Date: Tue, 06 Apr 1999 20:06:05 -0700
From: Dave Hayman <dhayman-AT-igc.org>
Subject: Anarchist attitude to war


Sorry, carp. This was supposed to be to the list, BIFU.

danceswithcarp wrote:
> 
> Good.  If NATO does send in troops (hell, +all+ troops is "ground" troops
> at some point) the best thing that could possibly happen is that they face
> a Yugoslavian military just chock full of russian and soviet
> heqavy equipment.  Anything above the rpg is crap.  This would mean fewer
> casualties becasue the war would be over very quickly.

It might mean fewer casualties, but I suspect that, like me, other
anti-interventionists have little hope that NATO will reduce casualties
in the near future. Over the horizon, nobody knows how many would've
died without it.

> Furthermore, I try to keep this all in perspective but when the serb
> foreign minister came on talking about how there were "civilians" on the
> bridge that got knocked down last night and then the next story is about
> how now over 500,000 muslim albanians have been ran out of the country I
> just kind of get pissed off.  I mean out of those 500,000 how many
> *weren't* civilians? The serbs really are bullshitters of the highest
magnitude.

No argument. But NATO powers are too, and many Kosovar or Muslim leaders
would love to join the big leagues.

> What's ironic here on the list is how when Agent_Zero posted that list of
> "nigger jokes," everybody went ballistic.  Or how about when some nutto
> right-winger proposes a white seperatist state or says we ought to run the
> black americans out of america.  Doesn't eveyone in the wirld jump on the
> U$ then as we all must be racist?
> 
> Now though, a bunch of white folk run a bunch of muslims out of an entire
> nation and the left apologists come running out shrieking about how it's
> unseemly and illegal to intervene.
> 
> Double standards, anyone?

To be serious about a charge of double standards, you would have to show
that the same individual(s) jumped on Agent Zero and oppose NATO
intervention. And then you'd have to support equating US racism against
blacks with Serb viciousness to Kosovars, who are exactly the same skin
color, I believe.

There's a big problem with all the who-to-blame-for-this-atrocity talk.
It assumes that either (or both, we're talkin' semi-conscious here) we
have a global moral standard being referenced (we don't), or that an
appeal is being made to recognize some small-group morality (anarchists,
this list, our mommas, whoever), which exists more as a bundle of
disputes than as a set of recognized standards.

Who shall we blame for that?