Edward Said and Kosovo

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Edward Said and Kosovo

David Zarnett

Introduction

Beginning in the late 1970s Edward Said, who had just bust out o scholarlyobscurity with his publication o Orientalism, became the target o sharp andpointed criticisms rom notable scholars such as Albert Hourani, Malcolm Kerr,Bernard Lewis, and Maxime Rodinson. Despite the strength o their critiques andothers lobbed against him, notably by Kanan Makiya in the early 1990s, Saidsstanding as a trusted and important voice on Middle Eastern aairs, the Israeli-Palestinian conict, and American oreign policy remained generally untarnished.Troughout his career his popularity increased in reverse proportion to the stateo his health that was ravaged by cancer. By 2002, a year beore his death, Said wasconsidered a towering gure on the intellectual le whose work was widely readand quite inuential. Te outpouring o emotion on the days aer his death atteststo how genuine and widespread this support was. Over the last ew years, deenderso Said have been given good reason to revisit their sympathetic views o his work.

In 2005, in Te Journal o the Historical Society Mark Proudman questioned

Saids depiction o Benjamin Disraelis ancred and argued that his depictiono Disraeli as the archetypal orientalist was based on actual errors as well as adecontextualised and tendentious methodological approach. In 2006, RobertIrwin published Dangerous Knowledge: Orientalismand its Discontents where heattempted to reute Saids use o the adjective orientalist to be a term o derisionmeaning racist, imperialist, and even Zionist. In January 2007, in Israel AairsCameron Brown criticised Saids Te uestion o Palestine or being riddled withhistorical and actual inaccuracies that were central to the arguments he was making.And upcoming are two more works that aim to provide more critical scholarship

on Said, entitled Postcolonial Teory and the Arab-Israel Conictedited by PhilipCarl Salzman and Donna Robinson Divine, andDeending the West: A Critique oEdward Saids Orientalism by Ibn Warraq.

Tis new scholarship takes aim at Saids core texts such as Orientalism and Te uestion o Palestine. While this scholarship provides important insights, it doessuer rom one key shortcoming. Tis shortcoming was articulated unknowinglyby Rashid Khalidi who is the Edward Said Proessor o Arab Studies at Columbia


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University when he wrote that Saids impact on American public discourse camenot rom his core texts or numerous books but rather rom his journalism. I Saids

intellectual legacy is to be properly assessed, then his work or the print media mustalso become the ocus o scholarly analysis.

O course, the attempts to demystiy Said have not gone unanswered. In May2007, a conerence was held in Istanbul in tribute to the erudition and seminalscholarship o Edward Said. Te participants o the conerence included Americanscholars Rashid Khalidi and Joseph Massad, British scholar Jacqueline Rose,Lebanese author Elias Khoury, and Israeli historian Ilan Pappe. Te stated objectiveo this conerence was to utilise Saids ideas to repudiate an international culture

that was eeding war, violence and the clash o civilizations. Te intention was topromote a more just and cooperative international order through Saids work. [1]Te question o whether Saids work contributes to or hinders the realisation o animproved international order is central to an assessment o his intellectual legacy.o answer this question, lets look at Saids writings on war.

Te useulness o war or analytical purposes stems rom the unique analyticalduality that it creates. On one hand, as the phrase og o war accurately implies, waris a conused, complex, and unclear event obuscated by state propaganda, aulty

intelligence, deadly working conditions, and patriotism. On the other hand, war isalso an act o great clarication. Not only does it illuminate important eatures othe state actors involved and their relationships with other states, but it also clariessignicant intellectual characteristics o those who engage in war-time debates.Wars discourse is eective in highlighting the observers ideological persuasions,political priorities, and worldviews or the very reason that it is a oggy event. It isthereore a highly useul medium through which to assess an observers ability tothink through complex political realities and contribute to our understanding o aviolent world.

Tis essay will consider Saids position on the Gul War in 1991 and NAOsintervention in Kosovo in 1999 with more emphasis on the latter.

Responsibilities o the Intellectual and Anti-war Politics

Saids ruminations on the responsibility o the intellectual provide a good startingpoint to consider his war-time politics. In 1993, Said gave a set o six lectures as part o the Reith Lecture series promoting one big idea. Te intellectual, Said


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Zarnett | edwd Sid d Kosovo

insisted, who is principally serving and winning rewards rom power is not atall conducive to the exercise o that critical and relatively independent spirit o

analysis and judgement that, rom my point o view, ought to be the intellectualscontribution. [2] Te responsible intellectual had to distance himsel/hersel romthe grips o power; it was treasonous to do otherwise. Te responsible intellectualdid not restrict his/her public output just to their expertise but engaged broadlyin public discourse contributing to issues o public and moral concern. In eachventure into the public orum, the responsible intellectual challenged authority,asked the dicult questions, and made people uncomortable with their receivedwisdoms. Te responsible intellectual was also a proessed amateur thrusting moralstakes into the heart o even the most technical and proessionalized activity. [3]

In international relations, the responsible intellectual upheld the norms ointernational behaviour in deence o human rights everywhere. He/she wasprincipled, unrelenting, and universal in this posture. Te responsible intellectualalso exercised a special duty to criticise his/her own society particularly whenthose powers are exercised in a maniestly disproportionate and immoral war, or indeliberate programs o discrimination, repression, and collective cruelty. [4]

Tere was an obvious tension between Saids declared responsibilities to maintain

a universal outlook to human rights while exercising a special critical vigilanceagainst ones own society especially when it was at war. Tis tension became mostacute in instances o humanitarian intervention when the observer had to deal with a humanitarian catastrophe abroad and his/her own societys decision touse military orce to end it. How Said dealt with this tension is a central eaturein understanding his position on the Gul War and on Kosovo as each crisisinvolved regimes Saddams Iraq and Miloevis Serbia broadly condemned orwidespread abuse o human rights, engaging in attacks on others Kuwaitis andKosovar Albanians and involving attempts led by Americans but including othernations, to combat what they were doing. Said opposed the Gul War and NAOs

intervention in Kosovo. Let us turn to why.

Te Imperialism-Fascism Equation

In April 1999, three weeks into the NAO intervention in Kosovo, Said told anaudience at Columbia University that:


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I think these alse dichotomies, either youre with, as it used to be said duringthe Gul Wareither you are or [Serbian] ascism or you are or [NAO]

imperialism, and you have to be or imperialism because it is always slightlybetter than ascismthese are the kinds o alse dichotomies that we areplaced into in the current moment. [5]

Rejecting the imperialism-ascism dichotomy, Said replaced it with an imperialism-ascism equation. o uphold this equation both imperialism and ascism had tobe viewed and understood as equally objectionable orms o power. o assess thisposition, we must rst briey consider Saids intellectual interests in imperialismand ascism.

Te overwhelming majority o Saids work deals with America and her relationswith the Middle East. In explaining this relationship, Said located American oreignpolicy along a historical continuum that begins with British and French imperialismin the 18th century. In 1973, in theJournal o Palestine Studies he argued that British,French, and American presences in the Middle East have all been governed by ashared disregard or local Arab interests. [6] In Orientalism, rst published in 1978,Said expanded on this idea and asked the question: how did Britain, France andAmerica develop the desire to dominate the Middle East and acquire the requisite

political will to turn that desire into reality? Tis work is a study o imperialism,and o the ideas and civil structures that nourish it. It is also a study that argues thatsince World War II America has dominated the Orient and approaches it as Franceand Britain once did. [7] Not only was American imperialism ed by Europeansources, Said argued, but it was also a product o indigenous patterns in Americanhistory. In 1993 he explained that the United States was ounded as an empire, adominion state o sovereignty that would expand in population and territory andincrease in power. [8]

Consequently, Said perceived all American international behaviour as imperialist.

Tis understanding o U.S. policy is evident in much o Saids work. For instance, hedepicted the American-led Oslo peace process between Israel and the Palestiniansas reminiscent o nineteenth-century Arica, where European powers wouldsign pieces o paper called treaties with various Arican chies in order thattrade and conquest could take place behind a aade o legitimacy, complete withnegotiations and elaborate ceremonies. [9] Tis view o U.S. policy is especiallyapparent in his position on the Gul War and Kosovo.


