On Tuesday, August 15, 2000 5:46 PM Michael S. Lorrey retroman@turbont.net
wrote:
> > FRY/Serbia is not a NATO member. NATO is a defensive alliance.
Originally,
> > it was only intended to last about a decade, and then was mainly as a
> > counter to potential Soviet invasion of Western Europe. Yugoslavia was
> > never a member of this alliance.
>
> Yet it is surrounded by NATO members, who have wound up paying the cost
> of the refugee problem created by Serbia's racist policies.
Four problems with statement. One, almost all if Serbia's neighbors are not
NATO members -- Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia,
Romania. The only NATO member next door to Serbia is Hungary and that's
only an associate member. (Note also that Macedonia gave a cold shoulder to
Kosovar refugees.)
Two, the Kosovar refugee problem starting only after the bombs began
dropping. Recall, the "genocide" that took place in Kosovo totalled under
60 deaths. Granted, any death is bad, but this hardly smacks of genocide
and looks more like what the Serbians originally said, viz.,
counter-terrorism and police operations. (If you disagree, then remember
three things. First, Serbia, then and now, had the military might to kill a
lot more people. Second, why weren't there huge refugee movements before
the bombing began. Did the Kosovar Albanians only decide to start fleeing
when the bombs started to drop? Third, where is the evidence for
pre-bombing mass graves in Kosovo?)
Posen, in "The War for Kosovo: Serbia's Political-Military Strategy"
(_International Security_ 24(4)), thinks the refugee problem during the war
might have been an attempt by Serbia to stop the war. How? By sending
refugees to neighboring countries, it might have been thought, this would
make it seem like the war would cause more problems than otherwise for NATO.
If that was the plan, it did not work as, except for NATO bombing refugees
and getting flack for that, it only made Serbia look worse in world opinion
AND also made it less likely that NATO bombs would fall on Kosovar
Albanians.
Third, refugees really only become a problem because of statist policies.
If one does not force people to pay for refugees, but allows private aid to
them, then they do not become an externality. It's only the welfare-statist
who can see them as a problem.
Four, some of Serbia's neighbors are basically racist -- using "racist" to
cover all forms of militant ethnocentrism here -- such as Croatia and
Macedonia. The Croatian leadership has have proven time and again, through
both internal policy and external war (in Bosnia) to be so. Macedonia is
mainly interested in keeping itself Macedonian, one reason why its
government gave Kosovar Albanians the cold shoulder.
The Balkans and most of the world for that matter is not antiracist. In
fact, the lesson of the post-Cold War era seems to be that a lot of peoples
just barely got along and that the general tendency is, sadly, for
ethnically pure realms, whether that be in the Balkans, Germany (which has
its racist problems against Turkish immigrants), the Russian "near abroad"
(former Soviet Republics which have large ethnically Russian populations),
Canada (not just Quebec, but also Native Americans), Nigeria, Rwanda, or
Indonesia. Serbia is merely the nation that's been singled out, while a lot
of U.S. allies (Indonesia, Turkey, Nigeria) get a free pass. (Surely, you
can bring up counterexamples, but how many of them are neighbors of Serbia?
How many of them are there compared with the rest of the world's nations?)
> Because of
> this unconsented imposition of externalities, Serbia brought NATO on
> itself.
See above.
> > An aggressor nation is generally defined as one that attacks other
nations.
> > Since Kosovo was (and de jure still is) part of FRY, this claim falls
flat.
> > Also, before the war began, it's still arguable whether the aggression
was
> > more than counter-terrorist operations. (Arguable, though not certain.)
>
> Serbia had, at that point, established a consistent record of backing,
> supporting, and committing genocide, ethnic cleansing, and all around
> general anti-democratic gestapo tactics in violation even of its own
> laws.
In Kosovo, there is no evidence of genocide or ethnic cleansing prior to the
NATO air campaign. In fact, the death toll was extremely small and limited
to areas where the KLA operated. That sort of makes it look like, in this
case, Serbia was not doing all the things you say it was. (This does not
excuse other cases, of course, but it does make me want to look more closely
at them. Are you going to accept the U.S. State Department's view of
everything here? According to them, the U.S. and its allies are always in
the right and every war they fight is a just war. Do you agree?)
Also, if you are really against this sort of thing, then when will call for
the bombing of Croatia, which has a similar record of genocide and ethnic
cleansing, especially of Serbs? It was also deeply involved in Bosnia at
one point. And it's record of doing this dates back to World War Two.
(That said, I'm not for bombing Croatia. Too many innocents, again, would
be killed or harmed and the policy changes probably wouldn't come about.
Serbia today is no better as a country for the bombings -- in terms of its
government's policies.)
> While it is arguable that the KLA received backing from underworld
> figures in Albania, that is really irrelevant. The ethnic Albanians
> raised and living in Kosovo had been under an organized campaign of
> prejudice, segregation, oppression and persecution ever since Milosevic
> took power in the 80's and made his famous speech in Kosovo that he
> would take back Kosovo for the Serbians. Given such a high level of
> approval for anti-albanian activities by serbs in kosovo, it is only
> natural that albanians would turn to their countrymen for support
> against such persecution.
