Silvia Winowski writes:
> Martin, another comment. One can think it is a way of making NATO
> look bad. One can also think that maybe it is a way of asserting what
> little national pride and independence they have left. In other words,
> it's their only way to fight back!

National pride is when you sit in the stands with painted face and
cheer for your football team.  This is not national pride; this is
evil.  And you can say the NATO action is then also evil.  I won't
argue against that.

> Nobody likes to be pushed around...even when they're wrong! I can't
> think of a single country which has not commited an atrocity against
> it's people. Unfortunately it seems to be human nature but if the
> U.S. or England or any other first world country does this....nobody
> is going to jump in with cruise missles. Yet when any third world
> country or any strategically placed country within the geopolitical
> system does this...Well!....It's an atrocity that must be stopped
> and how DARE they raise their voice or do anything to defend
> themselves.....Hmm! It just doesn't seem right.

You're right, it isn't right.  But given the structures that are in
place to run the world, it will always come to this.  Some nation or
small group of nations will run the world - or think it is running the
world.  All the government structures we have devised use force within
the structure to keep the system running.  Outside the structure, the
rules are not enforcable because there is no force to enforce them.
What we had during the cold war was the east and west holding each
other in check with deterrence.  Within the eastern block the Kremlin
could always threaten to use force.  Within the western block,
Washington could always threaten to use force.  Neither could act
freely outside its sphere of influence because the other was always a
threat.  Actually, I don't think that threat was real, but it was
useful for manufacturing consent within each block.

Now the Soviet Union is gone, and there is nothing to hold the western
block in check.  They think they run the world and they think they
must run the world, and there is no higher level of authority to keep
them in line.  The UN will never be that authority because of the veto
power, and because, if a big player opts out whenever the UN does
something it doesn't like, as the US has often done, there is nothing
the UN can do about it.  There is nothing the World Court can do about
it.

Obviously a major malfunction.

martin