Alain Badiou. On the War against Serbia: Who Strikes Whom in the World Today? March 25, 2014 (From: Alain Badiou, Polemics. Verso 2006, pp.62-72) We can pose the question that I’ve used as a title in relation to NATO’s war against Serbia. It is just as pertinent in relation to the sanctions and air strikes against Iraq; the mass murders in Africa; the methods the Israeli state uses against the Palestinians; in the matter of Russia’s colonial war against the Chechens; or the repressive operations of the Chinese state in the margins of its territory, in Tibet, in Sinkiang. It’s the question of war in the world today after the Cold War. Yet, in what has been called the ‘conflict of Kosovo’, the notion of war has been avoided, as has that of who is at war. For example, was France, whose planes bombed Belgrade, at war with Serbia? The government would have sworn it wasn’t. This is evidence that in this affair we must observe very carefully the language employed. To start with, let’s review the consensual vision of the war against Serbia in magazines of all persuasions; or rather, the general notions that support this vision, of which the NATO intervention is the only example (besides, it is because it is the only case, the only type, that, for those it bewitches, this war is not a war). Totalitarian systems, dictators thirsty for power, new Hitlers, brutishly strike defenceless victims, infringing their human rights. Although Western powers, the only ones that are in essence democratic and humanitarian, are daily horror-struck by these atrocities via newspaper reports they still suffer from the inertia entailed by reason of state and hesitate to do anything. Happily, public opinion is exerting an ever more insistent pressure, represented in France by philosopher-journalists who are entitled to speak out about rights. Yielding to that irresistible moral pressure, allied democratic and humanitarian armies tirelessly bomb the Brute. Moral war wrenches the hearts of the spectator crowds, but justice must be done. There are some immoral blunders. According to the generals’ communiques (as usual in war, there are no others), these blunders remain minimal. Some tens of unfortunate deaths here and there. Practically nothing. Finally, troops of human rights occupy the disputed territory, wherever it is. They appoint a proconsul whose morality is unquestionable. The troops will be there for perhaps thirty or fifty years, but little matter: public opinion has no longer anything to worry about, the humanitarian storm is over. I would like to use a semantic method to evaluate this montage. I would like to examine the names that, for years, have been used to structure the situation in the former Yugoslavia, and that have structured it around the trilogy of the criminal, the victim and the humanitarian intervention, that is, the liberator straight from the beautiful West. These names are used to make people believe, people who have not even the remotest interest in these lateral regions, that’ the process of decomposition of the federal State of Yugoslavia boiled down this ‘moral’ trilogy. And that it is in terms of this trilogy, this nominal structure, that everyone must understand the situation, and call for intervention in it. How did this chain of names function, and what did it signify? First, let’s look at things from the side of the criminal and his crime. The criminal cannot be a democrat, since – especially in France, where the intellectual counter-revolution has been constructed around these terms since the end of the 1970s – the whole drama is played out in a display of opposition between democracy and totalitarianism, between liberty and dictatorship. Thus Milosevic is presented as the last tyrant of the Balkans in the folklore inherited from Tintin (King Ottokar’s Sceptre): there is the villainous Madame Milosevic pulling the strings behind the scenes, the gold stocked up in Switzerland, the cruel stupidity of the potentate, the secret service, the hesitant plot of the colonels, and so forth. Obviously, it is in no way a fact that Milosevic is essentially different from the Croat, Franco Tudjmann, from the Bosnian, Izetbegovic, or the Russian, Boris Yeltsin. Nor, ultimately, from any head of state at all. He was legally elected, as is also the case for all his colleagues ever since the European ‘socialist’ party-states collapsed; like them he only confers with his immediate entourage (like every head of state) and particularly with his family (as was true of Mitterrand, Nixon, the ageing Mao, and has been with Clinton and Chirac); like them, he is tightening the screws on the media; and like them, having renounced all internal political goals and having been caught in the middle of the collapse of the former state system, he has at least sought to make a good show of nationalism. But he is (a little) more powerful than his Croatian, Bosnian, Montenegrin, Macedonian and Albanian neighbours and rivals . . . So he will make do as, contrary to the others who acted in the same way when the occasion presented itself, the designated criminal. That crime is inherent to dictatorships is a major thesis of politics today, which does not prevent it from being totally false. To stick to the case of France, we could not say that either the governments of the Fourth Republic under De Gaulle or those of the beginning of the Fifth were totalitarian dictatorships. But all the same they accumulated abominable crimes in Algeria – systematic torture, rape, deportation and the burning of villages, etc. There is as much reason to make the generals and politicians of this period appear before the so-called court of