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Te Imperialism-Fascism Equation in Practice: Said on the Gul War

Saids opposition to American oreign policy was grounded in his understanding

that it is imperialist and that imperialism was always a nearious and perniciousorce. Reiterating his position on the Gul War in an interview in 1992 a positionthat closely resembles his stance on the NAO intervention in Kosovo Saidexplained:

Basically, I opposed Iraq. I opposed the depredations o the Kuwait regime,I opposed Saudi policy, and I opposed the American position. I opposed thewar. But I reused to all into the position taken by people like Fred Hallidayand Hans Magnus Enzenberger that in a war between imperialism and

ascism you back imperialism. I was against them both. I think that was thehonourable and only serious position to take. [10]

Even when ascism expands by aggressive action against its neighbours, Said argued,one should never support imperialist opposition to such an act. o assess this anti-war position and Saids interest in what he reerred to as American imperialism andIraqi ascism, a relevant question to ask is not iSaid opposed Saddam Hussein andhis ascist Baath party but rather to whatextent.

According to Baathist ocial rhetoric, the end o the Iran-Iraq War in August 1988was a tremendous victory or both Iraq and the Arab world. Many Iraqis hopedthat the end o this war would usher in a new era o peace and prosperity as theIraqi government began calling or elections and the establishment o a multi-partydemocracy. [11] Little would change, however. Days aer Iran agreed to sign acease-re with Iraq, Saddam launched the nal wave o chemical gas attacks againstthe Iraqi Kurds as part o Operation Anal which killed at least 50,000. [12] Iraqsoon spiralled into an economic crisis.

On the 2 August, 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait, annexing it six-days later. In response,

the United Nations imposed sanctions but the international community quicklygrew impatient with Iraqs aggression and uncooperative stance. A broad coalition,including a number o Arab states, aligned with America to liberate Kuwait romIraqi occupation. In January 1991 an intervention was launched that successullyliberated Kuwait and orced the total withdrawal o Iraqi soldiers by the end oFebruary.

Developing arguments or or against this war was contingent upon how one


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understood the key players involved. Saids depiction o Saddam shied in relationto events taking place in the Gul as he adopted a pragmatic approach to argue

against an American-led military action against Iraq. Tis approach was revealedaer the war when he spoke o his belie that i the intellectual wants to eectivelyspeak truth to power he must do it in such a way as to inuence with an ongoingand actual process, or instance, the cause o peace and justice. [13] Te idea thatthe intellectual must seek to inuence while maintaining an opposition to bothAmerican imperialism and Baathist ascism does not easily coalesce because it wasthe realities o Saddams regime that posed the strongest challenge to any anti-warposition.

Days aer Iraqs invasion o Kuwait in August 1990, Said described the Iraqi actionas a military intervention. [14] He condemned Saddam as an appalling dictatorwhose rule in Iraq has turned the place into a graveyard o democracy but soughtan alternative explanation or his act o territorial aggrandisement. Saddamsdecision, Said believed, was consistent with the behaviour exhibited by the worldsdominant powers:

But [Saddam] is neither mad nor, I would suggest, an unexpected gure toemerge out o the desolation that has characterized recent Arab history. He

is admired today by many Arabs who deplore his methods, but who say theworld is essentially dominated by powers who invade, grab land, and attemptto change governments with scant regard or the principles and moralimperative they proclaim exclusively against Arabs, nonwhites, wogs, andthe like. [15]

As the American-led military response to Iraqs invasion o Kuwait took place,Saddams role in Saids oppositional politics greatly diminished. ake, or example,two articles Said wrote in early January and February 1991 that appeared in the NewYork imes and Te Nation. Both articles employ the same approach to marginalise

Saddam. In the New York imes, Said began:

Many Arabs, or example, are against Iraqi aggression, are also or a totalwithdrawal o Iraqi troops, and yet are not at all in avour o a U.S. attackagainst Iraq. I include mysel in this group, as I also include mysel amongthose Americans who eel that our military presence in the Gul is ar larger,more expensive, and potentially disastrous than is merited by the case the


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United States has been making or its intervention during the past ewmonths. [16]

In Te Nation, Said began:

Saddam Hussein, a dictator the kind the United States has typically oundand supported, was almost invited into Kuwait, then almost immediatelydemonized and transormed into a worldwide metaphysical threat. Iraqsmilitary capabilities were antastically exaggerated, the country verballyobliterated except or its by now isolated leader, U.N. sanctions given aludicrously short run, and then America began the war. [17]

In both instances there is some acknowledgement o Saddam as an aggressor andas a dictator. Such remarks are then ooded and overshadowed by a much longeranalysis o U.S. policy which, by the end o the article, renders the critique oSaddam impotent.

Immediately aer the Gul War, Said re-introduced Saddam back into his analysisalthough he still remained on the sidelines. For instance, on 7 March, 1991 in theLondon Reiew o Books, Said adopted a deensive tone: I do not excuse and have

not excused the aggression o Iraq against Kuwait. I have condemned the abuses oSaddam Husseins government, and those o the other governments o the region, whether Arab or Israeli. [18] Like his previous condemnations o Saddam, thecondemnation ound in this article rejected the idea that Saddam had any uniquedictatorial qualities which broke the threshold o the standard or normal dictator.

Supporting this understanding o Saddam, Said wrote in the same article the claimthat Iraq gassed its own citizens has oen been repeated. At best, this is uncertain.[19] Saids use o the word uncertain is important because it connotes a negativescepticism. Te word probable, on the other hand, connotes a positive scepticism

implying that there is more evidence in avour o the claim that Saddam had gassedhis own citizens than against it. Saids negative scepticism ignores the considerableevidence widely available at the time to show that it was probable, i not certain,that Saddam had gassed the Kurds. For instance, in 1988 the United Nationsdeclared Iraqi use o chemical weapons in its war with Iran, and in August it wasconcluded that Iraqi use was ar more requent than Iranian use. [20] In October1988, both the United Press Internationaland the U.S.-based NGO Physicians orHuman Rights reported Iraqi use o chemical weapons against its own citizens. [21]


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Tis corroborated the utterances o Iraqi Kurdish leader Jalal alabani who toldLeMonde: It is no exaggeration to say that using chemical weapons has become routine

or the IraqisTe army uses them routinely when it undertakes a major operationin Kurdistan and even resorts to it to cover its retreat. [22] Despite this, Saids useo the term uncertain was an attempt to urther the idea that Iraq was undeservingo the treatment it was getting by the American media and supporters o the Gul War, and to undermine the perception o Iraq as the most brutal regime in theregion. More than one year later, in September 1992, Said nally acknowledgedthat Saddam had indeed committed a genocide when he wrote that the U.S.actually supported [Saddam] during the Baath genocide against the Kurds. [23]In his belated acknowledgement o this Iraqi crime, Said expressed himsel in such

a way to say something damning about American oreign policy. What Said leavesout in this statement is the central point that or such an act o barbarity the partyresponsible was the Iraqi regime regardless o its relationship with other countries.

Much like his belated acknowledgment o Iraqi actions against the Kurds anacknowledgment that i made earlier would have signicantly weakened his anti-war position it was months aer the Gul War was over that Said began to describeSaddam in terms not seen in his war-time writings. In a lecture given in September1991, Iraqs justication or the invasion o Kuwait was described as spurious;

the invasion was an outrageous breach o international law and was intolerableand unacceptable. [24] Te actions o the Baathist regime were disgraceul. Tey were repressive at home, mischievously adventurous and violent abroad. [25] Inan interview in early 1992, he spoke o Saddam as a murderer, a tyrant, a ascist,and a pig. [26] Tis language, however, did not bring with it a more consideredand substantial critique o Saddams regime. Moreover, it did not bring with it anyreconsideration by Said o his opposition to the Gul War a war launched toreverse what Said was now saying was an intolerable and unacceptable act.

