on 11/28/99 11:47 AM, Wat Tyler at [log in to unmask] wrote:

> WASHINGTON -- Senator William V. Roth, Jr. (R-DE), Chairman of the Senate
> NATO Observer Group, today delivered the following floor statement on the
> lessons learned from Operation ALLIED FORCE and the Kosovo conflict:
>
> "Among NATO's first and foremost objectives in this war was to stop the
> atrocities then being committed against Kosovar Albanians. Yet, in the
> course of Operation ALLIED FORCE, Milosevic accelerated and expanded his
> campaign of terror. Before the war was over, nearly 90% of Kosovar
> Albanians were driven from their homes by Serbian para-military and
> military forces. Nearly one half were actually expelled from Kosovo.
>
> "Moreover, no less than 10,000 Albanians were executed by Milosevic's
> henchmen during the course of the NATO campaign. As we learn daily from the
> grim excavations of body-filled wells and mass graves, the actual figure is
> probably much, much higher. And then there were the countless rapes of
> Albanian women, which for cultural reasons will unfortunately never be
> fully reported -- all occurring during the course of Operation ALLIED FORCE.
I have no idea what Wat's stance on this is, but juxtaposing Sen. Roth's
analysis with the ever-shifting bases espoused by the anti-war Left is
instructive.

On the one hand we have the argument that there were a lot of Serb
atrocities--and that NATO caused them. This argument, bastard stepchild of
Gareth Porter's argument that the US bombing of Cambodia was responsible for
the Khmer Rouge, was made during and immediately after the war by many on
the Left as well, Alexander Cockburn among them.

Since we will never know how many Kosovar Albanians the Serbs would have
killed had NATO not intervened, this argument is immune from falsification,
and hence not very interesting. Its morality is moreover more than a little
questionable, since it amounts to letting a war criminal, Milosevic, set
NATO war policy. But at least it rests on, and respects, the ever-growing
body count of dead Albanians.

On the other hand we have the revisionist argument that there were no, or
very few Serb atrocities, and that NATO fabricated data to the contrary.
This argument take the preceding argument and stands it on its head: to the
extent that the final body count is lower than feared, this is to NATO's
discredit. In other words, NATO stands accused of preventing atrocities by a
mass murderer with a well-established record in carnage. This argument is
currently fashionable with many on the antiwar Left, including Alexander
"What? Me Worry about Consistency?" Cockburn.

Heads I win, tails NATO loses. If the body count is high, it fails; if it's
low, it fails. Chalk up another victory for the language of Orwell.