On Friday, May 26, 2000 3:32 AM Michael S. Lorrey retroman@turbont.net
wrote:
> Any infrastructure facilities are strategic targets. TV station =
> propaganda and military coordination capability that was in fact seized
> by the milosevik government. The commuter train happened to be crossing
> a bridge that was targeted, the train was not the target.
No time to comment on everything this morning, but the above point of view
clearly means Lorrey means anything and everything can be redefined as a
military target. In other words, any war is always total war and any nation
engaging in war that thinks it has right on its side -- and what nation
going to war claims it doesn't -- can bomb and kill indiscriminately.
I recall the bombing of the train bridge. The pilot saw the train after
dropping his first load and went back and bombed again. The NATO spokesman
claimed, "He bombed in good faith." What, pray tell, would bombing in "bad
faith" be?
> There was a very good documentary done on Dresden not too long ago. The
> British were the ones who specifically ran a two wave HE and incindiary
> mission against Dresden, while the Americans came along later with a
> targeted mission against a neighboring military facility.
The Soviets actually asked the British and Americans to target the city.
Tens of thousands were killed. The military targets in Dresden were road
and rail centers. In order to minimize civilian and refugee deaths, all
that would have been necessary was targeting these outside the city. The
bombing took place in February of 1945. The war ended a few months later.
This was not material to ending the war -- any more than turning over people
to the Soviets after the war was material to keeping the peace.
> Now, are you saying the Germans were housing POWs in the city, as human
> shields? That, in itself, is a war crime.
The Germans, to my knowledge, did not know Dresden was going to be bombed.
Up until February of 1945, to my knowledge, Dresden had never been heavily
bombed AND it was not a military center -- being mainly an "arts" Mecca.
[big snip I'll to get to later...]
> We don't kill the kids.
Who is this "we"? Is Lorrey calling the shots down at the Pentagon?
[another big snip I'll to get to later...]
> > Notably, Saddam has not been stopped. He continues to rule and seek
ways to
> > expand his power, the coalition against fell apart mainly because of the
> > US's and Britain's highhanded policy in the region, and the general
lesson
> > every other nation and people is being taught is that might makes right.
> > Kosovo is much the same. Milosevic is still in power, now the KLA is
> > killing Kosovar Serbs, the genocide that never was is generally ignored
> > because it's not news, Serbia might be bombed out but it's army is
intact,
> > and Russia used the American strategy to its advantage in Chechnya.
(How
> > the two -- Chechnya and Yugoslavia -- are different is one that will
have to
> > be explained to me.)
>
> Well, there is little difference, with the sole exception being that
> Serbs started killing ethnic albanians first,
Yes, I recall some 45 people were killed before the bombings began. And, of
course, the claims of the KLA Are to be beleived while any Serb sources are
total liars. Genocide on a scale to match... Waco not Hitler. I suppose
that justifies bombing all of Yugoslavia AND killing thousands of civilians
in the process.
Also, the bombing against Yugoslavia seems to not have stopped the killings
in the region, but escalated them. Was this the goal? I don't think so.
One should, after all, go to war with the notion to making things better.
In other words, one fights because one thinks that the peace afterwards will
be better than the peace before the fight. This should make war the means
to a higher end and actual military actions can then be measured against
whether they work toward this end or detract from it.
Yugoslavia is interesting in another way. The US had no vital interest
there. It did not affect any US allies in a big way. (If it did, why has
the trouble in the Balkans for the last ten years not bothered them?) Also,
US policy in the region has been markedly pro-Islamic and pro-German. I'm
not trying to bring a conspiracy angle in here, but it's strange to see the
US standing by while Croatia cleansed itself of Serbs by the tens of
thousands, while not being able stand Serbia hold on to Kosovo and the death
toll being orders of magnitude smaller. (Croatia is a nation which
celebrates its alliance to Nazi Germany and exterminated approximately a
third of its population during WW2. This does NOT mean I'm prepared to
support a bombing campaign against Croatia TV and rail lines, civilians or
no.)
> while in Chechnya, the
> Chechens started killing Russians first. While Serbia is small enough
> that we can do something about it, there is little we can do about
> Russia except diplomatic protests.
My point was that Russia could make the same claims about Chechnya that
Lorrey could make about Yugoslavia. In fact, the Russian policy with the
Near Abroad and breakaway republics like Chechnya and Ingushtia has been to
claim that ethnic Russians are being persecuted -- a claim not completely
without merit -- and use this as a pretext for intervention.
> > It's a shame that the American people will have to pay for these
mistakes --
> > and not the politicians who make them. But that's the nature of the
beast.
>
> How are we going to pay for them?
Americans will pay through blood and treasure, of course. With the former,
there is terrorism and war which will claim American lives. I'm not saying
this is a justification for this, but merely human nature. The orphaned
Iraqi or Serbian kid who turns to terrorism is not going to think about
morality the same way Lorrey (I hope!) and I do. He or she is mostly going
to be motivated by revenge against the US. That urge would not be there if
the US had either a) stayed the f*ck out it or b) been a little more
restrained and civilized in flexing its muscles.
The treasure part includes property lost to terrorism and war as well as
taxes paid to fund the current policy of military adventurism of the US.
But also, the price will be paid in many other ways -- a less stable world,
for one.
Later!
Daniel Ust
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/
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