In 1992, Said depicted the anti-war position he had taken as one o opposition to

both American imperialism and Baathist ascism. He spoke in principled termso the need to apply a universal standard to the actions o both belligerents. Saidsanalysis, however, betrays this principle. Days aer Iraqs invasion o Kuwait, Saiddescribed American oreign policy as the great enemy o Arab nationalism. [27]One might have expected that description to have been used against Iraq who had just invaded a neighbouring Arab state. Said also portrayed the American driveor war as rooted in an imperialist ideology. [28] Despite being a blatant act oimperialist aggression, Saddams move to incorporate a neighbouring sovereign


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state into his own was not described in this way. In act, Said even granted SaddamsIraq anti-imperialist credentials. [29] Said also put orth the notion that American

political thinking had a puritanical streak that sought to punish non-white nations.America, he wrote, was an energised super-nation imbued with a ervour thatcan only be satised with compliance or subservience rom sheikhs, dictators,and camel-jockeys. [30] Tis same language was absent rom Saids depiction oIraqi oreign policy which sought the subservience o Kuwait. Iraq was describedas acting not out o initiative but out o reaction. Unlike America whose policieswere products o domestic ideological impulses, Iraqi oreign policy was describedas disconnected rom Baathist impulses which were indeed expansionist, violent,and racist. [31] Said contended that American oreign policy ound sustenance in

a deep-rooted hostility to, and ignorance o, Islam and Arab culture. For instance,he wrote, the notion underpinning the drive or war is that Arabs only understandorce: brutality and violence are part o Arab civilisation; Islam is an intolerant,segregationist, medieval, anatic, cruel, anti-woman religion. [32] Assuming thisto be true, was Saddams invasion and subsequent occupation o Kuwait not anaront o equal erocity to Arab civilization? (Perhaps not since Said described theKuwaiti government as lacking in historical legitimacy. [33]) Was Saddams attackon a ellow Muslim state not indicative o an abhorrence to, and ignorance o,Islam? Was his attack not a betrayal o the traditions set by the owering Abbasid

Empire whose capital once rested in Baghdad?

Tese inconsistencies are urther seen in Saids response to Kanan Makiyas expressedhope that America would remove Saddam rom Baghdad aer it had liberatedKuwait. Said depicted these eelings as extraordinarily sad, with no realism inperspective, and astonishing! [34] Tis type o response only seems possible iSaid had more oppositional ervour to America than he did Saddam. Illustratinghis hostility to Makiya, Said told one audience that:

A very small handul o Arab intellectuals suddenly discovered a new role

or themselves in Europe and the U.SOne o them in particular, a manwho had once been a loyal rotskyist, later abandoned the Le and turned,as many others did, to the Gul, where he had made a handsome living inconstruction. He re-presented himsel just beore the Gul crisis, and becamean impassioned critic o one Arab regime in particular. He never wrote underhis own name, but using a string o pseudonyms that protected his identity(and his interests) he ailed out indiscriminately and hysterically against


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Arab culture as a whole; he did this in such a way as to win him the attentiono Western readers. [35]

Tis personal invective against Makiya was criticised by Fred Halliday who, ina personal letter he sent to Said in 1994, deplored the abrasive and contentiousway in which many in the US, including yoursel, have treated [Makiya] and hisarguments. [36] In an interview in 2005, Makiya described his intellectual shisor which Said had scorned him:

My case has always rested on an Iraqi perspective, on what is in the best interestso the 25 million or so people o Iraq. Tats very important and something

that people dont oen see Abstract categories like anti-imperialism andanti-Zionism concealed behind them a cover-up or terrible things thatwere taking place inside Iraq, things that are implicitly condoned by peoplelike [Noam] Chomsky and [Edward] Said. I cant engage in that kind oobuscation any more. Te be-all and end-all o politics or me is tyrannyand totalitarian dictatorship. [37]

What seems obvious is not only that Said misrepresented his own anti-war positionby proessing an equal opposition to both imperialism and ascism, but that he

attempted to conceal a acile anti-imperialism with a veneer o principle. Hadthis principle been adhered to the logical outcome would have been an anti-warposition based on ambivalence. When sociologist Murray Hausknecht describedhis ambivalent position on the war he spoke o George Bush as a leader wholacks judgement, prudence, and honour. He combined this sentiment with hisopposition to Saddam whose acts such as the unprovoked missile attacks on Israel,the deliberate spilling o oil into the Gul, and the previous genocidal attack onthe Kurds should be sucient grounds or ambivalence among those who do notsupport the war. [38] What is clear is that Saids opposition to Saddam was notstrong enough to counter-balance his opposition to America. For that reason, Said

was unable to take an ambivalent stand on the war which would have been more intune with his own declared responsibilities as an intellectual.

Certainly, an ambivalent position is dicult to maintain in wars in which ascismis involved or it, in eect, countenances the actions o a ascist dictator whichsometimes demand oreign intervention. Tis was the dilemma o Irving Howe, ademocratic socialist, whose position on the war was initially one o ambivalence butwho soon moved to the understanding that to list all such criticisms o American


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policy even to multiply them tenold, is not yet to answer the immediate question:What should be done with or about Saddam Hussein? [39] Howe weighed his

political priorities. While American oreign policy was highly objectionable, hethought, the central issue remained Iraqi ascism. Saids priority, conversely, waswhat should be done with or about America? His repulsion to American oreignpolicy outweighed his repugnance or Baathist policy. Tis anti-war position wouldhave le Saddam in possession o Kuwait and his regime would have been bolsteredby the impotency o the international community to repel the most egregious ormso state aggression and annexation.

Under scrutiny, not only does the idea that Said was equally opposed to both

imperialism and ascism unravel, so too does the notion that Said oered anythingsubstantive to say in opposition to Baathist ascism. With this understanding,we can now move to assess Saids specic writings on the NAO intervention inKosovo.

NAOs Intervention: Lef-wing Support and the Notion o Serb Centrality

On the 24 March, 1999 aer the ailure to resolve the Serb-Kosovar conictthrough negotiation, American bombers under NAO auspices began airstrikesagainst Serb targets. Aer ten-weeks o bombing, on 10 June 1999 Miloevi

nally agreed to surrender and withdraw his orces rom Kosovo. Although it wasnot unanimous, NAOs intervention in Kosovo created a groundswell o supportamong certain le-wing circles. Justiying the intervention in international law, pro-interventionists paid homage to an alternative theory o law articulated byBritish prosecutor Sir Hartley Shawcross at the Nuremburg War Crimes ribunal:

International law has in the past made some claim that there is a limit to theomnipotence o the state and that the individual human being, the ultimateunit o all law, is not disentitled to the protection o mankind when the

state tramples upon his rights in a manner which outrages the conscience omankind. [40]

Vclav Havel, then President o the Czech Republic, told the Canadian parliamentthat NAOs war in Kosovo was not or oil, territory, or simple national interest.On the contrary, NAO is ghting because no decent person can stand by andwatch the systematic, state directed murder o other people. [41] Just war theoristMichael Walzer and scholar Michael Ignatie believed that Serbia had renounced


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its right to protection as a sovereign state because o its domestic policies againstits own people and its neighbours. [42] Legal expert Marc Weller argued that

NAOs intervention was justied to contravene Serbian sovereignty because o theoverwhelming necessity o averting a humanitarian disaster in general internationallaw. [43] And Samantha Power nodded in support o the intervention stating thatit was the rst time the United States had committed itsel to preventing genocide.[44] Tese supporters agreed that it was Serbian policies that were the centralproblem. Te Serbs history o brutality in the Balkans through the 1990s, notablythe massacre at Srebrenica o 7000-8000 civilians by the Bosnian Serb army, itsoppression o the Kosovars throughout the 1990s which became violent in 1998,and then its rejection o the peace accord oered to them in March 1999, which the

Kosovar delegation ultimately accepted, ed this perception. Miloevis rejectiono Richard Holbrookes nal diplomatic push on 22 March to bring the Serbsback to the negotiating table provided urther justication or the belie that theSerbian regime had to be deanged, militarily i need be, to protect the Kosovarsrom urther abuse and brutality and to ensure regional stability. [45] Ivo Daalderand Michael OHanlon illustrated this sentiment when they wrote that the Serbleader o Yugoslavia, Slobodan Miloevi had been most responsible or a decade oviolence that accompanied the breakup o Yugoslavia. His war against the Kosovarspushed NAO to intervene on their behal. [46]

When negotiations had ailed, NAO Secretary General Javier Solana declared theintention to use orce against Serbia or humanitarian ends. Our objective, he said:

is to prevent more human suering and more repression and violence againstthe civilian population o Kosovo. We must also act to prevent instabilityspreading in the region. NAO is united behind this course o action. Wemust halt the violence and bring an end to the humanitarian catastrophe nowunolding in Kosovo. We know the risks o action but we have all agreed thatinaction brings even greater dangers. We will do what is necessary to bring

stability to the region. We must stop an authoritarian regime rom repressingits people in Europe at the end o the 20th century. We have a moral duty todo so. Te responsibility is on our shoulders and we will ull it. [47]

Te next day President Clinton reiterated NAOs humanitarian message addingan additional justication or the intervention in accordance with American valuesand national interests. Tat is why we have acted now he said, because we careabout saving innocent lives; because we have an interest in avoiding an even crueller


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and costlier war; and because our children need and deserve a peaceul, stable, reeEurope. [48]

Against the backdrop o this proessed intellectual and ocial concern or humanrights in support o an American military action, Edward Said penned our articlesrom April to June 1999 articulating his opposition to NAOs intervention. Tesearticles appeared in the New Le Reiew, Te Obserer, Te New Statesman, and theEgyptian weeklyAl Ahram.

