Re: AGF: What about the ethnic Albanians?

AGF can well defend himself. Just wanted to note the selective blindness
that can only see the direct casualties of bombing (does that include, as
now seems evident, those Albanians on the road?), but not the silent death
that will follow, as also the 'collateral' from the bombing, including the
speed-up of 'ethnic cleansing' in Kosovo. Does anyone still remember Iraq?

But come to think of it, why not bomb Tel Aviv to make it adhere to the
admittedly defective Oslo Accords? What were the numbers -- a million
Palestinians turned into refugees and, numbers increased, still refugees?
Do I hear a round of applause in support of such a suggestion, a sore that
has been around for 50 years, distinguished by a series of massacres, a
threat to West Asian and world stability, etc.? But then, everyone knows
that the PLO, unlike the KLA, is a terrorist organisation with no claim to
real legitimacy. Ah, 'humanitarianism', 'freedom fighters' -- what
selective tools based on amnesia.

Frankly, if we are so concerned, then the support should have been for the
introduction of ground troops in Kosovo to keep the Serbian militia at
bay. Not this anaesthetised, computer games, version which is geared to
public opinion in the Nato countries. And the 'best' -- in the absence of
anything better -- agency for this would have been the UN. Oh yes, the
security council -- a reform of the UN has long been overdue.


KJ


At 1:31 AM +0800 16/4/99, Randall Stokes wrote:
>Andre Gunder Frank's persistent and unqualified condemnation of NATO
>actions
>in Kosovo and implicit support of Serbian actions is little short of
>astonishing to me, in light of his long history of supporting the
>underdog.
>It is also puzzling to me that he is puzzled that so many of us on the
>left
>and so many human rights groups do not agree with him.  It is indeed
>terrible to think of NATO (mostly American) military technology being
>turned
>against the fragile infrastructure of Yugoslavia, and even more terrible
>that a potentially large number of entirely innocent people are going to
>die
>in the bombardment.  On the other hand, it is still worse to think of
>Serbian police, army, and irregular militia brutalizing defenseless people
>in Kosovo on the same scale they did in Bosnia.  Unless what I have been
>reading is propaganda, the UN estimates there are as many as 500 mass
>graves
>in Bosnia, each containing as many as several hundred executed civilians.
>The total, if these reports are correct, probably exceeds 100,000 people,
>a
>number that dwarfs human tragedy created by the NATO bombing.  Is it then
>so
>puzzling that even people who are generally critical of the big powers,
>and
>especially the US, would want something to be done to prevent the same
>happening in Kosovo.  Frank's faith in international law as the better
>solution is completely out of character with the healthy cynicism that
>pervades his intellectual body of work.
>
>
>Randall Stokes
>Department of Sociology
>University of Massachusetts, Amherst
>   Tel:  413-545-4060
>    Fax: 413-545-3204
>    E-Mail: stokes@soc.umass.edu