Maybe this is just terribly naive, but what would be wrong with the autonomy proposal (with NATO troops on the ground and enforcing) that was made at Rambouillet? Seems better than either side having more or less control and engaging in slaughter/removal, etc., if extremely imperfect.
I realize that this is probably a delayed version of turning over more ultimate control to the KLA. But with NATO in there perhaps a system to guarantee rights for the Serbs can be implemented as a condition of any removal of peacekeepers. After all, I understand that one of the remaining disagreements had to do with whether or not Serbs would be tried in Serbian courts or in Kosovan courts with imported Serbian judges. Seems like an awfully fine point to be fighting over, unless one is simply hoping to ethnically cleanse Kosovo of its Albanians, a plan which if successful will indeed be pretty horrific and seems to be what is going on now unless we are just being totally mislead by the TV pix of people crossing the borders.
BTW, I remain opposed to the bombing for a number of reasons. But I find myself contemplating the fact that there is what is to my mind a surprising level of support for this from the EU, including even such traditionally pro-Serbian countries as Greece and France. That may change. But it raises the possibility that either the EU really is calling the shots on this one with the US as flunky/waterboy, as Dennis Redmond claims (because of US debts to the EU), which I find unconvincing, or it is some desire of the EU to somehow control and end the various ethnic conflicts on the European continent once and for all before the century is out. Or maybe this is the grand project of the bourgeois EU, the same folks who want to undo workers' ownership/management in Slovenia as a condition of that country's entry into the blessed realm.
I do not find Greg Nowell's Danube theory particularly convincing, much less oil pipeline stories. It is certainly the case that the US has an anti-Serb bias based on ideology and this would explain the lack of US action regarding the Kurds in comparison. But, frankly, I am somewhat mystified about just what the motive is, especially given the clear evidence that the outcome of the bombing is exactly what was supposedly being prevented, an accelerated removal and slaughter of the Kosovar Albanians, just what the motive is. I do not rule out sheer stupidity, given that apparently US administration spokespersons could not even answer accurately whether the Kosovar Albanians are Ghegs or Tosks before a congressional committee recently. But this explanation would not seem to fly for the Europeans. Barkley Rosser -----Original Message----- From: Paul Phillips <phillp2 at Ms.UManitoba.CA> To: pen-l at galaxy.csuchico.edu <pen-l at galaxy.csuchico.edu> Date: Monday, March 29, 1999 2:36 PM Subject: [PEN-L:4643] Re: Re: War & 'Public Relations,' or, 'Kuwaiti Babi
Barkley,
Let me ask you the question. Should the Serbs retreat and stop trying to oust the KLA and their Albanian supporters? You realize I know that that would bring about the extermination of the Serbs in Kosovo. Once the bombing started what alternative did the Serbs have?
Paul Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
> From: "J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." <rosserjb at jmu.edu>
> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
> Cc: <pen-l at galaxy.csuchico.edu>
> Subject: [PEN-L:4638] Re: War & 'Public Relations,' or, 'Kuwaiti
Babies Torn fromIncubators'
> Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 11:54:04 -0500
> Reply-to: pen-l at galaxy.csuchico.edu
> Yoshie,
> I am someone who opposes the US actions in
> Kosovo and who (unfortunately accurately) forecast
> that the bombing would bring about the very humanitarian
> catastrophe that it was allegedly implemented to prevent.
> I also agree with much of your analysis of the reasons
> for the disintegration of Yugoslavia and exaggerated
> reporting of atrocities in various cases.
> But, are you going to suggest that the reports we
> are now getting of mass emigration from Kosovo are
> inaccurate? Does the bombing actually justify the horrific
> actions that Milosevic is now carrying out, even if the
> reporting of them might be somewhat exaggerated?
> It is one thing to forecast a catastrophe. It is quite
> another to applaud it or to attempt to justify it. I do
> not applaud any of the parties in this particular tragedy,
> and I certainly don't view Milosevic as some sort of hero.
> Barkley Rossre
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