NAO and American Motives: Misrepresenting Americas Kosovo Policy

Saids understanding o NAOs motives play an important part in his anti-war

position. In tune with his depiction o all American actions as imperialist, he toosaw NAOs policy as imperialist. NAO, he asserted, was a cover or Americandesigns to assert its will and strength abroad. Its humanitarian rhetoric was a trickand a acade. [49] Rather than a military intervention, Said believed that thesolution to the regions problems lay in a multi-party conerence or all peopleso the ormer Yugoslavia to negotiate an agreement based on the principle o sel-determination or all. [50] He believed that only i America could extricate itselrom the region, the people could solve their own problems. For this reason heinsisted that the smaller, lesser, weaker peoples realise that this America is to be

resisted at all costs, not pandered or given in to naively. [51]

One o Saids major arguments against NAOs intervention had to do with whathe saw as American inconsistencies in regards to human rights abuses. For Americato claim any semblance o morality, according to this logic, it must interveneconsistently all over the world to try to end all humanitarian crises. Aer Iraqsinvasion o Kuwait, Said used the same argument wondering why Iraqs invasion wasdue more attention than urkeys invasion o Cyprus or Israels invasion o Lebanon.[52] In the context o a humanitarian situation, Said noted: Why [urkish attacks

on Kurdish civilians] isnt considered as bad as what Miloevi is doing puzzlesme, but one supposes that a higher logic is at work which ordinary human beingscannot easily comprehend. [53] When used to criticise an intervention to protectthe Kosovars, Saids logic is aulty. It utilises a reverse double-standard which, iSaid means to assert he would have supported an American intervention againstthe urks but not against the Serbs, places more importance on the lives o urkishKurds than it does on those o the Kosovars. [54] But Said did not express a desireor a NAO intervention in urkey on behal o the Kurds but used American and


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NAO inaction and the suering o one people to oppose American and NAOaction to end another peoples suering. Had America intervened in urkey

and not in Kosovo Said presumably would have used the suering o the ethnicAlbanians to counter that intervention arguing that it was just another Americanimperialist oray into the Middle East. What many perceived to be American moralinconsistencies, Said argued, was in act its immoral consistency which was o theutmost threat to world order.

Another important element in the use o American inconsistencies to oppose theNAO intervention is Saids reerence to a higher logic which he believed explainedwhy America and NAO acted in Kosovo but not in urkey and elsewhere. Tis

higher logic is the result o an American power governed by those who interveneunilaterally on a whim, destroying, tampering with, building and re-building as itwishes or no other reason, nally, than that it CAN do so. [55] Tis depiction notonly ails to take into account the numerous voices in the American governmentwho opposed NAOs intervention, but also ails to appreciate the complexity othe decision to commit troops abroad. [56] Understanding the American decisionto intervene in Kosovo requires examining our essential elements that played acrucial importance in the decision-making process. As can be seen, Saids analysispaid little attention to any o these or assumed them out o existence.

Te rst element is national interest. Clinton was explicit on this point when heclaimed that a NAO intervention in Kosovo served American national interest bypreventing instability rom leeching out and threatening the region. He spoke o thepossibility o a broader conagration due to the sensitivity o Balkan demographicswhich would be exacerbated by massive reugee ows out o Kosovo notable intoMacedonia which maintains a careul ethnic balance between Slavs and Albanians without the requisite international support systems. [57] (Arguably, the samenational interest was not an issue in the case o urkish actions.) Senator Joe Bidenreerred to this element in American thinking when he said that the loss o a lie

in Kosovo and the loss o a lie in Somalia have totally dierent consequences, in aMachiavellian sense, or the United States interest. I there is a chaos in Europe, wehave a problem; we are a European power. [58] Undersecretary o Deence WalterSlocombe said that the intervention is born out o our cold-blooded, calculatednational interest as much as our humanitarian sympathies. And Senator Carl Levinbelieved that our participation there advances a national goal to contain a conictrom spreading and having allies ght each other. [59] British Prime Minister onyBlair also justied the intervention in Kosovo in terms o national interest when


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he stated that many o our domestic problems are caused on the other side o theworldConict in the Balkans causes more reugees in Germany and here in the

US. Tese problems can only be addressed by international co-operation. [60] Butor Said, American national interest could not be a justication since his descriptiono America as irretrievably imperialist rendered its national interest illegitimate.

Te second element in NAOs decision to intervene addresses the principle ohumanitarian thresholds. Serbia was seen to have exceeded this threshold. Teissue with Serbia was not one that emerged out o nowhere in 1999. Tere wereimportant antecedents that played into the ultimate decision to intervene. Forinstance, the stain o U.N. and NAO ailure to prevent the ethnic cleansings

and genocide in the early 1990s in Bosnia was signicant. Most notable was themassacre o 7000-8000 Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica in 1995 by the BosnianSerb Army under the leadership o Radislav Kristic who was later charged as awar criminal. [61] Tis ailure, coupled with Clintons ailure to act to preventgenocide in Rwanda, undoubtedly played a role in American thinking regardingKosovo. [62] Tere was also a precedent o Serb actions in Kosovo throughout1998 and 1999 that took place beore NAOs bombing began. Tese actionsresulted in approximately 200,000 Kosovars being displaced rom their homes.[63] Tis was combined with Serbias reluctance to cooperate with international

mediation eorts to solve the problem with Kosovo diplomatically. As Marc Wellernotes, the Serbian government used a break in negotiations in February to renewits military operations in Kosovo. [64] A statement prepared by the chairmano the Paris negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo supported this point: InParis, the Kosovo delegation seized this opportunity and, by their signatures, havecommitted themselves to the Accords as a whole. Far rom seizing this opportunity,the Yugoslav (Serbian) delegation has tried to unravel the Rambouillet Accords.[65] All o this contributed to the perception that Serbia was beyond the pale.Illustrating this breech o threshold, ony Blair believed that no one in the Westwho has seen what is happening in Kosovo can doubt that NAOs military action

is justied. [66] Saids analysis discounted this point by rst requiring that to be acredible intervention on humanitarian grounds complete consistency o action wasrequired; and second by paying little attention to what the Serbs had actually donein Kosovo up to the time o NAOs intervention.

