on 12/14/99 7:00 PM, Bergesons at [log in to unmask] wrote:

> Here we get into serious misrepresentations of facts that NATO apologists
> rely on regularly.

Hitchens is a NATO apologist? How quaint.

> The idea that the US was not "intervening" in East Timor
> is reprehensible, in addition to being patently false.

I see nothing in the quote that suggests he was implying otherwise.

> However, this argument does not address the basic issue up for
> discussion by Tresy-- namely that the NATO bombing was a moral intervention.

To my knowledge I have never said it was a moral intervention, especially in
the sense that you mean it. I may have said it was a just war, but that's
not the same thing. In a post a few minutes ago, I reiterated my agreement
with Chomsky that nations never act selflessly, but I disagree with his
implied assumption that that makes their actions automatically bad. Kosovo
is one such case. I agree with the action taken, and I think the outcome is
about as good as could be expected, given the various constraints on the
actors in it. It certainly was infinitely preferable to the status quo
ante--except to the Serbs, who were (and remain) unrepentant aggressors.