>Surely the purpose of a critical stance towards say the Serbian
>government, or NATO, is to understand the tendencies of motion in the
>world - i.e. what is likely to happen next - with a view towards
>intervening and changing that motion? I.e. criticism is about political
>action, right?
>
>If that is that case, then surely numbers are useful not as a guide
>towards some moral choice (which remains an essentially passive, merely
>textual decision of who to support), but as a guide towards understanding
>the laws of motion of a current situation.
Numbers are useful for other reasons also. They tell you something about the intentions of the perpetrators. They are also important when it comes to debunking the usual myths about "our side" and "theirs," usually communists but not always. To take one example, the media was rife with exaggerated statistics of deaths under the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia (and still is for all I know), and these inflated numbers were usually used as evidence of how bad the communists are. A similar crime in our sphere of influence in East Timor went unreported for a long time. And even when it was reported often did not include the death tolls and almost never contained any ideological attacks on the capitalism. Acquiring the facts on these two events shows that the human costs were similar in scale, and is powerful evidence against the mantra of "communism bad, capitalism good."
>How does the conclusion that, based on the numbers, Serb actions in Kosova
>are 'similar' to Israeli actions in Lebanon, lead anywhere? I think one of
>the big failures of left critique/action with regards to Kosova (in
>Britain, at least) is that left concern with the Kosova situation large
>seems to be limited to when people are getting killed.
Certainly using a simple body count to make comparisons is too narrow a focus. Other factors and issues are as or more important. I was merely responding to Angela's comment that the numbers really didn't matter.
As for comparing Israel and Kosovo, what's wrong with using a body count metric, among other things? I think such comparisons are legitimate, and illuminate reality as opposed to the filtered version we get through US propaganda. It isn't intended as an organizing device, but as a means of lifting the fog of ideology.
Brett