human rights as there is to drag Pinochet or the mercenaries of the Yugoslav civil war before it. Not to mention the American leaders and military who destroyed Vietnam. We’d do better to distinguish between situations than between regimes. Wars are always cruel, and colonial wars are particularly hideous. It is not clear that they were any less so when led by parliaments than when led by ‘dictators’. The Yugoslav problem is one of the collapse of a state and the bloody dividing up of a country on the basis of ethnicity, language and religion, not one of the crimes of totalitarianism. After the criminal comes the crime. Today, in the custom of ‘civilized’ Western populations, there is no true crime that merits immediate military punishment other than one that is commensurable with the essential Crime, with the unconditioned Crime: the destruction of the European Jews by the Nazis. Just as the bureaucratic upstart Milosevic must be Hitler (as, before him, Saddam Hussein, and in more distant imperial memory, Nasser, for the French and English of the miserable Suez expedition), so the ordinary and frightful massacring of civilians that occurs in every civil and territorial war (Vietnam, Bosnia), and in every colonial war (Algeria, Chechnya, Kosovo), must be racist genocide. What served as the pivotal point for this syntactical conversion (which is also an abject desingularization of the destruction of the Jews by the, Nazis) was the expression ‘ethnic cleansing’, under whose banner, and almost innocently, the killers of various ‘national’ militia of former Yugoslavia cleared their enemies out of the territories they coveted. We know that, in such cases (the techniques have been masterfully utilized by the Israelis in Palestine since 1947), in order to chase people away, terror and destruction must be announced and visible. This is what Croats, Bosnians and Serbs were all well aware of and executed perfectly, each according to their means: the Serbs, largely victorious in the beginning, did it as much as possible; the Croats quite a lot; the small Bosnians in the small regions where it was possible. This is also what, despite the occupation of the province and despite the usual moral declarations of the proconsul Kouchner, the Albanian militia of the KLA is doing today against the remaining Serbs and gypsies. As it happened, there were hardly any gypsies remaining in ‘pacified’ Kosovo. A few savage massacres, a few ransacked houses, a few roughly treated women, and you scarper. There was no such luck for the gypsies. Hitler had really decided to ‘cleanse’ Europe of them. All that is assuredly barbarous; it pertains to the old story of the bloody rapine of armed bands that is often played out when a decomposing state falls into the hands of temporary adventurers. In former Yugoslavia during this time, vast areas of land, goods, houses, women, were – once the rules of state had come undone and the new ones were still uncertain – offered up to the militia; troops and their state majors, those dull nationalist politicians. They were the spoils. Fiefdoms were carved out and people shot on sight; then, others established themselves in the abandoned properties and reaped the spoils. What does that have to do with the genocidal politics of the Nazis? Which nation has not had dark episodes of this nature, or worse, in its national history, and in the not too distant past? What is this Western moral conscience that believes it sees here the incomprehensible return of Evil? It is extraordinary that those who forged their power by burning and bloodletting the entire planet – the English did it in an Ireland depopulated by famine and by means of an imperial order forged with convicts; the French and Americans by the slave trade and wars in Indochina and Algeria; the Spanish by committing genocide of entire peoples (real genocides those ones: not one remaining survivor of the original population of the Antilles); without counting the butchery of 1914-18 and 1939-45 – now, having attained an arrogant prosperity, act like beautiful souls who are completely astonished and indignant at seeing some small nations ever so often take the same path of violence and conquest that their own history often took. Must we conclude that, having prospered from war and empire, these imperialists must thereafter thwart anybody else’s slightest aspiration to power? That is what I see lying beneath the amphigouri of moral interventions. In the propaganda, it was repeatedly said that this ‘totalitarian dictator’ was a ‘born liar’, which I don’t doubt. But what to say about the people from NATO? It is really interesting to read the reports on the situation, including the military ones, now that we have precise, or more precise, information. Precision bombing? The British air force tells us today that if 40 per cent of the bombs that were dropped on Kosovo and Serbia hit their target, then that’s not bad going. Can somebody please tell us on what or on whom the rest of the bombs fell? Was there a genocide of the Kosovar Albanians? Impossible-to-find mass graves are sought everywhere, and the report of the OSCE puts the figure at some thousands of dead, which means, as if it were in doubt: massacres (even more so as the KLA engaged in guerrilla warfare), but nothing that resembles an ‘ethnic cleansing’. And what about the famous ‘liquidation plan’ triumphantly discovered by the Germans in order to calm the pacificism of their public opinion? Nothing, false news. The OSCE inquiry shows that nothing was centralized or planned. The truth is that the Serbian troops were left largely to themselves (on account of the fact that the humanitarian allies had seriously damaged their communications systems) and committed random massacres for petty pleasure, hunting people for sport. Now we come to the biggest lie, comparable to the brainwashing of the war of 1914: all of the above occurred after the NATO air strikes began, which are thus directly responsible for this catastrophe. Beforehand, there existed a kind of bloody civil war, as in many parts of the world. There is simply no doubting it: the set of reasons given to justify the interminable and violent bombing of Serbia and Kosovo were a bunch of enormous lies. NATO’s three publicity statements were: 1. Democracies strike at totalitarian dictatorships. 