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abolition-usa-digest      Sunday, March 28 1999      Volume 01 : Number 099




----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 28 Mar 1999 01:32:02 EST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: (abolition-usa) Internal nuclear threat?

Dear David Crockett Williams,

I understand your concern with this material, but it is "far out". You've
posted a couple of items like this. I know there are probably hundreds of
thousands of Americans who believe this material and see links between Hillary
Clinton, mysterious murders in Arkansas, and suitcase nuclear bombs scattered
around the U.S. But I don't think this is the list for them.

You have given your address - [e-mail] - and I think you should
count on getting into "one on one dialogues" with people who want to pursue
these things with you.

Sincerely,
David McReynolds

[e-mail] writes:

<< Subj:     (abolition-usa) Internal nuclear threat?
 Date:    3/28/99 12:13:15 AM Eastern Standard Time
 From:    [e-mail] (David Crockett Williams)
 Sender:    [e-mail]
 Reply-to:    [e-mail]
 To:    [e-mail] (Abolition 2000 USA),
[e-mail] (BayAreaActivistList), [e-mail]
(Activist Mailing List), [e-mail] (PeaceBuilders)

 [from website reference below]

 [Russian and Chinese "Speznatz" or special forces Army teams are always
 inserted on strategic recce, assasination and sabotage missions in the enemy
 rear. Nuclear weapons, command HQs and VIPs will be their targets. The
 weapons are already in the United States. They are stored in hidden caches,
 including conventional, nuclear, chemical and nuclear "brief case" bombs.
  >>

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------------------------------

Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 22:50:57 -0800 (PST)
From: Timothy Bruening <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: (abolition-usa) ?? new Name ????. NO !!!!!!

At 01:17 PM 10/3/98 -0500, [e-mail] (Daniel Fine) wrote:

>Believe new name would be a mistake:
>
>(1) "Abolition" is an abiding categorical imperative, but I don't believe
>many members or supporters ever really believed we would have a treaty
>(NWC) in place by the year 2000. 2000 was and still is, and will remain a
>symbol of a threshold, a passage, a new beginning, a new century, new
>millennium etc. So 2000 remains meaningful and will still be after 2000 (as
>is the Y2K bug).
>To us, 2000 means struggle for abolition and steps on the journey, now and
>in the 21st century.

I suggest calling us "Abolition Y2K"


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------------------------------

Date: Sun, 28 Mar 1999 03:04:10 EST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: (abolition-usa) NATO and Kosovo / part two


 Subj:    NATO and Kosovo / part two
  Date:    3/28/99 2:59:49 AM Eastern Standard Time
  From:    DavidMcR
  To:    [e-mail], [e-mail]
  To:    [e-mail]
  To:    [e-mail]
  To:    [e-mail]

  The other day I'd sent out a short analysis just before the bombing started.
These are some additional thoughts. Personal, not official for War Resisters
League or the Socialist Party.

  On action, while we write each other, we urgently need to write members of
Congress. High priority. (Don't waste time writing Clinton - hopeless). Where
possible we need to mount peaceful local demonstrations at federal buildings
so that the public is aware of the lack of consensus.

  Last night a friend said he would get up early Sunday to watch the
Washington Talk Shows. I said why waste his time. He said "I know they aren't
very bright, but I need to find out what they want us to believe - and the
Washington talk shows are it".
  He's right. All the good grey folks, all the paid talking heads, whose
political views range from far right to moderate liberal, are explaining to us
some things which can't be explained. So at this late hour on Saturday night .
. . let me offer an antidote.

  First, the instant the first bombs fell on Yugoslavia, the United States and
its NATO allies had engaged in an act of aggression against a sovereign state.
It can be argued that having threatened bombing for so long, they had no
choice but to do it. Sorry - a state of war against a nation is a state of war
- - vastly different from threats of a state of war.

