>Okay, since I jumped back into the Kosovo discussion, and since I missed the
>discussions at the end of the war, I am curious how the anti-war folks have
>reanalyzed certain predictions and views made at the beginning of the
>bombing.
Leninist-International run by Mark Jones, and Proyect's Marxism at Panix "Open to all views within Marxism" had to impose censorship. A glaring admission of defeat for bombast, while they continued sniping at LBO-talk.
On this list there was some discussion of the weakness of the anti-war movement, and some real sense that the war was on a knife edge of success or failure. My impression was that the anti-war movement went quiet when the magnitude of the Serb fascism became apparent, but those who opposed that, did not want to crow in support of a flagrantly destructive bombing campaign by NATO.
Clearly with the international conference in Sarajevo today, the victors are creating the history. They have accelerated the incorporation of the Balkans into the western European mega market, and are prepared to invest a bit more to do so.
Meanwhile the dumping of Wesley Clarke indicates the underlying tensions within the western alliance and between US agencies. Presumably it suited the Pentagon to let the Brits take over a higher profile with Mike Jackson. Having humiliated Clarke his silence is now being bought by talk of an ambassadorship. I wonder where. Belize?
However I do not really agree with how Nathan puts the moral challenges and assumptions, and with how others have replied. The morality of all this was decidedly relative. It is more important to analyse the underlying forces that were at play, independent of the conscious will of any individuals, and decide where the tide of history is going.
The left opportunists could not respond to Leninist concept that it is sometimes true that
"imperialism is progressive compared with pre-monopoly capitalism"
People did not grasp the nettle sufficiently that the imperialist features of this war would have been opposed more convincingly if the left had not appeared to oppose the idea of any intervention at all against fascism, racism, and apartheid in the Balkans.
The result is that after a war that was in fact quite a close run thing, imperialism has come out appearing very much stronger.
The people who rocked the City of London on June 18th steered well clear of the dubious politics of Milosevic's fascist reconstruction of socialism. The fight against imperialism is taking new forms.
Chris Burford
London
There are three points made early in the war that have been
>undermined by the reality of subsequent events, so I wonder how folks are
>explaining it. Two of the statements were empirical predictions and one was
>based on a moral evaluation of when intervention could be justified.
>
>1) PREDICTION ONE: An Air War cannot be won and terror bombing will just
>harden Serbian resistance: Well, whatever one thinks about the morality of
>the NATO intervention, the empirical fact is that the basic goal of forcing
>Serbia to accept a NATO troop occupation of Kosovo was achieved through the
>pure application of air power, something most analysts (including a strong
>suspicious by myself I admit) thought was unlikely. Clinton and his NATO
>cohorts were on that point smarter than many of those "experienced military
>analysts" who were trotted out to denigrate his military planning and
>tactics. And the estimated 6000 Serbian deaths is far less than the Serbian
>population would likely have suffered with a ground war invasion. (Whether
>there would have been fewer Kosovar deaths with such a strategy is a more
>open question.)
>
>2) PREDICTION TWO: NATO bombing would decimate Milosevic's opposition and
>harden support for his regime: Well, the recent mass demonstrations against
>Milosevic show that prediction to be false; in fact there is a reasonable
>basis to believe that the bombing was successful largely because it
>increased resistance to Milosevic and, fearing internal revolt, Milosevic
>had to end the war in order to stabilize his regime against growing
>discontent.
>
>3) MORAL STATEMENT ONE: Intervention could only be justified based on
>International law: The point Charles and I were arguing when I left, the
>subsequent indictment of Milosevic by the International Human Rights
>Tribunal and the United Nations approval of KFOR occupation of Kosovo would
>seem to, at least retroactively, shine a nice international law gloss over
>the whole operation.
>
>So for those who held one or more of these positions at the beginning of the
>NATO intervention, how do the empirical events refuting them change or
>modify your thinking either about the Kosovo intervention or evaluating
>military interventions in general?
>
>--Nathan
>
>