> I've agreed that targetting civilian targets is the wrong approach,
>but if the choice is killing 220 civilians to return 1 million refugees
>to their homes, then I'll relunctantly accept that choice compared
>to doing nothing.
What on earth leads you to believe that the NATO bombing campaign is going to do any good at all to the refugees? The following is from the NATO press briefing on 6 May: http://www.nato.int/docu/speech/1999/s990506c.htm
David Shukmann (BBC): A question to the General. Since you have given us your assessment of how the attack is going on the ground forces on Kosovo, can you just answer this question? How close is NATO now to stopping the ethnic cleansing?
Major General Jertz: We do admit of course that ethnic cleansing is going on. What we were trying to achieve - to stop it in the first place - we haven't achieved but we are very close to stopping what is going on at the present time, as I have already indicated. It takes a little while with air power - we did it, we have done it in the last few weeks - to really stop the war machine Serbia has, we are pretty fine in that way and I think it will take just a little more time and we will continue our pace.
Jamie Shea: David, I know you asked that of the General but would you allow me to answer that from the political perspective because you raised obviously the most fundamental question about this whole operation since the beginning and it's true, we have not been able to succeed in what was our initial objective in stopping the ethnic cleansing, Milosevic has gone on with his campaign of ethnic sectarianism and expulsions, that is true.
So which conclusion do you draw? You could say: "Yes, we haven't succeeded there!" but then that is all the more reason to go for the next logical objective which is to say: "Fine! We couldn't stop it happening but my God we are going to make that man pay a price for what he has done, a very heavy price and every day that he continues, that price is going to become heavier and heavier!"]
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Thus the official NATO spokesman has openly said that it is "Fine!" that NATO couldn't stop the atrocities in Kosovo but does anyone believe Shea's assertion that "that man" (Milosevic) is going to pay a heavy price? The price is being paid by the people of Yugoslavia, not by Milosevic.
You also make the following point:
>As to future casualties, the likely future casualties from turning 1 million
>Kosovars into refugees is much higher, yet that does not get counted at all
>by those dismissing such ethnic clensing as not really constituting the same
>thing as mass murder.
Indeed, the agencies and NGOs dealing with the refugees have expressed grave concerns about the immediate, let alone long term, health problems in the refugee camps. But the leader of the free world seems to have no sense of urgency about this, preferring to keep the bombs falling for some time.
In a transcript of an interview that administration officials released Thursday, Mr. Clinton also said he is perfectly prepared to continue bombing Yugoslavia until September or even later. "When we started it, I never thought it would be a three-day wonder," Mr. Clinton said. "I have always been -- relaxed is the wrong word -- but patient about the timetable. And I'm looking forward, frankly, to May and June and July, where the weather is much clearer and we'll be freer to pursue our strategy."
A lot of refugees are going to be very sick or dead by the time Clinton gets done but he is "patient" and even "looking forward" to months of bombing! This is the guy you are counting on to return the Kosovars to their homes?
K.Mickey