  Second, while I am not clear why the US is doing this, I am very clear on
why it is NOT doing it. It is not doing it because of the slightest
humanitarian concerns. If it had such concerns, it would have lifted the
sanctions on Iraq, where over a half million civilians, largely infants and
the elderly, have died because of our sanctions. And it would have pursued a
totally different policy in the past twenty fives years. Please remember - and
we are not talking ancient history - that the United States killed over two
million Vietnamese (not counting those in Laos and Cambodia) during its
invasion of Indochina. The U.S. colluded in the Indonesian slaughters in East
Timor. The U.S. CIA played a central role in the overthrow of the elected
government of Chile - the Allenda government. The U.S. worked with heroin and
cocaine trafficers in the Contra scandals when we were directly involved in
acts of murder in Nicaragua. (Remember the World Court ruling which WENT
AGAINST THE U.S., on the mining of the harbor there?). The U.S. was actively
involved in massascres in Guatemala, through training the military at Fort
Benning, Georgia, and through covert aid and financial and military help to
the government in Guatemala. Ditto El Salvador. And Honduras.

  One could go on. This is enough. No government has "moral interests" in its
foreign policy. Not the U.S., not Vietnam, not Israeli, not Cuba. All
governments seek to mask their actions through a pretense of morality. Because
ours is a democratic country with a fairly free press there is less excuse for
any of us to take Clinton seriously. He may or may not be a moral person as an
individual. The same may be true of Milosevic. But the governments involved,
Yugoslavia, Germany, Britian, the U.S., etc. are not moral (nor are they
particularly immoral - they each seek to advance their own interests).

  Second, the attacks launched by the U.S., Great Britain, and Germany are
remarkable in the context of wars of agression over the past fifty years in
the cynical use of "victims". Right now, as the bombing continues, the dangers
of any Albanian dissidents in Kosovo is much greater. The killing will be
speeded up. I cannot think of a war which was launched because of deep moral
concern for suffering people.

  Look back at history. In World War II everyone who had followed events in
Germany knew the fate of the Jews was ominous in the extreme. Yet not one
country lifted a hand to do a damn thing. (And the Soviet Union signed a non-
aggression Pact with the Nazis). Only when Hitler attacked Poland did the
Allies enter the war - and even then, the issue of the Jews was not the
reason. (Nor in our own Civil War, where the freeing of the slaves was not the
issue, but rather Lincoln's determination, somewhat akin to Milosevic's, to
keep the nation united at any cost).  Only late in the Civil War, as a means
to help win it, did Lincoln set the slaves free - and then only in the States
in insurrection.

  In World War II we knew about the rape of Nanking. I used to get bubble gum
wrapped in colorful wax sheets which showed Japanese troops killing Chinese
women. But no one did a damn thing - until Pearl Harbor.

  In the Iraqi case, Washington supported Saddam during the long war with Iran
in which a half million youth on each side was killed. This is morality? The
depth of cynicism of the United States is perhaps no greater than that of Nazi
Germany or Stalin's Russia, but it is emphatically no less.

  The tendency of the good people that we all - individually - are, is to want
to believe what Clinton says. I do. My first reaction is "how can I oppose any
action that will help the poor souls in Kosovo?" and "Surely David, there must
be some good reason for what Clinton is doing". Who wants to realize and admit
that their own government is doing terrible, criminal things?

  Please think of the not distant past. I remember sitting in a room at the
F.O.R. headquarters in Nyack during the invasion of Somalia and some of those
good and decent pacifists argued that the U.S. troops sent by Bush were
necessary to prevent bloodshed and starvation. Look at the result - the U.S.
had to flee the scene, in the face of  what is now conceded to be the
universal hatred of the U.S. troops by everyone in Somalia. Look at Iraq,
where we said we wanted to do good. As a result of our "necessary" actions, in
addition to the 100,000 or so killed by the U.S. during Desert Storm (never
forgetting the faithful contemptible support of the British government), we
gave hope to religious groups that were restless, they rose up, got no help
from us and were slaughtered by Saddam. Then we imposed sanctions and a half
million or more died.

  I don't have an answer for Kuwait (though that was far more complex than our
media told us) but the answer we employed was a human disaster which continues
to echo.

