From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V8 #191 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Wednesday, May 26 1999 Volume 08 : Number 191 Today's Subjects: ----------------- and NOW we're talking about... [digja611@student.otago.ac.nz (James Digna] Re: howard [Ethyl Ketone ] Re: howard (no Robyn at all) [steve ] Re: howard (no Robyn at all) [Michael R Godwin ] Re: and NOW we're talking about... [Michael R Godwin ] Zinnfield Follies [Christopher Gross ] Re: Zinnfield Follies [Capuchin ] Re: Zinnfield Follies [Christopher Gross ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 16:14:51 +1200 From: digja611@student.otago.ac.nz (James Dignan) Subject: and NOW we're talking about... Pay toilets! And some music, too >Why invented in the first place? To subsidize the cost of toilet paper >and/or janitorial cleaning expenses. Or maybe to make going to the >bathroom more like a game--plunk in a dime and take your turn. > >Where they originated? No idea. I remember them being fairly common in >the late 70's, when I was just a lad. Part of me wants to say, "only in >America," but I don't know. well, they were certainly common enough in Britain in the 60s and 70s, although I don't know of them ever having been common here in NZ. In fact there is a common British euphemism for going to the bog - "to spend a penny". I would infer from conversations I've had with older people over the years on just this subject (well, maybe not) that the pay toilet has been common in the UK since around the end of WWII, and could have originated there because paper was in such short supply during and after the war (hell, EVERYTHING was in short supply - rationing continued well into the 1950s) >I've seen it happen countless times, so I thought I'd throw out >this artist and song title and see if anyone can inform me: John >Rolle? I'm guessing on the spelling-the song is "Hush, not a >word to Mary" John Rowles - a New Zealander who made it big on the Vegas circuit in the states. Bibi - I thought you knew all about NZ music! :) James James Dignan___________________________________ You talk to me Deptmt of Psychology, Otago University As if from a distance ya zhivu v' 50 Norfolk Street And I reply. . . . . . . . . . Dunedin, New Zealand with impressions chosen from another time steam megaphone (03) 455-7807 (Brian Eno - "By this River") ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 May 1999 21:52:20 -0700 From: Ethyl Ketone Subject: Re: howard At 8.37 PM -0700 5/25/99, Capitalism Blows wrote: >Whose Atrocity Is Bigger >(from a forthcoming article to be published by the Progressive)By Howard >Zinn etc. Fegs forgive me, I just gotta say som'tin here... What about Sarajevo?????? A city that hosted the winter olympics less than ten years before it was made rubble, without electricity, water, wood in the winter, gas and a population held hostage due to the snipers posted around the city. Serbian paramilitary snipers. The serb military on hills around town shelling. What about bombs in marketplaces in Bosnia and Croatia??? The villages leveled, people rounded up into camps or executed on the spot. Years of it Eddie. And while I know that a large portion of the population does not support Milosevic and the paramilitary groups, that still does not deny 8 years of agression. Belgrade never felt a shell as it bombed Bosnian villages into the stoneage! NATOs incessant bombing is not a solution. Re-education is a solution but requires more committment and time than most politicians and governments are willing to offer. Albania and Macedonia cannot support the refugees. And bombing Serbia only strengthens their determined nationalism ("the whole worlds against us"). If George Bush had agreed to NATOs "surgical strikes" 8 years ago perhaps we wouldn't be there today. Listen, I spend alot of time in Translyvania, mere miles from the Serbian border. I've been to Macedonia and Albania. And I know that the Albanian mafia runs the country (and the KLA). I have many friends who are Bosnian refugees, Serbs in mixed marriages and Croatians. I've heard the stories of the war in Bosnia, the houndings out of anyone in a mixed marriage, the killing of muslims, the rapes, the executions of men of military age. One of my friends tells me his father was buried in a soccer field in Sarajevo because there wasn't any more room in the cemetary. The point is that Milosevic and his paramilitary need to be stopped. Is bombing the answer??? Is it ever?? But will these fools listen to anything else????? I don't want to open this thread again. I'm just a little sick of hearing the "poor serbia" line. What a short memory the world has, fed by MTV and CNN. - - and another thing... I've seen a lot of the world where "communism" spent a good 50 years. It sucks Eddie. Be Seeing You, - - Carrie ps: if you are going to flame me (and go ahead), perhaps off list is best. I am sorry to everyone for posting this on list, but I get a little tired of the one-sided point of view. Oh, and I read the AVA when I am up in that neck of the woods, my family lives there. It often has lots of profound thinking. I do not belong to the NRA. I am not a veteran. I do not vote "party" (any party) on anything. The views written here are my own and only my own, blah, blah, blah... "Questions are a burden for others. Answers are a prison for oneself." **************************************************************************** M.E.Ketone/C.Galbraith meketone@ix.netcom.com carrieg@blueplanetsoftware.