By Zhang Dezhen

From International Forum of Renmin Ribao, Beijing

24 August 1999

Some people in US-led NATO military circles are immensely proud to claim that the Kosovo war which has just ended was a”clean war.” The reason they give is that in this war, fought by means of strategic air strikes, NATO achieved a record of combat without a single casualty.

In fact, as far as NATO is concerned, the war it launched against the Yugoslav Federation [FRY] was indeed very “clean” and “neat.” As one of the belligerents, the cities of NATO countries were not destroyed, their inhabitants were not killed, and they lost not one military casualty. This must be the first time this has happened in the history of war. Without mentioning the Korean and Vietnam wars, from which tens of thousands of US soldiers never returned, up to 100 US servicemen lost their lives in the 1991 Gulf War. Compared with those wars, the price that the United States paid for its air strikes on the FRY is indeed minimal.

As far as the FRY, the victim of aggression and attack, is concerned, however, this war launched by US-led NATO was an out-and-out bloody and dirty war. During the 78 days of air strikes, FRY factories and roads were indiscriminately bombed, people’s houses were destroyed, and people were killed. The air strikes killed over 1,800 FRY civilians and injured over 6,000, and nearly 1 million people were made refugees. The environmental disaster caused by NATO’s depleted uranium ordnance and other weapons also affected neighboring countries and left a legacy of trouble for posterity. It is evident that the FRY paid an unprecedentedly catastrophic price for NATO’s “zero” battle casualties and for the absence of blood on NATO territory; this “zero” is thick with the taste of blood.

Even more frightful, the “clean war” for which certain people in the west have the highest esteem is in fact a profanity against mankind and an injury to mankind’s innate knowledge. In its air strikes against the FRY, NATO mainly used long-range precision attacks with hi-tech weapons; whether launching cruise missiles from warships or dropping bombs from B-2 Stealth planes, the military personnel carrying out these missions were far from the battleground. They could not hear the cries of the children, could not see the tears of the mothers, and still less could they see the scenes of mutual slaughter with flesh and blood flying around, as in the old days. For these people, fighting a war is like playing a computer game; one keystroke, and the deed is done. One western scholar pointed out that such “computerized war” is prone to benumb the spirit and harden the heart and cause one not to regard war and destruction as one and the same. If that is really so, it is a tragedy for mankind. Just imagine, if military personnel are benumbed to the point of regarding killing people as a game, and if people “evolve” into soulless “robots” who only know how to press buttons, what happens to mankind and mankind’s innate knowledge?

There was no great antiwar movement in the United States during the Kosovo war. An important reason for this, apart from the fact that the people were misled under the banner of “humanitarian intervention,” was the fact that the United States suffered no military casualties. The American people’s tolerance of battle casualties has always been very low, and they regard the lives of Americans as extremely precious. During internal chaos in Somalia a few years ago, the arrival in the United States of bodybags containing the remains of several score US servicemen caused uproar, and as a result the United States rapidly withdrew its troops and quit. Since the United States suffered no casualties in the war against the FRY on this occasion, the people’s antiwar sentiments were not as strong as in the past. The role of this kind of “clean and low-risk war” is very evident in benumbing the spirits of ordinary civilians as well as the military, and this will encourage the tendency of the superpower to lightly resort to arms against foreign countries.

It is said that the progress of science and technology is good news for mankind, and the development of high technology should serve the purpose of making mankind happy. However, once the superpower applies all its armed might for wars of aggression, the opposite will happen, and such development will become a disaster for mankind. The Kosovo war shows that hi-tech partial war based on air strikes has become an important means for strong countries to invade, oppress, and exploit weak countries. In this pattern of warfare, strong countries need not suffer any casualties, while weak countries suffer heavy losses; and strong countries attack wherever they like, while weak countries have no way of hitting back. This domineering way of doing things is even more savage and cruel than the method applied by old-style imperialism in using gunboats and cannon against colonial people armed with swords and spears. It can be said that strategic air strikes that are termed “clean war” is an outstanding manifestation of military hegemonism in the present stage, and is what western opinion calls “new technology fascism.”

© Renmin Ribao, Beijing 1999