>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: NM <nillo at tao.agoron.com>
>
>>The expressed moral position that the US government is by definition more
immoral >>than any other opponent, and thus can never be the justified party
in a military
>>conflict feels like a reductionist political position that assists
knee-jerk
>>political posturing while undermining critical analysis of choices in
>>specific situations.
>
>-"Feels like"? Well, I've been follwing the thread very closely, and
>-everyone who is against the bombing has given a number of well-thought out
>-reasons, grounded in historical analysis of both the Yugo situation in
>-particular and of imperialism in general.
>
>I used "feels like" very specifically to express how the arguments come
>across, not to say that there are not arguments against the bombing. Doug
>and Carroll have been most explicit in their blanket opposition on
principle
>to any military action by the US, irregardless of the specifics of the
>situation, but others have promoted variations.
That doesn't mean they weren't looking at the specifics of the situation, but that there analysis of the greater dynamic of the nature of the US and its interventions make the specifics of a situation irrelevant. That hardly makes it a response that isn't the result of examination or thought, but one that uses a different set of measures. One of the more obvious measures is the complete lack of positive interventions in recent US history. While past performance isn't a guarantee of current performance, I doubt Carrol or Doug are just making a list of interventions, but have instead hit upon the dynamic that makes these interventions a net negative, regardless of the reason.
>Such a blanket opposition is not an untenable position to argue for; I just
>think it is wrong.
Why is it untenable? Don't just declare, explain.
>>Why the pro group continues in this sort of
>>smear of the antis as uncritical knee-jerkers is beyond me.
>
>I regret the word "knee-jerk" since it does imply the idea of "uncritical"
>when I meant to convey "blanket principle." Most who hold a rigid anti-US
>intervention position have put great thought into that position; I just
>think such a blanket principle is inappropriate for the reasons I gave.
What reasons have you given? You mentioned that it seemed reductionist, but that hardly goes along with your knowledge that the anti camp has put great thought into the position.
>>The US is not a hegemon and I think this is what
>>the pro camp is missing. There are other forces on the ground, the choice
>>is not between US bombing and Milosevic killing with ground troops. The
>>choice is between the people in the Balkans being fed up with war and
doing
>>something about it (as the peace movement in the Balkans, the strikes, the
>>high rates of desertion all show) and the US using Kosovo as a pretense to
>>cement power and actually, to perpetuate the rule of Milosevic, who is not
>>being targetted and will never be targetted.
>
>Hegemony does not mean exclusive action by the hegemon; in fact, it applies
>the opposite, since the very idea of hegemony (as opposed to totalitarian
>control) assumes a network of institutions and proxies by the hegemon which
>boxes in actions by other actors.
I am aware of what the meaning of hegemony is. And I continue to affirm that the United States is not a hegemon.
>If there is evidence that the desertions in the Serbian army had crippled
>the ability to suppress and murder Kosovans, I might be convinced. But
that
>evidence just has not been there.
Have you looked? Gar just posted a stat on the number of ethnic Albanian in Kosovo who have been killed, (2000) it hardly sounds like the result of a massive war machine, or the "wholesale genocide" you claimed it was. The fact that Milosevic has had to release prisoners from jail en masse to step up the suppression since the bombing also suggests that he is running out of usable bodies in the regular army.
>>So what? We should protest those actions that feed that barbarism- the
>>poverty, the intolerance, the political self-dealing among elites, and so
>>on. Unfortunately, the protests during that phase of the cycle are never
>>that large.
>
>-Imperialism does feed the barbarism. And when war hits, this shows the
>-barbarism in sharp relief, which is why the demos get bigger. That is
>-precisely when we can argue about the connections between war and poverty
>-and intolerance etc., because it shows the limits of peace under
>-imperialism.
>
>This is the fallacy that I most disagree with. Times of war are usually
the
>point where state repression and jingoism most limit discussions and
>criticism of the state.
They don't limit discussions, they may suppress them. Since the left in the US is not being suppressed at the moment, it has a responsibility to speak out, and not just shrug and say "Go ahead and bomb." Additionally, there was quite a bit of wariness in recent interventions; when was the last time a journalist asked a president other than Clinton about wagging the dog? When was the last time before this past year's attacks that Congressional leaders have accussed the President of bombing a country to deflect attention from scandals? Support for the bombing is growing in the US , but slowly (from 47 percent to 60 percent, after four days of constant propagandizing, compare that to the 85+ in the Haiti/Bosnia and 90%+ during the Gulf War). The "rally around the flag" effect, such as it is, is attenuated in times of relatively low political efficacy, which is what we are experiencing today. There is space and room for the left to make these points, the problem is actually finding some leftists to make them.
> Many of the anti-interventionists argue that it is
>precisely the war that has consolidated Milosevic's power and prevented the
>peace movement there from promoting critical discussion of the government's
>actions. As you argue, "the peace movement is evaporated under the
pressure
>cooker of the bombs." Why doesn't war put the Yugoslavian government's
>barbarism in "sharp relief"?
