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Date sent: Fri, 07 May 1999 11:53:27 -0700
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: Sid Shniad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: PEOPLE IN CHARGE OF BOMBING DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOING
The Province Friday 7 May 1999
Opinion
PEOPLE IN CHARGE OF BOMBING DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOING
The question is not whether something should be done but what.
The organization with the responsibility for "doing things" is
the UN Security Council.
By Rafe Mair
An open letter to President Clinton and Prime Minister Blair --
and, I suppose, if I'm writing the organ grinders I might just as well
send a copy to the monkey, Prime Minister Chretien.
Now gentlemen, recognizing that you are set in authority over
us I shall watch my language and manners and simply ask this:
What the hell made you ever suppose you could bomb people into
submission? And why, oh why do you continue adverting to
Munich in 1938, Neville Chamberlain, and all that stuff?
Is it possible that you don't know that Munich was about
carving up one sovereign state in favour of another? That it was
this which distinguished it, at least in law, from Hitler invading the
Rhineland in 1936 contrary to the Treaty of Versailles and made it
different, though less so, from the forced Anschluss with Austria in
1938? The Rhineland belonged to Germany and Austria, judging by
the joyous maidens strewing Der Fuehrer's path with garlands,
consented to the arrangement.
Can it possibly be that you don't understand that the Gulf War
eight years ago was again about a tyrant taking someone else's
country? And that whatever you might wish to be the case, Kosovo
is part of Yugoslavia.
Perhaps it ought not to be. Maybe a referendum on self
determination of peoples is appropriate, But at this moment,
gentlemen -- and I repeat myself because, with respect you seem
slow learners -- Kosovo is legally a province of Yugoslavia.
Now everyone agrees that Slobodan Milosevic is a very bad
actor -- the only one in the area nastier is his wife. And he has been
active in ethnic cleansing, following the example set by Croatia
when they ethnic cleansed the bejabbers out of Serbians. The
question is not whether something should be done but what.
The organization with the responsibility for "doing things" is the
United Nations Security Council. I need not remind any of you
gentlemen of that because your nations are all members. Now I
understand that you thought of going that route but that two
permanent members, China and Russia, wouldn't go along with the
use of force.
Is it your position that because you couldn't get your way
with the Security Council you were then entitled to find some
other organization to do your bidding? That somehow this
made it quite appropriate to convert NATO, formed as and
hitherto a defensive organization, into an offensive outfit?
Did it not occur to you that China and Russia might be right?
Each of them has had their hands full trying to force people to do
their will -- indeed Russia is especially experienced in that regard --
and probably had some sage advice that you would have done well
to heed? Do you not know that Yugoslavia held down 600,000
German soldiers during World War II and that the reason Stalin
permitted the late President Tito to break out of the Iron Curtain in
1948 was not some passing liberal fancy, but the clear knowledge
that the Red Army would be occupied forever in fighting Yugoslav
partisans if he invaded?
Gentlemen, have any of you been to Yugoslavia? I don't mean
by first-class jet travel to Belgrade or perhaps a hop into Sarajevo
for some skiing -- I mean have you driven around the place as I
have? It is, as a wag well put it, Viet Nam with mountains. There
can hardly be on the face of this planet a better place for guerrillas
to hold down a modern army and a modern air force. If NATO
sends ground troops into the Balkans it will be Chechnya, Viet Nam
and Afghanistan all rolled up into one with Tibet and Mongolia
thrown in. That may well be what Russia and China were trying to
tell you.
I really hate risking turning this subtle bit of soft diplomacy of
mine into a screed but are you heads of government telling us mere
mortals (who must weigh your words, so carefully screened though
spin doctors into the CNN mikes) that you didn't realize that by
bombing hell out of Serbia you would create a living hell for the
very people you set out to save -- the poor Kosovars?
I have nothing to add, gentlemen, except that once more you
prove, as if more proof were necessary, that Mair's Axiom I is
unassailable: You make a very serious mistake assuming that people
in charge know what the hell they're doing.
[PEN-L:6526] (Fwd) PEOPLE IN CHARGE OF BOMBING DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOIN
ts99u-1.cc.umanitoba.ca [130.179.154.224] Fri, 7 May 1999 23:08:00 -0500
