"5,000 To Zero"
jhmcclo...@my-deja.com
1 July 1999
Mr. Richard Reeves at
<< http://www.uexpress.com/ups/opinion/column/rr/ >>
remarks on the imperial and colonial side of Secretary Albright's War,
with special reference to metropolitan opinion, conscription, and the
prospects for democratic government:
The sooner we are out of there, the better for all concerned. The
reaction to "victory" here -- if indeed the killing stops for a while --
ranges from odd to ridiculous. The Washington Post chose to run a
headline that suggests it is not only the Serbs who have their own
distorted morality in this tragedy. "5,000 to Zero" said the paper,
celebrating the fact that 5,000 Serbian soldiers and policemen had been
killed, but none of us were -- so there! A turkey shoot, but we were not
the turkeys. (The number of Serb and Kosovar civilians killed by
accident is still uncalculated.)
(...)
The reaction that most worries me comes from the millions of Americans
who do not care one little bit about what has been going on. I have
asked a substantial number of young Americans, my own students among
them, how much they and they friends were talking about Kosovo. The
answer, almost always, has been never, not at all, zero -- as in 5,000
to zero.
"Why should we care?" said one, a young man who already is running his
own computer business. Indeed, what does this have to do with them? Our
volunteer military, as professional as the Denver Broncos, are projected
as invincible and invulnerable, invisible to the enemy, pounding the
hell out of the wogs somewhere a long way from Missouri. A democracy
without a draft, without citizen involvement in the death-dealing, is an
incomplete democracy. That is the scary legacy of Vietnam: Government
has eliminated the governed from the moral questions and sacrifice of
war.
---
Golly, is HE still around? Does anybody under 40 know what a "wog"
is?, I wonder. Time to go hear the mermaids singing each to each.
This noble piece of doveprop must be a couple of weeks old, but I
can't find the date of its first appearance. It's all still valid, of
course, except that given the fall-off in interest in Occupied and/or
Liberated Kosovo one can't fail to detect on the newsgroups, the ratio
RR discusses must be more like 5,000 to *minus* 1,000 by now. Implying
a positive wish not to think about it ever again.
== Yours, J. H. McDove == ... sobie spiewam a Muzom ... ==
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
Martin McPhillips
>"5,000 To Zero"
> 1 July 1999
>
> Mr. Richard Reeves at
>
><< http://www.uexpress.com/ups/opinion/column/rr/ >>
>
>remarks on the imperial and colonial side of Secretary Albright's War,
>with special reference to metropolitan opinion, conscription, and the
>prospects for democratic government:
Where's the homuculus, John? Did you put him away for the summer?
<blovion beam snipped>
Scott D. Erb
>The sooner we are out of there, the better for all concerned. The
>reaction to "victory" here -- if indeed the killing stops for a while --
>ranges from odd to ridiculous. The Washington Post chose to run a
>headline that suggests it is not only the Serbs who have their own
>distorted morality in this tragedy. "5,000 to Zero" said the paper,
>celebrating the fact that 5,000 Serbian soldiers and policemen had been
>killed, but none of us were -- so there! A turkey shoot, but we were not
>the turkeys. (The number of Serb and Kosovar civilians killed by
>accident is still uncalculated.)
The American people aren't exactly celebrating this as a victory though.
Clinton hasn't even got the kind of short term bump in the polls Bush got
after a similarily ambiguous "victory" in 1991, and the news of KLA and
Albanian atrocities (plus, finally, better reporting of what the KLA was doing
before the war started) shows that this "victory" is perhaps nothing more but
(so far) a lucky escape without disaster.
Read "NATO Transformed" by David Yost. It makes clear that the Clinton
Administration really has been trying to turn NATO into an organization with a
global role. Yost is certainly not anti-NATO, and I don't agree with his
perspective on everything, but a picture that comes clear is that the Clinton
Administration hoped to turn NATO into a force to bring stability eastward,
and then use it to try to spread 'western values' (and US power) further.
