The intervention was a key reason the war ended after multiple years of conflict and ethnic cleansing. Are you saying that ending the war caused more ethnic cleansing afterwards than was already happening? That ending war made things less stable?

[–] ghost_of_faso2@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The intervention also lead to many innocents (like the chinese embasy) being targetted and bombed by US forces.

I do agree that the intervention was likely needed in this case, but that intervention should not have taken the form of carpet bombing as it ended up killing people completely not involved in the conflict; Clinton even apologised for this and recongised it as a negative.

The tensions have never went away however, the campaigns of mass imprisonment have only put it to sleep for a while and if recent tensions are anything to go by, they are likely to escelate again.

My sources on this are reading and being friends with a few people who grew up through this war, it is a harrowing one and I would say that often times its better to have 'no opinion' on matters concerning this unless you have personal stakes in it. Thats not directed at anyone in particular, just more towards americans who use this conflict to score cheap points.

Source; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_bombing_of_the_Chinese_embassy_in_Belgrade

[+] zephyreks@lemmy.ml -24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The war itself made things less stable and, arguably, more people died as a byproduct of the war than if the war had never happened.

The fact that things recovered (ish) is a convenient coincidence and not the expectation. If you look at other times the US or NATO intervened, you'll see why it's not a given that things will be more stable afterwards.

[–] Lucky@lemmy.ml 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well we can play "what if" all we want, but bringing it back to the main point of Sanders, you can argue all you want about if it was the correct course of action but his vote was to stop an invading force.

[+] zephyreks@lemmy.ml -13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Sure, but that's a perfectly valid reason for anti-war protestors to dislike him. There's a belief out there that diplomacy can resolve most conflicts and that military force should only be used after diplomacy is exhausted.

There's a reason the UN hadn't yet approved an intervention.

[–] Lucky@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

That's a fair argument to make

[–] phillaholic@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There’s a reason the UN hadn’t yet approved an intervention.

Russia is on the Security Council and can veto it...

[–] zephyreks@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Russia indicated they would veto and both China and India were also opposed to it (though India doesn't really matter in terms of UNSC resolutions). Remember that Russia had been voting for earlier resolutions on the issue (1160 and 1199) and China had been abstaining to prior votes under the policy of nonintervention on internal matters.

It's important to note that, according to this translation of the Serbian Assembly, on March 23rd, the Serbian government had accepted the notion of Kosovo's autonomy under the condition of avoiding NATO intervention:

The National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia empowers the state delegation to sign a political agreement on self rule in Kosovo-Metohija on which agreement will be reached by representatives of all ethnic communities living in Kosovo-Metohija

(at the time, Albanians were still by far the dominant ethnic community).

I'd argue that NATO intervention was likely to be one of the key factors that stopped Russia from advocating for the agreement. With pressure from all other parties, it's hard to imagine a world where Serbia wouldn't be forced to come to a more agreeable compromise. The OSCE KVM prior to the deterioration of negotiations was doing it's job of preventing further escalation, after all, and it's important to note that only about a third of the 1.2 million Albanians displaced by the war had been displaced up to that point (largely due to work by the KVM) and that, as a direct consequence of NATO intervention, the forced displacement of Kosovar Albanians was accelerated significantly.