2. In memory of the Shoah, ethnic cleansers will be attacked. 3. The troops of Truth strike at propagandistic lies. All three were only pieces of fallacious rhetoric, badly cut clothes made to fit concealed aims, aims of a completely different nature. Further, it was the very identity of those that struck that was indefensibly constructed. Who indeed are these allies whose principal characteristic is the Right to bomb? Let’s study the invented names once more. It was claimed that NATO made up the armed wing, first, of democracies second of the opinion of the entire world (the ‘international community’), third, of a legitimate judicial power – one whose norms are established by the ‘philosophy’ of human rights and whose policemen, always ready to seize the culprits, are the (American) military – and finally, that the court of justice of this judicial power was the International Criminal Court. All of that is only a scandalous pretence. First of all, the decision to bomb Serbia was anything but democratic. The bombing was decided by a secret conclave, even though Milosevic had agreed to the Rambouillet Accords, bar one clause that any nation would find unacceptable (to be occupied by NATO!), and which was only there to bring the situation to a war. The Americans and the British wanted the intervention at any price, just as they want to bomb Iraq indefinitely, without any sort of mandate. One has to acknowledge that they are consistent imperialists. Whoever does not totally subjugate themselves will be punished, and that’s that. Democracy has nothing to do with it. Even less so as this politically committed coalition, i.e. NATO, is in principle a purely defensive military alliance, so to make it into an instrument of aggression is to care precious little about the rules. Finally, there is no ‘democracy’ anywhere to be seen in the obscene parade of the powerful over the weak that is implied by the doctrine of ‘zero [Western] deaths’ – zero deaths that is for as many deaths as were necessary, and well beyond, on the Serbian side. This aspect of things was confirmed when no ‘democrat’ even raised a little finger for the Chechens. That’s because, were Moscow to be bombed, then it is doubtful there would be ‘zero deaths’ . In this expedition, democracy boils down to saying that the weak who jib will be crushed, and that there’ll be a pat on the back for the powerful, who can sink further into villainy. Second, we know that this expedition was not the result of the entire world’s wishes. The expression ‘international community’ is one of the most striking examples of the powerful of the day presenting themselves as the incarnation of what exists. As it is, the UN does not represent much, but even the strike on Serbia couldn’t have been pushed through it! This ‘international community’ in fact designates the Americans and their various servants. Duly surveyed, public opinion was massively against the war. Both the Russians and the Chinese were, as also the Latin Americans and a good part of Europeans, and especially the Italians and the Greeks. Even the Germans were, so that the sordid rallying of the Greens and repeated ministerial lies were necessary to sway their hostile inertia a little. It is an outrage to designate NATO, its military leaders and its governments, as being in any way ‘representative’ of a supposed ‘international community’. Third, the judicial power represented by the quaternion at The Hague is a pure servant to imperial military intentions. We all saw this when, during the bombing, whose only fault was to have lasted longer than announced, this ‘court’ thought it wise Gust to speed things up and give fodder to the moralists) to charge Milosevic. This decision was entirely determined by the propaganda concerns of NATO’s military leaders. How is it that until now this same ‘impartial’ court has never dreamed, for example, of charging Putin? It would be hard to find a more opportunistic, servile court of justice. In truth, as regards justice, the only authentic thing to do would be to demand both the dissolution of NATO – which we’ve clearly seen is an irresponsible international armed band that is very threatening to the rights of peoples and nations – and the dispersion of the ICC – whose autonomy of judgement is evidently non-existent, and which charges and sentences people only when the Americans deem it useful to their particular interests for them to be charged and sentenced. This will soon mean, we can be sure, everyone who proposes that the established order be transformed in a revolutionary manner. For be in no doubt that it won’t be difficult to pin a ‘human rights’ tragedy on them. Then, the American marines could seize them, though not without striking some surrounding populations, and the court could sentence them. Democracy oblige. In truth, we must advance the materialist hypothesis that no state has ever committed its army for the sake of the grand ideals of morality and rights. To have