In that light the choice for war -- the hurried use of force -- is
understandable. A quick successful victory avoiding an humanitarian crisis
would have added weight to the Clinton/Albright vision of NATO as enforcing a
western world order, circumventing the UN's nasty little security council
vetos. The fact it was a slow "victory" which even NATO leaders know was much
more difficult and costly than they had imagined, suggests maybe that they
learned this vision for NATO is at best unreachable, at worst a prescription
for disaster.
Hubris precedes a fall, be it Athens back in 434 BC, or the United States
today. The US still has time to get out of this and reconsider its policy.
But foreign policy decision makers have a tough time admitting a mistake, and
now they are so lost in spin that I don't know if they know what to believe.
ciao, scott
> The reaction that most worries me comes from the millions of Americans
>who do not care one little bit about what has been going on. I have
>asked a substantial number of young Americans, my own students among
>them, how much they and they friends were talking about Kosovo. The
>answer, almost always, has been never, not at all, zero -- as in 5,000
>to zero.
Yeah...but here I held a couple forums (sort of like teach ins) that were
well attended, and students in clubs got some campus discussions going. But a
lot of people lose interest as soon as the story changes. Its a surreal
society, based on what's hot on the news, then its old, move on to the next,
don't think about the implications...
> "Why should we care?" said one, a young man who already is running his
>own computer business. Indeed, what does this have to do with them? Our
>volunteer military, as professional as the Denver Broncos, are projected
>as invincible and invulnerable, invisible to the enemy, pounding the
>hell out of the wogs somewhere a long way from Missouri. A democracy
The arrogance and hubris of some really scares me...that's usually the way
things are before a disasterous error...
>without a draft, without citizen involvement in the death-dealing, is an
>incomplete democracy. That is the scary legacy of Vietnam: Government
>has eliminated the governed from the moral questions and sacrifice of
>war.
That is very scary indeed.
Martin McPhillips
>In article <7lguqg$sbk$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, jhmcclo...@my-deja.com says...
>
>>The sooner we are out of there, the better for all concerned. The
>>reaction to "victory" here -- if indeed the killing stops for a while --
>>ranges from odd to ridiculous. The Washington Post chose to run a
>>headline that suggests it is not only the Serbs who have their own
>>distorted morality in this tragedy. "5,000 to Zero" said the paper,
>>celebrating the fact that 5,000 Serbian soldiers and policemen had been
>>killed, but none of us were -- so there! A turkey shoot, but we were not
>>the turkeys. (The number of Serb and Kosovar civilians killed by
>>accident is still uncalculated.)
>
>The American people aren't exactly celebrating this as a victory though.
>Clinton hasn't even got the kind of short term bump in the polls Bush got
>after a similarily ambiguous "victory" in 1991,
There's no comparison between the Gulf War and this thing in
Kosovo. If you think there is, then you neither understand what the
Gulf War was about or what Kosovo was about.
Please, spare me the agony of explaining to you the difference.
McQ
>> A democracy without a draft, without citizen involvement in the death-dealing, is an
>>incomplete democracy. That is the scary legacy of Vietnam: Government
>>has eliminated the governed from the moral questions and sacrifice of
>>war.
>That is very scary indeed.
Not really ... we didn't have a draft until the Civil War, and
somehow managed to gain our independence and then defeat the British
again with a small professional force and volunteers. And if our
"democracy" wasn't at it's most vital then, I don't know a comparable
time since.
The dust-up in Kosovo wasn't about anything but two entities,
Clinton and NATO, with certain needs finding in the other a way to
fulfill theirs.
NATO, after the collapse of the Iron Curtain, needed a job.
Clinton, after a rather tawdry and mediocre presidential performance
cushioned by a booming economy needed (or at least wanted) a legacy
.... shades of FDR and JFK. He even had the audacity to try to drag
Churchill's name into this, not to mention Hitler's.
NATO and Clinton found each other's need irresistable.
The UN was too cumbersome, and a ruler by edict such as Clinton,
didn't want to be second-guessed by Ghana or Upper Volta. He knew he
couldn't pull a GHWB-like coalition out of the UN such as was seen in
the Gulf War, and he didn't want to risk the political failure of
being told no by the UN (as surely Russia would have done in the
Security Council).
NATO was a ready made coalition looking for a job. How perfect that
the problem was in Kosovo, spitting distance from dozens of NATO bases
.... otherwise he'd have had to ignore the "genocide" like he did
Rwanda.
