I think that an important point here that should be emphasized is that if you have good reason to believe that the government of country X has a plan to attack some part of its civilian population, then there is a strong argument that attacking that country militarily may be the *last* thing that you want to do, because there is a long history of wars being used as a pretext and cover for population explulsions, massacres, etc. Indeed, some are suggesting that Milosevic actually calculated that NATO attack would provide him the pretext and suitable environment for expulsions, and I think this is a plausible suggestion. Consider 1948 in Israel. Might fewer Palestinians have been expelled from Israel if the Arab nations hadn't attacked following the declaration of the state of Israel? We'll never know. Maybe more would have been expelled, if the armistice lines were different, maybe Palestinians would have been expelled from the West Bank and Gaza also. On the other hand, maybe the war consolidated the position of the more hawkish camp in the Israeli leadership -- there were divisions (Peretz Kidron in "Blaming the Victims" relates how the civilian population of Nazareth was spared, because the commander of the Israeli forces refused the order to expel its inhabitants.) Certainly the war swept aside the possibility of pressing the enforcement of the 1947 UN partition plan, which would have been much better for the Palestinians than what happened. I'm not saying that a different policy was politically possible at the time, and most folks certainly didn't know what was in store, only that in hin! dsight one can make a good case that a non-military strategy might have had a much better outcome for the Palestinians. Similarly, WWII did not prevent the Holocaust. The actual occupation by Allied forces did halt it, but after it was mostly complete. And the war may well have exacerbated the Holocaust, by strengthening Hitler's position, sealing the borders (this last point is suggested in the recent book "The Myth of Rescue" -- i.e. the war stopped the flow of refugees. I highly recommend the book -- includes an interesting passage pointing out the misleading nature of the exhibit at the U.S. Holocaust museum which suggests that the Allies could have disrupted the Holocaust through bombing.) we're told that we need an alternative besides NATO and "doing nothing," and I'm all for discussing alternatives, but it should be pointed out that 1) it is highly probable that things would be much better than they are now if NATO had never bombed 2) even if one thinks that the international intervention was insufficient before the bombing, that doesn't mean that there was no intervention, or that the intervention was useless. There were OSCE monitors, aid groups, NGOs, including peacekeepers, journalists, and these things have a deterrent effect. Maybe not as much as one would like, but they should not be discounted. I was part of a peace team (CPT) in Hebron in the West Bank from February to July 1996, and I can report to you from direct personal experience that we stopped a lot of bad things from happening. We averaged about 5 people, we had no governmental authority or legitimacy or budget or assistance, and yet we did a lot. The TIPH (Norway) also had a deterrent effect, even though they were severely limited by their mandate: unlike us, they had cars. It was considered common knowledge that fewer bad things happened in Jerusalem and Ramallah than in Hebron and Nablus because there were many internationals in the former and few in the latter, etc. I would say based on my experience, and I think what we've seen in Kosovo bears this out, that a situation of low-intensity war with international unarmed monitors, NGOs, peacekeepers, journalists, aid groups, etc. is highly preferable to one of total war and no monitors. It should also be noted that whatever deterrent effect the threat of external military force is supposed to have is largely eliminated by the actual application of the force. What is the threat now? Only more escalation, precisely the dynamic we want to avoid. But if we're talking about military force that would stop bad things from happening to civilians, then I think the only way you could avoid the likely outcome that military intervention makes things worse for civilians is that the intervention force has massive superiority, intervenes on the ground immediately and is successful immediately, is willing to sustain casualties, and have the protection of civilians as its top priority. In other words, it has to be totally unlike any military that exists or has ever existed or perhaps is ever likely to exist. Thus, I would suggest the following three principles for any intervention force that progressives should support. 1) Participation in it should be entirely voluntary. By "entirely voluntary" I mean that one volunteers for the assignment at the time of the assignment. There can be a standing force, but members of it have to specifically request the assignment. Such a force is most likely to accept danger, and prioritize humanitarian concerns. 2) Such a force should be unarmed. This is most likely to guarantee the "do no harm" principle. Such a force is unlikely to make things worse. 3.) Such a force must not be controlled by the United States, the Security Council, the big powers, or anything like NATO. There is already a literature on this, and indeed were many appeals from the Kosovars for such nonviolent intervention in the past, prior to NATO's intervention. These calls were inadequately responded to simply due to lack of resources. Contributions to CPT are tax-deductible. -Robert Naiman At 12:23 PM 5/26/99 -0400, you wrote: >I would appreciate it if someone forwarded a post (perhaps the one by >Chomsky) on what could have been done to avoid in Kosovo what >happened in Bosnia. Also Proyect once sent something on Havel which I >would like to see again. I really dont have the time to examine this >this issue of alternatives plus people here in pen-l know enough >that I could use or send to >the Hegel list. I just want to get this moron off my back with a >quick answer to his question on the lack of alternatives by the left >(assuming, as I do) that Sebia was planning a major attack against the >Kosovars. Thanks. > ------------------------------- Robert Naiman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Preamble Center 1737 21st NW Washington, DC 20009 phone: 202-265-3263 fax: 202-265-3647 http://www.preamble.org/ -------------------------------
