Gavin
booty bass intellectual
Hey, come on - I'm not going to sit here and argue about how many unarmed people have to be killed in order for a massacre to qualify as a genocide. I'm also not so naive as to think all Bosnians and all Croats were merely innocent victims of Serbian aggression. However, it remains the case that the mass killing of Bosnian prisoners by Serbian troops is one of the most egregious instances of inhumanity in that particular war, or series of wars - ZNet certainly doesn't deny it took place - and I'm asking "how much worse could the death toll have been if an external force (in this case NATO) hadn't intervened?"
If you read the article, it argues that the Bosnian military withdrew from Srebrenica, facilitating the massacre of Bosnians by Serbs BECAUSE CLINTON WOULD NOT INTERVENE UNLESS MORE PEOPLE (specifically, at least 5000) DIED. In effect, THE POSSIBILITY OF NATO INTERVENTION PRECIPITATED THE MASSACRE. Furthermore it distracted from the equally reprehensible atrocities committed by the West's Croat allies, who met no justice, intervention, etc. even though EVERYONE knew they were ethnically cleansing as much as the Serbs. Clearly the idea that NATO troops were there to prevent massacres is unsound -- they were there for OTHER REASONS.
I'm certainly not saying "therefore intervention is not imperialistic". I'm saying it need not be imperialistic. Otherwise, you just end up in this hand-wringing situation where people say "Yes, there's this terrible war/massacre/genocide going on, but we mustn't intervene, because Intervention Is Imperialistic".
I'm saying MILITARY INTERVENTION BY FOREIGN FORCES IS ALWAYS BAD, that foreign troops are ALWAYS in service to their country of origin, which in the case of the West is ALWAYS in service to Capital. This is not to say we should take no action, but we should avoid actions that ARE ALWAYS IMPERIALISM DRESSED IN HUMANITARIAN CLOTHING. You have not demonstrated military interventions that are otherwise; your only rejoinder to me was Bosnia, which I disproved.
People being forced from their homes, raped, tortured or killed probably care more about whether some troops from another country are going to turn up and stop it fucking happening than whether such action would qualify as 'imperialistic' to a group of right-on political theorists thousands of miles away.
Right, I'm sure the Iraqis being killed by Shi'ite death squads are crowing for more foreign troops. Oh wait, they increasingly pick up weapons, aiming at FOREIGN TROOPS (who incidentally fund the government's death squads). In fact, they even resist foreign intervention from the "Islamofascists" of Al-Qaeda. Your ludicrous hypothetical situation doesn't even support your own assertions!
And your sarcastic quotes around imperialism signify your belief that imperialism is some sort of leftist boogeyman, something not to take seriously (except as an indicator of effeminate, impotent left-wingers helplessly wringing hands), when in fact imperialism has been the chief engine of destruction for hundreds of years and continues to kill, maim, and impoverish millions. You advocate MORE of the PROBLEM as the solution -- how compassionate!