LETTERS
LETTERS to the Editor Bosnia Redux I agree with you: if Erwin I Knoll was still with us he would have unequivocally rejected violence as a means to peace in Yugoslavia. It is surprising to see at...
...But what greater conceit is there than to do so with the doors locked while watching CNN footage through split fingers...
...No matter how "noble" the cause, any war ceases to be just the moment an innocent child is killed...
...When Abortion Was Illegal documents the "back-alley days...
...It is remarkable that the real roots of this conflict are not denounced, and that instead we read and listen over and over again to the same version of events leading to simplistic proposals to end the conflict by military means...
...I wish we had the power to stop such horror...
...The wavering Clintons and the so-called "knee-jerk" opponents of interventionism are more attuned to this grave necessity than the quixotic Kaldors and Klares...
...Rob Smoke Boulder, Colorado Collaborative Art While safe, legal abortions are increasingly difficult to find, I am grateful that The Progressive decided to publish a description of two films about illegal abortion (August 1995), both of which serve to inform and, hopefully, awaken a sleeping public...
...Either that or he is so cynical as to expect that a majority of his constituents will think that a mathematical impossibility is sound public policy...
...Military intervention would be executed by armed forces that would kill and maim other human beings, on a scale that would escalate and lead to unintended consequences...
...Douglas Campbell Clintonville, Ohio Ireally enjoyed "The Ten Dimmest Bulbs in Congress" by Ken Silverstein...
...These include the inability to intervene with effect and without disastrous consequences, and the potential opposition of the majority of Americans to a faltering rescue mission in Bosnia...
...The rational discourse of your magazine is a welcome relief from the flood of disinformation and infotainment from the propaganda arm of the government, otherwise known as the "mass media...
...Ask the Serbs of Krainia, 250,000 of whom have been expelled and deported from their ancestral land by the blitz of the Croatian regular army under the protection of massive retaliatory bombing...
...What of the Elise Bould-ing idea, that of a sort of international disarmy...
...From Danger to Dignity traces the underground networks of providers and those who made illegal referrals, and then follows the story of the fight to decriminalize abortion...
...The taxpayers get cheated out of royalties and grazing fees...
...The one time I did write her, I received a form letter back trumpeting the Republican Party line—on a different topic than I'd written about...
...and semi-arid land unsuitable for cattle is seriously degraded for wildlife, hunters, fishermen, and future generations...
...But multilateral military action would be the wrong choice...
...Dorothy Fadiman Menlo Park, California Dim and Dimmer Ihave long known that The Progressive does not shrink from a difficult assignment, but this is rather startling...
...I am a little surprised that two of the ten dimmest bulbs are from Ohio...
...Louvan Nolting Lewes, Delaware Idisagree...
...Never will be...
...All letters may be edited for clarity and conciseness...
...Europe wants nothing of its Slav neighbors, except the chance to exploit their resources...
...Centuries of violence have not worked for the Balkans...
...It is sad to see militarism seize control of the minds and hearts of otherwise compassionate people...
...However, I was disappointed that our own dimwit, Barbara Vu-canovich, didn't make it...
...Tom Hastings Maple, Wisconsin Warm applause for your editorial stand opposing a military solution to the problem of the atrocities in Bosnia...
...Throughout the process, we worked closely with Danny McGuire, the executive producer of our local PBS affiliate, KTEH, a station that has shown extraordinary courage in taking on this volatile subject in an era of fear and paranoia...
...To eliminate 525 candidates from your list must have been a staggering task ("The Ten Dimmest Bulbs in Congress," September issue...
...As the director of these documentaries, I want to note that film-making is a supremely collaborative art...
...it is time to think harder and call for bolder steps, not the same shallowness we get on the editorial pages of our average daily papers...
...I thought it would be more...
...They should learn about Slovenia, another ex-Yugoslav republic now practically annexed by Austria...
...Syracopoulos Akron, Ohio You do a disservice to the memory of Erwin Knoll and to the hopes of many readers of The Progressive when you not only take valuable magazine space calling for violence but fail to explore the alternatives...
...After all, he described that first as a successful ad-hoc model in domestic wars and secondarily as effective in international conflict...
...ugly, toxic strip mines proliferate...
...In my own 15th District, we have Representative Deborah Pryce—a member of the Camouflage Congress...
...However praiseworthy the class's effort to end or alleviate the suffering of the Bosnian Muslims, the effort has metastasized into an obsession to inflict suffering on the Bosnian Serbs...
...The last "just war" ended with Hiroshima and Nagasaki...
...The peace movement's aversion to U.S...
...Whatever has gone so wrong with our electoral system that schmucks like this continue to be elected to Congress...
...In nearby Westerville, Ohio, we have the infamous John Kasich...
...I have neither seen nor heard from her since the campaign...