I don't completely disagree with this picture of the origin of the KLA,
though the KLA itself seemed more interested before, during, and after the
war with obtaining power than liberating Albanians living in Kosovo. (Maybe
this is the way it is with most paramilitary groups.) Also, there was an
Albanian President of Kosovo, but he was marginalized by the KLA -- because
he was not pushing for independence and also because he sought change
through democratic means. (These were the reasons given, in my
recollection, in TV and radio news before and during the war.)
> Terrorists are only terrorists to those who
> wish to wipe them out and those who buy into the propaganda of the
> opressors.
Debatable. I suppose what you mean is not against those who wish to wipe
out the terrorist group, but the larger group the terrorists claim to
represent or protect. That said, terrorism has no valid justification.
True, in some cases, the label "terrorist" is used against anyone who uses
force against the government, but general terrorist tactics are to attack
noncombatants, such as when a bazaar is bombed in Jerusalem. Innocents are
killed.
Whether the KLA was doing that in Kosovo is another story. I'm not sure and
I bet you don't know either.
> As has been learned in Ireland, Isreal, and elsewhere, the
> easiest and least bloody way to deal with terrorists is to try to remove
> the reasons why terrorists engender support. Now, terrorists are called
> terrorist because they attack and engeder fear in a civilian population.
> The KLA never attacked civilians prior to the NATO action, they focused
> only on government police, soldiers, and politicians. These are not acts
> of terrorists, but of guerrillas fighting an insurgency war. The only
> people who committed terrorist acts against civilians in Kosovo were the
> Serbs.
But when? During the war, yes. However, a lot of that was probably because
the Serbian army then was openly fighting the KLA and attacking towns and
villages with impunity. Before the war, the story looks very different. If
not, where's your evidence? Where are the pre-war mass graves, the prewar r
efugees?
> > The cooperation was limited to accepting the agreement or being bombed.
> > That's not much more than pure coercion. Notably, neither the Kosovar
> > Albanians nor the FRY had input into the drafting of the agreement.
This
> > was "take it or leave it" diplomacy. (You might argue that the Serbian
> > government deserves no better, but the cost of such a stance is not only
the
> > effort spent bombing, but also innocents being killed, both Serbian and
> > Albanian, etc. Also, one might ask, did American negotiators really
want an
> > agreement all sides could agree to that would protect Kosovar Albanians
AND
> > address Serbian concerns about the KLA or was the goal to push Serbia
into a
> > corner then bomb?)
>
> This is a good question to ask, especially its being so concurrent with
> the scandals that Clinton was going through at the time. However, it is
> my opinion that while Clinton definitely had an interest in deflecting
> attention away from himself, there was a just and real reason to go into
> Kosovo. If I were a NATO peacekeeper, I can tell you I would not go in
> unless I had AT LEAST the sort of conditions set forth in the
> Ramboulliet agreement.
The actual agreement in force is not the same as the original Rambouillet
Agreement. In fact, the notorious Appendix B has been changed. The
occupation force is limited to Kosovo and does not have a free reign in the
rest of FRY. Also, the timetable for an independence vote has been removed
and the operation is under UN Security Council control. In other words,
Serbia held out for something and they did win some concessions, though at
great cost.
[For those who want to see the original agreement, it's at
http://www.state.gov/www/regions/eur/ksvo_rambouillet_text.html]
Most likely Milosevic would not be able to remain in power if the original
Appendix B was left in, agreed to, and enforced. I don't mean NATO would
have overthrown him. Instead, his support would have dried up and his
opposition gotten stronger. Don't forget, Serbia is not Iraq. Milosevic
still has to justify himself to parliament and the populace. He still has
to keep his coalition happy -- or, at least, not unhappy enough to stop
supporting him.
> > Also, some of this is expected behavior. Secessions on the whole are
not
> > tolerated by whatever they are seceding from. Note the cases of the
> > American Colonies seceding from Great Britain, the CSA seceding from the
> > USA, East Timor seceding from Indonesia, Chechnya seceding from Russia,
and
> > the Kurds attempting to seceded from Turkey, Iraq, and Iran. In all of
> > these cases, violent methods were used to suppress the rebellions.
> >
> > This does not make such suppression good or right, but it's considered
> > natural behavior for nation states. Ones that can't or won't do that,
> > generally, do not continue to exist for long.
>
> This is clearely unsupportable in the current day, given the excellent
> example of Czhechoslovakia breaking up quite peacefully into Slovakia
> and the Czhech Republic. The Soviet Union also broke up rather
> peacefully, surprise surprise. I personally expected that to be a
> bloodbath.
Me too.
But it only supports my claim above. Nation states that do not suppress
secession cease to be. The Soviet Union ceased to be. Czechoslovakia
ceased to be. If you're a nation state and you don't force parts of you to
stick together, then, in general, they will leave as soon as the level of
comfort declines enough.