And of course there was that little problem of the US Congress. If
he had to deploy troops, he had to have their backing. But, again,
with good old Slobo acting a fool right in NATO's backyard, Clinton
had coalition forces already forward deployed. How perfectly perfect.
All he had to overcome was the pesky technicality of NATO being a
defensive organization with a charter which specifically forbade
aggressive action, or for that matter, _any_ action unless one of the
NATO allies is actually attacked (we can thank goodness he wasn't
crass enough to stage a border post being overrun by Serbian troops,
ala Poland in '39).
But for those, such as Clinton, who routinely ignore or flaunt the
law, ignore or flaunt the constitution not to mention conventional
morality, NATO's charter was a piece of cake.
And Clinton had separation if he wanted it. Win/win all the way.
If the mission fails, he simply points to NATO as the culprit and
talks about reforming it. If it succeeds he simply points to the
largest participant's role (and _why_ it was the dominant role) and
pats himself on the back. See option 2 as the eventual outcome.
The Kosovar's? Screw 'em. They got a nice little vacation in sunny
Albania while their houses were fumagated, lots of press and the
status of victimhood which they should be able to parley into a few
billion here and there..
No one said landing a job or creating a legacy was clean work but
hell, that's why the US taxpayer exists.
Pay up, suckers.
..
McQ
_______________________________
"To believe that freedom can be given, granted,
or assured by mere legislation, by paragraphs and
consitutions, is naive" -- Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn
McQ
>>In article jhmcclo...@my-deja.com says...
>>The sooner we are out of there, the better for all concerned. The
>>reaction to "victory" here -- if indeed the killing stops for a while --
>>ranges from odd to ridiculous. The Washington Post chose to run a
>>headline that suggests it is not only the Serbs who have their own
>>distorted morality in this tragedy. "5,000 to Zero" said the paper,
>>celebrating the fact that 5,000 Serbian soldiers and policemen had been
>>killed, but none of us were -- so there! A turkey shoot, but we were not
>>the turkeys. (The number of Serb and Kosovar civilians killed by
>>accident is still uncalculated.)
Apparently the number of Serbs killed on purpose used Viet Nam
body-count math to do the calculations. Public education strikes
again. When we said "you should lean from Viet Nam", we weren't
talking about this.
>The American people aren't exactly celebrating this as a victory though.
>Clinton hasn't even got the kind of short term bump in the polls Bush got
>after a similarily ambiguous "victory" in 1991,
Ambiguous? Only to those who still don't realize that the coalition
was formed to kick Iraq out of Kuwait and nothing more. It did that
overwhelmingly and convincingly with kill ratios unmatched since
Agincourt.
What was ambiguous about that?
jhmcclo...@my-deja.com
The American people aren't exactly celebrating this as a victory though.
Clinton hasn't even got the kind of short term bump in the polls Bush
got after a similarily ambiguous "victory" in 1991, and the news of KLA
and Albanian atrocities (plus, finally, better reporting of what the KLA
was doing before the war started) shows that this "victory" is perhaps
nothing more but (so far) a lucky escape without disaster.
[JHM] I think Reeves put it better, claiming that Americans aren't
thinking about it at all; that goes beyond only not celebrating and not
voting thanks to Bill Clinton. I fear nobody but us e-ccentrics (13.4
people per 10,0000) is worried about drawing lessons from Kosovo one way
or the other. That guesstistic omits the VRWC folks, who knew Bill was
Satan already, and certainly don't need any more lessons of that sort.
But it may apply to the majority also. Impeachmentgate produced a sort
of Clinton fatigue, perhaps, that leaves folks wanting to forget about
him (now that he's safe) and everything connected with him, the war
included.
Read "NATO Transformed" by David Yost. It makes clear that the Clinton
Administration really has been trying to turn NATO into an organization
with a global role. Yost is certainly not anti-NATO, and I don't agree
with his perspective on everything, but a picture that comes clear is
that the Clinton Administration hoped to turn NATO into a force to bring
stability eastward, and then use it to try to spread 'western values'
(and US power) further.
