Max wrote: >>>Ground troops are the only way to prevent further butchery and rescue Kosova.<<< I asked: >> so you're volunteering?<< His response: >If you volunteer to be a peacekeeper or human rights observer armed with a Swiss Army knife and a copy of the writings of Gandhi, I'll enlist.< That's funny, but you should remember the key official premise of this war you're supporting, i.e. that Milosevic is the moral equivalent of Hitler. I can't guess how old you are (not being good at such things), but a lot of "older" men volunteered to fight the _real_ Hitler during the 2nd World War. You wouldn't want to be one of those who puts the old slogan "old soldiers never did, young ones do" into action, would you? But I know that you aren't going to volunteer, just as I'm not going to be a human-rights volunteer. Besides, US/NATO told them all to leave, which of course, opened the door to the abuses that are now being used -- and seemingly exagerrated -- by the official press. As a peace-keeper, I would simply be part of the US/NATO military machine imposing its version of peace (assuming that it wins, now that it has your support). No thanks! Based on what happened after WW2, they'd bring in all but the top Milosevicites to administer occupied Serbia, as long as the administration favored US/NATO goals. (The top Milosevicites would be subjected to war crimes trials, while the winners (Clinton, Blair) would not, as usual.) Whatever Clinton's motives for attacking Serbia, the "peace" they would impose these days would likely be a neoliberal utopia, turning Serbia into an "emerging market." But I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is, to work to end this crazy and criminal war you support. What are you willing to do to support the war? buy war bonds? I take the reference to Gandhi as a suggestion that I'm a pacifist. I'm not and it's amazing how often I've been accused of such lately, as if the only moral stance possible against US/NATO's war is pacifism. I happen to think that war should be avoided as much as possible, but may be necessary in some circumstances (as against the real Hitler). But war as a tactic or as a strategy doesn't make sense. I ask: how does war strengthen the working class and other oppressed groups? It doesn't except that sometimes tight labor markets that arise from a full-scale mobilization give workers more bargaining power. But that's no reason to want to kill a bunch of people, which is what war is about. >> How do you know that the US/NATO will use ground troops better (or for better goals) than they used the strategic bombers? << >One never knows for sure. How do you know the Serbs won't murder every last Kosovar they find, starting tomorrow?< Well, based on their behavior so far (which is all we know), they have chased most ethnic Albanian Kosovars out of Kosova/o, in the process killing a bunch. In this, they were helped by US/NATO bomb-lobbing into the area (and to some extent by KLA attacks). The "mass graves" that I've seen pictures of were too orderly. Mass graves are like the ones that US allies in Guatemala created, with cadavers piled in random stacks. Mass murderers are in a hurry and have no respect for the dead. Similarly, we can extropolate past behavior by the US and now NATO. The US is not fighting for human rights (because I haven't seen them bombing Turkey yet). They're not fighting for democracy. I don't know what Clinton's motives are, but he seems perfectly willing to attack and kill civilians (like the Serbian media-workers, as denounced by Amnesty International). Look how many Iraqis he's willing to kill to punish Saddam for stopping being a US ally. >> That is, why do you trust them [US/NATO] any more than you trust the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine? It seems to me that the US/NATO is simply another group of terrorists, who think that throwing bombs solves problems and makes political points. They're probably the most important group of terrorists around, or at least the most powerful one. US/NATO says that they do their thing for a good cause, but then again so did the Beider-Meinhoff gang. << >All I can say is that, given the above assertion, there are worlds between us. < All I can say is that you don't seem to have studied military foreign policy issues much. I can't think of any other reason why anyone would think that strategic bombing -- with its inevitable "collateral damage" (railroad trains, refugee convoys -- would solve anything any more than the individual terrorists' toss of a bomb does. The PFLP's terrorism is of the "retail" variety, killing fewer people and causing less damage of buildings and the like than the "wholesale terror" strategic of strategic bombing. I don't support either, but I know that the terrorism of the weak is less of a threat than that of the strong, if only because the weak have less power to kill. I wouldn't criticize the PFLP too much if I were you. It's similar to the KLA (which you support) in a lot of ways. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/JDevine.html Bombing DESTROYS human rights. US/NATO out of Serbia now!