A third element o the intervention, which distinguished it rom issues taking place in urkey or Arica, was that Kosovo was considered to be a part o the West. Tis notion resonates with one o Saids stated intellectual responsibilities


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to be universal while maintaining a vigilant eye on ones own society. As Kai Birdargued in Te Nation, i the West cannot stop these episodes o genocidal warare

in Yugoslaviahow can we have the standing to say anything about human rightsin the rest o the world. [67] Peter Beinart in Te New Republicbelieved that thedecision to intervene in Kosovo, as opposed to in Arica, was partially a producto American racism which maniested itsel in the act that most Americans didnot view Arica within their own realm. Most Americans are not analyticallyequipped to see Arican slaughter as aberrant, he wrote. [68] Said adopted a similartack when he argued that in 1994, when a US intervention might have avertedgenocide in Rwanda, there was no action. Te stakes were not high enough, theBlack people were not worth the eort. [69] For Said, this was an argument against

the validity o NAOs action in Kosovo. Contrary to the use o Americas ailurein Rwanda as ammunition against Americas intervention, Beinart believed thatalthough American policy was driven by a particular racism, this did not invalidatethe mission in Kosovo. Te intervention, he argued, signalled the extensiono Americas moral community to the Balkans and the repudiation o the myththat violence there was a result o the regions DNA. Beinart insisted that thesesame myths about Arica needed to be exploded and that the continent had tobe included in Americas moral community as well. [70] Echoing Beinarts calls,Senator Gordon Smith stated that we largely intervened in Kosovo because o

humanitarian goals. I its good or Kosovo, it ought to be good or Arica too. [71]

Te ourth element was one o easibility. Samuel Berger, Clintons NationalSecurity Adviser, spoke o this element when he told reporters that we cant beeverywhere; we cant do everything, nor should we try. Tat means at times wellbe criticised because there is ghting in Sierra Leone and were not stopping it.Clinton, similarly, stated that whenever we can stop a humanitarian disaster atan acceptable price, we should do it. [72] As Said even noted, although with theintention to depict NAOs act as targeting a deenceless people, NAOs militaryaction had little chance o retaliation rom the enemy. [73] Tis actor improved

the chances that NAO military strikes would be successul and ensured thatminimal losses would be incurred. Feasibility also helps to explain the reluctance tocommit ground troops. But Saids analysis ignored this point given its assumptionabout imperialist motives.


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Beyond Motives, owards Blame

A persuasive anti-war position, however, could not only rest on an opposition to

motives especially i that war had the possibility o having a positive humanitarianimpact. I NAO was intervening on behal o the ethnic Albanians o Kosovo,then it would seem to be a point in avour o the intervention i it was eectiveto stop the Serbian campaign o ethnic cleansing and killing. By June 1999, thisgoal was achieved with a large withdrawal o Serb orces rom the province and thebeginning o the return o reugees to their homes. [74] During the war, however,those in opposition to NAO policy, such as Said, argued that it was doing moreharm than good.

Many on the anti-interventionist Le gathered around the American weekly TeNation to oppose the war. In its rst print on NAOs intervention on 19 April,the cover-page was split in hal: the top-hal o the page pictured a NAO bomberying overhead; the bottom hal pictured a stream o people, presumably ethnicAlbanian reugees, leaving their homes. Mothers held their children in one hand,and their possessions in the other; athers looked on as they marched towardsan uncertain uture. Te contention was obvious. On the next page, the editorsvalidated this contention arguing that the bombing has le the Kosovars ar worseo than beore the NAO oensive. [75] Tis was a consistent editorial theme

rom April to June. [76] Hungarian essayist George Konrad adopted a similarposition when he posited that not only was NAO and the West responsible orthe increased suering o the Kosovars but it was also responsible or the break-up o Yugoslavia and the subsequent rise o Balkan ethnic nationalism. Te Westrecognized ethnic nationalism, he wrote, and helped it to victory, opening thedoor to the violent expulsions. [77] Slovenian sociologist and post-modernistSlavoj iek agreed:

When the West ghts Miloevi, it is not ghting its enemy, one o the lastpoints o resistance against the liberal democratic New World Order; it is

ghting its own creature a monster that grew in large part as a result o thecompromises and inconsistencies o Western politics. [78]

Tis notion o Western culpability was highly amenable to Saids worldview. Byadopting this view, Serbian ascism received little attention much like Saidsdescription and condemnation o Iraqi ascism. Compare, or instance, the waySaid described Saddams invasion o Kuwait to the way he described Miloevisactions in Kosovo. On Iraqs invasion, he wrote:


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Saddam Hussein is an appalling dictator whose rule in Iraq has turned theplace into a graveyard o democracy. Everyone knows that, especially Arabs.

But in the American campaign to demonize, isolate, and destroy him or hisshocking invasion o Kuwait, he had been inaccurately separated rom theenvironment and politics that have produced him. [79]

On Serb actions, he wrote:

No one at all doubts that horric things have been done to the Albaniansunder Serbian domination, but the question is whether US/NAO policywill alleviate things or whether they will in act be made worse by a bombing

campaign whose supposed goal is to make Miloevi give up his policies.Certainly, the increased suering o ethnic Albanians is a direct result o USpolicy. [80]

In each case Said contends that there is a universal understanding that Saddam andMiloevi are brutal leaders. I the crimes o these regimes are widely known andunderstood then there is no need or Said to dwell on them. Rather, according toSaid, the problem at hand whether it is the invasion o Kuwait or the sueringo ethnic Albanians is at its core a product o American policy. Consequently,

the particular brutalities o each regime can be passed over allowing Said to thenmake the transition to what he suggests is less well known. In the case o Kosovo,Said argues that while Serbia has done some horric things the real problem lieswith US/NAO policy which is making things worse. Te aim o NAO policy,Said believed, was massive destructiveness wholly disproportionate to the goal oa humanitarian intervention. [81] Saids sentiments were similar to those o Nobellaureate Harold Pinter who believed that the bombing o civilians [which weredeclared as mistakes by NAO] was part o a deliberate attempt to terrorise thepopulation. [82] Tis idea produced a war-time assessment based on the assertionthat the massive reugee ows out o Kosovo could only be understood and

discussed in the context o NAO actions.

Working within this ramework, Saids anti-war position aimed to expose the crimeso NAO. o do so, Said shied his war-time discussion away rom Miloevi andtowards Clinton and other Western leaders. Said believed that i Miloevi wasbeing tried or war crimes than the American and NAO leadership should betried as well. As Said wrote:


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Te International ribunal that has branded Miloevi a war criminal cannotin the present circumstances have either viability or credibility unless the

same criteria are applied to Clinton, Blair, Albright, Sandy Berger, GeneralClark and all the others whose murderous purpose completely overrode anynotion o decency and the laws o war. [83]

Miloevi While at rst it seems as i Said is equating the crimes o Clinton and,this turns out not to be the case. Instead, Said argued that Clinton was the worseo the two:

In comparison with what Clinton has done to Iraq alone, Miloevi or

all his brutality, is a rank amateur in viciousness. What makes Clintonscrimes worse is the sanctimony and raudulent concern in which he cloakshimsel and, worse, which seem to ool the neo-liberals who now run thatNatopolitan world. Better an honest conservative than a deceptive liberal.[84]

An abhorrence o Clinton, however, does not suciently expose the roots oSaids position on the intervention since a pro-interventionist stance was possibledespite a deep opposition to Clinton. Leon Wieseltier, or example, supported the

intervention despite, as he explained in Te New Republic, his strong dislike orClinton:

Everything Clinton does is so tiresomely Clintonian. Te war is noexception. Its limitations and his inconsistencies are his limitations and hisinconsistencies Impunity is his ideal. It is no wonder that such a man wouldkindle to the cruise missile, and more generally to the moral convenience otechnology o precision guidance. [85]

In contrast to Said, Wieseltiers opposition to Miloevi and his crimes against the

ethnic Albanians outweighed his opposition to Clinton. Tis led him to depictthe intervention in Kosovo as a good ght being badly ought. [86] Te core oWieseltiers position rested on his belie that and Miloevi the Serbs had to bestopped. Aer Miloevi had surrendered, he argued that as long as Miloeviremained in power, trouble still lurked or the region. [87] Saids position, conversely,was centred on the belie that Clinton and NAO had to be stopped. By callingClinton a war criminal or his policy o sanctions toward Iraq and his interventionin Kosovo, Said insisted on ocusing his war-time discussion on American and


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NAO actions. Tis idea was embraced by Alexander Cockburn who perceivedthe International Criminal ribunal as a Western tool o distraction rom the real

problems o the world. It was designed, he argued, to unction as a star chamberor the New World Order, nabbing an occasional small ry but impotent to go aerbig-time Western perps. [88]

