Sol writes
"It is possible that
Blair, Cook and Short, and the other Third-way social democrats in Europe,
really believed they were acting to protect human rights, and were genuinely
surprised when the bombing merely prompted Milosevicz to accelerate the
ethnic
cleansing of Kosovo. This just makes them badly informed, stupid and naive."
Exactly so -- and it just shows what happens when you stop thinking and
start emoting -- the demonisation of Milosevich obscures the otherwise
obvious point that, while a chancer like Milosevich has no scruples about
leaning on Serbian chauvinists, he needs them more than they need him.
In fact, what the human rights moraliser overlooked was the fact that
whether or not M. wanted to step up ethnic cleansing once the bombing
started (as a rational cynic, he might have calculated that this would be a
bad idea), the chauvinists would have anyway.
They don't care if M. falls, and hence don't care if their actions
precipitate his fall -- they just want to clear as many Kosovars out of the
territory before the imperialists get to Belgrade and impose a new regime.
Sol goes on:
"The
NATO action has made it harder than ever to uphold genuine human rights
principles, it has just added to the widespread scepticism that such claims
are
meaningless unless backed by force. There is really no reason for socialists
to
be taken in by this charade."
-- which isn't to say that it may be not just right but necessary to back up
human rights principles by force.
I could be persuaded to bomb Belgrade a good flatter than NATO has yet
dared, if I thought doing so was necessary in order to advance a genuinely
constructive plan for the Balkans.
The point is that witless gestures of the kind endorsed by social democrats
aren't the product of either strategic or tactical thinking (see above).
They simply provide an excuse for imperialist meddling.
Incidentally, let's not allow the last 10 years to obscure the fact that
there *are* still two super-powers -- the last month must have lead quite a
few elites in LDCs to reflect that:
(a) it would be no bad thing to have a choice of patron
(b) the Russian state, even in its present condition, might have something
to offer in the right circumstances.
Socialist greetings
Julian Wells
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