US terror bombing

[Chris Burford]

At 16:56 29/03/99 -0500, you wrote:
>This is marred by Trot boilerplate, but it's still a fine example of why
>Workers Vanguard used to be worth reading when Jan Norden was editing it.
>
>Yeah, yeah, NATO is just bombing military targets, not civilians, though
>there are 500,000 refugees and hundreds of thousands of others who are
>feeling mighty inconvenienced. But who would trust an entity with a history
>like this to bomb humanely?
>
>"Liberals have often sought to distance themselves from the policy of
>strategic bombing...."
>
>Sorry for any scanning glitches - it doesn't work well from yellowing
>newsprint.
>
>Doug
>
>----
>
>THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF U.S. TERROR BOMBING
>How Washington Perfected Hitler's Schrecklichkeit
>Workers Vanguard, March 1, 1991

Terror, is a common weapon of coercive state power. Clearly the Serbs moved
30,000 troops into Kosovo during the Rambouillet negotiations to instill
the implicit threat that they would do what they are now doing. 

What I think is interesting is a confusion in US imperialist motives for
the bombing. Part of the mind set seems to be to bomb Milosevic of Hussein
back to the stone age. But I do suggest that technology has moved on and
public opinion in the last 8 years. Remember they have to get 19 NATO
countries on board, some with centre-left governments. So although in many
ways the obvious military counter to the Serb attack on the Kosovans would
be to hit the Serbs hard - shut down their electricity and transport, this
is ruled out, and the Serbs have called the bluff. They have tighter
censorship within their country, while playing on the probability of lack
of unity among NATO. 

So the most effective terror at the moment is the terror that NATO air
power cannot effectively touch: the Serb paramilitaries going from door to
door in Kosovo.

Chris Burford
London