J.J. Dobkin wrote excoriating me......
<Oh really, Tony? This is exactly the argument that politicians in the
US and other western powers use--anybody who criticizes the status quo
when it's involved in a military action is unpatriotic, in fact,
downright disloyal. I'm surprised that anybody on this list would
actually parrot such slanderous nonsense.>

And why is it 'slanderous nonsense' to state the obvious.      When your
country's imperialist rulers begin a barrrage of demonization against
the leader of the country they have decided to bomb, it 's hardly the
time for Left intellectuals to leap in with oodles of 'analysis'
agreeing with what a devil The Ruling Crum of our own countries are
after.    Don't accuse me of being a parrot for criticizing the parrots.

If Yugoslavs want to criticize Milosevic for getting them into a fight
with The Big Guys, that's an entirely different matter than Noam and J.
going to bat against Milosevic, also.      Is that really so hard a
distinction to understand?
.........
To my comment about it not being our business in the imperialist bloc
regarding the matter of Montenegro's status as independent or not, J.J.
Dobkin again wants to take me to task.....

<The same reason it's our business what happens to human beings denied
their freedom anywhere else. Did you ask whether it was our business
whether black South Africans should or should not have the same rights
as white South Africans? Do you ask what business it is of ours whether
Palestineans should or should not live under Israeli occupation? Or what
business it is of ours whether Nike's sweatshop workers in places like
China and Indonesia are allowed to unionize? If not, how dare you
question the Montenegrin's right to secession--and our responsibility to
support them when it's as clear as it is that that's what most
Montenegrins want.>

Do you not see any difference between your analogies and Montenegro, Mr.
Dobkin?    The oppession of Palestinians, Black South Africans, and Nike
victims is all something that the imperialist countries have had, and
still have an active hand in.

You seem to find 'our responsibility' to be in deciding the affairs of
ALL the world, including deciding that the country we just bombed should
be partitioned in a manner that J. J. Dobkin has decided is just!

'How dare I to question the  Montenegrin's right to successsion'?
Come now, Mr. Dobkin, I didn't do that, did I?     I said simply that it
was none of our business.    How dare you butt into the business of The
Balkan peoples behind the guns of your own ruling classes.     And to do
it in the name of 'rights', no less.

Tony Abdo