: Let's be clear about one thing. The U.S. does NOT design policy around humanitarian considerations. SDF: I would argue, instead, that: "The US does not ENACT policy around humanitarian considerations." There are, I'm sure, plenty of humanitarian motives for some, a few, specific US foreign policies. Do these motives amount to the US government actually doing something? No, not in themselves.
: If a particular objective is felt to be worth some blood, a "humanitarian" cause will be enunciated to enlist a public's support. Thus the process of demonization, portrayals of atrocities (real or imagined), and the whole machinery of mind homogenization is brought to bear upon a population.
SDF: Let's be clear about this -- war propaganda is standard stuff. After all, one of the main reasons nations go to war is to achieve national solidarity within a nation. Neither the Serb media nor the US media can afford to look unpatriotic. If you don't expect war propaganda to accompany wars, you're either too young or you're not paying attention.
: In words of more eloquence than I can muster - from a poster at another site:
:
"I'm tired of listening to the endless platitudes about how this war is a humanitarian sacrifice, for the US as well as NATO. I heard all that blather in the late 60's and 70's about Vietnam. It was not true then, and it ain't true now. Yep, the Commies were enraged at the actions of the French and the US, and atrocities were committed on
: both sides. We went in to save democracy (nausea) and to avoid "a
: Communist bloodbath." SDF: Actually, the US government "went in" to Vietnam to prevent a democratic election from taking place, an election that was ratified by the Geneva accords in 1954, an election that Ho Chi Minh and his allies were threatening to win. The Americans, and earlier the French, were entrapped by the philosophy that Lenin espoused: what matters is not democracy, but rather, what matters is who wins in the struggle for power. Forgotten was the consideration that democracy might matter.
And 500,000 Asian casualties and 50,000
: American casualties later, (not to speak of the suffering of the
: Vietnamese, Laotian and Thai people as their countries became a war
: zone for 15 years) the objective of placing a US puppet government on
: Asian soil was not reached. But we did have bloodbath, more terrible
: in scope than any atrocities the North Vietnamese were intending, or
: even capable, of carrying out. More Vietnamese were killed than would
: have ever been killed if we just stayed away from the place. And Pol
: Pot would probably not have emerged." - "A bold polite prole"
SDF: Kosovo is unlikely to become America's second South Vietnam; the situation is much different. I have withheld judgment about this conflict because it's still possible for the US/NATO to do something good; so far, however, they've made a big mess of a big mess, and added a bit to the death toll in the process.