NAO Bombs and the Reugee Crisis

Said believed that it was NAO who bore primary responsibility or the masscivilian exodus rom Kosovo. Tis charge, i true, would greatly undermine any justication or the intervention that was supposed to stop and reverse ethniccleansing. Unlike Said, those sympathetic to the idea o military intervention

based their view on an awareness o a history o Serb actions against the Kosovars.Providing this sympathy with substance and evidence was the work conducted byHuman Rights Watch (HRW). Troughout 1998 and early 1999, HRW produceda number o reports on Serb actions in Kosovo. In one October 1998 report, Serb violations o international humanitarian law were documented rom February toSeptember o that year. Te report inormed that attacks by Serb orces in responseto assaults by Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) resulted in numerous civilian deaths.In one specic attack on a KLA stronghold in early March 1998, Serb special-orces, armoured vehicles, and artillery killed eighty-three people including twenty-

our women and children. [89] A report two months later detailed the detentiono hundreds o ethnic Albanians under a broadly-dened Serb anti-terrorist law.Te report also noted the Serb governments wilul oppression o ethnic Albanians:

since coming to power Slobodan Miloevi has undermined the rule o lawand breached the separation o power, making the courts the judicial organso the ruling Socialist party. While violations o due process are endemicthroughout Yugoslavia, there is no question that the ethnic Albanians inKosovo are especially prone to abuse. [90]

In January 1999 HRW reported Serb atrocities in the Kosovar village o Racak.In August 1998, the population o the village was 2000; by January 1999 it haddwindled to 400. Tis exodus was in response to Serb attacks committed againstthe village that peaked on the 15 January. On this day the Serbs launched a heavyartillery bombardment against Racaks civilian neighbourhoods. HRW reportedthe summary execution o twenty-three men. All o them, HRW noted, were wearing rubber boots typical o Kosovo armers rather than military ootwear.


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[91] In total, Serb orces killed 45 civilians, amongst them women, children andthe elderly. Recalling what he saw in the village aer Serb troops had le, American

Ambassador William Walker told reporters:

I do not have words to describe my personal revulsion . . . at the sight owhat can only be described as an unspeakable atrocity. Although I am nota lawyer, rom what I personally saw, I do not hesitate to describe the crimeas a massacre, a crime against humanity. Nor do I hesitate to accuse thegovernment security orces o responsibility. [92]

In Saids argument, none o this evidence suraces. Barely noting Serb brutality

against the Kosovars, Said exposed his real commitment to denouncing NAOactions. On 24 June 1999, he wrote that the illegal bombing increased andhastened the ight o people out o Kosovo cannot be doubted. [93] Saidsabsolute assuredness in this claim was problematic because it betrayed one o hisown declared responsibilities as an intellectual. Describing this responsibility, hesaid the goal o speaking the truth ismainly to project a better state o aairs andone that corresponds to a set o moral principles peace, reconciliation, abatemento suering applied to known acts. [94] Tis was a betrayal because what Saidpurported to be a known act was neither known at the time nor a act.

In May 1999, Said acknowledged the absence o this act when he criticizedAmerican journalists or reporting very little on what was going on in Kosovo.

[A] conspiracy o silence has been obbed on to the public. Te media has played the most extraordinary role o propaganda and encouragement,which, seems to get worse everyday. Obviously Serbian propaganda has beenplaying its own role which I make no attempt to justiy or minimise. ButCNN and its co-conspirators have played the part o a cheering partisanteam. No journalist has dared raise the question o how it is that the number

o reugees has actually increased since the bombing began (the bombingthat was supported to save them), and any suggestion that NAO may havemade matters worse is scarcely given a hearing. [95]

I we accept Saids depiction o the American medias coverage o the intervention astruth, then we must assume that new authoritative inormation appeared betweenthe times these two statements were made rom May to June. However, nothing o


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the sort appeared. Te new inormation that did surace substantially underminedSaids position.

On 14 June 1999, a study was published by the American Association or theAdvancement o Science on the attitudes o Kosovar reugees. One major ndingo their report was the obvious desire o all reugees to return home. Te conditionsthey placed on this return say something quite signicant in regards to Saids chargeagainst NAO. Te report indicated that when [the reugees] were probed, theyreplied that they wanted NAO to guarantee their saety, or that they want to besae rom the SerbsA ew said they actually wanted to be escorted by NAOtroops. [96] I it had been NAO strikes that these reugees were eeing rom,

as Said claimed, and not Serb actions then their positive attitude towards NAOwould be inexplicable. Some reugees even reported, without being probed, o theiradamant reusal to return to any regions o Kosovo that were placed under Russiancontrol who was seen as a close ally to Serbia. [97] Tis evidence also signicantlyundermined Saids early claim that not even the Kosovo Albanians believe that theair campaign is about independence or Kosovo or about saving Albanian lives:that is a total illusion. [98]

o be sure, this evidence is only circumstantial and does not provide a denitive

account o what prompted such a massive reugee exodus rom Kosovo. DespiteSaids condence in his argument on NAO culpability, general knowledge onwhat happened in Kosovo during the intervention was quite murky. Tis murkinesswas prevalent at the beginning o the intervention when rumours were circulatedo a Serbian plan entitled Operation Horseshoe designed to empty Kosovo o itsethnic Albanian population. Tese rumours, however, were taken with caution.As one senior U.S. State Department ocial indicated, the inormation onOperation Horseshoe was extremely vague. When asked i he was surprised bythe mass exodus o reugees rom Kosovo, he responded, quite a bit! [99] A post-intervention report commissioned by the U.S. State Department criticized NAO

policy planners or not predicting a Serb campaign o ethnic cleansing. [100] TeUN was also caught o-guard. In a post-war report by the United Nations HighCommissioner or Reugees, it was stated that the UNHCR did not anticipate thesize and speed o the exodus, nor could it reasonably be expected to have done so.[101] Kosovo expert im Judah eectively summed up the lack o availability oauthoritative accounts o the war when he pointed out that while there was withoutdoubt a major [Serbian] plan to crush the KLA which would have resulted in large


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numbers o reugees, until the archives are opened in Belgrade, the real picturewill remain unclearNo one has yet managed to piece together a comprehensive

picture o exactly what happened. [102]

oday, evidence is available that greatly improves our understanding o NAOsrole in creating the reugee crisis. Tis evidence is ound in a 2002 statistical studythat set out to answer the question o responsibility or the Kosovar reugee crisis.Comparing the patterns o NAO air strikes to the movements o the Kosovars,the report ound that:

it was clear that most o the air strikes occurred aer the major ow o

reugees in the rst phase. Only occasionally did air strikes precede a localpeak in reugee owMore oen we ound that there were no air strikes ina given municipality until aer most o the reugee ow had occurred. [103]

Further, the report stated:

Te possibility that NAO airstrikes had caused migration was not supportedby these ndings [In addition] we were unable to nd an associationbetween NAO activity and/or KLA activity and deaths. We thereore

reject the hypothesis that NAO and KLA activity were plausible causes inKosovar Albanians deathsTe overall aect o KLA activity and NAOairstrikes does not much change the killing and reugee ow patterns. [104]

Te report concluded that its ndings are most signicant in what they disproverather than what they prove: Given the results o our study, key hypotheses whichmight support the deendants (Miloevi) innocence are simply not plausible.[105] Popular sentiment today in Kosovo urther disproves Saids thesis o NAOculpability. In Pristina, the capital o Kosovo, plans were recently declared to placea statue o Bill Clinton on a prominent avenue that bears his name. Tis is my way

o saying thank you, sculptor Izeir Mustaa told reporters. Tere are also plans tobuild a statue or ony Blair. [106]

Could Said have supported NAOs Intervention?

Te explanation or Saids thesis on NAO culpability can be traced back to hisanalytical ocus on American oreign policy. As we saw with the Gul War, a centralelement o his anti-war position lay in the minimisation o the crimes o Saddams


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regime and the overarching opposition to American policy. Te same practicedominated his position on the war in Kosovo in which the actions o the Serb orces

against the ethnic Albanians were barely given a hearing and when they were, theywere systematically crushed under the weight o Saids criticism o America andNAO. Appreciating this ocus o Saids anti-war writings, it is understandable thatSaid would oppose both the Gul War and NAOs intervention since the principleactor was America.