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 01:49:02 -0500 From: steve Subject: Re: howard (no Robyn at all) Capitalism Blows: >Milosovic has committed atrocities. Therefore it is okay for us to commit >atrocities. Gotta love ya Eddie, but you and Zinn are off base on this one. Don't you get the wiff of Nazism when you hear that Serbian nationalist bullshit? Atrocities are committed on purpose. Despite your opinion of Clinton and NATO, I strongly doubt that they have targeted a single civilian. >To the bloodthirsty Thomas Friedman of the NEW YORK TIMES, all Serbs >must be punished, without mercy, because they have "tacitly sanctioned" the >deeds of their leaders. Does Friedman really want to punish each and every Serb? And no mercy? I applaud the democratic forces in Yugoslavia, and I hope that they come to power. >That is a novel definition of war guilt. Not so - I believe the populations of both Germany and Japan were judged to have some "tacit" guilt for the crimes committed by their countries. After the war, steps were taken to purge both societies of Nazi and Militarist elements, respectively. And there are plenty of *actively* guilty Serbs - Milosovic, anybody in his government, anybody that ever voted for him, the army, the police, the paramilitary units, any political party that will have anything to do with him, the Eastern Orthodox Church, Serbs who will not sell food to ethnic Albanians, etc. - the list is long. >Can we now expect an Iraqi journalist to call for bombs placed in every >American supermarket on the grounds that all of us have "tacitly sanctioned" >the hundreds of thousands of deaths in Iraq caused by our eight-year long >embargo. There aren't any Iraqi journalists. >Official terrorism, whether used abroad or at home, by jet bombers or by >the police, is always given an opportunity by the press to explain itself, as is >never done for ordinary terrorists. The thirty one prisoners and nine guards >massacred at Governor Rockefeller's orders in the Attica uprising; the >twenty-eight women and children of the organization MOVE, killed in a fire >after their homes were bombed by Philadelphia police; the eighty-six men, >women, and children of the Waco compound who died in an attack ordered >by the Clinton Administration;, the African immigrant murdered by a gang of >policemen in New York -- all of these events had explanations which, however >absurd, are dutifully given time and space by the media. None of the above events have anything to do with Yugoslavia. However, representatives of the Yugoslav government were all over the U.S. media for a couple of weeks, which is all the attention span you can expect when sex is not involved. And you can hear about Serbian suffering every day on All Things Considered. >One of these explanations is in terms of numbers, and we have heard both >Clinton and his forked-tongue counterpart Jamie Shea pass off the bombing >of Yugoslav civilians by telling us the Serb police have killed more Albanians >than we have killed Serbs (although as the air strikes multiply, the numbers >are getting closer). They have killed more than we have, so it's okay to >bomb not just Serbs but Albanian refugees, not just adults but children, and >to use the cluster bombs which have caused unprecedented amputations in >Kosovo hospitals. >There were those who defended the 1945 firestorm bombing of Dresden >(100,000 dead? -- we can't be sure) by pointing to the Holocaust. As if one >atrocity deserves another. And with no chance at all that one could prevent >the other (just as our bombings have done nothing to stop the mayhem in >Kosovo, indeed have intensified it). I have heard the deaths of several >hundred thousand Japanese citizens in the atomic strikes on Hiroshima and >Nagasaki justified by the terrible acts of the Japanese military in that war. >I suppose if we consider the millions of casualties of all the wars started >by national leaders these past fifty years as "tacitly" supported by their >populations, some righteous God who made the mistake of reading Friedman >might well annihilate the human race. >The television networks, filling our screen with heartrending photos of the >Albanian refugees -- and those stories must not be ignored -- have not given >us a full picture of the human suffering we have caused by our bombing. An >e-mail came to me, a message from Professor Djordje Vidanovic, a professor >of linguistics and semantics at the University of Nis: "The little town of >Aleksinac, 20 miles away from my home town, was hit last night will >full force. The local hospital was hit and a whole street was simply wiped >off. What I know for certain is 6 dead civilians and more than 50 badly >hurt. There was no military target around whatsoever." >That