  If the U.S. has the right to dictate the terms on which Yugoslavia will deal
with what emphatically is an internal problem, then does NATO have the right
to bomb Tel Aviv for refusing to carry out UN resolutions of long standing?
Should Spain be bombed if they don't concede to the Basques? Should Tony Blair
be arrested because he has British troops in Northern Ireland? Should we bomb
China because of Tibet? Is there a nation that shouldn't, once we get on this
topic, be bombed for the good of humanity and the cause of peace?

  You may think I'm joking but I'm not.  The U.S./NATO aggression occured,
ironically, only because the Soviet Union  had collapsed and the military
balance that held the US (and the Soviet Union) in relatve check has vanished.
The U.S. has, in a number of acts of aggression, Somalia, Grenada, Panama, the
Gulf War, and now the attack on Yugoslavia, proved to be a very dangerous
power.

  The range of international treaties that have been broken is unnerving. The
UN has been by-passed. Serbia may be led by a nasty man (who won a free
election) but the Serbs are not nasty people. They were good allies to the
West during World War II. They have not fired a single shot at any NATO
member. What is the justification for this extraordinary aggression? That they
had refused to accept the partition of their country on terms dictated by
military powers outside their country.

  Again, I don't know yet to my own satisfaction why the US and NATO is
engaged in this. I do know that morality has nothing whatever to do with it
and if I hear one more sweet soul say "yes, but do you mean you won't do
anything for the poor people there" I may bloody well scream. There are people
being butchered and murdered and raped all over the world and I live in horror
of it. There is almost nothing I can do about these actions in Sudan, Congo,
Indonesia, India, etc. But where my own country is involved - as in Vietnam -
then I have to give priority to stopping my country from making a very nasty
world much worse.

  We simply must stop responding to what the media holds up as "the issue of
the day" to which we are all supposed to say "Oh yes, bomb that country, they
are wicked".  The world is filled with wicked people doing wicked things. The
talking heads are among the wicked people doing wicked things.

  We will never get the kind of world we want, in which the bloodshed
diminishes, if we keep agreeing to military actions. Do we learn nothing? Our
"innocent anti-Communism" which in 1960 got us involved in Indochina "to stop
terrorism" cost us so many lives, our own and Vietnamese, and in the end left
us wounded so deeply.

  How many more hundreds of thousands must die before we stop our own
government from "doing good things for the poor people of the world". (Which
usually translates as "making the world safer for the wonders of a global
capitalism").

  I know bad things are happening in Kosovo. They got worse since Clinton
started to make them "better".

  Please, if you have foreign contacts, transmit this to them. International
pressure is needed to stop the US and NATO.

  Peace,
  David McReynolds
  former Chair, War Resisters International
  former Co-Chair, Socialist Party USA

  >>

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------------------------------

Date: Sun, 28 Mar 1999 17:00:16 EST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: (abolition-usa) Chomsky on Current Bombings (fwd)

Subj:     Chomsky on Current Bombings (fwd)
 Date:    3/28/99 2:57:16 PM Eastern Standard Time
 From:    [e-mail] (Eric A Schuster)
 To:    [e-mail]
 CC:    [e-mail]

 --------- Begin forwarded message ----------

 The Current Bombings
                         By Noam Chomsky

      There have been many inquiries concerning NATO (meaning primarily
 US)
 bombing in Kosovo. A great deal has
      been written about the topic, including Znet commentaries. I'd like
 to
 make a few general observations, keeping to
      facts that are not seriously contested.

      There are two fundamental issues: (1) What are the accepted and
 applicable "rules of world order"? (2) How do
      these or other considerations apply in the case of Kosovo?


      (1) What are the accepted and applicable "rules of world order"?

      There is a regime of international law and international order,
 binding on all states, based on the UN Charter and
      subsequent resolutions and World Court decisions. In brief, the
 threat
 or use of force is banned unless explicitly
      authorized by the Security Council after it has determined that
 peaceful means have failed, or in self-defense
      against "armed attack" (a narrow concept) until the Security Council
 acts.

