"Marques, Jorge" writes, deliberately misquoting:
> Now, back to your reply: since you so curtly dismiss that entire posting
> because you disagree with one word in the title, let's ignore the title and
> see if the examples of statements by bombing advocates presented are similar
> to what you have been arguing:

I don't know what you are talking about with regard to one word in the
title.  I don't know which word; I don't know which title.  I
explained why I didn't respond to an entire posting.  It had gotten
way too long.  I could also have said we were going around in circles.
This will be my last response to you, because you have deliberately
broken the rules of honest discourse.  The cut and paste "atrocity"
below is an example of the dishonesty of which CNN is accused.

> ["" = quoted from the article, > = quoted from your recent posts]
>
> EXAMPLE 1:
> "After all, Milosevic is horrible and there was genocide going on and
> someone had to do something and NATO did something, so that's good...right."
>
> > But it isn't an irrational argument.  When should an organization like
> > the Serb army led by someone like Milosevic be stopped by force?
> > Never?  If not never, then how close were we to the limit?  If we had
> > waited longer, would he have destabilized the entire region?
>
> The implications of this statement are certainly that the Serb Army led by
> Milosevic were doing horrible things and that the use of force was
> justified.
>

You clearly mean the two quotes have something to do with each other.
They don't.  I wasn't responding to Michael Albert's abstraction of
what he perceives is an argument put forth by people who support the
bombing.  I was responding to Micha Strutt's claim that a statement
made by Bogdan Denitch and Ian Williams was irrational.  The context
from which you lifted my quote is this:

<begin context>

Bogdan Denitch and Ian Williams:
> > Those who want an immediate NATO
> > cease-fire owe the world an explanation of how they propose
> > to stop and reverse the massive ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, in
> > light of Milosevic's history as a serial ethnic cleanser and
> > promise-breaker.

Michael Strutt
>         Seems to me that it's up to those who favour the bombing to show
>         that it helps the situation, not those who oppose it to come up
>         with an alternative.

Martin Smith:
NATO does't have to show anything, because there isn't any higher
authority that can stop it.  NATO just has to decide to do it and then
do it.  Without a higher authority, the only way to stop NATO before
it finishes is to organize a massive protest that literally threatens
the stability of the world economy.  That requires an enormous number
of people to actually act against their own economic self-interest.
If there were enough Buddhists in the west, it could be done.  But if
there were enough Buddhists in the west, we wouldn't be in this
situation in the first place.

Michael Strutt:
>         However, the irrational argument above is exactly the one
>         promoted by CNN, the State Department and NATO spokestooges.

Martin Smith:
But it isn't an irrational argument.  When should an organization like
the Serb army led by someone like Milosevic be stopped by force?
Never?  If not never, then how close were we to the limit?  If we had
waited longer, would he have destabilized the entire region?

<end context>

Denitch and Williams' statement is not irrational.  It might be wrong,
but it is not irrational.  People who advocate stopping the bombing
ought to offer a solution that answers the concerns of the people who
advocate or passively accept the bombing, whether or not the bombing
is justified.  The obvious main reason for this is that: They won't
stop the bombing unless you offer them a solution they will accept.
It doesn't matter whether you like that or not.  That's the way the
system works.  About my response, you then say:

"The implications of this statement are certainly that the Serb Army
led by Milosevic were doing horrible things and that the use of force
was justified."

I have stated numerous times that the bombing has not been justified.
I don't think I should have to attach it to every paragraph I write.

Here is a statement from me in response to Michael Strutt.  It was in
a message I was writing in response to his last lengthening of my long
response to him

Michael Strutt:
How do you justify the deaths with unbelievable data?

Martin Smith:
I don't justify any of it.  I explain it.  An explanation is not a
justification.  Neither side can justify its actions.  If you insist
that I give you the justification I would use if I were the NATO
spokesman, I would say this: The Serb army, police and paramilitary
cannot justify their action against the Kosovo Albanians.  NATO will
now use military force to stop that action.  The NATO action will not
stop until the Serb action stops.  When the Serb action stops, an
international ground force will occupy Kosovo until the situation
stabilizes.

There is no justification beyond that, that I can see, I don't think
any further justification is needed.  That doesn't mean I think it is
justified.  I mean that is the best that can be said by way of
justification.  It reduces the problem to a situation analogous to one
in which a man comes upon a second man being beaten and robbed by a
third man.  The first man sees that the third man has crossed over the
line of human being and is not being human.  The first man elects to
stop the third man by crossing the same line to be not human as well,
using the same or worse evil behavior until he stops the third man or
until the third man stops on his own.  If we expand the context around
the three men, we see that the first man has also been guilty of not
being human whenever it suited him.  He might even know that.  Maybe
it is why he finds it easy to stop being human in this case.  He feels
justified using evil to stop evil.  Two wrongs don't make a right, but
he isn't trying to make a right.  He is trying to stop a wrong.  Maybe
he sees that he can also gain in other ways by stopping the third man.
Maybe the second man will become a customer of the first man's
business.  Maybe the first man will be able to loan money to second
man and collect interest.  But these additional aggenda are not
justifications.  They are explanations.  Their existence does not
obviate the need to stop the third man.  I am not the first man, nor
the second man, nor the third man.  I am a fourth man.  You are trying
to stop the first man by convincing the fourth man that the first man
is doing wrong.  How stupid is that?  The first man is the most
powerful man in the world, and the fourth man already knows that the
first man is doing wrong.  Then what are you really doing?  You are
making me look bad.  You are not stopping the bombing.  You are not
changing the system that generated the situation that led to the
bombing in the first place.

