I think that Gar is absolutely correct.
michael yates
Gar Lipow wrote:
>
> Prior to the bombings, the official U.S. figures were 2,000 ethnic
> Albanians killed in Kosovo -- as Noam Chomsky pointed out about the
> number of Colombians killed annually by the Colombian military -- in
> the face of rather nastier Guerillas than FARC. (None of which
> justifies what the Milo was doing.)
>
> Since the bombing, the massacres of Kosovors have escalated. The
> number of ethnic Albanians forced to flee have increased. I have
> nothing in *principle* against the idea that the U.S. military could
> accidentally wander onto the right side of history (as happened in
> WW2). But I see no evidence here. In fact 100% of the evidence so far
> is that bombing has made things worse for the people it was supposedly
> trying to help, weakened the democratic opposition to Milo in
> Yugoslavia, alienated Russia and greatly damaged the chances of long
> term peace between the U.S. and Russia. (And to those who call that
> appeasement -- all U.S. presidents prior to Clinton had the very
> sensible policy that you damn well do put some effort into not
> provoking a war with people with large number of nuclear warheads
> pointed at your cities.) The point is we are taking all these risks
> and hurting rather than benefiting the people of Kosovo.
>
> Now we are talking about a ground war. Since military strategy is
> not my area of expertise, I am not going to assume that a large number
> of NATO troops will die if a NATO ground war starts. But I would be
> willing to bet that more than 2000 Serbians and ethnic Albanians die
> if a ground war starts. If a ground war does not start then this was
> another in a long list of American "let's kill people to send a
> message" actions. If you want to send a message, use e-mail. Bombs and
> missiles transmit death, not information. This is not a video game.
>
> And the worst of it is, we did have other options. At a certain point
> we simply held out peace treaty and told Milo, sign it. These were the
> "negotiations" during the last three or four weeks prior to the
> bombing (which was only delayed that long to give the Albanian
> Kosovors a chance to sign it as a cover for the bombing we already
> intended to do.) If you seriously want peace in Kosovo, try including
> non-governmental organizations (such as the "Women In Black") in the
> negotiations -- not giving them veto power of anything, but having
> their representatives in the room to make suggestions and bridge
> differences. Not as glamorous as bombing, not as flashy -- but a damn
> sight more likely to do some good.
>
> Since there is no chance this bombing will save a single Kosovar
> Albanian's life, there must be some other purpose in it (whether the
> ones mentioned by Yoshie are correct or not, something of the sort
> must explain it). For Milo, of course this bombing is a wonderful
> thing. His bare majority, in the face of an outside attack, will turn
> into an overwhelming majority. Increased repression is tolerated.
> Public opinion turns against dissenting parties, and alternative
> media, as a threatened people rally round their leader.