was an "accident". As was the bombing of the Chinese Embassy. As was >the bombing of a civilian train on a bridge over the Juzna Morava River, as >was the bombing of Albanian refugees on a road in southern Kosovo, as was >the destruction of a civilian bus with twenty four dead including four >children (there was a rare press description of the gruesome scene by Paul >Watson of the LOS ANGELES TIMES). >Some stories come through despite the inordinate attention to NATO >propaganda, omnipresent on CNN and other networks (and the shameless >Jamie Shea announced we bombed a television station in Belgrade because it >gives out propaganda). The NEW YORK TIMES reported the demolition of >four houses in the town of Merdare by anti-personnel bombs "killing five >people, including Bozina Tosovic, 30, and his 11-month old daughter, Bojana. >His wife, 6 months pregnant is in the hospital. >Steven Erlanger reported, also in the NEW YORK TIMES, that NATO missiles >killed at least eleven people in a residential area of Surdulica, a town in >southern Serbia. He described "the mounded rubble across narrow Zmaj >Jovina Street, where Aleksandar Milic, 37, died on Tuesday. Mr. Milic's wife, >Vesna, 35, also died. So did his mother and his two children, Miljana, 15 >and Vladimir, 11 -- all of them killed about noon when an errant NATO bomb >obliterated their new house and the cellar in which they were sheltering." >Are these "accidents", as NATO and U.S. officials solemnly assure us? One >day in 1945 I dropped canisters of napalm on a village in France. I have no >idea how many villagers died, but I did not mean to kill them. Can I absolve >what I did as "an accident"? Aerial bombings have as inevitable consequences >the killing of civilians, and this is foreseeable, even if the details about >who will be the victims cannot be predicted. >The word "accident" is used to exonerate vicious actions. If I race my car >at eighty miles an hour through a street crowded with children, and kill ten >of them, can I call that an "accident"? The deaths and mutilations caused by >the bombing campaign in Yugoslavia are not accidents, but the inevitable >result of a deliberate and cruel campaign against the people of that country. >When I read a few weeks ago that cluster bombs are being used against >Yugoslavia, I felt a special horror. These have hundreds of shrapnel-like >metal fragments which enter the body and cannot easily be removed, causing >unbearable pain. Serb children have picked up unexploded bombs and been >mutilated as they exploded. I remember being in Hanoi in 1968 and visiting >hospitals where children lay in agony, victims of a similar weapon -- >cluster bombs -- their bodies full of tiny pellets. >Two sets of atrocities -- two campaigns of terrorism -- ours and theirs. >Both must be condemned. But for that, both must be acknowledged, and if >one is given enormous attention, and the other passed over with official >explanations given respectful attention, it becomes impossible to make a >balanced moral judgement. >There was an extraordinary report by Tim Weiner in the NEW YORK TIMES >contrasting the scene in Belgrade with that in Washington where the NATO >summit was taking place. "In Belgrade...Gordana Ristic, 33, was preparing to >spend another night in the basement-cum-bomb shelter of hear apartment >building. 'It was a really horrible night last night. There were explosions >every few minutes after 2 A.M....I'm sorry that your leaders are not willing >to read history.' >"A reporter read to her from Clinton's speeches at the summit meeting. She >sounded torn between anger and tears. 'This is the bottom to which >civilization, in which I believed, has gone. Clinton is playing a role, >singing a song in an opera. It kills me' As she slept, NATO's leaders dined >on soft-shell crabs and spring lamb in the East Room of the White House. >Dessert was a little chocolate globe. Jessye Norman sang arias. And as the >last limousine left, near midnight. Saturday morning's all-clear sounded in >Belgrade...." The above ten paragraphs are largely irrelevant. Stories about personal tragedies resulting from military actions lead to nothing but paralysis. (I *would* point out that any specific military action can only be justified if it is *necessary* to achieve a legitimate goal). If the Europeans wish to claim that they live in a *truly* civilized part of the world, then they must stop Milosovic - and he has been (and will only be) stopped by force. And as the U.S. is part of NATO, we must help them. Which brings me to American guilt, tacit or otherwise. As a nation, we are guilty of wanting the world to be a wonderful place without wanting to contribute anything really important to that end. If large numbers of NATO ground forces were massing on the borders of Yugoslavia, this little incident would be resolved much quicker, and with a much better outcome. I don't intend to start, or engage in, a political debate. So I think I will restrict myself to commenting on Eddie's every 1000th political posting. Respect to all - Steve _______________ We're all Jesus, Buddha, and the Wizard of Oz! - Andy