I sympathise with Adam Tickell's comments over the NATO war. There
was considerable confusion amongst the left in Britian and elsewhere.
Some criticisms of the war certainly appeared (wittingly or
unwittingly) to be 'soft' on Serbia. However, many of the critics,
including John Pilger and Tony Benn, made it perfectly clear that
they were in no way supportive of the Serbian regime and the human
rights abuses being carried out against Kosovan Albanians. However,
Adam concludes that:
> No-one could possibly like the idea of being implicated in bombing campaign
> but ultimately it was the best of two evils. For all the failings - most
> important of which was Clinton's failure to support the idea of a ground
> invasion - this was an ethical and just war.
This seems somewhat premature. The present situation in Kosovo
remains dangerous and unstable. It seems highly improbable that Serbs
and Albanians can live in harmony together for some consideable time
to come. NATO may not be responsible for that but their bombing
campaign did not help it. The current 'deal' does not take Milosevic
or his regime out of the equation and does not appear to advance
beyond the earlier deal thus raising the question of what precisely
has been achieved (apart from many more deaths and the destruction of
much of the Serbian and Kosovan infrastructure). Talk of a just and
ethical war also reads a little strangely in the light of NATO's
(thus far unexplained) use of cluster bombs in a war directed, we
were repeatedly told, at the Serb regime rather than the people
of Serbia.
Dave
Dr. David Storey
Geography Department &
Centre for Rural Research
University College Worcester
Henwick Grove
Worcester WR2 6AJ
England
Tel: 01905 855189
Fax: 01905 855132
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