Oh dear, as a Quaker talking about this war, like any other, is an
obvious lne. However, my feeling is that the language in which it is
sometimes expressed in the EMail [maybe because it is a medium that
lends iself to it] tends to appear as anything but peaceable, peaceful,
reconciliatory. [but, hell, it does make you sick!]
Sorry, maybe, that this doesn`t spice the line. But there it is.
David Crouch, Anglia University
On Mon, 24 May 1999 09:37:09 -0400 Gerard Toal
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Three points about David Wood's response, exposing three problem argumnents:
>
> 1. MORAL EQUIVALENCING.
>
> > Arguing about who has killed more people is a bit silly really. Both sides
> > have killed large numbers of people without concern for the long term or
> > wider consequences. We don't know how many - you can't really trust either
> > side (or their media) on this or any other aspect of the crisis.
> >
>
> Serb fascists = KLA fascists. CNN = Serb Media. "They're all the same." This
> is a refusal to engage the particularity of the conflict, to analyze and
> empirically determine who is repressing whom.
>
> > 2. DON'T INTERVENE IF "PEACE" CANNOT BE ESTABLISHED: i.e. DO NOTHING (WHILE
> > GENOCIDE UNFOLDS).
>
> > Does Neil really believe that NATO's intervention will bring peace to this
> > region? Did he believe that the Dayton Accord would?
>
> "This region" = The Balkans = the non-West. Implicitly this echoes the common
> conception of that the Balkans has been a violent quagmire for centuries that
> is perpetually unstable. Peace is impossible in the region. "History"
> overwhelms everything. Again, there is are refusal to engage the specifics of
> the region's history, to see the region in non-ethnocentric terms, and to
> distinguish between the negative peace of Milosevic's police state (where
> peace is a consequence of repression) from the possibility of an alternative
> positive peace (admittedly difficult given the brutalizing Kosovars have and
> are suffering from the Serbian state).
>
> > 3. IMPERIALISM, THE PHANTOM MENACE!
>
> > Milosevic could have been stopped earlier by negotiation - has Neil read
> > the joke of an agreement (Rambouillet) that was the basis of previous
> > negotiations?
>
> This is an assertion not a fact. Rambouillet was tough on the Serbs but
> considering the blatant violation of the Holbrooke negotiated accord in 1998
> and the Serbian state's record of violating ceasefires and the Dayton Accords
> in Bosnia, this toughness was justified. Also, Rambouillet was unfair to the
> Kosovars, denying them their overwhelming aspiration to escape Serb
> sovereignty.
>
> > If not, I suggest he does; he might realise then that
> > Milosevic probably felt he had very few options (this does not however
> > excuse Serbian atrocities...)
> >
> > Opposing this war is not about supporting Milosevic, it is about opposing
> > the worldwide imposition of unnaccountable military and economic power on
> > other parts of the world by the USA and its 'allies'.
>
> Refusing the binary offered by war is an important political position.
> However, we are inevitable forced to choose also. Your choice is, I would
> argue, based on an obsolete and abstracted notion (in this case) of
> imperialism as a phantom menace. The "unaccountable" notion is unsustainable,
> given the fact that we have a media exposing NATO's 'mistakes,' governments in
> NATO very concerned about maintaining their coalitions, and a US
> administration long driven by public opinion polls.
>
> > The arms manufacturers, car-makers and chemical industries in the west are
> > rubbing their hands at the prospect of rebuilding (ie: taking over) the
> > Yugoslav economy after the war is over.
>
> "A ha, a war by Detroit's barons to crush the threat from the Yugo! Now it
> makes sense... :) "This conflict, of course, has a political economy but
> political economy is not DRIVING this conflict.
>
> > This action by NATO will not bring lasting peace, has hastened and
> > intensified Serbian repression both in Kosov@ and inside Serbia, and it has
> > no democratic or legal basis. Period.
>
> The anti-NATO stop-the-bombing position, in this case, is based on three
> refusals: to distinguish morally between the sides, to overcome common myths
> about the region, and to get beyond crude rhetoric about imperialism.
>
> Gerard Toal (Gearoid O Tuathail),
> Department of Geography, Virginia Tech.
> Email: [log in to unmask] or [log in to unmask]
>
>
----------------------
David Crouch
Anglia Polytechnic University
[log in to unmask]
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