>> Could you carry a sign in a demonstration like the one Laura
Flanders
is supporting -- the one with the theme Yoshie and LP hate of "no
genocide -- no bombs"? (No bombs in this context includes no
ground
troops; so you would be supporting an end to NATO military
intervention.) >>
A good question. First we need to assume for the sake of argument that me carrying a sign in a demo has a scintilla of effect on what happens, a familiar assumption for me. Fine.
My answer is no, I wouldn't. The 'no bombs' portion of the slogan presumably has some effect on the U.S. policy, whereas the 'no genocide' component has none on Milo. As such, the slogan is completely disingenuous. In this context, 'a plague on both your houses' is the Pontius Pilate solution, politically bankrupt, or morality without moorings.
Sometimes (often, unfortunately) you have to choose among unappealing alternatives. For instance, in the Iran-Iraq war, neither regime had much to recommend it, and neither was in the business of genocide against the other's people, by and large. So in that context a revolutionary defeatist position, or a pacifist one, makes sense to me.
In Southeast Asia, the NLF and Ho Chi Minh had legitimacy in contrast to the succession of U.S. puppets. U.S. Vietnamese surrogates on the ground had zero political legitimacy. The U.S. anti-communist crusade, as such, was a clear mark against the U.S. case for the war. That's why comparisons with Kosovo are bogus. Milosevic is no Ho Chi Minh, and the eroding remnants of workers' self-management in Serbia are no comparison with the Vietnam that might have been (as opposed to the one that is, e.g., prostituting itself to Nike). Any analogy between the Serbs and Vietnamese is the anti-imperialist version of the Era of Diminished Expectations.
I'd be happy to see a diplomatic solution if it gave Kovovars their land back, free of Serbian war criminals. There is no indication presently of anything to negotiate about, since Milo gives no indication of interest in any such solution and indeed has little reason to have any. Stopping the bombing altogether would give him zero reason to negotiate. If this were September, 1998 and we were focusing on this with the benefit of some foresight, we would probably have much more agreement on how to proceed.
[I agree w/Kruse on the importance of preventing the spread of the conflict and the incompetence of NATO in this regard, but I do not agree that there is any danger of 'throwing fuel on the fire' since things in Kosovo appears to be as bad as they can get.]
I've said the U.S. record is awful and this commends skepticism over its role now. [By the way, does anybody know what Parenti was referring to when he says the U.S. attacked a "revolutionary" government in Cambodia? Who was this? Prince Sihanouk? And who were the "reformists" in Syria?] I'll even go further and acknowledge that if we have to assign responsibility for how all this developed over the past five years, I'd rank it at least one part U.S. to three parts Milo. But what is happening to Kosovo is sufficiently awful to justify some hope for an effective NATO intervention. Even a country dominated by a NATO garrison, Jim H., that provided some safety for Kosovars would be an improvement on the present situation.
In a long paragraph, I said people were blocking with the Serbs. I believe this was the antecedent for the "this" in your statement:
>> I'm sorry Max, but this is an out and out lie. Nobody on this
list
actually supports Slobo. >>
It could be the wrong interpretation, even a malicious one, but it can't be a lie because it does not go to a fact. More specifically, it is true that nobody is literally supporting Slobo. But blocking does not have the same connotation to me as supporting. The point is that the "no bombing, no genocide" slogan helps Slobo some and the Albanians none. That's close enough for blocking. The slogan reflects the best face of the anti-imperialist position here, but I will treat it as the principal one because it does embody the main issue.
Blocking with Milo also follows from minimizing the cleansing of Kosovo, blaming everything on NATO and the IMF, pointing to other atrocities where the U.S. was either an author or a by-stander, or dwelling on the unambiguous evil of U.S. imperialism.
As for the ad hominem issue, on which I've been tediously vocal, the maxim "scratch a social-democrat find a Nazi" gives me a lot of latitude.
Here's a few alternative maxims which could be distilled into slogans:
1. Self-determination for Kosovo, accomplished by armed NATO/KLA cleansing of Serb military and para-military IN Kosovo, w/no bombing of Serb civilian targets. 2. Massive relief resources to Albania, which apparently is doing the best by the refugees that come its way. [sending them to Guam, etc. is obscene] 3. Free access to Kosovo by human rights monitors
mbs
P.S. I'm still on the case of the million-five murdered Sudanese. Watch this space.