999 over the United States’ mission in Kosovo. Kosovo is a province of Serbia, which makes this war a civil war. Highlights of his speech outline the goals that he wanted to obtain in this Humanitarian intervention, as he called it. The mission had flaws innate to it from the beginning. The three-tiered goal of the President was clearly stated. The first is to allow the Kosovar people back into their homes. The second is to require Serbian forces to leave Kosovo. The last thing was to deploy an international security force, with NATO at its core, to protect all the people that troubled the land, Serbians and Albanians alike. The message was clear, but was not followed in regards to international law, and NATO’s Charter, and even the three clearly stated missions. The involvement in Kosovo’s war is illegal, and the President of the United States has pushed NATO into committing wartime crimes and has used the Powers-of-Office in an unconstitutional manner, which resulted in the illegal intervention of a sovereign state.
On March 24, 1999, the united countries of North Atlantic Treaty Organization, under pressure from the United States, launched an illegal assault upon a sovereign nation. The evidence is overwhelming that leaders within the United State government sponsored this decision with the extreme perseverance from President of the United States. NATO should have dismissed the request for assault and involvement for it was clearly illegal. It’s perpetrators showed total disregard for Article One of the NATO Charter, which incorporates by reference the United Nations Charter, Chapter One, Article Two, Sections Three, Four and Seven. These sections make it clear that NATO’s role is to be purely defensive. The aggression that NATO has undertaken did not come from or with approval of the UN Security Council, which NATO’s Charter clearly states numerous times that the UN Security Council will convene and approve of any such matter or action. It is a brutal violation of NATO’s Charter and of all principles of international law.
NATO used military weapons and tactics that run counter to the demands of decency and the nature of a moral people. Cluster bombs are outright illegal. Geneva Convention has concluded the use of cluster bombs and anti-tank and anti-personnel mines as illegal munitions.
While the economic recession certainly influenced this preference of the Clinton administration, it can also be attributed to the same distaste for foreign intervention among the public that impacted Bush’s limited engagement in Iraq in 1991 (the “Vietnam Syndrome”). As can be witnessed in the aforementioned 1999 foreign policy speech, Clinton’s belief in “assertive multilateralism” (a term coined by his Secretary of State Madeline Albright) relied more heavily on free trade and international organisations such IMF and World Bank. Indeed, towards the end of the speech, he declared that while efforts should be made to “keep our soldiers out of war”, the United States should, at the same time, “finally pay both our dues and our debts to the United
In a recent White House brief, President Obama called the Russian invasion of Crimea a clear violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and international law. When assessing the Russo-Ukrainian crises in Crimea, the commander of European Command (EUCOM) and the Supreme Allied Commander of European Forces (SACUER) must account for U.S. interests in the region before deciding a proper course of action. This essay aims to assess four of the United States’ national interests through the perspective of EUCOM and SACUER. The first section will outline the role of EUCOM and SACUER in the European region and assess the overall problem of Russia invading Crimea. The second section will outline four of the United States’ national interests at stake: international order, trade and economic prosperity, energy supply, and freedom of the seas. In doing so, this assessment of U.S. interests in Crimea supports the options of non-intervention and a non-provocative stance in order to maintain long-term stability because the Russian invasion has only violated peripheral interests of EUCOM and SACUER.
