Re: More on Violations of International Law (fwd)

Pat,

First, I must correct you by pointing out that I did not write the passage you 
attribute to me below.

Second, as regards the specific questions you address to me, my answers to the 
first two questions are:  "No", thus eliminating the necessity to respond to the 
third question.

As regards your fourth question, it obviously assumes that you are addressing me 
as the author of the paragraph you refer to below, but as I am not that author, I 
can only respond to your question in general.  Your opinions are entirely 
subjective and not based upon any factual evidence or, at least, not any 
presented or indicated.  Also, your mindset is entirely encapsulated into a 
less-than-complex philosophical framework such that you speak of "When 
people are known to be unreasonable" as if we can all agree on what behavior is 
reasonable and that which is unreasonable without referring to any standard 
from which we may be able to judge and act.  For example, in the present US/NATO 
war on Yugoslavia, it is my understanding that the US is "unreasonable" and 
"criminal" in accordance with international law, US national law, and, indeed, 
the NATO Treaty itself (viz. UN Charter, Ch. I, Arts. 2.3, 2.4, Ch. VI, Art. 
37.1, Ch. VII, Art. 51; the Kellogg-Briand Pact, the Pact of Paris, of 1928; the 
relevant Geneva Conventions as well as the jurisprudence elaborated at and the 
precedent set by the Nuremberg Tribunal against war crimes; the US Constitution, 
Article 1, section 8, clause 11; and the April 4, 1949 North Atlantic Treaty, 
Arts. 1, 5, and 6).  Secondly, you state that NATO's "actions are surely defensible 
from a moral point of view," basing your morals on some unspoken principles.  But 
whatever principles your morals are based upon, if any, they are most assuredly 
different from those I adhere to, for, from my vantage point, the US/NATO war on 
Yugoslavia is entirely counter to the basic principles of sovereignty which has 
governed the international system at least since the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia 
and which have subsequently been incoded into international law as basic 
principles of the UN Charter.  And, to my knowledge, such principles have yet to 
be transcended through mutual agreement amongst member states; in fact, agreement 
is not being sought through peaceful, nonviolent means in the present case; on 
the contrary, the US juggernaut is attempting to establish its imperialist dictate 
on the basis of force, violence, murder, bombing, violation of law, coercion, 
threats and intimidation.

As regards the particular paragraph you cite below, I suggest you find the 
posting from which it is derived and contact the author directly.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Colin S. Cavell                       But when we see that the three classes 
University of Massachusetts           of modern society, the feudal aristocracy, 
Department of Political Science       the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, each
Thompson Tower                        have a morality of their own, we can only
Box 37520                             draw the one conclusion: that men,
Amherst, MA  01003-7520               consciously or unconsciously, derive their
VOICE:  (413) 546-3408                ethical ideas in the last resort from the
INTERNET:  cscpo@polsci.umass.edu     practical relations on which their class
http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~cscpo  position is based -- from the economic
                                      relations in which they carry on production
                                      and exchange.
                                      --Frederick Engels, "ANTI-DÜHRING: Herr
                                      Eugen Dühring's Revolution in Science,"
                                      Part I, Ch. 9 (1878)
==============================================================================


_______________________________________
On Tue, 27 Apr 1999, Pat Gunning wrote:

> "colin s. cavell" wrote:
> 
> >         Second, there was no genocide going on in Kosovo. Cries of Serbian
> > agression and genocide within its own province were being made in the US
> > Congress in April 1998 when only 80 people had died and less than 100,000
> > internally displaced. At the time of the attack, 2,000 had died on all
> > sides and 250,000 Albanians had been displaced.  It was the threat of NATO
> > attack and the subsequent terror bombing that parallels the fire bombing of
> > Tokyo and Yokohama during the Second World War that triggered the Serbian
> > retaliation and humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo.
> 
> Colin, don't you think that there was enough evidence to suggest that
> the Serbs were planning a campaign of taking the human and property
> rights away from the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo and, further, that it
> was reasonable to predict that genocide might occur? If so, was it not
> reasonable for NATO to ask Serbia to allow observers to witness the Serb
> actions? And if such a request was reasonable and the Serbs declined,
> was there not even more reason to expect that ethnic cleansing and
> genocide would occur?
> 
> I find your claim in the last paragraph astounding. What kind of leader
> "retaliates" against a foreign aggressor by unleashing his paramilitary
> to murder, rape, extort, and bully an ethnic minority in his own country
> and, further, in the face of potentially being held accountable for war
> crimes. When people are known to be unreasonable, when there is reason
> to believe that their actions will cause great damage to others, it is
> not wrong to demand that they reveal their intentions and that they make
> their activities transparent. Further, it is not unreasonable to
> threaten punishment if they refuse. Finally, it is not unreasonable to
> punish when they do not respond to threats.
> 
> Whether NATO can achieve its goals at a reasonable cost is another
> matter. But its actions are surely defensible from a moral point of
> view.
> 
> It is also irrelevant to cite cases where NATO, the U.S. or the U.K. did
> not intervene. Just as two wrongs don't make a right (to borrow from
> Gunder Frank in another context), failure to do the right thing in one
> case does not justify failing to do it in another case.
> 
> -- 
> Pat Gunning, Sultan Qaboos University, Oman
> Web pages on Subjectivism, Democracy, Taiwan, Ludwig von Mises,
> Austrian Economics, and my University Classes
> http://www2.cybercities.com/g/gunning/welcome.htm
> http://www.fortunecity.com/meltingpot/barclay/212/welcome.htm
>