Re: AGF: What about the ethnic Albanians?

I agree with Stokes that there is no reason to be surprised by the
widespread support among liberals for the spate of "humanitarian" military
interventions of the 1990s.

On the other hand, this support is a sign of people being duped by
propaganda, because you must have incredibly selective attention to fall
for it.

To decode the propaganda, you need only think of one thing -- all the
cases of bloodshed in recent memory (and longer as well) which were NOT
trumpeted as moral outrages demanding U.S. military action.  

(I will not take  the time to compile the list, but it is long.  Then, of
course, there is the question of the aim of such intervention.  In Haiti,
for instance, where it looked like the U.S. was on the side of the good
guys for a change, it turned out that the intervention stopped short of
disarming the Haitian military, and so supported the status quo with
the cosmetic difference that there would no longer be a dictator in
charge.)

What explains why the U.S. intervenes in certain cases and not others?
Humanitarian concerns have nothing to do with it.

Support for a truly international peacekeeping force that was not
dominated by the U.S. would be one thing, but progressives should open
their eyes and oppose the operations the U.S. is carrying out against Iraq
and Yugoslavia, which are nothing but old-fashioned imperialism.


Richard Hutchinson
Tucson, Arizona