Kosovo Conflict (1633 words) Essay Example For Students

Kosovo Conflict (1633 words) Essay Kosovo ConflictThe Balkans have been a very unstable region for hundreds of years. The reasonfor contention is because of ethnic origin and disputes of which race owns whichland.. That is the reason for the dispute over Kosovo is because of the samething. This is a very complicated situation, that I dont really know everythingabout. I just kind of know the basics. Back in the 1500 hundreds, the Serbsconquered the Kosovo area, slowly and gradually over the years the EthnicAlbanians started occupying the territory, until before the bombing began,Kosovo consisted of 90% Ethnic Albanians. Well, the Serbs didnt like this,especially Milosevic who is the ruler over Serbia. Since Kosovo has manyhistorical ties to the Serbs, and the Serbs conquered that territory back in the1500 hundreds, Milosevic wanted to reclaim their rightful territory. And hismethod to do this was through ethnic cleansing Kosovo. Stats: -Milosevichas been doing this subtlety for years, and as of last fall has increased hiskilling of ethnic Albainians. To date, there are now 200,00 peopledead as a result of Milosevics ethnic cleansing. That is probably a very lowfigure. 100,000 Kosovar men are now missing, which might be the reason for themass graves that have been pictured. Nearly one half a millionpeople have been expelled from their homes, many forced out at gunpoint, whilethe Serbian troops destroyed their identity papers, making them unable to returnto their homes. This flood of refugees have overwhelmed neighboring countries,who are economically weak, and are unable to take in all the refugees. 600,000Kosovars are surviving off the land in mountains nearby. Controversy: -You mightwonder what business the U.S. has in a country on the other side of the world,where it seems to be no political interest whatsoever. That is a bigcontroversery of whether or not NATO should be involved. At first I was againstNATO involvement for just those reasons, why should NATO get involved wherethere would be no benefit to us, because this was more of a humanitarian issue. But as I researched this and read more about it, I am in favor of NATOinvolvement. I believe that we should do everything possible to help stopTyrants from killing innocent people. Which is what was and is occuring inKosovo. -But I am against NATO in who, why and how NATO is handling thisconflict. Who: -NATO is very hypocritical by saying they got involved in thissituation purely because of humanitarian reasons. There have been many occasionswhere the U.S. looked the other way on bigger humanitarian disasters. In WestAfrica, there was a similar ethnic cleansing situation where theU.S. did not get involved. Why: -In the begging, where NATO was on the verge ofbombing Kosovo, Clinton spoke in a public meeting about why we were gettinginvolved. He said, trying to get public approval, that the reason the U.S. isgetting involved is largely an economical reason. He said that this war wouldhelp the U.S. financially. By getting involved, we would become partners withEurope, thus increasing a trade relationship. That is what I am against. I amagainst the U.S./Clinton thinking more about how much money we can get, ratherthan saving innocent lives from being brutally murdered. -After the bombing haddragged on for longer than expected, which was only about a week in somepeoples opinion, the objectives were stated as follows: To stop ethniccleansing, stop flood of refugees into nieghboring countries, stop NATO fromsplitting, prevent Milosevic from strengthening his grip on the Balkanregion. And, after over 2 months of involvement, NATO has not been able tomeet those objectives. -Bob Bennet said that the current bombing has beenno help to the Albanians and Macedonians, who have seen hundreds of thousands ofrefugees flood across the borders into their ill-equipped countries. It has beenof no help to NATO, an alliance that has seen its military stocks drawn down todangerously low levels, with no effects on the atrocities going on in thekilling fields. -One speculated reason to get involved was because of themilitary stategic point in the Balkans. After NATO wins, the U.S. would puttroops in the area to secure it. That was one reason why Russia is against U.S. .u79f11f61c587c6199d862d2fc844135f , .u79f11f61c587c6199d862d2fc844135f .postImageUrl , .u79f11f61c587c6199d862d2fc844135f .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .u79f11f61c587c6199d862d2fc844135f , .u79f11f61c587c6199d862d2fc844135f:hover , .u79f11f61c587c6199d862d2fc844135f:visited , .u79f11f61c587c6199d862d2fc844135f:active { border:0!important; } .u79f11f61c587c6199d862d2fc844135f .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .u79f11f61c587c6199d862d2fc844135f { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .u79f11f61c587c6199d862d2fc844135f:active , .u79f11f61c587c6199d862d2fc844135f:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .u79f11f61c587c6199d862d2fc844135f .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .u79f11f61c587c6199d862d2fc844135f .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .u79f11f61c587c6199d862d2fc844135f .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .u79f11f61c587c6199d862d2fc844135f .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .u79f11f61c587c6199d862d2fc844135f:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .u79f11f61c587c6199d862d2fc844135f .