      There is, of course, more to say. Thus there is at least a tension,
 if
 not an outright contradiction, between the rules
      of world order laid down in the UN Charter and the rights
 articulated
 in the Universal Declaration of Human
      Rights (UD), a second pillar of the world order established under US
 initiative after World War II. The Charter
      bans force violating state sovereignty; the UD guarantees the rights
 of individuals against oppressive states. The
      issue of "humanitarian intervention" arises from this tension. It is
 the right of "humanitarian intervention" that is
      claimed by the US/NATO in Kosovo, and that is generally supported by
 editorial opinion and news reports (in the
      latter case, reflexively, even by the very choice of terminology).

      The question is addressed in a news report in the NY Times (March
 27),
 headlined "Legal Scholars Support Case
      for Using Force" in Kosovo (March 27). One example is offered: Allen
 Gerson, former counsel to the US mission
      to the UN. Two other legal scholars are cited. One, Ted Galen
 Carpenter, "scoffed at the Administration
      argument" and dismissed the alleged right of intervention. The third
 is Jack Goldsmith, a specialist on international
      law at Chicago Law school. He says that critics of the NATO bombing
 "have a pretty good legal argument," but
      "many people think [an exception for humanitarian intervention] does
 exist as a matter of custom and practice."
      That summarizes the evidence offered to justify the favored
 conclusion
 stated in the headline.

      Goldsmith's observation is reasonable, at least if we agree that
 facts
 are relevant to the determination of "custom
      and practice." We may also bear in mind a truism: the right of
 humanitarian intervention, if it exists, is premised on
      the "good faith" of those intervening, and that assumption is based
 not on their rhetoric but on their record, in
      particular their record of adherence to the principles of
 international law, World Court decisions, and so on. That is
      indeed a truism, at least with regard to others. Consider, for
 example, Iranian offers to intervene in Bosnia to
      prevent massacres at a time when the West would not do so. These
 were
 dismissed with ridicule (in fact, ignored);
      if there was a reason beyond subordination to power, it was because
 Iranian "good faith" could not be assumed. A
      rational person then asks obvious questions: is the Iranian record
 of
 intervention and terror worse than that of the
      US? And other questions, for example: How should we assess the "good
 faith" of the only country to have vetoed a
      Security Council resolution calling on all states to obey
 international law? What about its historical record? Unless
      such questions are prominent on the agenda of discourse, an honest
 person will dismiss it as mere allegiance to
      doctrine. A useful exercise is to determine how much of the
 literature
 -- media or other -- survives such

      elementary conditions as these.


      (2) How do these or other considerations apply in the case of
 Kosovo?

      There has been a humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo in the past
 year,
 overwhelmingly attributable to Yugoslav
      military forces. The main victims have been ethnic Albanian
 Kosovars,
 some 90% of the population of this
      Yugoslav territory. The standard estimate is 2000 deaths and
 hundreds
 of thousands of refugees.

      In such cases, outsiders have three choices:

           (I) try to escalate the catastrophe

           (II) do nothing

           (III) try to mitigate the catastrophe

      The choices are illustrated by other contemporary cases. Let's keep
 to
 a few of approximately the same scale, and
      ask where Kosovo fits into the pattern.

      (A) Colombia. In Colombia, according to State Department estimates,
 the annual level of political killing by the
      government and its paramilitary associates is about at the level of
 Kosovo, and refugee flight primarily from their
      atrocities is well over a million. Colombia has been the leading
 Western hemisphere recipient of US arms and
      training as violence increased through the '90s, and that assistance
 is now increasing, under a "drug war" pretext
      dismissed by almost all serious observers. The Clinton
 administration
 was particularly enthusiastic in its praise for
      President Gaviria, whose tenure in office was responsible for
 "appalling levels of violence," according to human
      rights organizations, even surpassing his predecessors. Details are
 readily available.

      In this case, the US reaction is (I): escalate the atrocities.

