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Pastimes : Kosovo -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Stormweaver who wrote (804)	3/31/1999 12:43:00 AM
From: epicure	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 17770

For my opinion I was accused of liking Serb atrocities and being a pacifist- neither of which are true, but they do show the paucity of good arguments on the other side if all the pro-nato people can do is call me names. Here is my 2 cents worth copied from my post on the Kahuna thread: OT Fine - then we better go into Africa- because people are getting their genitals hacked off there too. And unspeakable things are happening to women and men in Afghanistan under the Taliban. Exactly how much DO you want to interfere? I am no pacifist- I would love to kill some people, who, as they say in Texas, "needs killing". I come from a family that honorably served in every damn war this country ever fought, and members of my family fought in both sides of the Civil war. Going for the throat???? I was ACCUSED of approving of atrocities- please, go tell it to the other guy. I merely said he was couldn't spell and was a cretin- both of which are res ipsa loquitor. I will never feel guilty about my policies. If Serbia attacked other nations I would say pound them into the ground. But never leave a thing half done, or think that bombing alone will do the job. Ground troops are necessary and the "moral high ground" as you call it, should be taken sparingly. This exact same thing has happened before, I quote from Time - Charles Krauthammer "The Clinton Doctrine": To justify bombing Serbia over Kosovo, he (Clinton) reiterates in every possible variation the imperative for the U.S to oppose "ehtnic cleansing and the slaughter of innocent people." The problem with this doctrine is that it is impossibly moralistic and universal. It cannot be the policy of the U.S. Even as the Clinton people say it, they cannot believe it. Why? Because they remember Krajina. In August 1995, Croatia launched a savage attack on Krajina, a region of Croatia that Serbs had inhabited for 500 years. Within 4 days, the Croats drove out 150,000 Serbs, the largest ethnic cleansing of the entire Balkan wars, Investigators with the war crimes tribunal of the Hague have concluded that this campaign was carried out with brutality, wanton murder and the indiscriminate shelling of civilians. Krajina is Kosovo writ large. And yet, at the time, the U.S. did not stop or even protest the Croation action. The Clinton Administration tacitly encouraged it. Croatia was being advised by a shadowy group of retired American officers who had been sent to Croatia to help it fight against the Serbs. No denunciation. No sanctions. No bombing. No indignant speeches about ethnic cleansing and the slaughter of the innocents. In fact, in justifying the current bombing of Serbia, Clinton made reference to this Croation campaign when he credited the "courageous people of Bosnia and Croatia" who "fought back" against the Serbs and "helped to end the war." Indeed, they did. Croatia's savage ethnic cleansing so demoralized the serbs that they soon agreed to sign the Dayton peace accord of 1995. End of excerpt- The only solution to these internal ethnic conflicts as I see it is 1. a presence so fierce and totalitarian that it crushes ALL conflict (the USSR managed to keep the lid on with its brutality) or 2. the countries must be allowed to murder and kill internally until they are worn out by the sheer amount of bloodshed. If you want the U.S. and Nato to be that crushing totalitarian force then I think you are making one heck of a mistake. I am not the one ignorant of the "true circumstances of this conflict of any other around the world. How about East Timor? They REALLY needed and deserved our help- look it up if you aren't familiar with it. ------ Previous