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .u79f11f61c587c6199d862d2fc844135f .u79f11f61c587c6199d862d2fc844135f-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .u79f11f61c587c6199d862d2fc844135f:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: Haha Essayinvolvement. How: This is my biggest controversy to NATOs actions. NATOsstrategy to stop Milosevic from killing innocent people, was to bomb him intosubmission. Military officials predicted this war would last lessthan two weeks. NATO underestimated milosevics tolerance. (VIETNAM CARTOON) Manypeople compare this war to vietnam. The U.S. underestimated what Vietnamise werewilling to take. Also, both sides did not fully explore the possiblity of apeaceful negotiation. After the Vietnam war, there was a study on the conflictwhere a group of researchers tried to find out if there was a better way ofhandling the conflict. They talked with both U.S. government and the vietnamesegovernment, they found that both sides were much more open to negotiations thanpreviously thought. The U.S. just assumed that there was no peaceful solution,and thought bombing would solve all problems. Which in the end, made things muchworse. That is the question being raised in this conflict, could there have beena peaceful negotiation? -quote from New York Times-This century has beenthe bloodiest in history. Over 160 million human beings have been killed invarious conflicts, and that number rises each day. It is a dark history, butunless we look at it and seek to learn from it, it will only get darker.It was once famously said that the United States did not have 10 years ofexperience n Vietnam, but one year of experience 10 times over. Will we say thesame about the Balkans? -This is a quote from a military spokesman,NATO strikes continue to cause serious damage to the Serb military andwill further degrade their capability to commit atrocities against the KosovoAlbanian population We are also seeing increased evidence of ethniccleansing-Same spokesman, same briefing, same day, one minute later. Thisis also a characteristic of Vietnam, where there was very questionable newsbeing sent back to the public. There is very vague reports of what NATO bombed,and how bad the damage was. It doesnt seem as though we are getting all theinformation. There has been much use of double speak in the news. The death ofinnocent men, women and children from bombs and missiles launched by over athousand warplanes are labeled as Unintentional collateral damage. Bakeries and water pumping stations blown to pieces by NATOs barrage aredual-use facilities because soldiers, like civilians, eat and drink. And, of course, deliberate terror bombing is a humanitarian war. -Another big controversy of this war is whether or not to bring in groundtroops. The U.S. did not even consider ground troops before the war began; theydidnt even have the threat of using them. This gave Milosivic the advantage. Without even the threat of ground troops coming in, Milosevic had all thefreedom he wanted to ethnically cleanse Kosovo. Milosevic wasallready killing ethnic albanians before the bombing began, but not to thedegree he was after bombing started. NATO bombing gave the serbs a good reasonto start kicking all the Ethnic Albanians out. So, you could argue that NATOinvolvement has only worstened the situation in Kosovo. The reason why NATOpicked air raids as there strategy to win was because they did not want to loseallied lives. As in Somalia, the U.S. was involved as long as no U.S. soldierslives were not lost. Then in one day, when 15 soldiers died, the U.S. backed outof Somalia. The single most remarkable fact about this war isthis: Not one allied soldier engaged in combat has even been seriously injuredin 2 months of the campaign. Has there ever been such a war anywhere? -Itseems as though NATOs biggest objective in this war is to make sure that noallied lives are lost, not to save t he thousands of Kosovars that are dying andmillions that are going homeless. This is by far my biggest objection to thiswar. If the U.S. is going to get involved in a war, then I believe that weshould do whatever is necessary to accomplish the objectives. In this case, tosave the ethnic albanians. -A recent pole showed that 63% of the American peoplethink that NATO is right in getting involved. When asked about sending in groundtroops this dropped to only 41% thinking that ground troops should be used. Thismeans that the majority of people are allright with being involve in a conflict,just as long as no allied soldiers lives are lost. And this is exactly howClinton is going about this war. Clinton, I believe, is too concern with publicopinion. In general, the average american citizen is not going to have anin-depth knowledge of the Kosovo situation, and what strategy would be the bestto use to save the most amount of lives. -NATO is not even willing to air dropdesperately needed foo d and medicine to the tens of thousands of Albanians stilltrapped inside Kosovo. The reason for this is because the planes would have tofly low and they might be shot down. I guess this didnt apply to the f-117stealth fighter pilot who was shot down over enemy territory. NATO actually gottogether an entire rescue team, flew over enemy territory in a helicopter, muchmore vulnerable than a plane, and rescue the single pilot taking an incrediblerisk of being shot down. Is this supposed to mean that a single allied life isworth more than thousands of albanian lives? My view: -I think that the U.S. .u3c148175d5b4a6fa2de1f9fd08b9ee39 , .u3c148175d5b4a6fa2de1f9fd08b9ee39 .postImageUrl , .u3c148175d5b4a6fa2de1f9fd08b9ee39 .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .u3c148175d5b4a6fa2de1f9fd08b9ee39 , .u3c148175d5b4a6fa2de1f9fd08b9ee39:hover , .u3c148175d5b4a6fa2de1f9fd08b9ee39:visited , .u3c148175d5b4a6fa2de1f9fd08b9ee39:active { border:0!important; } .u3c148175d5b4a6fa2de1f9fd08b9ee39 .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .u3c148175d5b4a6fa2de1f9fd08b9ee39 { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .u3c148175d5b4a6fa2de1f9fd08b9ee39:active , .u3c148175d5b4a6fa2de1f9fd08b9ee39:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .u3c148175d5b4a6fa2de1f9fd08b9ee39 .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .u3c148175d5b4a6fa2de1f9fd08b9ee39 .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .u3c148175d5b4a6fa2de1f9fd08b9ee39 .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .u3c148175d5b4a6fa2de1f9fd08b9ee39 .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .u3c148175d5b4a6fa2de1f9fd08b9ee39:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .u3c148175d5b4a6fa2de1f9fd08b9ee39 .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .u3c148175d5b4a6fa2de1f9fd08b9ee39 .u3c148175d5b4a6fa2de1f9fd08b9ee39-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .u3c148175d5b4a6fa2de1f9fd08b9ee39:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: Statistics review Essayshould use the Powell strategy used in Desert Storm. To use as much forceas possible to overwhelm the opposition. I believe that a human life isworth the same no matter where that person is from. I believe that if thePresident is not willing to sacrifice allied lives to achieve militaryobjectives, then we have no business.