Partridge ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 13:21:44 +0100 (BST) From: Michael R Godwin Subject: Re: howard (no Robyn at all) A postgrad in our department who is writing a PhD on Albania visited Pristina in 1992. When he entered the Grand Hotel - the principal hotel in the whole of Kosovo - he noticed a sign which read "We do not serve dogs or ethnic Albanians". This was in a province where 90% of the population were ethnic Albanians. What is needed in Kosovo is an international force on the ground to guarantee the human rights of all Kosovars regardless of race and religion. I don't know whether high-altitude bombing is an effective way of achieving this or not. I do know that since Milosevic said a week ago that he was pulling troops out of Kosovo, there has been another mass exodus of refugees fleeing from the Yugoslav forces, who continue to terrorise the population. - - Mike Godwin ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 16:07:08 +0100 (BST) From: Michael R Godwin Subject: Re: and NOW we're talking about... On Wed, 26 May 1999, James Dignan wrote: > there is a common British euphemism for going to the bog - "to spend a > penny". Inflation has long since outdated this phrase, although you still hear it now and again. There was a report in the paper the other day that in Harrods it now costs a quid ($1.60 at today's rate), although you can get in free if you have a proof of purchase. The reported was gloating because he got 2 pees (not 2p) after purchasing only one pint in the Harrods bar. It is also expensive (though less than a quid I think) in the superloos on the appropriately-named Waterloo Station. - - Mike Godwin PS Edwin Lutyens, the architect, left the design of the approach to the Viceroy's Palace in New Delhi to his assistant, Baker. Baker made a hash of it (the palace appears, then disappears behind a dip, then appears again) Lutyens's comment: "I have met my Bakerloo". ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 11:17:57 -0400 (EDT) From: Christopher Gross Subject: Zinnfield Follies Carrie wrote: >ps: if you are going to flame me (and go ahead), perhaps off list is >best. >I am sorry to everyone for posting this on list, but I get a little tired >of the one-sided point of view No need to apologize! You have as much right to continue this thread as Eddie had to start it. And I'm sure Eddie will back me up on THAT point, at least. Anyone who wants to flame you for talking about politics will have to flame Eddie too, and I pity the fool who does that.... Eddie "Capitalism Blows" Tews wrote: > Milosovic has committed atrocities. Therefore it is okay for us to commit > atrocities. He is terrorizing the Albanians in Kosovo. Therefore we can > terrorize the population of cities and villages in Yugoslavia. Zinn's main point seems to be that one atrocity doesn't justify another. In vague and abstract terms, that sounds reasonable. However, if you plug that principle into a real-world situation, things don't seem so simple. We are in a situation where our *only* choices are to accept Milosevic's actions in Kosovo or attack Milosevic's regime, and there is no way to attack Milosevic's regime without also killing and wounding both Serbs and Kosovars. Zinn completely ignores this dilemma. It is *possible*, at least, that one atrocity will prevent an even greater atrocity. Zinn completely ignores this possibility, not even giving it the attention necessary to deny it. > The television networks, filling our screen with heartrending photos of the > Albanian refugees -- and those stories must not be ignored -- have not given > us a full picture of the human suffering we have caused by our bombing. > ... > Some stories come through despite the inordinate attention to NATO > propaganda, omnipresent on CNN and other networks (and the shameless Jamie > Shea announced we bombed a television station in Belgrade because it gives > out propaganda). Speaking of shameless, I love how Zinn denounces the media for failing to show us the horrors of the bombing, then goes on to quote examples of the media showing us the horrors of the bombing. He doesn't even bother to cover up the inconsistency by putting a page or two between the denunciation and the quotes.... For the past two months the Western media have been FILLED with stories and images of suffering caused by the bombing. In fact the ratio of coverage to suffering in Serbia is probably far higher than the ratio of coverage to suffering in Kosovo, if only because it's hard to get any news out of Kosovo. It's hard to see how Zinn can claim that the Western media have ignored the suffering NATO's bombing has caused. I'm afraid the *most* charitable explanation I can come up with is that he is lying for what he considers a greater good. A less charitable but more likely explanation is that he is simply ignoring anything that doesn't support his preconceived beliefs about our media. As far as "accidental" bombings are concerned, Zinn is right that such accidents are an inevitable result of the bombing and thus, in one sense, aren't really accidents. However, there is still a real and meaningful