[JHM] That sounds far too organized and deliberate to me. There are
people around with notions like that, of course, and it may even be the
CFR bipartisan orthodoxy, but foreign affairs is far from the center of
this Administration's concerns. There have been some episodes with
lucky endings, that's all. Connecting those individual dots into a
"Clinton Doctrine" or a conscious program for NATO imperialism seems
very exaggerated to me. At most, Yost indicates how they tend to behave
when they decide to "go foreign" for a while.
In that light the choice for war -- the hurried use of force -- is
understandable. A quick successful victory avoiding an humanitarian
crisis would have added weight to the Clinton/Albright vision of NATO
as enforcing a western world order, circumventing the UN's nasty little
security council vetos. The fact it was a slow "victory" which even
NATO leaders know was much more difficult and costly than they had
imagined, suggests maybe that they learned this vision for NATO is at
best unreachable, at worst a prescription for disaster.
[JHM] Her vision, not his. She's supposed to worry about foreigners all
the time, so when the President decides to do so temporarily, he falls
in with her and Holbrooke and Berger. But he can go months at a time
without touching the stuff. Bill wouldn't really be interested anyway,
but the rest probably just learned how right they were all along. Their
self-love invested in what wasn't obviously a failure overall probably
makes them unteachable. They don't want to notice how incompetent they
are, surely. Does anybody?
As to a Grand Design, if there was one, they'll have to get kicked
in the teeth a lot harder to abandon it. One reason I don't want Gore
is that Martin Peretz & _The New Republic_ undoubtedly really believe
that Yostian democratic-values-for-export line in a way I'm not so sure
about with the current crew. And for that matter, who advises Gov.
Bush on foreign affairs? _Nihil est in Clintone quod non prius in
Bush_.
Hubris precedes a fall, be it Athens back in 434 BC, or the United
States today. The US still has time to get out of this and reconsider
its policy. But foreign policy decision makers have a tough time
admitting a mistake, and now they are so lost in spin that I don't know
if they know what to believe.
[JHM] Calm down. It was just an episode, most likely. And with the
worst-case gloom I can muster, I don't see exactly what the next step
would be. If they look at the military side, they or their successors
may even learn a little prudence. People who can't get a few thousand
troops moved around without it taking months and months simply CANNOT
play Uncle Sam Globocop even if they want to. (This point has nothing
to do with avoiding casualties: they are still being very slow about
getting the K4 occupation force in, despite no known serious opposition.
I think the average travel bureau might do better than the Pentagon.)
[RReeves] The reaction that most worries me comes from the millions of
Americans who do not care one little bit about what has been going on. I
have asked a substantial number of young Americans, my own students
among them, how much they and they friends were talking about Kosovo.
The answer, almost always, has been never, not at all, zero -- as in
5,000 to zero.
Yeah...but here I held a couple forums (sort of like teach ins) that
were well attended, and students in clubs got some campus discussions
going. But a lot of people lose interest as soon as the story changes.
Its a surreal society, based on what's hot on the news, then its old,
move on to the next, don't think about the implications...
[JHM] Well, as Reeves implies, if there were a draft, it would
concentrate young minds on what their government is up to, even if the
implications they ponder are mostly egocentric.
[RReeves] "Why should we care?" said one, a young man who already is
running his own computer business. Indeed, what does this have to do
with them? Our volunteer military, as professional as the Denver
Broncos, are projected as invincible and invulnerable, invisible to the
enemy, pounding the hell out of the wogs somewhere a long way from
Missouri. A democracy ...
The arrogance and hubris of some really scares me...that's usually the
way things are before a disastrous error...
[JHM] "But on the other hand," said the Devil's advocate, "Don't
we pay taxes to get other people to worry about that boring diplomatic
and dangerous military stuff for us? Why do *I* have to learn Albanian,
for Pete's sake?"
[RReeves] ... without a draft, without citizen involvement in the
death-dealing, is an incomplete democracy. That is the scary legacy of
Vietnam: Government has eliminated the governed from the moral questions
and sacrifice of war.
That is very scary indeed.
