Intellectual Conservatism

rc-am rcollins at netlink.com.au
Thu May 13 09:52:41 PDT 1999


hi Gordon,

Gordon wrote:


>But this is unbelievable too. One can't destroy a
>dispersed, dug-in military force by bombing. A properly
>dug-in tank or artillery piece can survive a direct hit
>by anything short of a nuclear device. Blowing up
>buildings in Belgrade accomplishes nothing.

well, I wasn't suggesting one was more _believable_ than the other, simply that saving the Kosovars has never been an expressed aim of the intervention and bombings as far as the general was concerned, even though it is expressed as an aim in the media and by politicians for _our_ benefit. that to continue to believe that the bombing bears any relation to saving the Kosovars is to engage in a fantasy not even the general could be prompted to repeat (after being prompted three times in the same interview, I might add).

as for the effectiveness: given they cannot pull out the Bomb, they resort to smaller versions of the same thing dropped more often: cluster bombs, uranium tipped missiles, etc. these don't strike me as small potatoes. I honestly wouldn't know where to begin to assess military strategy and its effectiveness or otherwise. but I would never suggest that 'military effectiveness' is a phrase that can be distinguished from murderousness.


>It's possible that NATO is now trying to destroy Serbia's
>economy, but I think it more likely that the present bombing
>is hysterical. That is, they don't know how to stop.

well, no doubt the economy is a target; but how one makes the distinction between an economy and a military, when the economy is militarised, is not entirely obvious to me. that's not to say I think there is only a military target in this war, or that I believe it to be top of the list in the minds of war planners and NATO politicos, only that 'ethnic cleansing' doesn't really enter into it, by their admission and their actions.

as for hysteria: perhaps. perhaps it is more likely that NATO entered this war in order to reassert global authority and that its credibility is on the line - credibility clearly not being simply a question of symbolic authority but of the ability to impose, by force, submission to a version of the world. I also happen to think this war signals NATO's death, that an independent EU military force will emerge in due course, largely on the back of perceptions of the failures of US-led actions. the US has more of an interest in (being seen to be) scoring a victory than does the EU, and the EU certainly has more of an interest in being seen to have done something about the refugees, protecting Europe's borders, etc.

I suspect there's a lot of confusion in NATO at the moment, which may well look like a hysterical adherence to the same track. I think it is more: "we'll just keep on bombing, because if we start opening up the issue of 'where to now?', NATO falls apart". I'm also waiting for the results of the impeachment of Yeltsin and the WTO... this will be significant for how this collapse develops I reckon.

Angela --- rcollins at netlink.com.au



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