difference between hitting a civilian target deliberately and hitting a civilian target because you aimed at a military target and missed. When journalists report on whether a target was hit accidentally or purposefully, they aren't spouting NATO propaganda, as Zinn would have it; they are reporting on an really important part of the story. If one day NATO accidentally bombed a hospital, then the next day *delibrately* bombed another hospital, would Zinn really think there was no important difference between the two attacks? > Aerial bombings have as inevitable consequences > the killing of civilians, and this is foreseeable, even if the details about > who will be the victims cannot be predicted. This is quite true, and I don't think NATO, Albright or even Bill "Sleazeball" Clinton has ever claimed otherwise. (If Clinton ever said "no civilians will be killed by our forces," I'd like to see a source for the quote.) But as I said above, we are in a situation where attacking Serbia is the only course of action that has even a *slight* chance of stopping the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. We can either kill a unknown number of Serbian soldiers and civilians to possibly save most Kosovars, or we can sit back, do nothing, and guarantee that tens of thousands of Kosovars will be killed and the rest will never see their homes again. (I have yet to hear a third course of action suggested that would amount to more than sitting back and doing nothing.) This is a tough dilemma, and I'd respect Zinn more if he faced it. Howard Zinn's _People's History of the United States_ has long been on my "mean to read" list. The suspicion that it will be a disappointment is growing.... - --Chris ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 09:34:25 -0700 (PDT) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: Zinnfield Follies On Wed, 26 May 1999, Christopher Gross wrote: > > Milosovic has committed atrocities. Therefore it is okay for us to commit > > atrocities. He is terrorizing the Albanians in Kosovo. Therefore we can > > terrorize the population of cities and villages in Yugoslavia. > > Zinn's main point seems to be that one atrocity doesn't justify another. > In vague and abstract terms, that sounds reasonable. However, if you plug > that principle into a real-world situation, things don't seem so simple. > We are in a situation where our *only* choices are to accept Milosevic's > actions in Kosovo or attack Milosevic's regime, and there is no way to > attack Milosevic's regime without also killing and wounding both Serbs and > Kosovars. Zinn completely ignores this dilemma. It is *possible*, at > least, that one atrocity will prevent an even greater atrocity. Zinn > completely ignores this possibility, not even giving it the attention > necessary to deny it. > > > Aerial bombings have as inevitable consequences > > the killing of civilians, and this is foreseeable, even if the details about > > who will be the victims cannot be predicted. > > This is quite true, and I don't think NATO, Albright or even Bill > "Sleazeball" Clinton has ever claimed otherwise. (If Clinton ever said > "no civilians will be killed by our forces," I'd like to see a source for > the quote.) But as I said above, we are in a situation where attacking > Serbia is the only course of action that has even a *slight* chance of > stopping the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. We can either kill a unknown > number of Serbian soldiers and civilians to possibly save most Kosovars, > or we can sit back, do nothing, and guarantee that tens of thousands of > Kosovars will be killed and the rest will never see their homes again. > (I have yet to hear a third course of action suggested that would amount > to more than sitting back and doing nothing.) This is a tough dilemma, > and I'd respect Zinn more if he faced it. That's a false dichotomy, Chris. Our choices aren't "either kill an unknown number of Serbian soldiers and civilians... [or] sit back, do nothing, and guarantee that tens of thousands of Kosovars will be killed and the rest will never see their homes again". No no no. The atrocity isn't the war itself (nor this bit of uncut mane on my head). The atrocity is the bombing campaign. NATO planes go in and blow the shit out of anything in their path, dropping bombs almost indiscriminately, killing civillians, sure, but worse, destroying infrastructure and reducing what was already a second world nation to a charred wasteland of broken civilization. And as for support for democratic forces in Serbia? Well, 94.1% of all Yugoslavians live in Serbia and 66% of those people are ethnic Serbs. (Do you have any idea how much I hate this racist nationalist tribalist crap? Why do these people even THINK of themselves as one or the other? Fuck that.) So if we assume (wrongly, I should hope) that everyone over there is a racist pig that supports the supremacy of their own little tribe, a democratic government would stomp the shit out of people who are not Serbs. Democracy doesn't work when we're trying to help an oppressed minority. Majority rules means minorities