> 1) PREDICTION ONE: An Air War cannot be won
what did it win exactly? what was it ever intended to win?
> 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
the demonstrations are nowhere, perhaps nowhere as yet, anything near mass, ie., compared to the mass demonstrations prior to the war. they look pretty much like a gathering of liberals* and priests who's only real power is that 'western cameras' are constantly turned on them waiting for a certain narrative to be confirmed. whether it will or not is anyone's guess. what is clear though is that the leftist opposition to the belgrade govt has collapsed or has been overtaken by a coaltion of liberals and wanting to prove their european credentials and priests who claim milosevic lost their Thing because he was a godless communist. discontent there certainly is; but where will it go? will it place limits on or obstacles in the path of neo-liberalisation as the previous demonstrations did? doubt it. in any case, you shouldn't confuse the narrative desires of newscasters with what is actually occuring.
> 3) MORAL STATEMENT ONE: Intervention could only be justified based on
> International law:
never my concern; but i think this might be more properly characterised as a legalistic statement, not a moral one. otoh, the statement above implicitly assumes a connection between the stated morality and military objectives.
> 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?
it isn't a question of military intervention and never was. the issue of intervention can be complained about as an infringement of law and soveriegnty, which not all those who opposed the war did. or, the intervention can be seen as a part of a process of deadening the anti-austerity movements which both the begrade govt and NATO attempted to do and have done, though from the different perspectives of the various powers, the former national, and the latter euro and US (nations capable of being international powers).
note: * i take it by now the difference between a definition of liberal here and the peculiar one of the US is pretty much understood.
Angela _________