On Tuesday, April 27, 1999 at 22:28:21 (-0700) Max Sawicky writes: >Lear: > >> Actually, as has been pointed out with no apparent effect on you, the >> bombing has solidified Milosevic's support in the country, as anyone >> could have predicted. An end to the bombing and serious negotiations >> based upon different premises than yours (that is, accept our offer or >> we will bomb you) could very well return the country to normalcy of >> some sort or another. Milosevic, like all ugly rulers, abhors any >> whiff of normalcy. > >"could very well" is not very compelling. With the benefit of hindsight, >it's not difficult to wish that the bombing had never begun. Things could >not be much worse. I was only conditionalizing following your lead: Subject: [PEN-L:5907] Re: Nobel laureates' Kosovo peace initiative! Date: Sun, 25 Apr 1999 12:47:17 "...Only pressure will change the Milo position, and only endless bombing (which I would oppose) or land invasion could create such pressure...." Subject: [PEN-L:5997] Re: Nobel laureates' Kosovo peace initiative! Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 01:19:57 -0700 "...War could liberate Kosova from the Serbs, which would be good for Kosovan workers..." I'm trying not to put those nasty white/black hats on folks. Diplomacy could very well fail. What do you expect me to do, simply *assert* that it will work and all we need to do is send Milosevic some flowers and candy? >I was just being polite, saying I don't recall. To be more blunt, the >anti-bombing sentiment has simply not been strong on Kosovo >self-determination. ... But you can't just be polite and select the worst positions from views you disagree with. >> More Manichean handwaving, Max. The only way to put pressure "on Milo" >> (cute --- we're not destroying a country, we're simply slapping around >> a very naughty man) is not simply to bomb the country. Tyrants fear > >Here again you're conjuring rhetoric out of thin air, not from anything I've >written. You claim that a halt in bombing "signals a halt to *any* commitment to put pressure on Milo" (emph. added) is pretty black and white, is it not? >> democracy, and were we guided by better principles than a thoughtless >> use of force, we might be able to help foster that; but then that >> might require us to look at our past and try to figure out a way to >> pressure our government to do something different, but as this is >> unpalatable to you, that option is out. Also note that "anti-Kosovan" > >This isn't an option. It's a Jimmy Stewart movie. Here you go again with the Cowboys and Indians argument. How do you know that this is not an option? I'm certain people like you said the same thing about the Vietnam War --- that trying to stop our government from the crimes it was committing was just a "Jimmy Stewart movie", that "at this time only practical arguments matter" and that principles "just hold people hostage" (not that you hold those views about Vietnam, naturally). Perhaps you are wrong about this and we are destroying the place and ruining people's live just as we did in Vietnam. Should we invade, we will certainly be throwing thousands of people to their deaths. How can you so callously dismiss diplomacy? Are you so arrogant to pretend to know, sitting comfortably in the beltway, what the possibilities are, given that the Serbs have repeatedly offered very reasonable terms? The only way we can *know* what they think is to pursue it seriously. The only way we'll pursue it seriously is if we, the people, force our government to do so. It's very convenient of you to back-stab diplomacy and democracy and then denigrate them as some sort of sappy fantasy. >I've talked about this ad nauseum. The questions suggest you didn't pay >attention. I can't blame anyone for not reading my posts, only for >criticizing them without reading them. You are interested in liberating Kosovo and you said that "Evidence of a desire to liberate Kosovo would be an invasion". I simply wanted you to clarify if you were pro-invasion *and* pro-bombing, or if you thought the pro-bombers were not interested in liberation, merely misguided, or what... I don't read all that you post, but I do try to be careful when I do read them (though I have been very short on sleep for the past month and a half, so I could have gotten things wrong .... but I don't think so). >First, Chomsky is not on this list. Second, excellent as most of his >commentary is, I still think the "no bombing/no genocide" slogan is fatally >flawed as politics, if not as moral statement. First, do you only discuss views of those on the list? Second, how is his *argument*, with evidence, that genocide has not occurred and that bombing sharply escalated the atrocities and drove hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes a "slogan"? As I read things, it is you who have been extraordinarily sloppy throwing the term "genocide" around, something you are normally quite careful about in other debates. >> Apparently you believe that expressing concern about issues of >> national sovereignty is mere hand-wringing. > >In the face of possible genocide, most definitely. Now it's "possible genocide". The other day (Wed., Apr. 21) you called the murder of some 60 people (if I remember correctly from the article) evidence of "the Serbian regime's style of genocide", which would make the US in Vietnam guilty --- in spades --- of this as well. Which is it going to be? Bill
