-----Original Message----- From: Gar Lipow <lipowg at sprintmail.com> To: LBO talk <LBO-talk at lists.panix.com>
>So far you have been concentrating on criticizing the critics, without
>spending any effort to make your case. I ask for one shred of evidence
>that the current war will make things better rather than worse..
If the Serbian government's military and police capacity is impaired by bombing, that will give the military forces in Kosovo itself a greater ability to defend themselves. That will strengthen the Kosovan forces and possibly force the Serbian government into a negotiated settlement.
Hopefully that will be enough, but in all honesty it may take ground forces by NATO to help defend Kosovan villages. Clinton may not be willing to do so because popular support in the US for the war is only moderate, but that would be the best way to prevent the ethnic clensing that is underway.
I will honestly say that it is not clear that we can prevent the slaughter in Kosovo without ground troops, but it is clear that stopping the bombing will guarantee that the slaughter will continue. So given a guarantee of continued repression and ethnic clensing -- and we have a track record of years by Milosevic to support that prediction -- the chance of stopping that slaughter is one we should take.
The Serbs are bombing villages and killing civilians. We are bombing military targets and killing soldiers. I am not happy with war, but if there is a just war, this is it.
--Nathan Newman