-----Original Message-----
From: Brett Knowlton <brettk at unica-usa.com>
To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
>There are no other terms that would protect the Kosovo population. Without
>troops, as has been proven, the population of Kosovo was only a week away
>from mass murder and expulsion. There is no assurance that Milosevic can
>give now that he has proven himself (again) a butcher.
-But the terms of the agreement are an end to Serb repression in the region, -aren't they? I thought it was a cease-fire agreement. If Milo fails to -keep to the agreement, then fine, you've got a point. But at least we -should give him a chance to abide by his word.
You argue as if there have not been previous agreements on Kosovo. Milosevic has repeatedly agreed to stop butchering Kosovans and has repeatedly broken his word. This is not a case of bomb first, negotiate later, but of negotiate, agreement, Milosevic breaks agreement, more negotiation, agreement, breaking of agreement - repeat a few more times - and finally as cultural genocide and mass murder escalates, a belated - in some ways too late - intervention.
>What Saddam wanted to do was widen the debate over
>weapons of mass destruction to include Israel. Not an unreasonable
>position, but this was something the US rejected outright. Hussein was
>also willing to negotiate over some disputed oil fields on the
>Iraqi-Kuwaiti border (which had been long-running source of friction
>between Iraq and Kuwait), but we said bluntly that we expected him to
>withdraw to the old border. Saddam was not given the option of negotiation
As I said, the process was not the problem in the Gulf War, it was the morality of the war in any case. Trying to second-guess negotiating ploys and positions between two self-interested parties is futile. You can cite public positions and that proves nothing if the other side had reason to believe the public position was a ploy to bargain for other ends. Ex post facto analysis of failed negotiations is largely useless for illumination of the truth for that reason.
If Saddam was wrong to demand any oil fields, a flexibility in accepting only part of them does not improve his moral position; conversely, if the Kuwaiti emirs had no particular moral right to their wealth as guest workers lived in poverty and Iraqis were denied a fair share of the region's wealth, than their flexibility or the US's would not really gain that side moral legitimacy.
The issue is justice, not process. There is an obsession with process in some elements of the Left that excuses evil as long as the Devil fairly negotiated for his victim's souls.
>Saddam was and is a bastard dictator, but we were
>not fighting for the rights of those like the Kurds seeking legitimate
>self-determination but only for an economic elite which served US interests
>in oil.
-But can't you make the same argument over the Kosovo situation? Who is -likely to be put in power if Kosovo gets its independence? The KLA, whose -leaders are probably no better than Milosevic himself. I wouldn't want to -be an ethnic Serb living in Kosovo under the KLA.
How many civilian deaths are attributed to the KLA? There have no doubt been abuses by the KLA, but no human rights group has compared their abuses to the level of Milosevic's military and paramilitary forces. And whatever can be said about past groups that used the name KLA, is it quite obvious from recent reports that the forces of Kosovo resistance, under the banner of the name KLA, has been vastly expanded by many of the people who fought nonviolently for years against Serbia's leadership.
>Should we automatically support every separatist movement wherever we find
>one? Should the Basques be allowed to split from Spain? What about the
>Quebecua (sp?) in Quebec? What about the right-wing crazies in the US who
>want to seceed? What are the criteria that have to be met in order to have
>a valid claim to self-determination, and have the Kosovars met that
>standard? Perhaps they do meet it, but perhaps they don't.
>I disagree that the goal is restoring democratic autonomy to the region.
>Are any of the Kosovar political factions even nominally democratic?
>Certainly the KLA isn't, and they seem to be the group which would be put
>in power in any kind of a settlement which gives Kosovo its independence.
When does a group deserve autonomy? When the majority engages in broad repression and massacre against that minority to the point that it is clear the majority will never operate with pluralistic tolerance. The Quebecois have trouble justifying themselves by that standard, as to the Basque to a certain extent (although Spanish government abuses help justify it).
And by any definition, the Kosovans deserve autonomy given the abuses and now cultural genocide by the Serbian government.
As for Kosovan democratic autonomy, that is what they have been fighting for. They had a legislature up until the late 80s that was as functioning a democratic institution as the rest of Yugoslavia. And they have continued a whole range of underground democratic institutions, including elections throughout the 1990s. The Kosovans have a broad-based history of nonviolent dedication to democracy that I find quite admirable.
You ignore that history of democratic mobilization that has involved most of the population of Kosovans, while overemphasizing a few abuses by KLA military people. This denial of Kosovan legitimate rights to democratic decision is exactly what bothers me about the whole Left anti-bombing position. It is not that I support all separatist movements, but when a population overwhelming and democratically supports such separatism, it is dictatorship to deny them autonomy.
Of course, the goal of the left is global pluralism but that is not incompatible with minority populations seceding from oppressive parent countries.
There is nostalgia in a lot of posts for the promise that was Tito's Yugoslavia. But that dream is dead. Today it is Milosevic's Yugoslavia - just a nationalist dictatorship commiting mass murder.
I'd rather take a chance on the dream of a democratic Kosovo than place my bets on the dead nostalgia I hear so many other folks espousing as they repeat Serbian government propoganda.
--Nathan Newman