The most monumental of Clinton's war crimes, however, has been his policy of sanctions on Iraq, supplemented by the maintenance of intense satellite surveillance and regular bombing attacks that have often resulted in civilian casualties. UNICEF reports that in 1999 more than 1 million Iraqi children under 5 were suffering from chronic malnutrition, and some 4,000-5,000 children are dying per month beyond normal death rates from the combination of malnutrition and disease. Death from disease was greatly increased by the shortage of potable water and medicines and that has led to a 20-fold increase in malaria (among other ailments). This vicious sanctions system, causing a creeping extermination of a people, has already caused more than a million excess deaths, and it is claimed by John and Karl Mueller that Clinton's "sanctions of mass destruction" have caused "the deaths of more people in Iraq than have been slain by all so-called weapons of mass destruction [nuclear and chemical] throughout all history" (Foreign Affairs, May/June 1999). U.S. mainstream reporters, who have so eagerly followed the distress of the Kosovo Albanians, somehow never get to Iraq for pictures of the thousands of malnourished children.
One of the notable features of the NATO-U. S. war against Yugoslavia was the gradual extension of targeting to civilian infrastructure and civilian facilities-therefore, civilians who would be in houses, hospitals, schools, trains, factories, power stations, and broadcasting facilities. Two months after the war was over, the BBC "revealed" that the attack on Yugoslav television on April 23 was part of an escalation of NATO bombing whereby the target list was extended to non-military objectives; NATO was "taking off the gloves." According to Yugoslav authorities, 60 percent of NATO targets were civilian, including 33 hospitals and 344 schools, as well as 144 major industrial plants and a large petro-chemical plant whose bombing caused a pollution catastrophe. John Pilger noted that the list of civilian targets included "housing estates, hotels, libraries, youth centres, theatres, museums, churches and 14th century monasteries on the World Heritage list. Farms have been bombed and their crops set afire."
This NATO targeting was in open violation of the laws of war, although this was certainly neither publicized nor condemned in the mainstream media; U.S. pundits like Thomas Friedman of the New York Times frequently called for a more aggressive bombing of Serb civilian targets and the commission of more war crimes (Rachel Coen, "Lessons of War: Leading papers call for more attacks on civilian targets next time," EXTRA! Update, August 1999). There can be little doubt that Yugoslavia finally agreed to a military exit from Kosovo mainly because they recognized that, although their forces had not been defeated on the battlefield, the NATO strategy of attacking civilian targets in violation of international law was subject to no limits.
On May 27, in the midst of this criminal operation by NATO, Louise Arbour, chief prosecutor of International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia, issued an indictment of Milosevic for war crimes, thereby implicitly exonerating and facilitating the NATO commission of war crimes. By allowing her Tribunal to be so mobilized in NATO propaganda service, Arbour and her colleagues were arguably guilty of war crimes themselves.
The U.S. played an important role in the "international community's" failure in Rwanda, as it worked hard to prevent any international action to interfere with the gigantic 1994 massacres (Omaar and de Waal, "Genocide in Rwanda: U.S. Complicity By Silence," CovertAction, Spring 1995). Bill Clinton has apologized for this, suggesting that his recognition of the earlier failure spurred him on to his Kosovo policy, which involved his commission of further war crimes under the guise of a "humanitarian intervention" which was devoid of humanitarian intent or effect.
Furthermore, in 1998-1999 Clinton was once more put to the test in East Timor, where he and his Administration knew of the Indonesian plans to interfere with the referendum and eventually to take revenge for any ensuing defeat, but did nothing whatsoever to prevent this criminal performance. This was worse than Rwanda in that Clinton had long advance knowledge of Indonesian intentions, easy access, and close links to Indonesian leaders that made prevention relatively easy. But prevention would have been at the cost of disturbing the long and warm relationship of Clinton and his associates with the killers. Clinton once again easily failed the morality test, and is guilty of criminal behavior by inaction.
Conclusion
U.S. Ieaders commit war crimes as a matter of institutional necessity, as their imperial role calls for keeping subordinate peoples in their proper place and assuring a "favorable climate of investment" everywhere. They do this by using their economic power, but also (by means of "bombs bursting in the air" and) by supporting Diem, Mobutu, Pinochet, Suharto, Savimbi, Marcos, Fujimori, Salinas, and scores of similar leaders. War crimes also come easily because U.S. Ieaders consider themselves to be the vehicles of a higher morality and truth and can operate in violation of law without cost. It is also immensely helpful that their mainstream media agree that their country is above the law and will support and rationalize each and every venture and the commission of war crimes.
Thus, Clinton's civilian extermination policy in Iraq, which the Muellers contend has killed more people than all the chemical and nuclear weapons throughout history, is completely normalized in the U.S. and brings no discredit to this country via the elite-dominated global system. The defeat of Milosevic, not on the battlefield, but by an expanding attack on the civil society of Serbia in direct violation of the rules of war, also raises few eyebrows in the West and is not seen as incompatible with the new "humanitarian" foreign policy of this country and NATO. While hostage taking is viewed as a form of terrorism, treating the entire populations of Iraq and Serbia as hostages and imposing mass suffering and death on them to achieve a political end is acceptable in the West.
Whatever the success of doublethink in making the commission of war crimes feasible, Clinton has broken new ground as a war criminal, and people with any concern for human rights should recognize him as the true world leader in this sphere.
Edward S. Herman is an economist and media analyst. His latest book is The Myth of the Liberal Media: An Edward Herman Reader (Peter Lang).
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