>[Tony Abdo wrote:]
>I don't defend Milosevic at all.

Your disingenuousness is brazen, Tony. Your 'my enemy's enemy is my
friend' refrain isn't exactly three dimensional political science. Are
you under the impression it is? I personally have you down as a
tongue-in-cheek man. But if I'm wrong about that, will you at least
accept this: that your idea of politics is all about position and
posture, and not about people at all.

>Yugoslavia (or Serbia, if that's the way you want it?) did want to get
>rid of Milosevic. Did they decide that on their own?

I must admit I wince at your condescension, and not just here. I don't
get the impression you have any instinctive respect for any people
anywhere. You mention peoples... you throw in the word 'Palestinians',
you invoke the entity 'South Africans', there was some passing reference
to 'Nicaraguans'. Fine. But your brand of discourse has nothing really to
do with people or peoples, does it? Postures. But not people. Chomsky has
been 'silent' over NATO, meaning you disagree with him. You, meanwhile,
are On The Street, fighting the U.S. Military, or whatever. Great. And
yet your self-absorbtion - which, if you'll forgive my broad brush,
strikes me as a quintessential Americanism - factors out people
altogether - in this instance the people of Yugoslavia. You and NATO have
a lot in common, funnily enough.

Tony, perhaps you are a flower wasted on the desert air (...hope that
gets past the moderators) but if the best you can do in terms of making
yourself some elbow room in this sorry world is to descend upon this tiny
CHOMSKY list and do your holier-and-angrier-than-thou routine day after
day (which I'm still convinced is intended as a slight parody) then it is
a shame. I do hope you ARE an activist in the Eugene Debs mould, as you
claim. That would be nice. For my own part, I used to teach history, not
make it. Which makes me a bit of a quisling, like Chomsky - have I got
that right? I dislike Milosevic, therefore I as good as dropped cluster
bombs on farms in Kosovo, yes?

Oh yes, and by the way, posting a retort on the list to an e-mail which
wasn't posted to the list...

>Jonathan, I am sorry that we are down to a flame war level of dialog.
>I don't know if our exchange will be published on list, or not.    When
>things get this hot, moderators often just decide to use the delete
>button.

...is a bit shabby, as you well know. "By Any Means Necessary", eh? In
the Better World most people on this list probably dimly long for, how do
you envisage getting yourself elected?

You DO envisage elections, don't you? You know, 'people' and all that.

Cheers

Adrian