suffer. So what do you say? You're talking about the regions that are filled with Albanian majority? Fine. Let them be a separate nation. And then let the Serbs push their Albanians out into the new Albanian homeland. Hell, let's just put every little ethnic group that wants solidarity into their own little storage nation and keep those wacky tribes apart. We'd only have about thirty million nations, when it's all done. We're talking about a region of the world whose culture has brought forward racism and violence for centuries. It's still the powder keg of Europe. Bombing it into the stone age, as some people put it, isn't going to stop the violence and tribalism. Destroying the infrastructure is just going to make more people suffer than would otherwise. So great... the Albanians can stay in their homeland... as long as they like living amongst ruins and disease without running water, decent shelter, or adequate capital to get back on their feet. I'm getting a touch off of my point, but I'd like to say that sending troops in instead of bombers would leave fewer civilian dead and create greater sympathy for the people and better coverage of what is happening on the ground. It would increase responsibility and accountability. And it would leave the nation more or less standing. > Howard Zinn's _People's History of the United States_ has long been on my > "mean to read" list. The suspicion that it will be a disappointment is > growing.... I've read a chapter or two. It's interesting, really. His accuracy on most issues is pretty solid, but he's a little shakey now and then. I definitely got the impression that he went into the work with preconceived notions. Having a slow work morning... THREE DAYS AND COUNTING! WHEEE! J. - -- ________________________________________________________ J A Brelin Capuchin ________________________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 13:55:54 -0400 (EDT) From: Christopher Gross Subject: Re: Zinnfield Follies On Wed, 26 May 1999, Capuchin wrote: > That's a false dichotomy, Chris. > > Our choices aren't "either kill an unknown number of Serbian soldiers and > civilians... [or] sit back, do nothing, and guarantee that tens of > thousands of Kosovars will be killed and the rest will never see their > homes again". No no no. Actually, I don't think we disagree very much. My view is that our only options are doing nothing or attacking Serbia. I'm not necessarily wedded to the current bombing campaign as the best way to attack Serbia. On the other hand, I'm not 100% against the bombing campaign, either. Let's face it, Serbia has to be hurt if it is to be defeated; and aerial bombing is probably the best way of hurting them with the smallest death count. While the bombing has killed many civilians and severely damaged Serbia's infrastructure, Serbia hasn't quite been reduced to a charred wasteland yet. Truly indiscriminate bombing would have killed a *lot* more Serbs than the current campaign has done. A land invasion probably would, too. (However, I agree with you that a land invasion would be more likely to succeed in its goals.) I would be glad if NATO switched to a policy of attacking military targets only. However, that would make less of a difference than you might think. Even a "military targets only" strategy couldn't ignore bridges, railroads and fuel supplies that the Yugoslav army needs for transportation to and in Kosovo. Police stations and Interior Ministry facilities would also have to be considered military targets; they certainly serve a military purpose in ethnic cleansing. And a civilian factory that makes army supplies is really a military, not a civilian, target. Still, we could avoid moves like cutting off Belgrade's electricity; I think that's too much of a direct attack on civilians. (Some might argue that it's necessary if we're to make the Serbs realize that they have to give it, but IMO it's actually more likely to harden their resistance.) > I'm getting a touch off of my point, but I'd like to say that sending > troops in instead of bombers would leave fewer civilian dead and create > greater sympathy for the people and better coverage of what is happening > on the ground. It would increase responsibility and accountability. And > it would leave the nation more or less standing. I agree that ground troops would be better than bombing in many respects, but I don't know if it would actually save lives. If the Yugoslav army folded quickly, then maybe; but I suspect they would fight tenaciously. And then NATO's ground forces would naturally use air power as part of their fight against the Yugoslav army, so we would *still* be bombing bridges and factories. It's probably just a theoretical question anyway: right now it seems unlikely that NATO will send in ground troops, at least until the Serbs are finally beaten and it's time to police Kosovo. It's a tragic situation any way you look at it, and there are no good options, only choices between bad ones. - --Chris (devoting some of his precious lunch hour to Fegmaniax!) ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V8 #191 *******************************