This fourth man believes that your most effective action would be for
all anti-NATO protestors to actually go to Kosovo and occupy it, and
Serbia as well.  Hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions, of
protestors marching on and occupying Yugoslavia.  This would require
some logistical planning of course, but the bombing would be stopped.
Just the movement of so many people toward Yugoslavia from all parts
of the globe would actually threaten to destabilize the world economy.
Imagine millions of people (just the ones currently alleged to be
protesting the NATO action; I don't doubt they exist), flying,
driving, cycling, and walking toward Kosovo on a great pilgrimage.
Take no money along.  Reject the system that generated the problem.
Steal food along the way.  Civil disobedience.  Just the movement of
so many people, stealing food, clogging transportation systems,
starving, spreading disease, causing a wave of petty crime, would
actually threaten to bring the entire world economy crashing down.
Airports and train stations would be jammed with people going nowhere.
The air traffic system would have to be shut down.  National guards
would have to be mobilized in all nations.  Hospitals would be jammed
with dehydrated protestors.  Even CNN couldn't hide the truth.

That won't be done.  It would actually work, but it won't be done.  It
won't be done because people don't think it can be done.  Of course it
can be done.  All you have to do is down tools and start walking.
It's a lot easier to piss and moan, and pissing and moaning gives one
self-esteem.

> EXAMPLE 2:
> "But even if the U.S. has been bad and bad and bad through all these cases
> that you offer (that is, the evidence offered about Vietnam, Nicaragua,
> Grenada, Panama, Guatemala, Timor, Colombia, Turkey and whatever cases I
> happen to mention), we should support and celebrate that at least this time
> around the U.S. is doing good."
>
> > Neither is it required that the US have an
> > impeccable track record before it can act.  The track record is
> > appalling.  Now what do we do?
>
> The similarity between these two statements if pretty much
> straightforward.

So is the dissimilarity, which is more important.  I didn't say we
should support and celebrate the NATO action.  Michael Albert should
be ashamed for giving the impression that kind of thinking is typical
of people who do not try to stop the bombing.  I didn't say the
U.S. is doing good.  In fact I have said more than once that the NATO
action is a wrong to stop a wrong.  You tried to connect Albert's
pissy sentiment with me.  Your attempt is another example of dishonest
discourse.

> EXAMPLE 3:
> "Well, I don't know, I hate war, yes, but surely bombing is better than
> doing nothing."
>
> > The action is decisive.  You can't possibly claim it isn't decisive.
> > It's purpose is to diminish, if not destroy, the military capability
> > of Yugoslavia, which is being used to do wrong.  You can't claim the
> > Yugoslavian military is not being used to do wrong.
>
> The bombing is decisive, and by implication better than doing
> nothing (i.e.  be indecisive) because it might actually stop the
> Yugoslavian army from doing wrong.

You again try to claim that I am saying the same thing as Michael
Albert's quote.  The two quotes do not express the same thing.
Here is the actual context, again, of my statement:

Michael Strutt:
  >> Gullible, manipulable people favour NATO action because no effort
  >> or expense has been spared in organising the media to make people
  >> think that aggravating the situation in aid of US strategic interests
  >> is actually 'decisive action to stop a wrong'.

Martin Smith:
>The action is decisive.  You can't possibly claim it isn't decisive.
>It's purpose is to diminish, if not destroy, the military capability
>of Yugoslavia, which is being used to do wrong.

I didn't say, as Albert's sentiment says, that the NATO action is
better than doing nothing.  I don't know if it is better or not.  It
might be better in the long run.  In either case, I was responding to
Strutt's attempt to discredit the claim that the NATO action was not
decisive and that it was not an attempt to stop a wrong, neither of
which implies that it is better than doing nothing.

> EXAMPLE 4:
> "But for whatever reason, it may do good, and the achievement will be the
> measurable success of the operation."
>
> > I don't think it is off to a fine start, but it does look like the
> > military objective of neutralizing the Serb military might succeed to
> > a high enough degree to then be able to send in a NATO ground force
> > that can maintain a stable situation in which a political settlement
> > can be reached.
>
> Again, you don't like war and it's not off to a fine start, but it might
> succeed enough to do some good...especially if it destroys "the military
> capability of Yugoslavia," preventing it from "being used to do wrong," as
> in the previous quote above.

Even in this case, where my statement is actually similar to Albert's
distillation, the two are not the same.  I doubt the NATO action will
do good.  I think it will achieve the military goal I stated.  In the
long run, achieving that same goal worked in Germany and Japan at the
end of WWII, judging by the development of those two countires since
the end of the war.  It didn't work in Korea or Vietnam, but the
military goal wasn't achieved in either case.  The military goal might
not be achieved in this case.

> The basic point I'm getting at, is that whether or not you think
> you're an "advocate" of NATO bombing, the arguments in the article I
> presented certainly apply in your case. And I think there are some
> very good and thoughtful points presented in that article that quite
> effectively counter the positions you have (sort of) taken on this
> list in the last few weeks.

I was going to send an analysis of Michael Albert's piece, but I don't
have the time to respond to everything that comes through, and he
isn't here to defend himself anyway.  But no, I don't see myself as
one of the hypotheticals Albert talks about.  I don't hold the views
he claims to refute.

martin

Martin Smith                    Email: [log in to unmask]
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