> > Bombing is not immoral. The burden of proof is on you to show this. Lets have some reasons. I take it as a starting point (i.e.self-evident) that peace is everywhere and always preferable to war. > People who send bombers can be. Anybody can be immoral. What theory of morality are you working with? What the hell, lets get into some philosophy. What is it for an agent to be moral? Acting in accordance with a categorical imperative(i.e. rules or maxims)? Acting so as to maximize the total amount of happiness in a given society? Acting rationally? Acting out of self-interest (any libertarians out there?) Pacifists argue that any initiation of the use of force is immoral because it violates someone elses property right of self-ownership. Self-ownership is thorny issue for Marxists, but that's another story. Some Marxists use it defend abortion ( anti-abortion laws are wrong because they violate self-ownership) while they must abandone self-ownership to defend a certain interpretation of capitalist exploitation. > Presently the > people in question are immoral because they are using bombing as a political > substitute for action that the NATO governments, especially the U.S., are > too timid to propose and promote. In and of itself, bombing does not > accomplish anything. Bombing does a lot of things like destroy economies and property, kill people, destroy lives and destroy ecosystems. In econospeak, NATO views these ,as well as the hundreds of thousands of *Muslims* in Iraq starving to death because of US policy, as negative externalities. A price worth paying. Human life is simply an externality. > Whether it makes things worse for Kosovars depends on > what you think is actually going on in the province. If you think there is > nothing but "normal" counter-insurgency, then the bombing makes things > worse. If there is mass murder, then things can't get much worse. There was no mass murder before the bombing and ,what evidence there is, shows no mass murder after the bombing. > > > Those who refuse to condemn the bombing altogether are not immoral if they > believe that some bombing is consistent with further objectives -- saving > Kosova. We have to bomb Kosovo to save it. > > > I speculate that the Administration/Nato are of two minds about the bombing. > One mind holds that the bombing and news of atrocities will prepare the > public to accept a full-scale invasion. This makes some political sense, > but it is craven and immoral: it sacrifices innocent Serbs to indulge the > political cowardice of Western politicians. It also makes tactical sense; > you pummel the Serbian military and economy and soften them up for the > ground war. Again, not necessarily moral, but not irrational either. Quite rational, quite immoral by any standard of morality. > > > The other mind supports the Iraqi strategy -- just keep bombing till the > cows come home. The Kosovars and Serb civilians are completely beside the > point; it's about Nato being boss, not losing face, etc. Bankrupt in every > way. (All the geopolitical scenarios about positioning against a resurgent > Russia, NATO expansion, the war economy, the economic 'crisis' are such > rubbish they are hardly worth disputing.) > > So sure, bombing isn't helping Kosovars. But at this point, a ceasefire > might not help them either. You help them by protecting them, which means > ground troops. Ground troops will escalate the war in Kosovo and possibly the whole region. This will lead to more death and destruction.The effect of NATO's actions over the past few weeks has been the exact opposite of what it intended. (assuming that NATO intended to do good viz. save Kosovo, its people, ensure stability in the region and weaken Milosevic). It follows that if NATO does the exact opposite of what it is doing now ( i.e. stops bombing and starts fair negotiations) it will have the effect that NATO intended when it first started the bombing. Give peace a chance! > > > In one sense I think all of us are going at this from a similar, top-down > view, as if we were little secretaries of state in exile or something. The > real focus should be Kosovars. The first principle is, self-determination > for Kosova. As far as I can determine, both this list and LBO are > Muslim-free zones. We seem to be utterly separated from the principal > victims in this drama. As if we were discussing civil rights in the absence > of any African-Americans. > > I really don't care how retrograde the nationalism of the Muslims may be, > though I wouldn't take Louis' word on this for a second. The Serbs don't > have the right to destroy them because their politics and culture offend > some leftists. No, but the same holds for NATO vis a vis Serbia. Thus NATO has no right to destroy Serbia because it elected Milosevic. BTW, I haven't seen this mentioned yet, but Milosevic is quite moderate compared to his right wing nationalist competitors. Just for the record, I have no sympathy for Milosevic or his government. If the Serbian masses are in a position to overthrow him or vote him out, they should do it. > This isn't Afghanistan, where there was a choice of > regimes -- Taliban versus communist. It was a bit more complicated. There were a variety of Afghani tribes fighting the USSR backed regime. The US naturally chose the most fundamentalist group led by G.Hekmatur (sp?). I always remember that clip of Z. Brezezinski addressing the Mujahadeen "You will win because God is on your side!".The war caused the Stalinist regime to ratchet up the level of oppression which drove a lot of its popular support to the other side. From what I remember there were Mujahadeen fighting with the Bosnian Muslims. A rule of thumb might be that where Muslims are fighting, there are mujahadeen and thus dangers of a Taliban- like regime assuming power. > This is a national liberation > struggle. Whether it's Taliban is irrelevant, because the Serbian regime > has zero legitimacy from any sane left standpoint, vis-a-vis Kosova. I'd rather live under Milosovic than the Taliban but I'm not Muslim. If it is a national liberation struggle ,what right does NATO have under international law or any other criteria, to intervene? Is NATO the KLA's airforce? Should it be? Isn't this a bad precendent? NATO can be the airforce for any guerrilla group it decides? Bomb any government it disagrees with? Pretexts can always be invented. Its sign of weakness on the Left when NATO can get away with anything it wants to. Sam Pawlett