      (B) Turkey. By very conservative estimate, Turkish repression of
 Kurds
 in the '90s falls in the category of Kosovo.
      It peaked in the early '90s; one index is the flight of over a
 million
 Kurds from the countryside to the unofficial
      Kurdish capital Diyarbakir from 1990 to 1994, as the Turkish army
 was
 devastating the countryside. 1994 marked
      two records: it was "the year of the worst repression in the Kurdish
 provinces" of Turkey, Jonathan Randal
      reported from the scene, and the year when Turkey became "the
 biggest
 single importer of American military
      hardware and thus the world's largest arms purchaser." When human
 rights groups exposed Turkey's use of US
      jets to bomb villages, the Clinton Administration found ways to
 evade
 laws requiring suspension of arms deliveries,
      much as it was doing in Indonesia and elsewhere.

      Colombia and Turkey explain their (US-supported) atrocities on
 grounds
 that they are defending their countries
      from the threat of terrorist guerrillas. As does the government of
 Yugoslavia.

      Again, the example illustrates (I): try to escalate the atrocities.

      (C) Laos. Every year thousands of people, mostly children and poor
 farmers, are killed in the Plain of Jars in
      Northern Laos, the scene of the heaviest bombing of civilian targets
 in history it appears, and arguably the most
      cruel: Washington's furious assault on a poor peasant society had
 little to do with its wars in the region. The worst
      period was from 1968, when Washington was compelled to undertake
 negotiations (under popular and business
      pressure), ending the regular bombardment of North Vietnam.
 Kissinger-Nixon then decided to shift the planes to
      bombardment of Laos and Cambodia.

      The deaths are from "bombies," tiny anti-personnel weapons, far
 worse
 than land-mines: they are designed
      specifically to kill and maim, and have no effect on trucks,
 buildings, etc. The Plain was saturated with hundreds of
      millions of these criminal devices, which have a failure-to-explode
 rate of 20%-30% according to the manufacturer,
      Honeywell. The numbers suggest either remarkably poor quality
 control
 or a rational policy of murdering civilians
      by delayed action. These were only a fraction of the technology
 deployed, including advanced missiles to penetrate

      caves where families sought shelter. Current annual casualties from
 "bombies" are estimated from hundreds a year
      to "an annual nationwide casualty rate of 20,000," more than half of
 them deaths, according to the veteran Asia
      reporter Barry Wain of the Wall Street Journal -- in its Asia
 edition.
 A conservative estimate, then, is that the crisis
      this year is approximately comparable to Kosovo, though deaths are
 far
 more highly concentrated among children
      -- over half, according to analyses reported by the Mennonite
 Central
 Committee, which has been working there
      since 1977 to alleviate the continuing atrocities.

      There have been efforts to publicize and deal with the humanitarian
 catastrophe. A British-based Mine Advisory
      Group (MAG) is trying to remove the lethal objects, but the US is
 "conspicuously missing from the handful of
      Western organisations that have followed MAG," the British press
 reports, though it has finally agreed to train
      some Laotian civilians. The British press also reports, with some
 anger, the allegation of MAG specialists that the
      US refuses to provide them with "render harmless procedures" that
 would make their work "a lot quicker and a lot
      safer." These remain a state secret, as does the whole affair in the
 United States. The Bangkok press reports a
      very similar situation in Cambodia, particularly the Eastern region
 where US bombardment from early 1969 was
      most intense.

      In this case, the US reaction is (II): do nothing. And the reaction
 of
 the media and commentators is to keep silent,
      following the norms under which the war against Laos was designated
 a
 "secret war" -- meaning well-known, but
      suppressed, as also in the case of Cambodia from March 1969. The
 level
 of self-censorship was extraordinary
      then, as is the current phase. The relevance of this shocking
 example
 should be obvious without further comment.

      I will skip other examples of (I) and (II), which abound, and also
 much more serious contemporary atrocities, such
      as the huge slaughter of Iraqi civilians by means of a particularly
 vicious form of biological warfare -- "a very hard
      choice," Madeleine Albright commented on national TV in 1996 when
 asked for her reaction to the killing of half a
      million Iraqi children in 5 years, but "we think the price is worth
 it." Current estimates remain about 5000 children
      killed a month, and the price is still "worth it." These and other
 examples might also be kept in mind when we read
      awed rhetoric about how the "moral compass" of the Clinton
 Administration is at last functioning properly, as the
      Kosovo example illustrates.