[JHM] Potentially, but not necessarily actually. If they mean to give
the world a Second European Imperialism or the like, naturally they need
to be able to conduct peripheral wars without too much expense or too
many casualties or even too much public attention. But the fact that
they are able to act that way to some extent doesn't mean that they
intend to do so systematically. And as I said, no matter what the
Natoholics' moral status or their _Realpolitisch_ theories, the attested
military side of OAF seems to indicate plainly that they do not have the
tools and techniques they require for the supposed project. They really
ought (that is a technical, not an ethical "ought") to be able to
intervene rapidly and stop the squabbling among the barbarous hill
tribes at once, not just bomb for retaliation and deterrence after
everything has gone terribly haywire out there in the boondocks.
For a concrete example, there was Rwanda. I don't think, given
the location and skin color of the people involved, "the international
community" would have intervened there under any circumstances. But the
President now says we should have intervened. Well, grant that, but
then ask whether we could have done so effectively. In such a land
bombing would have been utterly useless and the only thing would have
been to put lots of riflemen in place fast. Could we have done that
trick? OAF certainly suggests to me that lots of people would have been
cleansed to death while Uncle Sam and the Eighteen Dwarfs were getting
their act together. Certainly there would have been no 5000-0 ratio of
casualties when the US Cavalry did eventually show up.
Which leads me to notice that Reeves overlooks the fact that our
volunteer military's gallant and high-tech leadership was anything but
gung-ho about OAF. Though it made a good anti-war joke for me, wasn't
it simply the fact that the Pentagon was all for diplomacy and only
Foggy Bottom thoroughly believed in force? Maybe subconsciously they do
realize how incompetent they are, when it is always the other guy's
specialty that seems likely to work better than their own. And if they
realize they can't do it, maybe they won't try next time. I hope.
jhmcclo...@my-deja.com
cay...@nyct.net (Martin McPhillips) wrote:
>
> There's no comparison between the Gulf War and this thing in
> Kosovo. If you think there is, then you neither understand what the
> Gulf War was about or what Kosovo was about.
>
> Please, spare me the agony of explaining to you the difference.
>>>>
"I have this wonderful new wardrobe," said the Emperor to the urchin,
"But of course none of its splendor would be visible to a low wretch
like you."
== Yours, J. H. McTantalos == ... sobie spiewam a Muzom ... ==
Martin McPhillips
>In article <377c1004...@news.nyct.net>,
> cay...@nyct.net (Martin McPhillips) wrote:
>>
>> There's no comparison between the Gulf War and this thing in
>> Kosovo. If you think there is, then you neither understand what the
>> Gulf War was about or what Kosovo was about.
>>
>> Please, spare me the agony of explaining to you the difference.
>>>>>
>
> "I have this wonderful new wardrobe," said the Emperor to the urchin,
>"But of course none of its splendor would be visible to a low wretch
>like you."
Context, John. Get some.
John Smith
<jhmcclo...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:7li1rd$7p3$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> For a concrete example, there was Rwanda. I don't think, given
> the location and skin color of the people involved, "the international
> community" would have intervened there under any circumstances.
But, the intentional community was already there, in the form (primarily) of
blue-helmeted Belgian and French troops.
But the
> President now says we should have intervened. Well, grant that, but
> then ask whether we could have done so effectively. In such a land
> bombing would have been utterly useless and the only thing would have
> been to put lots of riflemen in place fast. Could we have done that
> trick?
Absolutely could have been done--you strap parachutes on them and shove them
out of airplanes--and in hindsight, would almost certainly have been very
effective. Well-trained US infantry against a few small arms and
machete-wielders is a pretty one-sided affair.
OAF certainly suggests to me that lots of people would have been
> cleansed to death while Uncle Sam and the Eighteen Dwarfs were getting
> their act together. Certainly there would have been no 5000-0 ratio of
> casualties when the US Cavalry did eventually show up.
Pretty close though, IMHO. My take is it would have been more akin to
quelling a riot than engaging in battle.
For an intriguing, and in-depth, analysis of Rwanda, see
http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/rwanda/. Quoting in part from a section
there called IGNORING GENOCIDE:
If Washington officials described the killings as "chaos," it was in part
because they saw Rwanda through the prism of Somalia. In this light, Rwanda
was another "failed state," just one more of a series of political disasters
on the continent. In such a case, they reasoned, any intervention would have
to be large-scale and costly and would probably produce no measurable
improvement anyway.113
...
