tony ralph wrote:
>Actually, this is about the Kosovo crisis and what to do given the limited
>options available. Its about nearly 1.5 million people being driven into
>exile in around 60 days.
Columnist Chris Caldwell in New York Press this week: "Clinton, Cohen and
Albright began talking about ground troops as a hypothetical option for
some later 'stage' of this operation. Transparent bluster, because
strategically, the time for inserting ground troops was now. Right this
minute! Load up the planes with paratroopers! Given that our stated war
aims were to protect Kosovars, if we weren't ready to send ground troops
then, we weren't ready to send ground troops ever.... What must have
stunned even Milosevic is that we weren't even willing to fly our planes
low enough to retard his troop movements. No - there was an asymmetry
between endangered civilians and cosseted 'fighting' men that was morally
obscene.... The fact is, we were willing to protect Kosovars (maybe), but
only if it fit in with our tennis schedule. Any NATO politician who claimed
he cared about the Kosovars as much as Serbs cared about Kosovo was lying.
(And any NATO politican who actually believed it was institutionalizable.)
If we had wanted to protect Kosvars, we'd've protected Kosovars."
Another quote: "The masterstroke that delivered Milosevic his unlikely
victory was the very thing that nobody - obviously nobody among the NATO
planners - even reckoned among his options: his launching of an all-out
attack on Kosovo the moment the bombs started falling. Odd that NATO
overlooked the possiblity, because throughout the Cold War, this is exactly
the way the U.S. taught Latin American authoritarians to deal with
superpower-sponsored radical peasant insurgencies. (Once NATO bombs started
falling, the KLA fit this description in every particular.) Had Milosevic
attended the School of the Americas...he'd have been taught to conduct just
such a counterinsurgency, complete with population transfers at gunpoint,
property damage, minings, summary executions, and various other means of
'drying up the ocean in which the fish swim,' as the Guatemalan Efrain Rios
Montt used to put it so picturesquely...."
Doug
--
Doug Henwood
Left Business Observer
250 W 85 St
New York NY 10024-3217 USA
+1-212-874-4020 voice +1-603-506-6212 fax
email: <mailto:dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx>
web: <http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html>
>Actually, this is about the Kosovo crisis and what to do given the limited
>options available. Its about nearly 1.5 million people being driven into
>exile in around 60 days.
Columnist Chris Caldwell in New York Press this week: "Clinton, Cohen and
Albright began talking about ground troops as a hypothetical option for
some later 'stage' of this operation. Transparent bluster, because
strategically, the time for inserting ground troops was now. Right this
minute! Load up the planes with paratroopers! Given that our stated war
aims were to protect Kosovars, if we weren't ready to send ground troops
then, we weren't ready to send ground troops ever.... What must have
stunned even Milosevic is that we weren't even willing to fly our planes
low enough to retard his troop movements. No - there was an asymmetry
between endangered civilians and cosseted 'fighting' men that was morally
obscene.... The fact is, we were willing to protect Kosovars (maybe), but
only if it fit in with our tennis schedule. Any NATO politician who claimed
he cared about the Kosovars as much as Serbs cared about Kosovo was lying.
(And any NATO politican who actually believed it was institutionalizable.)
If we had wanted to protect Kosvars, we'd've protected Kosovars."
Another quote: "The masterstroke that delivered Milosevic his unlikely
victory was the very thing that nobody - obviously nobody among the NATO
planners - even reckoned among his options: his launching of an all-out
attack on Kosovo the moment the bombs started falling. Odd that NATO
overlooked the possiblity, because throughout the Cold War, this is exactly
the way the U.S. taught Latin American authoritarians to deal with
superpower-sponsored radical peasant insurgencies. (Once NATO bombs started
falling, the KLA fit this description in every particular.) Had Milosevic
attended the School of the Americas...he'd have been taught to conduct just
such a counterinsurgency, complete with population transfers at gunpoint,
property damage, minings, summary executions, and various other means of
'drying up the ocean in which the fish swim,' as the Guatemalan Efrain Rios
Montt used to put it so picturesquely...."
Doug
--
Doug Henwood
Left Business Observer
250 W 85 St
New York NY 10024-3217 USA
+1-212-874-4020 voice +1-603-506-6212 fax
email: <mailto:dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx>
web: <http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html>