this believed is the obligation of the propagandist, and of the propagandist alone. Admittedly there are people who believe that the Allies engaged in war against Hitler to stop the genocide of the Jews, even though it has been established that the Allies weren’t in the slightest concerned about it either strategically (they tried to block German expansionism, not Nazism) or tactically (they didn’t take any action against the concentration camps, of whose existence they were aware). So there might also be people who believe that Belgrade was bombed for weeks to enforce respect for human rights. We do not count ourselves among them. The war against Serbia served as a medium-scale test of the relationship of forces in the world after the collapse of the Soviet system and the end of the Cold War. The Americans wanted this war to humiliate the Russians, but without any direct confrontation, and to address a severe warning to the Chinese (who still believes that the US air force bombed the Chinese Embassy ‘by mistake’? Not the Chinese, in any case). The war also demonstrated, right after the launching of the Euro, that the Europeanswere incapable, even within their own perimeter, of any independent military action of scale. As a result, the war made NATO into the principal military apparatus on the planet, the world’s policeman in the service of the existing imperial order. Note that since this war, no one has taken the risk of doing anything, in any domain, that might displease the Americans. For the whole world saw the impotence of the Russians, saw confirmed the vassalic commitments of the Europeans, and witnessed the extreme (temporary?) caution of the Chinese. For France, the chief importance of its presence in the ranks of the bombers was its visible reintegration into NATO. One can now see how Gaullist ‘independence’ contributed to the world’s division into two blocs and to the Cold War. Average and small powers were able to enjoy a relative margin of manoeuvre. Today, it seems, servility is de rigueur. Yet what a response France’s refusal to associate itself with American police operations might have elicited around the world! It seems then that Spain and Italy would have felt released from their obligations, and Greece would have been able to materialize its hostility. The Germans would have thought twice about it. We could have, and we should have, referred the Americans to their endless tête-á-tête with the English. But don’t hold your breath. It appears that France has need of the protection the American military offers for its far-off enterprises and capital, and that it will sink more and more comfortably into servility to NATO. We obviously cannot expect anything worthwhile from the Atlanticist tradition of the Parti Socialiste, nor from Chirac’s renunciation of everything that made for a semblance of pride in Gaullism. The only conclusion to be drawn is that despite all the talk about the all-powerful economy, to have a strong military apparatus at one’s disposal remains the alpha and omega of having international pretensions and national independence. Europe will amount to nothing if it does not equip itself (but this would require a state that is much more unified and constituted) with military resources, and aero-naval resources in particular, that are totally independent of American control. To this the Americans have already served notice that they’ll oppose a de factoveto. The war in Serbia was a test of power. For it worked both to configure the states of existing power, and it manifested (as it did formerly to Khomeini, then to Saddam Hussein) the absolute will, of the current imperialists to prevent new regional powers being established, something that since the dawn of time has implied the possibility or the reality of war. The intervention in Serbia showed that, except in remote corners of the earth where people can craftily kill each other for decades without ‘morality’ being at all moved, the imperial powers, led by the USA and organized by NATO, with the UN as a scorned cover, dispose of the monopoly, of war in the following form: we will let no one win a war. To counter Iran, Iraq was armed. To counter Iraq, the UN was armed. To counter Serbia, NATO was sent. In all cases, what matters is that the ambitious do not succeed. It might be objected that Westerners, and especially the USA, forged their planetary power by winning wars. Quite right. All that says is that the lesson has been learned: we shall let no one become powerful. That lesson entails another. The logic of power has never been the consequence of noble principles, even if power likes to have it believed. What is not obligatory is to make philosophy subservient to this kind of propaganda. The worst thing is not that philosophy is linked to bloody and daring undertakings. For in this case it remains, even when in extreme error, on the side of invention, on the side of the genius of the weak, on the side of a power to come.The worst thing is to link it, purely and simply, to the arrogance and the self-satisfaction of the master in place. There has always been an imperial triad: first, the military that conquers; second, the commerce that opens the markets; and third, the proselytizing missionary. Irrespective of whether it involves converting people to Christ the King or preaching ‘human rights’, it does not befit the philosopher to occupy this third position. https://madzoski.wordpress/2014/03/25/alain-badiou-on-the-war-against-serbia-who-strikes-whom-in-the-world-today/
Posted on: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 12:18:35 +0000
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