: You must all realize that NATO had to choose the best of two evils. Should they let the horrible "ethnic cleansing" continue, or try to stop it? Yes it is true innocent people are being killed because of the bombs, and we are facing another refuge crisis, but would you rather have all of those people dead? Do you remember the last time we turned a "blind eye" to "ethnic cleansing"? Does the name Hitler ring a bell??
: The fact of the matter is there are carzy people in this world, some are teen-agers, others are presidents. When the daily news gets me down, I read Alice in Wonderland again, and realize, nothing is new.Actually, if you look at the evidence, WWII Germany certainly wasn't the last time we saw "ethnic cleansing" (I prefer the simple term "genocide") used.
First off, how about President Suharto of Indonesia? Since East Timor was invaded, a third of a million native Timorese have been killed by the Indonesians. Which countries helped Suharto to do that? Why, the USA and the UK and Australia; the Timorese were Commies, so we had to wipe them all out...
Then, how about Cambodia. Same story; the killing fields of Cambodia saw the US supporting genocide on a scale that makes Kosovo seem like small beer.
Next stop; Iraq. We were quite happy to supply them with weapons during the 1980's, despite the knowledge that they were being used on Iraq's civilian populations, ethnic minorities and religious minorities. We (the USA and UK and Europe) only stopped supplying them with weapons when it became obvious that an invasion of Kuwait was inevitable; in July 1990.
On to Chile; where the US and UK supplied the arms and training that enabled Pinochet to seize power and kill thousands of people. Again, since they were Commies, they weren't really people, so it doesn't count...
How about Uganda; where Idi Amin had a field day disposing of his political enemies; he had a large number of very well-fed crocodiles; he would show them off to visitors...supported by the US and the UK and France.
Next stop; Turkey. The Turkish state invaded Cyprus in 1974, carrying out ethnic cleansing on half of the island; resulting in the divided island we see nowadays. Since then, they have also been carrying out a policy of suppression and extermination against the Kurds; a fact the US and UK conveniently forget when we need to use the airbase at Incirlik to bomb Iraq.
How about Guatemala for our next stop? Another US-sponsored killing field for much of the last 20 years; yet another load of dead leftwingers and Catholics, so no-one cares.
And finally China, which famously invaded Tibet in 1959 and has done their best to eradicate every last trace of the Tibetan race and Tibetan culture. I don't see the US mounting bombing raids on China; I wonder why, as they're obviously guilty of genocide and they're even Commies too!
Gotten the point yet? The US and Europe and the UK have been complicit in, or have supported genocide in some country nearly every year since World War II. What makes us any better than the Serbs?
In fact, it might be worth pointing out that US- and UK-sponsored genocide has killed more people since 1945 than the Nazis ever did. Why are we acting so fucking holy all of a sudden?
When has bombing ever solved any problems? All that bombing has ever achieved is to pull a fractious community together against an external threat; before these raids there was an active opposition to Milosevic. Since these raids started, the opposition to him has died completely; in fact, one of the leading dissenters was shot by Yugoslav police; Milosevic has never been more admired by his people. It's called "Blitz spirit"; Serbs are wearing targets and placing themselves on strategic targets as a gesture of defiance. You don't unseat a leader by external pressure, as the West is now learning.
But if you still maintain that genocide is bad (which it is) and that bombing is the only way (which it isn't), then when are you going to bomb Chile, Turkey, China, Indonesia, Uganda, Gautemala, Rwanda, Northern Cyprus, Israel, Egypt or the US itself?
(When will war ever end war; when there's no-one left to do the fighting...)
Gideon.
