-Caveat Lector- ~~~~~~~~~~~~ A<>E<>R The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority. -Thomas Huxley + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Forwarded as information only; no endorsement to be presumed + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. ----- Original Message ----- From: LM <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: LM-commentary <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, April 09, 1999 9:13 AM Subject: LM COMMENTARY: Blair's 'humanitarian' war/04-09-99 : : WHY BLAIR'S 'HUMANITARIAN' WAR IS EVEN WORSE : : Mick Hume, LM editor : : For the first time, a Labour prime minister leads Britain into a major : international war. What's more, Tony Blair is being cheered on loudest by : the 'peacenik' Guardian and 'Red' Ken Livingstone, while Tory MPs and the : Daily Mail worry about the war. If anybody still doubts that the era of : traditional right v left politics has ended, let them inspect the evidence : in the craters Bomber Blair and his NATO allies have left behind in Serbia. : : Some on the old left see this as a case of New Labour taking over the : mantle of Thatcher-style militarism. But it is worse than that. The grim : truth is that those who now wage war in the name of humanitarianism are : even more dangerous than the old war parties. : : Blair himself has made clear that the war against Milosevic's Serbia 'is no : longer just a military conflict. It is a battle between Good and Evil; : between civilisation and barbarity'. : : In such a fundamental battle, the righteous do not feel themselves : constrained in the way one might do during a mere 'military conflict'. : : Traditional right-wing militarists might have tailored their battle : strategy to take account of the needs of realpolitik and diplomacy; after : all, their wars were only supposed to uphold their national interests. : Blair's war, on the other hand, is a grand mission to save humanity. And : when you are running such a high-minded crusade, you need recognise no : restraints on the ground. Those who proclaim that they have right on their : side can do no wrong. : : That is why, as they drop their cluster bombs and fire their Cruise : missiles from the vantage point of the moral high ground, Blair and his : ministers and generals refuse even to consider that NATO's missions are : killing people and destroying a country. They are simply 'degrading' the : 'killing machine' of the evil Milosevic. Confronted with the fact that : their war has caused a catastrophe in Kosovo, they insist that NATO air : strikes are actually preventing a humanitarian disaster. Faced with the : hard evidence of how NATO bombing raids have reduced areas of the Kosovan : capital, Pristina, to rubble, they say that the Serbs must have inflicted : the damage themselves. : : If NATO's Good Humanitarians believe that they are necessarily innocent of : any offence, then they are equally certain that the Evil Serbs must be : guilty of everything of which they have been accused. So foreign secretary : Robin Cook, defence secretary George Robertson and their media mouthpieces : report as fact every horror story coming out of the war zone. : : And when these are proved to be untrue (as when 'executed' ethnic Albanian : leaders turn up alive; a Pristina football stadium housing a 'concentration : camp' of 10 000 is found to be empty; or the school where '20 teachers were : murdered in front of their pupils' turns out to be in a village of only 200 : people), they refuse to admit it. Why worry about the facts when there is : always another unsubstantiated atrocity tale that can justify sending in : helicopter gunships for the cause of Good? : : If there is no restraint on the conduct of Blair's humanitarian war, there : can be no questioning of it either. Uncooperative BBC journalists are : accused of aiding the evil Milosevic, while Serb TV is threatened with : bombing unless it starts broadcasting NATO propaganda. Norman Tebbit was a : champion of free speech by comparison to this. : : This war is not about Kosovo. It is an out-of-control moral crusade, which : Blair went into without any clear war aims; a war launched on the premise : that Something Must Be Done to demonstrate how his ethical New Britain : bestrides the world as a force for Good. It is a crusade which has taken on : a dynamic of its own, jacking up the military stakes along with the : righteous rhetoric, as the KLA is transformed from a proscribed terrorist : organisation into an unofficial member of the NATO alliance, and more NATO : ground troops are sent to the region - purely for humanitarian purposes, of : course. : : Through all this, the loudest criticism which Bomber Blair has had to cope : with from most of the erstwhile peace lobby is that NATO should make more : war against Serbia, not less. The crusading journalists, actors and others : of the liberal left are now getting what they have demanded for much of the : past decade - a humanitarian Jihad against the Serbs. In their certainty : that NATO is on the side of the angels, they insist that still more : ruthless intervention is the only solution for Kosovo. : : Yet a rational look back at the trouble that has afflicted the former : Yugoslavia through the 1990s would surely draw the opposite conclusion. : Since 1991, outside intervention has done nothing but exacerbate, inflame : and perpetuate the conflicts across all of the former Yugoslav republics. : Kosovo is the last act of a Yugoslav tragedy made in the West. : : Those who want to ignore that lesson, and insist instead that they have a : moral responsibility to do 'something' over Kosovo, might like to note Noam : Chomsky's recent evocation of the Hippocratic principle: 'First, do no harm.' : : But then, humanitarian NATO air strikes don't do any harm, do they? : : ----------------- : : There will be a demonstration against the NATO bombings on Sunday 11 April, : meeting at 12 noon at Victoria Embankment in London; and also on Saturday : 17 April, meeting at 1pm at Speakers' Corner, Marble Arch, London : : : : ------------------------------------------------------------------ : If you are not on this mailing list and would like to join, create a mail : from the address at which you would like to receive the commentaries - : : To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> : Body: Subscribe LM-commentary Yourname : : You should receive a confirmation of your subscription to the list. : : To unsubscribe, create a mail from the address at which you are subscribed : and send to the same address with - : : To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> : Body: Unsubscribe LM-commentary : : If you have problems (un)subscribing, email: : <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. : : ------------------------------------------------------------------ : You don't have to keep this Commentary to yourself. 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