Date: Wed, 14 Apr 1999 17:17:05 -0400
From: roger <pelecat-AT-bellsouth.net>
Subject: Re: roger doesn't want diplomacy




danceswithcarp wrote:

> No one on this list likes NATO.  That's a given.  Allegedly no one likes
> ethnic cleansing either.  But this list is full of apologistas who somehow
> equate a half-assed effort to stop a horror with the horror itself.  You
> all need to explain that.  The line of reasoning that if a state does it
> then it is automatically bad is malarkey.  Sometimes the state ends up on
> the side of good for the worng reasons.  This situation does not make the
> state "good," only the action of the state is "good."

why can't i say things so clearly?  preach on, brother.

>
>
> We've had discussions here before about the rightness of state welfare or
> dole programs for the masses of poor.  Except for Scott Spaketh (I think
> it was him) no one has ever argued that people should not avail themselves
> of the dole to help support themselves in an uncaring wirld.  even if the
> releif money was coerced out of someone else's pocket?

i've tried on several occasions to point out the utter hypocricy of the
position you describe; most of us are hopeless "collaborators" on the domestic
front while being self-righteously certain that any assistance nato might be
able to provide the kosovars is, by definition, immoral.  whenever i try to
spin my charming little homilies as an analogy, i just get back a damn resume
proving the sender is really and truely nice to colored folk.  true but
irrelevant.

> I really do have a porblem with this attitude that if just NATO would stop
> doing things, then somehow The Slobbo would become a nice guy.  So someone
> tell me how this will all wash out if NATO just stops the war.  What?
> The Kosovars just have to wait on, what was it nico said?  Um.  Oh, yeah,
> "the evoluttion" of anarchy.

yeah, there are ironies aplenty.  nato critics (and i'm one of them in regard
to the bombing) find themselves defending the territorial claims of serbia to
a land that is populated by non-serbs, most of whom do not want to be in
serbia.  israel (with the west bank), china (tibet and taiwan), russia
(chechnya), etc. all oppose the nato actions precisely BECAUSE they see it as
a threat to their control over areas in popular revolt.  funny world when the
Left and the Right agree on something.  i do think that i would support
(whatever the fuck that means) nato if it used it's professional armies to go
into kosovo (not serbia proper) and kill the motherfuckers.  bosnia is better
off today with UN peacekeepers than it was before.  i don't know.  i don't
think it's going to happen that way.  i think nato will continue to bomb the
serbian civilian infrastructure cause that's all they know to do.  i still
think that my original analogy was appropriate:  we see a man beating his
children so we throw rocks through the window.  screwy, ain't it?

roger