Two points here.
1) I've see the concentration camp analogy pulled out to support bombing Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, Vietnam. For some unknow reason Reagan neglected to make any Hitler comparisons when we invaded Grenada. The present Serb government (I refuse to let the Serb people put all their responsiblity on one leader) has comitted atrocities -- but in Kosovo not at the Hitler level. 2) I think if NATO took all your suggestions, went in with ground troops, wiped out the Serbian army, granted independence (after that mere automony would be out of the question) to Kosovo things would get better not worse. Since there is no way in hell NATO would support most of the democratic opposition in Serbia who tends to lean to the left, the following would happen: A) A hell of a lot of Serbian, Albanians and NATO ground troops would be killed in the glorious cause. B) The KLA government in Kosovo would immediately start on it's own atrocities -- including of course killing off moderate Albanians. C) The Serbian military (left pretty much intact to ensure "stability") the usual U.S. (and don't kid your self that this is not a U.S. show) policy would meanwhile commit atrocities against any non-serbs in it's territory. 3) You yourself doubt that NATO will use ground troops -- in which case the bombing is for nothing. The justification for a war cannot be what some ideal state would do, but what the actual likely consequences are. My guess, based on sound historical precedent, is that the U.S. will manage to royally screw things up and get a lot more people killed than would have died without the intervention. Actually ground troops aren't that unlikely. If they are deployed Clinton will wait until bombing alone has had a "fair shake" ,and war hysteria has been whipped up a little higher. (Already public support for this shit has reached the 60% mark.)
Would you like some predictions as to where all this will lead? It is going to have to be sketching out some alternate possibilities though -- I don't have a better crystal ball than the rest of you. The only problem is that all the consequences I can see are bad.
1) We don't get into a ground war. A deal is struck to the present Serbian government's liking. Basically they would relinquish Southern Kosovo, and keep Northern Kosovo which has all the regions natural resources. Of course they will ethinically cleanse the region they keep (i.e. driving people out of their homes, plus murder and rape to encourage a quick withdrawal. Or maybe they agree to automony once they have committed genocide in Kosovo to the point where Albanians are in the minority. 2) No deal is struck, no ground war starts and former Yugoslavia turns into another Iraq. We continually bomb, lauch sanctions (not quite as effective as those against Iraq, so we don't kill quite as many Serbian children as we've managed to kill Iraqui children.) Serbia continues to massacre Albanias. 3)The U.S. sends in ground troops. The Serbs prove as good at guerilla war as the Pentagon pessimists say. (I don't automatically believe Pentagon warnings. They have nothing to lose and everything to gain by overestimating their targets fearsomeness.) So now you have a war in which both Serbs and Albanians die in much larger numbers than has happened to date. Oh yeah, and Clinton gets a new nickname Lyndon Baines Clinton. 4) A ground invasion is lauched, and it proves to be another Iraq style Turkey shoot. The U.S. still keeps Albania part of Yugoslavia -- but with U.S. "peacekeepers". The KLA, as the heroes of the momemnt win democratic elections in Kosovo and start slaughtering Serbs. The U.S. does nothing about this. It also holds new elections in Serbia , trying the former Serb government as war criminals, and occupies serbia with peace keepers. Angry at the U.S. occupation Milo sympathizers get elected in the new free elections. Death squads from the Serbia manage to slip the Kosovo border and start massacreing Albaninian civilians. Albanian death squads retaliate against Serb civilians. The U.S. sees this as a "criminal" matter, not part of the peace-keeping mission and does nothing.
My guess is that no mattter what happens -- the death toll per annum
in Kosovo is going to higher per annum not lower for many years to
come.
>>Gar Lipow <lipowg at sprintmail.com>:
>>(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.)
>GN: The mighty Russian Empire was incapable of invading
Chechnya or Afghanistan. It is rather doubtful they
would Nuke the U.S. over Serbia. There's the question,
"what's in it for them?" In WWI, Russia wanted to
expand at the expense of Germany, Poland, etc. There
was "something in it for them." There's nothing here
for them. Sound and fury.
I'm not talkinga about an immediate threat. But we are treating the Russians with total contempt. This is not the first time. One of these days some Russian leader is going to forget rational calculations, and remembert that they've still got nukes and press the fuckin button. It might be worth remembering that the U.S. is not the only country capabable of practicing the "madman" theory of politics. For a nice bonus, next election may result in an actual psycho governing Russia. - --
P.S. -- Doug, sorry I am going over limit. The issue is important, and I go for months at a time without posting.