      Just what does the example illustrate? The threat of NATO bombing,
 predictably, led to a sharp escalation of
      atrocities by the Serbian Army and paramilitaries, and to the
 departure of international observers, which of course
      had the same effect. Commanding General Wesley Clark declared that
 it
 was "entirely predictable" that Serbian
      terror and violence would intensify after the NATO bombing, exactly
 as
 happened. The terror for the first time
      reached the capital city of Pristina, and there are credible reports
 of large-scale destruction of villages,
      assassinations, generation of an enormous refugee flow, perhaps an
 effort to expel a good part of the Albanian
      population -- all an "entirely predictable" consequence of the
 threat
 and then the use of force, as General Clark
      rightly observes.

      Kosovo is therefore another illustration of (I): try to escalate the
 violence, with exactly that expectation.

      To find examples illustrating (III) is all too easy, at least if we
 keep to official rhetoric. The major recent academic
      study of "humanitarian intervention," by Sean Murphy, reviews the
 record after the Kellogg-Briand pact of 1928
      which outlawed war, and then since the UN Charter, which
 strengthened
 and articulated these provisions. In the
      first phase, he writes, the most prominent examples of "humanitarian
 intervention" were Japan's attack on

      Manchuria, Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia, and Hitler's occupation
 of parts of Czechoslovakia. All were
      accompanied by highly uplifting humanitarian rhetoric, and factual
 justifications as well. Japan was going to
      establish an "earthly paradise" as it defended Manchurians from
 "Chinese bandits," with the support of a leading
      Chinese nationalist, a far more credible figure than anyone the US
 was
 able to conjure up during its attack on South
      Vietnam. Mussolini was liberating thousands of slaves as he carried
 forth the Western "civilizing mission." Hitler
      announced Germany's intention to end ethnic tensions and violence,
 and
 "safeguard the national individuality of the
      German and Czech peoples," in an operation "filled with earnest
 desire
 to serve the true interests of the peoples
      dwelling in the area," in accordance with their will; the Slovakian
 President asked Hitler to declare Slovakia a
      protectorate.

      Another useful intellectual exercise is to compare those obscene
 justifications with those offered for interventions,
      including "humanitarian interventions," in the post-UN Charter
 period.

      In that period, perhaps the most compelling example of (III) is the
 Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in December
      1978, terminating Pol Pot's atrocities, which were then peaking.
 Vietnam pleaded the right of self-defense against
      armed attack, one of the few post-Charter examples when the plea is
 plausible: the Khmer Rouge regime
      (Democratic Kampuchea, DK) was carrying out murderous attacks
 against
 Vietnam in border areas. The US
      reaction is instructive. The press condemned the "Prussians" of Asia
 for their outrageous violation of international
      law. They were harshly punished for the crime of having terminated
 Pol
 Pot's slaughters, first by a (US-backed)
      Chinese invasion, then by US imposition of extremely harsh
 sanctions.
 The US recognized the expelled DK as the
      official government of Cambodia, because of its "continuity" with
 the
 Pol Pot regime, the State Department
      explained. Not too subtly, the US supported the Khmer Rouge in its
 continuing attacks in Cambodia.

      The example tells us more about the "custom and practice" that
 underlies "the emerging legal norms of
      humanitarian intervention."

      Despite the desperate efforts of ideologues to prove that circles
 are
 square, there is no serious doubt that the
      NATO bombings further undermine what remains of the fragile
 structure
 of international law. The US made that
      entirely clear in the discussions leading to the NATO decision.
 Apart
 from the UK (by now, about as much of an
      independent actor as the Ukraine was in the pre-Gorbachev years),
 NATO
 countries were skeptical of US policy,
      and were particularly annoyed by Secretary of State Albright's
 "saber-rattling" (Kevin Cullen, Boston Globe, Feb.
      22). Today, the more closely one approaches the conflicted region,
 the
 greater the opposition to Washington's
      insistence on force, even within NATO (Greece and Italy). France had
 called for a UN Security Council resolution
      to authorize deployment of NATO peacekeepers. The US flatly refused,
 insisting on "its stand that NATO should
      be able to act independently of the United Nations," State
 Department
 officials explained. The US refused to
      permit the "neuralgic word `authorize'" to appear in the final NATO
 statement, unwilling to concede any authority
      to the UN Charter and international law; only the word "endorse" was
 permitted (Jane Perlez, NYT, Feb. 11).
      Similarly the bombing of Iraq was a brazen expression of contempt
 for
 the UN, even the specific timing, and was
      so understood. And of course the same is true of the destruction of
 half the pharmaceutical production of a small
      African country a few months earlier, an event that also does not
 indicate that the "moral compass" is straying
      from righteousness -- not to speak of a record that would be
 prominently reviewed right now if facts were

