Will NATO bomb in future?

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Fri Jun 11 08:46:55 PDT 1999


Chris Burford quoted:


>Milosevic caved in not because the air strikes were working, but because he
>realised that this bombardment became the lowest common denominator around
>which NATO countries maintained their consensus, and could therefore be
>continued indefinitely at a negligible human cost to the west. This,
>coupled with serious preparations for a ground offensive, forced Belgrade
>to accept the deal. The technique of just spraying people with bombs from
>the air has, therefore, not been vindicated.

In what sense? The US & its NATO buddies have shown that they can destroy the physical infrastructure of a reasonably advanced country at no cost to the bombers. If they'd kept it up they could have destroyed the social infrastructure too. Sure the bombing didn't succeed if you think the goal was to prevent a "humanitarian catastrophe." But if you think the point was to demonstrate NATO's power and scare the hell out of other potential targets, then it looks lots more like a success.

By the way, it looks like Paul Rogers has been proven wrong again, just as he was during the Gulf War.

Doug



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