Some specialists at the State Department who had followed Rwanda for months
certainly understood that a genocide had begun, even if they did not use
that term. ...At one meeting on Rwanda, President Clinton supposedly asked
if the Congressional Black Caucus, the group of African-American members of
Congress, had shown strong interest in the issue, and presumably heard that
they had not....
As the crisis developed, officials were just completing an evaluation of how
to limit the U.S. role in peacekeeping operations. The policy that resulted,
known as Presidential Decision Directive 25 (PDD25) was far from the ideas
suggested by President Clinton during his campaign, when he favored
international action for such purposes as protecting civilians in civil wars
and providing humanitarian assistance to people at risk. Now his
administration sought instead to reduce the number and cost of peacekeeping
operations, which had grown significantly in recent years, and to avoid
peacekeeping failures like that in Somalia. To qualify for U.S. support
under the new policy, any peacekeeping operation had to contribute to U.S.
interests and had to have firm sources of funding and troops as well as
clearly defined goals and a fixed date of completion...
> Which leads me to notice that Reeves overlooks the fact that our
> volunteer military's gallant and high-tech leadership was anything but
> gung-ho about OAF. Though it made a good anti-war joke for me, wasn't
> it simply the fact that the Pentagon was all for diplomacy and only
> Foggy Bottom thoroughly believed in force? Maybe subconsciously they do
> realize how incompetent they are, when it is always the other guy's
> specialty that seems likely to work better than their own. And if they
> realize they can't do it, maybe they won't try next time. I hope.
Not clear to me who "they" are. I starting out thinking "they" were the
"military's gallant and high-tech leadership," but wound up thinking perhaps
"they" were both the Pentagon and Foggy Bottom. Certainly, if "they" refers
solely to the Pentagon, "maybe they won't try next time" makes no
sense--they only "try" what they're ordered to "try," and in this case they
seem to have been reluctant "tryers," at best.
Harold
wrote:
>In article <7lguqg$sbk$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, jhmcclo...@my-deja.com says...
>
[deleted]
>>without a draft, without citizen involvement in the death-dealing, is an
>>incomplete democracy. That is the scary legacy of Vietnam: Government
>>has eliminated the governed from the moral questions and sacrifice of
>>war.
>
>That is very scary indeed.
One of the problems incurred by the lack of a universal military draft
is that the citizens are no longer concerned with the military.
In return, the military becomes less and less concerned with the
civilian population. This is already apparent, if you will examine
the political parties of those military personnel registered to vote.
They are more than 80% registered to one political party.
I am more and more of the opinion that a military draft is good for
democracy.
Regards, Harold (Capitalist Pig)
-----
"Taking charge of one's life is an "unceasing task,"...explains
why "many people are afraid of liberty."
---F. A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty
Harold
>>Scott D. Erb wrote:
>
>>> A democracy without a draft, without citizen involvement in the death-dealing, is an
>>>incomplete democracy. That is the scary legacy of Vietnam: Government
>>>has eliminated the governed from the moral questions and sacrifice of
>>>war.
>
>>That is very scary indeed.
>
> Not really ... we didn't have a draft until the Civil War, and
>somehow managed to gain our independence and then defeat the British
>again with a small professional force and volunteers. And if our
>"democracy" wasn't at it's most vital then, I don't know a comparable
>time since.
Well, I really think there is a difference between the military now
and the military then, as there was a difference between war then and
war now. War now is technological, and the military is highly
trained.
Before the civil war, military training was minimal, since most people
hunted, and war consisted of standing in line and shooting at the guys
standing in a line on the other side of the field.
Regards, Harold
-----
"If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts,
but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end
in certainties."
---Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning, ch. 5 (1605).
jhmcclo...@my-deja.com
hbras...@remove-this.earthlink.net (Harold) wrote:
> One of the problems incurred by the lack of a universal military draft
> is that the citizens are no longer concerned with the military.
>
> In return, the military becomes less and less concerned with the
> civilian population. This is already apparent, if you will examine
> the political parties of those military personnel registered to vote.