      considered relevant to determining "custom and practice."

      It could be argued, rather plausibly, that further demolition of the
 rules of world order is irrelevant, just as it had lost
      its meaning by the late 1930s. The contempt of the world's leading
 power for the framework of world order has
      become so extreme that there is nothing left to discuss. A review of
 the internal documentary record demonstrates
      that the stance traces back to the earliest days, even to the first
 memorandum of the newly-formed National
      Security Council in 1947. During the Kennedy years, the stance began
 to gain overt expression. The main
      innovation of the Reagan-Clinton years is that defiance of
 international law and the Charter has become entirely
      open. It has also been backed with interesting explanations, which
 would be on the front pages, and prominent in
      the school and university curriculum, if truth and honesty were
 considered significant values. The highest
      authorities explained with brutal clarity that the World Court, the
 UN, and other agencies had become irrelevant
      because they no longer follow US orders, as they did in the early
 postwar years.

      One might then adopt the official position. That would be an honest
 stand, at least if it were accompanied by
      refusal to play the cynical game of self-righteous posturing and
 wielding of the despised principles of international
      law as a highly selective weapon against shifting enemies.

      While the Reaganites broke new ground, under Clinton the defiance of
 world order has become so extreme as to
      be of concern even to hawkish policy analysts. In the current issue
 of
 the leading establishment journal, Foreign
      Affairs, Samuel Huntington warns that Washington is treading a
 dangerous course. In the eyes of much of the
      world -- probably most of the world, he suggests -- the US is
 "becoming the rogue superpower," considered "the
      single greatest external threat to their societies." Realist
 "international relations theory," he argues, predicts that
      coalitions may arise to counterbalance the rogue superpower. On
 pragmatic grounds, then, the stance should be
      reconsidered. Americans who prefer a different image of their
 society
 might call for a reconsideration on other
      than pragmatic grounds.

      Where does that leave the question of what to do in Kosovo? It
 leaves
 it unanswered. The US has chosen a
      course of action which, as it explicitly recognizes, escalates
 atrocities and violence -- "predictably"; a course of
      action that also strikes yet another blow against the regime of
 international order, which does offer the weak at
      least some limited protection from predatory states. As for the
 longer
 term, consequences are unpredictable. One
      plausible observation is that "every bomb that falls on Serbia and
 every ethnic killing in Kosovo suggests that it will
      scarcely be possible for Serbs and Albanians to live beside each
 other
 in some sort of peace" (Financial Times,
      March 27). Some of the longer-term possible outcomes are extremely
 ugly, as has not gone without notice.

      A standard argument is that we had to do something: we could not
 simply stand by as atrocities continue. That is
      never true. One choice, always, is to follow the Hippocratic
 principle: "First, do no harm." If you can think of no
      way to adhere to that elementary principle, then do nothing. There
 are
 always ways that can be considered.
      Diplomacy and negotiations are never at an end.

      The right of "humanitarian intervention" is likely to be more
 frequently invoked in coming years -- maybe with
      justification, maybe not -- now that Cold War pretexts have lost
 their
 efficacy. In such an era, it may be
      worthwhile to pay attention to the views of highly respected
 commentators -- not to speak of the World Court,
      which explicitly ruled on this matter in a decision rejected by the
 United States, its essentials not even reported.