President Jimmy Carter assumed the role as Commander-in-Chief with very little experience in foreign policy, hence why the few diplomatic achievements and foreign affairs he orchestrated were overlooked due to being too regionalized and or utterly ineffective. Carter was a sensational humanitarian, with the emphasis of his foreign policy on human rights, but it was also his kryptonite to being an effective leader. His policy efforts to achieve peace took decades to see results, and moreover ironically produced greater global instability and never established peace. Carter’s international campaign to bring awareness towards human rights and the negative impacts of communism on the people lives failed because “By the time Carter became
The United States Involvement in Bosnia; is it positive or negative. After a lifetime of war in Bosnia, can the United States really offer positive change? To truly get a feel for the conflict in this region we must first look at the long-standing hatred between the occupying ethnic groups: Serbs, Muslims, and Croats. From 1481 to 1903 the Ottoman Empire was the ruling body over the entire Balkan region. By the early nineteen hundreds the Ottoman Empire had collapsed. In 1918, at the end of World War One, Russia annexed the Balkan region renaming it Yugoslavia. In 1919 Joseph Stalin, Communist ruler of Russia and its satellite states (i.e. Yugoslavia), appointed Tito to be the head of Yugoslavia. Tito quickly became an iron fisted and ruthless dictator. The Machiavellian characteristics exhibited by Tito have given all Serbs a reputation as being strong armed and merciless. With Tito’s death in 1991, Yugoslavia collapsed and split into 3 independent states: Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Croatia. In 1994 Slovadon Malosovitch was elected ruler of the Serbian state. Incidents of mass genocide and several other war crimes became regular occurrences under his rule. The Bosnian crisis has shown the world the worst of human nature. On behalf of the United Nations, in an effort to settle the unrest in the Balkan region, The United States became involved in 1995. The United States involvement includes: the commitment of twenty thousand troops, the troop support of legions of tanks and other vehicles, and the “full support” of the United States Government.
In August of 1992, President George Bush Sr. sent US soldiers into Somalia to provide humanitarian relief to those Somalis suffering from starvation. The major problems in Somalia started when President Mohammed Siad Barre was overthrown by a coalition of opposing clans. Although there were several opposing groups, the prominent one was led by Mohammed Farah Aidid. Following the overthrow of Barre, a massive power struggle ensued. These small scale civil wars led to the destruction of the agriculture in Somalia, which in turn led to the deprivation of food in large parts of the country. When the international community heard of this, large quantities of food were sent to ease Somali suffering. However, clan leaders like Aidid routinely hijacked food and exchanged it for weapons leaving thousands to starve to death. An estimated 300,000 Somalis died between 1991 and 1992 (Clancy 234-236). US soldiers were later sent into Somalia to capture Aidid, but when the operation got bloody, displeasing the American public, Clinton withdrew troops (Battersby 151). In The Morality of War, Brian Orend outlines ethical guidelines that should be followed in all three stages of war: jus ad bellum, jus in bello, and jus post bellum. Orend states that a nation can be moral going into war, but immoral coming out of one. Did the US act justly in all facets of the Somali conflict? The United States espoused all the guiding principles of jus ad bellum but right intent, upheld the principals of jus in bello, and clearly failed to uphold several aspects of jus post bellum during the armed humanitarian intervention in Somalia.
Affirmative Case Introduction- "We must use every tool of diplomacy and law we have available, while maintaining both the capacity and the resolve to defend freedom. We must have the vision to explore new avenues when familiar ones seem closed. And we must go forward with a will as great as our goal – to build a practical peace that will endure through the remaining years of this century and far into the next.” Because I believe so strongly in the words of U.S. Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, when she spoke at the Stimson Center Event, June 10, 1998, that I ask you to affirm today’s resolution, “Resolved: The use of economic sanctions to achieve U.S. Foreign Policy goals is moral.
International organizations such as NATO and the UN are essential not only for global peace, but also as a place where middle powers can exert their influence. It is understandable that since the inception of such organizations that many crises have been averted, resolved, or dealt with in some way thro...
The United Nations General Assembly 36-103 focused on topics of hostile relations between states and justification for international interventions. Specifically mentioned at the UNGA was the right of a state to perform an intervention on the basis of “solving outstanding international issues” and contributing to the removal of global “conflicts and interference". (Resolution 36/103, e). My paper will examine the merits of these rights, what the GA was arguing for and against, and explore relevant global events that can suggest the importance of this discussion and what it has achieved or materialized.