It does. However, it also puts people under immediate threat from cruise missiles and F-15s. Clearly, people in the US, because they aren't hiding in their basements while bombs rain down on them, are in a different political situation than people in Serbia. Additionally, the barbarism we speak of is a systematic one. The increase in anti-NATO protests in Athens, Skopje and other areas are positive goods in my accounts, precisely because the people who are close to the situation, but not involved directly by being bombed do see the barbarism of the entire situation in that sharp relief. With any luck, this will cement the Balkans against NATO.
>Why does war silence the peace movement there, but empower it in the US and
>Europe?
Because we're not being bombed. What a silly question.
>Wars that turn bad and lose popular support - like the Vietnam War
>or Russia's war in Afganistan - do open up critical discussion about
>regimes, but that is not a general process by which war opens up critical
>space, but only a process by which a range of folks criticize the regime to
>distance themselves from association with being a loser.
But there has been critical discussion about the lack of a mission and about interventions in general this entire decade, from the Gulf to Somalia to the recent attacks in the Sudan and Afghanistan etc etc. The increasing number of low scale quickie bombing runs is being critiqued and is less popular than the wars and interventions of the past.
>Historically, wartime has been the most restricted periods of critical
>commentary on regimes. I have this sense of peace activists thinking every
>war is the Vietnam War, so protests will gain momentum in the same way. It
>just doesn't happen.
You complain that the anti group is not examining the specifics of the case, and then you do the same. Much of the "young" left today came to political consciousness with the Gulf War. Critiques and protests of the invasion of Haiti were quite large, especially in places with a large number of Haitian-Americans like here in New York. Even in this invasion, there is no "rah rah" central, even in the government, just resignation. The public is getting more cynical, the choice we have is whether to let them get cynical and apathetic, or cynical and angry, and then just angry.
>It is actually during peacetime, during the run-up to conflict, that the
>largest space for critical protest exists. It bewilders me that the Left
>continues to time protests for the aftermath of hostilities rather than
long
>before during the peacetime leadup to barbarism. Of course, it is easier
to
>motivate our troops with the flashpoint of war, but that is partly because
>Left leadership has primed them for action at those points.
The problem is that the premises you are stating are wrong. This is why you are bewildered. Much the same way every war was not Vietnam, every war is not World War II. Criticism of post Cold War interventions have been different and more powerful than those before, even given the short term timescale of most of them.
>But as some folks have noted, mass demonstrations for a free Kurdistan
>during "peace" exposes the contradictions of US hegemony far more than
>dissent during a war with stated aims to protect victims of repression. Of
>course there are contradictions in that position, but the public is less
>likely to listen to those contradictions in the heat of war than during
>times when our troops have not been officially commited on one side or the
>other.
Whose troops? They aren't mine. And peace rightfully belongs in quotes, because there isn't any peace to speak of when it comes to Kurdistan.
>>Because of course, every Serb is a wild eyes freak ready to kill every
>>single non-Serb in the Balkans. Nope, there is nobody there to support,
no
>>peace movement, nothing like that. And those crazy, swarthy bastards must
>>die. Oh yes.
>
>Again the contradiction; war empowers the peace movement in the West but
>does not help it in the Balkans?
It isn't a contradiction for the reasons I pointed out above. I didn't say it didn't help it in the Balkans, I said it didn't help it in Serbia. It is difficult to have a demonstration when you are being bombed, or to desert when you are being bombed. It is easy to have a demonstration when the bombs are a continent or even a country a way, which explains the number of demos in the areas surrounding, but not in Serbia.
> During the height of conflict, both peace
>movements initially lose public visibility and credibility; that is the
>nature of jingoistic entrace into war. What will matter is how people
react
>on both sides to protracted conflict.
What jingoism is being spouted in the US? Where are the cheerleaders? Instead, the news shows resigned sighs and publicly comments, within 24 hours, that the bombing has seemingly backfired by encouraging further repression.
>It is because I believe that every Serb is not a wild-eyed freak that I am
>skeptical that they will continue to support a regime that, in defense of
>slaughter of Kosovans, failed to agree to a negotiated solution that would
>have prevented war.
Actually, the Serbs agreed to the settlment. They did not agree to the troops being planted in the middle of the front. So the US and NATO bombs them. "Put in our troops or we bomb you, then put in the troops ourselves" is rather basic imperialism. How this is lost on so many of the people here is bewildering.
>On the other hand, whatever Serbian unions and activists do, the hope is
>that US intervention will give Kosovan ethnic albanians more chance to
>organize and defend themselves.
Except that, as we have already seen, the bombing has led to stepped up repression and actually, a reduced ability to organize, since areas of Kosovo are also being bombed. it is difficult to organize when one is being attacked by the Serbian criminals (the guys from prisons) and may also end up as collateral damage in a NATO strike.
>The story is any case is unlikely to have a happy outcome, at best only
>having a less horrific outcome. Those opposing the bombing may be correct
>that it will only make things worse; as others have said, this is a point
of
>honest disagreement in analysis of likely outcomes.
Feel free to actually ignore the pre-bombing number of deaths (2000) versus the number of deaths that have occurred, of both ethnic Albanians and Serbs, in the past four days. We're not talking about a likely outcome, we're talking about a current event.