      In the scholarly disciplines of international affairs and
 international law it would be hard to find more respected
      voices than Hedley Bull or Leon Henkin. Bull warned 15 years ago
 that
 "Particular states or groups of states that
      set themselves up as the authoritative judges of the world common
 good, in disregard of the views of others, are in
      fact a menace to international order, and thus to effective action
 in
 this field." Henkin, in a standard work on world
      order, writes that the "pressures eroding the prohibition on the use
 of force are deplorable, and the arguments to
      legitimize the use of force in those circumstances are unpersuasive
 and dangerous... Violations of human rights are
      indeed all too common, and if it were permissible to remedy them by
 external use of force, there would be no law
      to forbid the use of force by almost any state against almost any
 other. Human rights, I believe, will have to be
      vindicated, and other injustices remedied, by other, peaceful means,
 not by opening the door to aggression and
      destroying the principle advance in international law, the outlawing
 of war and the prohibition of force."

      Recognized principles of international law and world order, solemn
 treaty obligations, decisions by the World Court,
      considered pronouncements by the most respected commentators --
 these
 do not automatically solve particular
      problems. Each issue has to be considered on its merits. For those
 who
 do not adopt the standards of Saddam
      Hussein, there is a heavy burden of proof to meet in undertaking the
 threat or use of force in violation of the
      principles of international order. Perhaps the burden can be met,
 but
 that has to be shown, not merely proclaimed
      with passionate rhetoric. The consequences of such violations have
 to
 be assessed carefully -- in particular, what
      we understand to be "predictable." And for those who are minimally
 serious, the reasons for the actions also have
      to be assessed -- again, not simply by adulation of our leaders and
 their "moral compass." _

 --------- End forwarded message ----------

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------------------------------

Date: Sun, 28 Mar 1999 21:56:53 -0800 (PST)
From: Timothy Bruening <[e-mail]>
Subject: (abolition-usa) Stop bombing Serbia!

I have just sent the following letter to Representative Doug Ose, Senator
Dianne Feinstein, and Senator Barbara Boxer:

Dear Representative Doug Ose, Senator Dianne Feinstein, and Senator Barbara
Boxer:

Aside from the awful civilian casualties in Serbia, the bombing of Serbia
has strengthened Milosevic by rallying all Serbians around him, and has
given him cover to intensify the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo.

The bombing of Serbia has also angered the Russians into further delaying
their ratification of START II and suspending cooperation with the West,
including cooperation to avert a Y2K nuclear war.

Worst of all, the bombing of Serbia has caused Russia to consider deploying
nuclear weapons in Belarus, and caused the Ukraine to renounce its
non-nuclear policy.

Therefore, I urge you to cosponsor resolutions urging Clinton to stop
bombing Serbia and adopt the following policies to defuse the Kosovo crisis,
undermine Milosevic, and repair the damage to U.S.-Russian relations and to
the nuclear disarmament process:

I. Propose a UN Peacekeeping force in Kosovo, with no troops from the
Permanent 5 UN Security Council members (U.S., Russia, China, Britain,
France) or from any NATO nations, except for the three newest members.
Instead, the troops should be from Eastern Europe, and/or the Third World.
I believe that such a force would be more acceptable to the Serbs.  The UN
Peacekeepers would police an autonomy agreement, disarm both sides, and
organize an integrated Serb/Albanian Peacekeeping Force.

II. Broadcast graphic accounts of Serbian atrocities against Kosovo
Albanians into Serbia and into Russia, and ask listeners: Is the Serbian
government worth your support?  Hopefully, this would undermine Milosevic's
popularity in both countries.

III. Dramatically announce that the U.S. is taking its nuclear weapons off
alert, removing the warheads from their delivery vehicles, and halting all
nuclear weapons design, testing, production, and deployment activities.

IV. Challenge all the other nuclear nations to follow our lead, and
challenge Russia to immediately ratify START II, cancel any deployment of
its nuclear weapons outside its territory, and resume cooperation with the
West to avert a Y2K nuclear war.

Sincerely,

Timothy Bruening
1439 Brown Drive
Davis, CA 95616


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------------------------------

End of abolition-usa-digest V1 #99
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