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

To: nuke44 who wrote (4146)	4/16/1999 7:42:00 PM
From: Broken_Clock	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 17770

nuke, Can you explain how several NATO pilots were able to mistake unarmed refugees as Serb soldiers in broad daylight? bear in mind that our pilot got a very good look at them

To: nuke44 who wrote (4146)	4/16/1999 8:13:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17770

Clinton: ''Our quarrel is not with the Serbs ... It is with the leadership of a person who believes it is alright to kill people and to uproot them and to destroy their family records and to erase any record of their presence in a land simply because of their ethnic heritage.'' infoseek.go.com And that is where the big problem is. None of the serbs, pro or anti-Milosevic, Serbian-American or else believe this...The reality is not spelled-out.. Serbs could care less about ethnic heritage, all they care that Albanians would stop even dreaming about Great Albania and Kosovo as part of it..Since that would never happen, there will never be piece untill Kosovo is divided...

To: nuke44 who wrote (4146)	4/17/1999 6:12:00 PM
From: The Philosopher	Respond to of 17770

If you would care to share an insight into your motives, I'm sure some of us might be interested I'll try. 1. My primary motive is to protect my children and their futures. At present, the US is the biggest kid in the playground, and we can push people around any time we want to. We have proved that (although some kids -- Saddam, Milosovic, and others have proved remarkably resistent to being pushed around.) But if establish a precedent that the U.S. supports for the principle that might makes right, and that the stonger country is entitled to impose its moral values on the weaker country, sometime in my kids' lifetimes a stronger country is going to come along and start pushing my kids around. I think that by working to establish a strong system of international law, I am protecting my future and my children's future. Having studied international law, read the UN Charter and the NATO treaty and analyses by several objective international lawyers I am satisfied that there is no legal basis for our invasion of Yugoslavia. If I allow my country to violate international law when it wants to, I weaken the right of my children to seek protection from international law when, 20 or 30 years from now, they are threatened by the greater power. This is by no means an original argument. The first exposition of it I'm aware of is in Plato's Crito. A dialogue well worth reading. 2. I believe that we have enough needs here at home that need addressing that we don't need to spend our money and resources in a war which in no way protects us or our interests. I believe that Clinton is using this war for political purposes. First, to divert attention from his political problems (the China syping scandal, the Broadhurst rape charges, the contempt ruling, and many others, all of which have, predictably, been driven off the front page (and in most cases entirely out of the papers and newsmagazines) by the Kosovo situation. Second, Clinton is using this to try to create some "legacy." In that he has probably failed, but he may still pull it out at the cost of some American and MANY Serb and Albanian lives. If Clinton were that concerned about people being killed and driven from their homes, there are MANY other places in the world where this is happening to many more people with much more ferocity. But they aren't as convenient to US and NATO air bases or to TV coverage, so they aren't as convenient politically. Basically, I want the 5.9 billion dollars Clinton is reportedly asking for to prosecute this non-war to be used at home for housing the homeless, feeding the hungry, improving our schools, providing free medical care to all pregnant women and children up to age 5 (the U.S. has one of the worst infant mortality rates in the civilized world, and we can spend 6 billion dollars making war???), and for other critical domestic needs. 3. I do not believe that the U.S. has the corner on moral knowledge and virtue in the world. I do not believe that our values are necessarily the best values for people other than ourselves, or that our way of life is the best way of life for everyone. I cherish what we have here. But I recognize that other nations and cultures have existed for many multiple of the time our nation has existed. We have an arrogance born of financial and military success which blinds us to the virtues and values of other ways of life. We trail the world in many areas -- in crime, in literacy, to name just two. Our families are for the most part scattered and bereft of strong familial ties. Our aged persons and their wisdom are not valued, but in many cases they are shunted off and warehoused in conditions that would be considered intolerable by most civilized countries. I am distressed by our President's apparent belief that because we have the military ability to impose our values on other peoples, we have the right to do so. The peoples of the Balkans have been living and fighting togther for many times as long as we have been a country. What gives us the arrogance to believe that we are entitled to tell them how to run their lives? My motive here is for us to learn that we are members of a rich and diverse world, and that we should be learners as well as teachers, not cultural missionaries come to impose our values by fire and sword. 4. I am morally opposed to unnecessary violence, especially when prosecuted in my name and with my dollars (of which I just sent another bundle to Washington). I will (and do) voluntarily support aid agencies to bring relief to victims of violence everywhere (the American Friends Service Committee is an excellent organization for this). But this wanton destruction in my name and with my money sickens me, and I want it to stop. 5. Basically, I am an isolationist. I believe that the people in any country know more about what they need for government than I, or we, do. I believe our military forces have only one legitimate role -- to defend out nation and its vital interests when threatened. There is no way that the Serb civil war threatened us or any vital U.S. interest. 6. Shit happens. I regret a lot of it. But the U.S. is not and should not try to become the world's toilet paper. That, for a start, is a discussion of some of my motives in opposing this politically motivated military adventurism. If you have read all the way to the end, thank you.