> They are more than 80% registered to one political party.
>
> I am more and more of the opinion that a military draft is good for
> democracy.
>>>>>
It just struck me that Reeves's point here about having conscription
so as to keep ordinary people concerned about what Washington is doing
in foreign policy is a sort of left counterpart to the right-wing theory
of the Second Amendment as a way to ward off tyranny at home. But I
suppose the people who hold the latter position would not like the hint
of a convergence here, since it points straight towards that "militia"
they'd much prefer the Constitution hadn't mentioned.
Giving every family individually small arms and also a perpetual
subscription to _Foreign Affairs_ probably wouldn't have any great
beneficial effect publically. Only collectivism would do the trick. We
would all have to meet weekly or monthly for drill and tactics with the
rifles and discussion groups and pop quizzes on the state of the world.
I wouldn't be surprised, though, if Col. Hamilton or Mr. Madison in
Century XVIII assumed that when the well-regulated militia got together,
an informal part of the program would be comparing notes and spreading
the word about His Britannic Majesty's (or the Jacobins') latest
abominations.
== Yours, J. H. McCloskey == ... sobie spiewam a Muzom ... ==
jhmcclo...@my-deja.com
"John Smith" <jsm...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>> about JHM on Richard Reeves on Kosovo <<<
[Old JHM] In such a land [as Rwanda]
> bombing would have been utterly useless and the only thing would have
> been to put lots of riflemen in place fast. Could we have done that
> trick?
Absolutely could have been done--you strap parachutes on them and shove
them out of airplanes--and in hindsight, would almost certainly have
been very effective. Well-trained US infantry against a few small arms
and machete-wielders is a pretty one-sided affair.
>>>>
Thank you for the Rwanda information, which I will have to read before
remarking on in its own right. I am very ignorant about exactly what
happened there.
Meanwhile, back in the Balkans....
Assuming you are right to make the claim I quoted, naturally I want to
ask if you think the same thing could have been done in Yugoslavia as
well. Or did we need to have Serbia around with a modern infrastructure
worth attacking to make the whole thing work?
If, then, mere transportation and logistics are not a problem the way
I assumed, why on earth is K4 taking so long (final deadline 8 August,
by one story I recall, and starting from 11 June) to get 55,000 troops
in place? There does seem to be quite a bit of low-level violence going
on it would be worth interposing to prevent.
I've snipped it out, but at the end when I talked about "if THEY do it
again," the "they" was very general, meaning really "the United States."
== Yours, J. H. McCloskey == ... sobie spiewam a Muzom ... ==
Scott D. Erb
hbras...@remove-this.earthlink.net says...
>I am more and more of the opinion that a military draft is good for
>democracy.
As long as people are free to opt out without punishment.
No one should have the right to turn someone into a killer if they do not want
to kill. Read "A Field of Broken Stones" by Lowell Naeve for the experience
of one CO imprisioned in WWII.
Harold
wrote:
>In article <3781263a....@news.earthlink.net>,
>hbras...@remove-this.earthlink.net says...
>>I am more and more of the opinion that a military draft is good for
>>democracy.
>
>As long as people are free to opt out without punishment.
I don't see why you would call it a military draft, if there were no
punishment for failing to serve.
>
>No one should have the right to turn someone into a killer if they do not want
>to kill. Read "A Field of Broken Stones" by Lowell Naeve for the experience
>of one CO imprisioned in WWII.
If an individual does not wish to serve, should they have the benefits
to be derived from the service of someone else?
dave
McQ <mcq...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:37922f89...@nntp.ix.netcom.com...
> >Scott D. Erb wrote:
>
> >> A democracy without a draft, without citizen involvement in the
death-dealing, is an
> >>incomplete democracy. That is the scary legacy of Vietnam: Government
> >>has eliminated the governed from the moral questions and sacrifice of
> >>war.
>
> >That is very scary indeed.
>
> Not really ... we didn't have a draft until the Civil War, and
> somehow managed to gain our independence and then defeat the British
> again with a small professional force and volunteers. And if our
> "democracy" wasn't at it's most vital then, I don't know a comparable
> time since.
>