...it would inevitably cause more suffering and death...
...A sane foreign policy must be based on military restraint instead of unavailing passion...
...Apart from the folly and irony of killing people of one nationality to avenge another, there are real constraints, not just constraints of will, against going to war in former Yugoslavia...
...Never was...
...Is there a chance that a permutation of the Gene Sharp paradigm of civilian-based defense might work...
...And we should never give up on this approach...
...Jacinto Lirola New Haven, Connecticut The left shares the anguish of Michael Klare at the atrocities and the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia...
...The horrors of war denounced by Erwin Knoll so vehemently will not magically vanish unless war itself ends...
...They are the ones who are doing on a volunteer basis what thousands ought to be getting paid to do—wage peace with as much support as we afford soldiers nowadays...
...In this case, special credit should be noted for the attentive camera work of Daniel Meyers, who shot both films...
...As a matter of fact, the United States has done little to help the United Nations in dealing with this human tragedy...
...N.C...
...He and Beth Seltzer and I not only co-produced From Danger to Dignity, but we also edited and scripted in teams...
...Erwin Knoll was right when he said, "There is no such thing as a just war...
...J.D...
...Negotiation is the wise choice...
...About the horrors of war to which everybody claims we are so sensitive, I would like to ask, "What about Rwanda...
...Mary Kaldor and Michael Klare, whose articles were questionably published in the questionable September issue of The Progressive, are typical spokespersons for this class...
...N. Arthur Coulter Chapel Hill, North Carolina Since the end of the Cold War, we have endured a new class of domestic-policy radicals who have become interventionist abroad to promote purity of behavior beyond our own impure shores...
...Serbian aggression...
...If it takes force to stop slaughter, to get food and water to someone whose next sip might be their last because they're routinely shot at while waiting on line to get it, then that goes at the top of the "to-do" list...
...I guess the rest of the country's in worse shape than I imagined...
...Independent film-making is the result of intense cooperation...
...They might...
...Should we think of Bosnia as a place in need of the Gandhi/King model of nonviolent action, or is there a religious foundation capable of such faith-based mass movement...
...It may be wise to count our own blessings and examine our own affairs before meddling in others...
...Stempel Hawthorne, Nevada The editors welcome correspondence from readers on all topics, but prefer to publish letters that comment directly on material previously published in The Progressive...
...I welcome debate and diversity of opinion but this should not be to the detriment and neglect of the truth...
...Germany looks to the east and her mouth drools...
...Knoll would never, ever have been "muffled or invisible" about an ongoing war, nor would he have failed to seek out opinions of those who didn't merely debate violence versus nonviolence but rather the best way to promote a nonviolent solution...
...Your readers should learn about who helps Croatia, who gives it lavish credits, where the investment comes from, who buys its products, what its constitution supports...
...Your function as editor is to keep the gates, frame the debate...
...If we are calling for massive amounts of people and weaponry to shoot up, bomb, burn, raze, and destroy other people and their property, cannot we envision a similar number of nonviolent internationals intervening...
...But it cannot be halted or corrected by sending in the armed forces of the imperial structures that have basically created the situation...
...But militarism of the left ends up no better than militarism of the right...
...If foxes had raided a chicken coop, would Klare call on the foxes to clean up the mess...
...He is so completely innumerate, he advocates raising spending, lowering taxes, and eliminating the deficit all at once...
...Her concept of the common good applies only to what's good for her clients: welfare miners and cowboys...
...Perhaps because they succumbed to such a split orientation so recently, they are more zealous than even the most uncompromising of the old-fashioned Cold War liberals...
...It is surprising to see at this late hour of the conflict in the Balkans how confused the left is...
...It seems as though people who are on the line for nonviolence are seldom heard from in The Progressive...
...Early on we radicals learned that you don't call for the cops when you have trouble on the picket line...
...They are the ones who are integrating theory and practice, and I doubt any would settle for capitulation, as you call for...
...It is easy to understand why some would feel a strong urge to do something about these atrocities...
...The victims of genocide there are in the millions...
...Even when she did make statements, you couldn't tell what side she was on...
...armed intervention in Bosnia is much more than "formulaic," as Klare charges...
...If people in this, my own country, were slaughtered, raped, or attacked on a daily basis by mortar and gunfire, and cut off from supplies of food and water, I would demand forceful action, and possibly lift a gun myself, although I'd be lucky to know which end went where...
...And I can't understand how it is possible that clear calls for violence by Michael Klare can find their way into your magazine's pages...
...Bob Dylan's song lyric comes to mind: "There's a whole lot of people dying tonight from the disease of conceit...
...The United States did not have to show satellite pictures to the United Nations Security Council to convince anyone of that...
...Or is there another path open to nonviolent practitioners...
Vol. 59 • October 1995 • No. 10
