[PEN-L:6625] Re: POST-WAR DISILLUSIONMENT AHEAD; Yugoslav Army Orders KosovoPullout; Chicano POWs Return; Clinton Quest for Appearance of Victory

[Gregory Schwartz <grishas@xxxxxxxx>]

Just so people know,

Michael Bliss (see article below) is a right-wing history professor (or as many
of us on the local activist scene like to label him - the myth maker of Western
civilization) at the University of Toronto. The article is written for a
right-wing newspaper, which is owner by a real right-wing media mogul (owning
something to the tune of 70% of Canada's printed media), Conrad Black.
Nevertheless, Bliss's anti-war position (however misguided his analysis and
however sinister the intentions that belie it) is praiseworthy. In an anti-war
movement, "rag-tag" is inevitable.

In solidarity,
Greg.


Michael Eisenscher wrote:

> IN THIS MESSAGE:  POST-WAR DISILLUSIONMENT AHEAD; Yugoslav Army Orders Kosovo
> Pullout; Chicano POWs Return; Clinton Quest for Appearance of Victory
>
> The National Post                               Monday, May 10, 1999
>
> POST-WAR DISILLUSIONMENT AHEAD
>
>         We've reached such a level of callousness that our media
>         barely notice NATO's accidental murder of scores of civilians
>         in one incident after another. After the war ends, we'll surely
> question
> the barbarism into which we've descended.
>
>         By Michael Bliss
>
>         The idealists who support NATO's war against Yugoslavia will
> suffer multiple disillusionments in its aftermath.
>         The ability to mobilize idealism has been the key to the public
> support NATO's attacks on Yugoslavia have enjoyed. Important
> legal and strategic issues have been swept aside by the claim that
> the Milosevic regime represents radical evil, that it is pursuing a
> genocidal policy of ethnic cleansing, which, according to NATO
> and many Western politicians, includes systematic rape, mass
> executions, and other atrocities. We are fighting a regime that
> commits crimes against humanity, we are told, a government that
> ranks with Hitler's or with the murderous regimes of Cambodia and
> Rwanda.
>         Our side has no aim in the war except to stop the evil. We
> desire no territory, and we are promising to spend billions after the
> war rebuilding Yugoslavia and neighbouring countries. Even if the
> war isn't going very well, we can at least take comfort in knowing
> that our intentions are honourable. It's all OK, Gwynne Dyer told
> Canadians early on in The Globe and Mail, because "at last," we
> were involved in "a good war." The editors of the National Post
> seem to take the same consolation.
>         Canadians are a particularly idealistic people when it comes to
> world affairs, and this explains why we are one of the more hawkish

[snip]