The paradox of humanitarian aid

Humanitarian bombing is a phrase referring to the 1999 NATO bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (24 March – 10 June 1999) during the Kosovo War used by its opponents as an ironic oxymoron in response to the stated goal of NATO to protect Kosovo Albanians, and later about other military interventions stressing human rights reasons. The closely related phrase humanitarian war appeared at the same time. The phrase (tough appeared in a 4 April 1999 New York Times article about the Kosovo War and attributed to Ruth Wedgwood[1][clarification needed]) is often ascribed to Václav Havel,[2] then President of the Czech Republic, strong proponent of the intervention and critic of Slobodan Milošević's regime. However, Havel forcefully refuted his connection to the phrase as such in May 2004, going as far as to call MEP candidate Richard Falbr (who criticised him for coining it) a liar: "Of course not only I haven't invented the obscure term 'humanitarian bombing', but also never even used it and could not have used it, since I have – I dare say – good taste."[3] Later on Havel marked the phrase as „a hokum which I could never have said not even in insanity.“[4]