One o Saids consistent critiques o American oreign policy was that it waspurposeully devastating to the Muslim world. In 1981 he argued that Americanpublic discourse, ed by the media, was propagating myths that Islam was a threat

to the west using it as a kind o scapegoat or everything we do not happen to likeabout the worlds new political, social and economic patterns. [107] A ew yearslater, Said told an audience at a Middle East Scholars Association debate that thenegative messages o Islam and Arabs being presented by the media were perectlyin tune with American oreign policy. We can saely characterize the United States,Said argued, as being abetted in its policies by its media. [108] At the time o theGul War, Said wrote that in all this rightening rhetoric, the sustained ignoranceo Arabs and Islamic culture is turned into a useul mode o warare: Te enemy hasbeen so dehumanized or so long that we never hesitate to deliver the nal blow.

[109] In 1997, he was more orthright on this position:had Iraq not been a Muslim country that militarily occupied another inan area o huge oil-reserves that are considered to be the United States preserve, the invasion would not have taken place, just as Israels invasionand occupation o the West Bank and Golan Heights, its annexation oEast Jerusalem and the implementation o settlements were not seen by theUnited States as requiring intervention. [110]

Te reason or this American hostility to Islam is that it is only rom within the

Islamic world that signs o determined resistance are still strong. [111] Saidsreading o history deserves its own separate treatise but it is sucient to say thathis understanding o American oreign policy would seem to be devastated whenNAO decided to intervene on behal o Muslim ethnic Albanians suering underChristian Serb oppression.

By supporting the NAO intervention in Kosovo in principle, i not in terms ostrategy or tactic, Said would have been consistent with his declared concern or


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Muslim suering. Support or the intervention would also have been consistentwith brie criticisms he made o American oreign policy throughout the 1990s

regarding its inaction in Bosnia. In 1993, Said criticised numerous governments,including America, or looking at the human rights situation in Bosnia practically,not consistently. [112] In 1997, he wrote that a morbid and obsessional ear andhatred o Arabs and Islam has been a constant theme in U.S. oreign policy since World War II which resulted in the suering o Iraqis and Bosnian Muslims.[113] Te linkage he made between the suering o Iraqis and Bosnian Muslims isquite signicant. Saids writings on the sanctions regime imposed on Iraq containsome o his most vitriolic condemnations o American oreign policy. ake, orexample, a series o three articles that appeared in Al-Ahram rom July 1998 to

March 1999 just beore the start o NAOs intervention. In July 1998, Saiddescribed the American habit o laying sanctions on states it doesnt approve o as a maniestation o this animosity to Islam. He explained that many o the states(Sudan, Syria, Iran, Iraq) are Muslims states, and several like India and Pakistan,against whom sanctions were levied unilaterally in a t o U.S. petulance and pique are considered inerior, less developed, not like us. [114] In December o thatyear, he spoke o Clintons genocidal policy against Iraq and other Muslim states:Its his unauthorized, homicidal orays against Sudan, Aghanistan and now Iraqthat are the truly impeachable crimes. urning his opposition rom American

oreign policy to American society, Said believed that these acts play into anAmerican penchant or cruel wars o extermination against lesser, dehumanisedcreatures o which Islam is thought to produce so abundantly. [115] In March1999, one week beore NAOs intervention, Said spoke o the need to organiseagainst the campaign to scourge Iraq not only because it is morally wrongbutbecause it is very likely that another Arab or Muslim country will be next. [116]

As we now know, the next country targeted by America was a Christian nationoppressing a Muslim population. Tis is where Saids sympathy or Muslim sueringended. Indeed, he may have been aware o this contradiction as he attempted

to reconcile his proessed concern or Muslim suering with his opposition toNAOs intervention:

the constant reerence to ethnic Albanians prevents people rom realisingthat most o the reugees are Muslims. Consider that whenever Hamasor Hezbollah or Iranians or Palestinians, are reerred to by the media, theadjective Muslim never ails to appear. In Yugoslavia, the tactic is used to


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suggest that these are European reugees and hence more deserving o NAOattention. [117]

Clearly, this statement sidesteps the reality that American military action wastaking place on behal o a Muslim population who was under attack. Reservinghis sympathy exclusively or Muslim victims in the Middle East, Said told DavidBarsamian that the urkish atrocities against the Kurds, who America ailed tointervene on behal o, makes what happened to the Albanians in Kosovo looklike a Sunday school picnic. [118] Tis statement negates the brutal acts o Serbactions against the Kosovars: approximately one-million 90 percent o the wholeprovince were made reugees and approximately 10,000 were killed by Serb orces

rom March 1998 to the end o the conict in June 1999. [119] I such apathy wasSaids true eeling on the suering o the Kosovars, then it remains curious whyhe would compare their experiences and suering to the Palestinian experienceo 1948. [120] Aer all, or Palestinians Said wrote, a vast collective eeling oinjustice [rom 1948] continues to hang over lives with undiminished weight.[121] Tere can be no erasing the historical truth, Said insisted, that the existenceo Israel is predicated, indeed imposed upon, the obliteration o another societyand people. [122] Tis strong language describing this Palestinian experience wasmissing rom Saids description o the ethnic Albanian suering under Serb brutality.

Tis moral inconsistency was most noticeably expressed in an endorsement he gaveto a petition that appeared in Te Obsererin December 2000 entitled Stop thisSlaughter Now. Tis petition read:

We are appalled by the lack o action by Western governments to stop theslaughter [o Palestinians]. More than 9,000 Palestinians have been injuredsince October. Israel is using unprecedented orce against those who areseeking basic rights: access to land and water, employment, reedom rommilitary occupation and political independence. [123]

Endorsing this statement, while ailing to endorse a similar statement on behalo the ethnic Albanians was in violation o one o Saids own stated intellectual principles. Approaching human rights issues practically not consistently, Saidbelieved, are the norms o power, which are precisely not those o the intellectual,whose role is at very least to apply the same standards and norms o behaviour nowalready collectively accepted on paper [in the Universal Declaration o HumanRights] by the entire international community. [124] Said neither draed norsigned any such petition decrying the slaughter in Kosovo by Serbs and the use o


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unprecedented orce against those who are seeking basic rights ethnic Albanians.I Said was calling or Western action against Israel to prevent such abuses, then

he should have called or Western action to stop Serbian abuses. But to call oraction on behal o a people whose suering does not orm a central eature o onesworldview is an impossible task just as it is to call or an intervention rom thosepermanently consigned to the label imperialist. InAl-Ahram in late April he putscare quotes around the term ethnic Albanian and questioned why the mediapersisted in calling them such. [125] In his treatment o ethnic Albanian suering,Said committed the same sin he urged others not to commit regarding Palestiniansuering: Fudging, wafing, looking the other way, avoiding the issue entirely, oraccepting pabulum denitions o peace will bring Palestinians and, in the long

run Israelis, nothing but hardship and insecurity. [126]

Conclusion

Saids dedicated opposition to America rendered him unable to provide concreteways to improve the lot o a suering people. In the heat o the Kosovo crisis, Saidurged his readership to develop resistance [to leaders like Miloevi and Clinton]that comes rom a real education in philosophy and the humanities, patient andrepeated criticism, and intellectual courage. [127] Patience, in the case o the GulWar, meant the continued occupation o Kuwait which Robert Fisk described as

evil incarnate. [128] Patience, in the case o Kosovo, meant the expulsion and deatho thousands o ethnic Albanians. Te ounder o the term genocide, RaphaelLemkin, detested the word patience: patience is a good word to be used when oneexpects an appointment, a budgetary allocation or the building o a road. But whenthe rope is already around the neck o the victim and strangulation is imminent,isnt the word patience an insult to reason and nature? [129]

Te limitations o Saids position on the Gul War and on NAOs intervention arethe limitations o a acile and simplistic anti-imperialist approach to war. Despite

Saids claims, his approach to the world at war was not universal or principled.More accurately, it was born out o a singular opposition to American oreignpolicy which he deemed to be consistently imperialist regardless o context. His all-consuming commitment to denounce American actions rendered him ill-equippedto deal substantively with ascist whether Iraqi or Serbian crimes. Tat heproessed a deep concern or Muslim suering but then saw no legitimacy in theNAO attempts to end this suering is a clear example o the analytical deciencies


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that come rom an excessive reliance on a particular worldview that posits all evil inthis world to be o American doing.

