Date: Sat, 17 Apr 1999 04:21:29 -0400
From: Aaron Micheau <amaarchy-AT-compuserve.com>
Subject: Re: roger doesn't want diplomacy


i wrote:

>> Oh, this should be stunning... you're going to explain to me how, in the
>> long term, NATO is going to contribute to a Kosovar solution.  Let's
hear
>> it.  

Message by danceswithcarp:

>Weaken Milosevic's ability to rule, then let all of these Noble And
>Well-Intentioned Fucking Serbs I keep hearing about run with the ball.  
>I thought that's what giving peace a chance was all about.  Duh.

Let's see, since the bombing began, those Serbs have rallied to Milosevic,
because, according to you, "they see their state in peril".  So somehow, if
the bombing continues- increasing the peril- Serbs will do a 180 and turn
against Milosevic?  Is this, like, how the Iraqis overthrew Saddam Hussein-
 Oh, wait a minute...

  ... ummm...  is this like, one of those dreams that made perfect sense
until you woke up and thought about it?

According to the Long Haul NATO plan, NATO ground troops will destroy the
infrastructure of Serbia and push the Serbian nationalists out of Kosovo in
a ground offensive.  Then they will usher the Kosovar Albanians back into
Kosovo under NATO protection.  All well and good. 
Except that, in all of the months it takes to do that, vindictive Serbian
nationalists will have burned and levelled all of the Albanian homes and
villages.  Leaving Albanians homeless, campless, and without food supplies
(will NATO feed them then? help them rebuild?). Kosovo will be littered
with DU shells, and who knows what that shit does to you (except for
thousands of Gulf War vets and Iraqi Shiites, who might have interesting
theories...).  Then of course, there's the KLA, which will promptly begin a
revenge campaign against whatever Serbs they can find, and NATO will find
itself either suppressing the KLA, a la US troops in Somalia, or tacitly
supporting the KLA, a la British colonials in Palestine.  In either case,
the likely outcome is a ignomious (but indignantly victorious) NATO
withdrawal, as happened in said historical precedents, leaving the
Kosovo/Serbia region in worse and more hostile circumstances it was in
March.  Now with a rabidly Kosovar nationalist government instead of a
rabidly Serbian nationalist government.  The easiest problem is all of the
starving, cholera-stricken Serbs in Serbia. Whether or not the civilian
population there is being targeted by NATO is irrelevant, because NATO is
deliberately targetting civilian structures- factories, heating and power
plants, food processing plants, etc.  Destroying this infrastructure will
have the obvious results come wintertime.  We've seen it already in Iraq. 
But this problem is easiest of all because starving Serbs won't get a
fraction of the CNN and MSNBC airtime that fleeing Albanians have  (no more
need to drum up public support for war), and lots of them will die if
they're ignored long enough.  And then, all of this presupposes that this
war doesn't become a regional conflict with a life of its own, involving
Albania, Montenegro, Macedonia, Greece, Hungary, Russia, or some other
entities.  

Slightly more complicated than your perversely logical scenario, huh?  But
that's OK, you're not the first to make such blunders. By the way, since
you make a lot of facile comparisons to WWII:
remember WWI?

you wrote other stuff like:

>Your shit is weak aaron.  Why don't you go to Kosovo and chain your ass to
>one of those freedom-loving tanks that is leveling villages and towns in
>order to protect it from the criminal henchmen of NATO?  You're a
>pathetic excuse for a humynatarian.  Yeah, let 750,000 people be
>displaced by a bunch of thugs.  What are you doing about it aaron?
>Sending +emails+?  How does this help anyone but Arkan?

and other such shrill attacks. We are all sending emails on this list
aren't we? Or did i miss something?  i could just as well say, "what are
you doing Carp, toting an automatic rifle to Kosovo?"  i've made it quite
clear that i think negotiation has a much better chance of actually helping
Albanian Kosovars, and NATO has done nothing but torpedo, sabotage, and
dismiss any attempt at negotiation.  You haven't addressed this point other
than to quote silly adages about marriage counseling and caricature 'The
Left' as if there's actually a significant group which holds these
fictitious positions you allude to.  You sound like Rush Limbaugh.  What's
next, Carp, 'Feminazis'?
Really,  you are too much of a cynic to make credible moral arguments, and
you'd do better to leave the hysterics to Roger.

and who's this 'Arkan' person, anyway?

i wrote:

>>i would consider attacks on US civilians for the countless evils we
>> have tacitly or unknowingly supported to be equally counterproductive. 
>> wouldn't you?

after a bit of confusion, you responded:

>I thought you supported wirld-wide attacks against american
>civilians as a means of toppling the regime. 

i don't.   where'd you get that idea?

-apm