Separation of worlds

["John Gelles" <jjgelles@xxxxxxxx>]

 	"It seems to me strange that someone [with critical
	faculties] is so willing to accept mass media distortions
	of events in the Balkans and endorse such murderous
	bombing of civilians etc.

	"Why do we repeatedly separate out theoretical
	worlds from our real worlds?"

		-- Paul Phillips, tonight, on PKT



	In hindsight, many who support their leaders on this
	side of the war wish there had never been an ultimatum
	dispatched which said, "Sign or we bomb your innocents,
	your army and your economy."

	The ultimatum, sent in the face of 40,000 troops about
	to pounce on Kosovo, should have said, "Let's stay at
	the table until we find an agreeable solution -- but if
	you do murder and deport innocents from Kosovo, we
	will go to war with you."

	Those democratic forces in Belgrade, forced now to
	support THEIR LEADERS in war, must also have
	hindsight regrets.  Why did not Milosevic respond to
	the ultimatum. "You know I will not sign away Kosovo
	as you ask. But neither will I murder and deport
	innocents from our nation.  If you go to war I will
	rally all my Serbs against you -- and I will even rally
	the innocents in Kosovo against you for making war
	like the criminals you threaten to be."

	Trying to NOT separate the world as it should have
	been from the world we have to accept, is no easy task.

	Ensconced in democratic Canada, where ethnic problems
	are not unknown, where even murder has on occasion
	been done, one of us appears to be mired in ideology
	and Chomskian self-appointed intellectual hubris.

	As I have said before, we welcome that here. It gives
	us pause to think. And it is the hallmark of democracy
	through all the wars from 1776 to today.  We do not
	forbid open discussion of error -- even treason to
	our principles.  Would that this were the case with
	fascist dictatorship in Belgrade.  One can hardly
	imagine this war if it had been so.

	Meanwhile, what visions in the night do the "end
	air war against Milosevic" advocates share, as
	they think of the people murdered and deported
	for no other reason than somebody else's politics?
	Do they separate these victims from the human
	race?

	John Gelles