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Date: Sun, 20 Aug 1995 17:25:23 -0700 (PDT)
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From: PeaceNet Balkans Desk 
Subject: Re: http://mediafilter.org/SJ/Pages/sympathy
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From: PeaceNet Balkans Desk 
Subject: Re: http://mediafilter.org/SJ/Pages/sympathy

I suppose we shouldn't be arguing theory here - this conference is (I 
think) for the purpose of proiding support to the beseiged - but I take 
a chance to reply to Charles Naef, who says,

 > As we approach the 21st century, waging war should be considered
 > a criminal act.

I suppose this would be laudable (I don't think it's self-evident,
despite the miserable record of this century). But how can you leap from
this hope to equating the Milosevic-inspired and planned agression and
the response of

 > the Muslim Bosnian government when it launched
 > offensive military operations breaking the truce in 1994,

given what went on during the truce, particularly the cowardice of the 
leaders of the "internataional community"? 

The analysis gets really haywire when you say, 

 > Only by punishing
 > all the parties to this bloody conflict might the international community be
 > able to bring them to the insight that nothing is to be gained by military
 > action.

Oh good, spank the victims along with the perpetrators, I guess on the 
grounds that both have interfered with our view of an orderly world.

Then again, how is the "international community" supposed to punish if
not by war, or something just as bad (e.g., the starving of the Iraqi
population in pusuit of the US's lofty international aims? 

The Western attempt to weasel out of the recognition that sometimes
people will go to war to defend themselves is a result of the convenient
inability to distinguish aggressors from victims, and an unwilligness to
accept that there is a factual, real-world obligation to come to treat
victims and agressors differently. IMO, of course. Heaven forbid there
might be moral grounds for the necessity to fight in order to protect
someone who is being savaged.  -- ed agro (posting from Boston)

From notes@igc.apc.org Sun Aug 20 21:38:33 1995
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Date: 20 Aug 1995 15:55:49
Reply-To: Conference "zamir.chat" 
From: g92l4807@giraffe.ru.ac.za
Subject: http://mediafilter.org/SJ/Pages/Western Policy - What Goals?
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Orthodox Western critics of Western Policy towards Bosnia claim that



the West has no policy and assuage their collective guilt with apologetic



theories explaining this so-called paralysis. In fact, however, and this



is clear to even a Southerner informed by Western media monopolies as I



unfortunately am, there seems to have been a deliberate Western policy to



conspire with and help Serbia (arms embargo, "peace plans" etc.) ensure



that the Bosnian state is weak and unviable, if not destroyed.



As a student of International Politics, I assure you that such



malevolent intent is typical of Western foreign policy.



Does anyone out there have any ideas about what the motivation for such



a Balkans policy could be.