David Zarnett is a recent graduate o Kings College, University o London. Hisessay, Edward Said and the Iranian Revolution, appeared in Democratiya 9.

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Alemdar, Zeynep (1988) U.S. Physicians: Iraq Used Chemical Weapons against Kurdish Minority,Te Associated Press, October 17.

Baalder, Ivo and Michael OHanlon (2000) Winning Ugly: NAOs War to Sae Kosovo. Washington,DC: Brookings Institution Press.

Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (2007) Clinton and Blair Statues to be Erected in Pristina,May 24. http://www.birn.eu.com/en/84/15/3069/ [Accessed July 28, 2007]

Ball, Patrick and Jane Asher (2002) Statistics and Slobodan: Using Data Analysis and Statistics inthe War Crimes rial o Former President Miloevi, Chance, 15, 4: 17-24. http://www.amstat.org/publications/chance/154.ball.asher.pd [Accessed July 25, 2007]

Ball, Patrick et al (2002) Killings and Reugee Flow in Kosovo, March-June 1999: A Report tothe International Criminal ribunal or the Former Yugoslavia, American Association or theAdancement o Science (3 January) http://shr.aaas.org/kosovo/icty_report.pd [Accessed July25, 2007]

Barsamian, David and Edward Said (2003)Culture and Resistance: Conversations with Edward

Said, London: Pluto Press.

Beinart, Peter (1999) War Fair, Te New Republic, May 31, p. 6.

Bird, Kai (1999) Another Course in Kosovo, Te Nation, June 14, pp. 5-6.

Blair, ony (1999) Doctrine o the International Community, Speech given on 24 April at theEconomic Club, Chicago. http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page1297.asp [Accessed July16, 2007]

Bogazici University (2007) Waiting o the Barbarians: A ribute to Edward W. Said, Istanbul, May26-7.

http://www.edwardsaidtribute.org/ENGAbout.htm [Accessed June 23, 2007]

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Notes[1] Bogazici University 2007.

[2] Said 1994b, p. 64.

[3] Said 1994b, p. 61.

[4] Said 1994b, pp. 72-73.

[5] Chomsky / Said 1999b.

[6] Said 1973, pp. 30-50.

[7] Said 2003, pp. 1, 4.

[8] Said 1993a.

[9] Said 1994a.

[10] Said 1993b, p. 31.[11] Karsh 2002.

[12] Human Rights Watch, 1993.

[13] Said 1994b, p. 75.

[14] Said 1990a, p. 28.

[15] Said 1990b, p. 278.

[16] Said 1991e, p. 283.

[17] Said 1991b, p. 145.

[18] Said 1994c, p. 295.

[19] Said 1991c, p. 7.[20] United Nations Security Council 1988a, 1988b.

[21] Alemdar 1988.

[22] Gueyras 1998.

[23] Said 1992b, p. 19.

[24] Said 1992a, p. 5.

[25] Said 1994c, p. 157.

[26] Said 1993b, p. 31.

[27] Said 1990b, p. 280.

[28] Said 1991e p. 284.

[29] Said, 1994c, p. 301.

[30] Said 1991a, p. 4.

[31] See Al-Khalil (Kanan Makiya) 1989.

[32] Said 1991a, p. 4.

[33] Said 1990a, p. 28

[34] Said 1991d, p. 18.

[35] Said 1994b, p. 87.


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[36] Halliday 1994.

[37] Johnson / Makiya 2006.

[38] Hausknecht 1991, p. 158.[39] Howe 1991, p. 155.

[40] In Geras 2007.

[41] Tis speech is reproduced in Havel 1999, p. 6.

[42] Walzer 2000, pp. 333-35. Also see Walzer 1977), pp. 101-8, and Ignatie 2000, p. 78.

[43] Weller 1999, p. 217.

[44] Power 2003, p. 448.

[45] Quoted in Judah 2002, p. 227.

[46] Baalder and OHanlon 2000, p. 1.

[47] NAO 1999.[48] Clinton 1999.

[49] Chomsky 1999a.

[50] Said 1999, p. 75.

[51] Said 1999, p. 75.

[52] Said 1990a.

[53] Said 1999c.

[54] Hoare 2003, p. 544.

[55] Said 1999c.

[56] A number o Republican Senators opposed the intervention such as House Armed ServicesCommittee Chairman Floyd Spence and Kay Bailey Hutchison, member o the DeenceAppropriations Subcommittee.

[57] Clinton 1999.

[58] Pomper 1999b, p. 765.

[59] Pomper 1999a, p. 693.

[60] Blair 1999.

[61] International ribunal 2004.

[62] Power 2003, p. 447.

[63] Weller, 1999, p. 236.

[64] Weller, 1999, p. 236.[65] Weller, 1999, p. 236.

[66] Blair 1999.

[67] Bird 1999, p. 6.

[68] Beinart 1999, p. 6.

[69] Said 1999b, p. 75.

[70] Beinart 1999, p. 6.

[71] Quoted in Pomper 1999a, p, 691.



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[72] Pomper 1999a, p. 691.

[73] Said 1999b, p. 74.

[74] See Gibney (ed) 1999, pp. 1-48.[75] Te Nation, 1999, p. 3.

[76] See the ollowing Nation editorials. Crossroads in Kosovo, 26 April, 1999, pp. 4-5; LookingBeyond NAO, 3 May, 1999, p. 3; Halt the Bombing, 10 May, 1999, pp. 3-4; Stop the WarNow, 24 May, 1999, pp. 3-4; Protest the War, 31 May, 1999, p. 3; Te High Cost o Kosovo,7 June, 1999, p. 3; Oppose a Wider War, 14 June, 1999), pp. 3-4.

[77] Konrad 1999, p. 5.

[78] iek 1999, p. 21.

[79] Said 1994c, p. 278.

[80] Said 1999b, p. 73.

[81] Said, 1999b, p. 73.[82] Pinter 2000, p. 328.

[83] Said 1999e.

[84] Said 1999e.

[85] Wieseltier 1999a, p. 34.

[86] Wieseltier 1999a, p. 29.

[87] Wieseltier 1999b, p. 27.

[88] Cockburn 1999, p. 8.

[89] Human Rights Watch 1998a.

[90] Human Rights Watch 1998b.[91] Human Rights Watch 1999.

[92] Smith 1999.

[93] Said 1999e. Emphasis added.

[94] Said 1994b p. 73. Emphasis added.

[95] Edward 1999d, pp. 13-14.

[96] Institute or Policy and Legal Studies 1999.

[97] Institute or Policy and Legal Studies 1999.

[98] Said 1999b, p. 74.

[99] Quoted in Judah 2002, p. 241.

[100] U.S. Department o State 2000.

[101] United Nations High Commissioner or Reugees Evaluation and Policy Analysis Unit 2000.

[102] Judah 2002, p. 241.

[103] Ball and Asher 2002, p. 19. Also see Ball et al 2002.

[104] Ball and Asher 2002, pp. 22-23.

[105] Ball and Asher 2002, p. 24.

[106] Balkan Investigative Reporting Network 2007.


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[107] Said 1981, p. xv.

[108] Lewis et al 1987, p. 89.

[109] Said 1994c, p. 285.[110] Said 1997, p. xxii.

[111] Said 1997, p. xxii.

[112] Said 1994b, p. 72.

[113] Said 2000a, p. 214.

[114] Said 1998c.

[115] Said 1998d. As Lawrence Freedman points out, since 1996, under sanctions, US$29.6 billionwas made available to Iraq or humanitarian relie. Te year beore the invasion o Kuwait byIraq, Saddam had spent US$4.2 billion on civilian needs. See Freedman 2001.

[116] Said 1999a.

[117] Said 1999d, p. 13.

[118] Barsamian and Said, 2003, p. 93.

[119] Independent International Commission on Kosovo 2000, p. 34.

[120] See Said 1999b and Said 2000b, p. 19.

[121] Said 2001, p. 207.

[122] Said 1998a.

[123] Te Obserer2000, p. 24.

[124] Said 1994b p. 72.

[125] Said 1999c.

[126] Said 1998b.[127] Said 1999d, p. 14.

[128] Fisk 1991, p. 1.

[129] Quoted rom Power 2003, p. 28.


Documents

Edward Said and Kosovo