Re: armchair general
blah b b blah (jrovira@juno.com)
Wed, 31 Mar 1999 17:53:32 -0500 (EST)
To Scottie--
I appreciate the elaboration of the intent of your post...
I'd say the difference is the goal of the conflict. No, the Albanians
being killed are not somehow any more valuable than the Japanese killed
in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And many people in the US are **still**
complaining about the "second" bomb being dropped, much less the first.
But if the goal of our attack on Japan were genocide, we'd be discussing
fifteen or twenty bombs, not two. That's what makes this conflict
different from others. It's not just turf wars.
And yeah, it is easy to sit here and talk about it, but if we believe in
representative democracy then it's our job to talk about it.
I am familiar with the Abe Lincoln post, yes. History doesn't quite bear
that out, tho, eh?
<<what about rawanda? we didn't step in there, and 800,000 people were
killed
in a mass genocide. i forget the tribe's name, but the one that was
getting
killed lost about everyone in it's population...
look at the pictures of the all the bodies and people with no fingers and
rivers stained red with blood...>>
Yeah, that situation does Suck. It was terrible. It is. I can't really
justify non-involvement in that situation on any moral basis, but I'd bet
you I can guess the motive...ANYTHING that happens in Europe is a bit
closer to home to NATO and the US (and US interests) than anything that
happens in Central Africa.
Jim
On Wed, 31 Mar 1999 08:06:26 +0100 Scottie Bowman <rbowman@indigo.ie>
writes:
>
> I proffered the view suggested by William Rees-Mogg
> (the Times correspondent) more as a provocation than
> as a statement of my own position.
>
> For what it's worth, I'm strongly opposed to the present
> Balkans balls up - not on moral grounds (which have never
> greatly interested me) so much as on pragmatic ones.
>
> You certainly cannot win a war *without* air power
> (here speaks Sqn Ldr Bowman, former officer commanding
> NPC, RAF Halton) & you certainly cannot win one *with* it.
> Bombing the shit out of one of the more beautiful cities
> of Europe - & not risking your own brave boys on the ground -
> will only consolidate the local boss in the hearts of his people.
>
> This is something you can depend on. Churchill in the 1940s,
> Hitler in 1945, Ho Chi Minh in the 1960s, Saddam Hussein
> in the 1990s. It's one of the rules of war.
>
> Be consistent. Either go in with a couple of hundred thousand
> ground troops - as were present in Bosnia (where they have *still*
>
> only achieved a very dubious peace); or let the locals sort out
> their own differences - the only effective solution, since they
>are
> the people who will have to make the arrangement work in
> the end. (See Northern Ireland.)
>
> And stop gassing about 'genocide'. Thousands of people are
> killed every day in various parts of the world (on our own
>streets,
> for God's sake) & no one thinks twice. Are you really going
> to equate a few miserable-looking Kosovans on the backs
> of tractors with the millions shovelled through the gas chambers
> & gulags of the 30s, 40s & 50s ? Are they in the same category
> with the 100,000 my old comrades burned to death on one
> single night in Hamburg? Or the similar number torched by
> your chaps in Hiroshima? Or with Rolling Thunder? Or on
> the Basra Road?
>
> Come, come. Moral posturing is only ever acceptable when
> conducted in conditions of grave personal risk. Not on the
> White House Lawn or outside Number Ten. Or seated here
> in this cosy room in front of a VDU.
>
> Incidentally, Jim, I realise slavery was vaguely involved in
> the War Between The States. But I always thought I was
> being a really sophisticated student of American history
> in reminding all & sundry of Abe's: '...If I could save the Union
> & free some of the slaves, if I could save the Union & save
> all of the slaves, if I could save the Union & save NONE
> of the ...etc.'
>
> Scottie B.
> PS I might possibly have made some comment on John Touzios'
> posts but for the fact that my poor old brain refuses to
>disentangle
> communications in undifferentiated, all-lower-case typing.
>
>
>
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