...perts agree that the air strikes against Kosovo by NATO were illegal because they were never authorized by the security council. However, libertarian expert cite humanitarian international law to justify NATO's actions. For example the former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan stated that NATO was justified and its actions were legitimate and that a new form of intervention was emerging- for cases involving repression of minorities that will and must take precedence over other concerns of the law of states. Thus any fragrance violations of humanitarian law, be it crimes against humanity, violations of human rights in the Geneva convention or ethnic cleansing, may provide a legitimate basis for action on the part of international community because all of these have international consequences and go well beyond sacred principles of the domestic jurisdiction of state.8
For the past several months the United Nations’ Security Council has debated on whether or not to accept the U.S. proposal to force Iraq to comply the new and former resolutions. The new resolution calls for complete disarmament of Iraq and the re-entrance of weapons inspectors into Iraq. If Iraq fails to comply, then military force would be taken in order to disarm Iraq. This proposal met opposition from council members Russia, China, and France. They thought that the U.S. proposal was too aggressive and that the U.S. should not act alone without U.N. approval. For weeks they refused to believe that the only way to make Iraq disarm is through the threat of force and the fear of being wiped out.
The author doesn’t forget to mention the relationship between USA and NATO. He thinks that Americans welcome NATO as a weapon for America’s affairs, not of the world’s. In his final words, it is suggested that either Europe should invite USA to leave NATO or Europe should expel America from it.
They presented a young girl to him, one who’d been injured, had given birth and had consequently fled to Albania. The girl attempted to get help from the surgeons at Kukes, but was denied her treatment. Dr Jurisevic went on to take her covertly to an Italian camp and operated on the girl there. The girl went on to make a full recovery. On telling the secretary-general Kofi Annan the story, all the man said was “This is a terrible tragedy” and Mr Annan moved on. Dr Jurisevic knew that that would be the extent of the involvement of the UN, and decided it would be better to proceed with the Kosovo Liberation
Civilians show the reader what the Martial values of loyalty, courage and self-sacrifice look like during a time of war.
The article permits states to resort to non military measures in dealing with a state that has gone against an international norm. Sanctions can be economical, political, religious or even moral. But the Charter in itself cannot lay out the legal nature of international sanctions. The legal nature of international sanctions can only be understood by first analyzing the concept and nature of international law. If any discussion concludes that international law has all attributes pertaining to domestic law, like the ability to inflict punishment, it follows then that international sanctions have the ability to pass through the wall of sovereignty. It has been said that international law cannot be a legal system because it lacks a legislature, judiciary or any recognized policy making body and authority that may enforce sanctions (Hart 2012). Sanctions need to have a legal backing and if Hart’s definition of international law is followed, then the only conclusion is that imposition of sanctions lacks the backing of any law. Although Hart’s definition of international law has certain loopholes, his general observance of sanctions as part and parcel of international law cannot be ignored in answering whether sanctions are actually legal. For instance, when sanctions are imposed upon a powerful state like Russia, it often responds in kind by toughening up on what the sanctions were aimed to curtail or by occupying another country. If sanctions had a legal backing Russia could simply be dragged into an international court and found guilty of breaking a law. Further, if sanctions have any legal basis, it would be easier for small powers to impose sanctions against big powers that engage in the unlawful invasion because it would simply be a matter of looking at procedural rules and concluding that a certain state needs to face sanctions. But as matters stand, only
What political factors contributed to the idea of Albanian nationalism after the breakup of Yugoslavia that contributed to the Kosovo Crisis of 1999. To determine the political factors that contributed to Albanian nationalism, this investigation will focus on the aftermath of the breakup of Yugoslavia, the social landscape of Kosovo after the breakup and the Kosovo Crisis of 1999. The views of the Albanians and Serbs will be examined to help develop a more contextual understanding of the rise of Albanian nationalism. Only the events that are relevant to the Kosovo War will be explored in this investigation.