I don’t really expect you, Michael Moore, to read this here or find it among the many e-mails you receive at any given time but I do have some observations I feel a need to ‘get out there’. <\/p>\n
In your recent letter<\/a> to Wesley Clark in which you encouraged him to run and encouraged everyone reading to send one as well, you made several statements that contradicted your previous positions but I let that curiosty go.<\/p>\n That is until last night when I viewed Bowling for Columbine<\/a> for the first time and those statements came back like a hammer driving nails into our antiwar coffins.<\/p>\n Please don’t misunderstand. I think Gen. Clark entering the race can indeed be an extremely positive development if<\/i> his participation in key historical events that factored into the mindset which led to the present-day occupation of Iraq are thoroughly examined and discussed by as many Americans as you, or anyone of your calibre, can muster interest in doing so.<\/p>\n You reminded Marilyn Manson in your Columbine documentary that on the same day that violent massacre was carried out by teenagers with automatic weapons the United States dropped more bombs on Kosovo than on any other. When Manson said the press scapegoated him and his music you wondered why they ignored the message the children of America might be getting from a president who would authorise such bombings.<\/p>\n Kosovo and the Challenge of Humanitarian Intervention<\/i><\/a> is a study done by a group of 36 scholars and practitioners who were assembled with the support of United Nations University in response to a proposal made to UNU within days of the beginning of the 3- month bombing campaign carried out by the United States-NATO forces against Kosovo. <\/p>\n You might find their objectives very much in line with those that led to your making of the documentary. The paper is a thorough education in the challenges and consequences faced during that time and the effects of a military campaign designed to avoid coalition troop casualties that increased civilian casualties and refugee crises.<\/p>\n All of the findings are important reading. This one addresses the military campaign well: A recurring conclusion throughout these essays is that the international community failed miserably to address humanitarian concerns early on when non-violent approaches should have been utilised, and had they been, it is possible drastic measures could have been avoided. When you wrote in your letter to Clark:<\/p>\n Michael Moore likes a general? I never thought I’d write these words. But desperate times call for desperate measures. I want to know more about you. I want your voice heard. I would like to see you in these debates. Then let the chips fall where they may — and we’ll all have a better idea of what to do. If you sit it out, then I think we all know what we are left with.<\/i><\/p>\n I disagree that we are at a point of desperation in the nominating process, and that even if we were, ‘desperate times call for desperate measures’. I think the 2,000 plus civilians killed by NATO bombings in Kosovo would disagree as well if they were alive to do so. I hope you pursue your intent to learn more about Clark and consider defining now what you meant by ‘we all know what we are left with’ if Clark did ‘sit it out’. Or is one instance of support from him on CNN enough for you to give up your investigating instincts?<\/p>\n In Bowling for Columbine<\/i> you mentioned your admiration for George Seldes.<\/a> If only we had someone with his energy and determination publishing today. The press pushed<\/a> for killing fields in Kosovo. I hope you use whatever inspiration you can gather from Seldes’ example to prevent more of them in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I don’t really expect you, Michael Moore, to read this here or find it among the many e-mails you receive at any given time but I do have some observations I feel a need to ‘get out there’. In your … Continue reading
\n18. NATO: From Collective Defence to Peace Enforcement<\/a>
\nNicola Butler<\/p>\n