And don't take my comments the wrong way. I'm not for suppression. I'm
just making an observation. Note also that my comments cover your examples,
while yours do not cover mine.
> Then you've also got Canada going through the process of
> breaking off Nunavut at the present moment, with scarcely a ripple that
> you have not heard anything about it in the news in months, and most of
> the rest of english speaking Canada secretly wishes that Quebec would go
> ahead and secede, just so they can get that damn welfare case off their
> backs. You've also got Britain slowly going through the motions of
> breaking up so peacefully and politely hardly anyone has a bad thing to
> say about it. The Scots and Welsh are so damn happy to have their own
> parliaments now they sure as hell can't say anything bad about London.
> Hell, the Scots got their stone back too.
See above. Don't get me wrong. It's good to see it happening.
> > I'm not trying to make Milosevic or the Serb government look like
victims
> > here. My goal is merely to give more evidence in this discussion. I'm
not
> > pro-Serb or pro-Milosevic. At the same time, I do think the US and NATO
got
> > involved in a basically counterproductive war where many innocents
suffered.
> > Many more Albanians and Serbians died during the war.
>
> I don't think you can make any sort of representations over how many
> died versus how many WOULD HAVE DIED if Milosevic and his Tigers had
> been allowed a free reign to commit widespread genocide across Kosovo. I
> personally think that despite the number who died, more would have died
> if we had not gone in, and those that woud have died would have all been
> Albanians, while at least this way the Serbian civilians that have
> approved all this bullshit have finally had to pay some price for their
> bigotry.
That posits that Serbs who died or otherwise paid as well as others who died
or otherwise paid for this deserve that. Since to an outsider it appears
you've done nothing material, so far as I know, to revolt against the U.S.
government for, say, its various unjust policies, from its war on drugs to
its support of genocidal leaders in Turkey, Indonesia, throughout Latin
America and Africa, would it be all right if you were killed? After all,
shouldn't you be made to pay the price for American policies? (I disagree,
of course. And by no means do I imply any subject or citizen of a nation
state should be held responsible for his or her governments actions --
unless he or she is part of that government.)
> > I think NATO member populations were propagandized into accepting the
war.
> > Surely, Milosevic and the Serbian government are not nice, good, just,
etc.
> > But, at the same time, there are much worse problems in the world
(Turkish
> > treatment of Kurds being perhaps the most glaring one, since Turkey is a
> > NATO member and a US client state) and I feel this was more Monica's War
> > than anything else.
>
> Turkish repression of Kurds is likely to remain on the back burner until
> the problems of Isreal/Palestine and Iraq are resolved. The Turkish
> people are getting more and more fundamentalist, and it may become more
> of a problem in the next several years, however I am hoping that the
> continuing moderation of Iran will decrease the support for
> fundamentalist groups around the arab world.
Some think Turkey might be the next Iran. However, if bombing works so
well, why not bomb Turkey? Why let the Turkish government continue its
brutal repression of the Kurdish people. You appear to have a ho hum
attitude here. Kurds are dying and the U.S. government even gives money and
weapons to their killers. The Serbs are different, right? Why? (This is
strange, since Turkey is the product of the Ottoman Empire disintegrating,
which also set the chessboard for the Balkans and the Middle East in the
20th century. _The Peace to End All Peace_, as one fine book on the subject
is titled!)
In other words, when does your "just and real reason" to intervene
militarily come into affect? It appears from the way you're applying this
notion, you're only using it to justify stuff ad hoc and after the fact.
Would you be clear about when it's okay to use force and when it's not in
these cases and why?
But back to more constructive stuff here, how can we minimize the influence
of bad elements here?
> > But to be more constructive here: how would Extropians in general deal
with
> > such problems? One would hope our bright technological future would
make
> > ethnic rivalries less a problem, yet the 1990s seemed like a time when
both
> > technology progressed and ethnic rivalries and even wars increased.
>
> Governments and multinational corps have used advancing technologies to
> try to make the world a smaller place. They need to realize that people
> suffer from the same psychological pressures you see in the rat
> experiment, and when there is the perception that people are closer
> together and there is pressure for conformity, there will be increased
> pressure by individuals to push people farther apart and be unique. We
> all have to have our own space, our comfort zone. We are not domestic
> animals.
I think humans are a bit different than rats, else every major metropolitan
area would explode in violence. We don't see that, especially with the very
low violent crime rates in many large US cities, such as NYC. New Jersey is
also the most densely populated US State, e.g., yet the level of violence is
extremely low compared to the Balkans. Of course, maybe your qualifying
factors are intervening in these cases. How would you account for it?
And some might call a lot of this technology is what Bruce Sterling dubbed
"enforcement technology" -- i.e., stuff that makes it easier to divide and
conquer, then unite and rule -- not necessarily liberating technology. (Of
course, I'd disagree because I believe the user decides whether to use a
computer to, say, hold a discussion like this one or to put a database of
undesireables in it.)
We should probably split this into two threads. A strictly Kosovo one and
another devoted to what we should do in general. Perhaps if anyone else
decides to chime in.
Cheers!
Daniel Ust
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/
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