armchair general

Scottie Bowman (rbowman@indigo.ie)
Wed, 31 Mar 1999 08:06:26 +0100 

    I proffered the view suggested by William Rees-Mogg 
    (the Times correspondent) more as a provocation than 
    as a statement of my own position.

    For what it's worth, I'm strongly opposed to the present 
    Balkans balls up - not on moral grounds (which have never 
    greatly interested me) so much as on pragmatic ones.  

    You certainly cannot win a war *without* air power 
    (here speaks Sqn Ldr Bowman, former officer commanding 
    NPC, RAF Halton) & you certainly cannot win one *with* it.  
    Bombing the shit out of one of the more beautiful cities 
    of Europe - & not risking your own brave boys on the ground - 
    will only consolidate the local boss in the hearts of his people.  
    This is something you can depend on.  Churchill in the 1940s, 
    Hitler in 1945, Ho Chi Minh in the 1960s, Saddam Hussein 
    in the 1990s.  It's one of the rules of war.  

    Be consistent.  Either go in with a couple of hundred thousand 
    ground troops - as were present in Bosnia (where they have *still* 
    only achieved a very dubious peace); or let the locals sort out 
    their own differences - the only effective solution, since they are 
    the people who will have to make the arrangement work in 
    the end. (See Northern Ireland.)

    And stop gassing about 'genocide'.  Thousands of people are 
    killed every day in various parts of the world (on our own streets, 
    for God's sake) & no one thinks twice.  Are you really going 
    to equate a few miserable-looking Kosovans on the backs 
    of tractors with the millions shovelled through the gas chambers 
    & gulags of the 30s, 40s & 50s ?  Are they in the same category 
    with the 100,000 my old comrades burned to death on one 
    single night in Hamburg?  Or the similar number torched by 
    your chaps in Hiroshima?  Or with Rolling Thunder?  Or on 
    the Basra Road?

    Come, come.  Moral posturing is only ever acceptable when 
    conducted in conditions of grave personal risk.  Not on the 
    White House Lawn or outside Number Ten.  Or seated here 
    in this cosy room in front of a VDU.

    Incidentally, Jim, I realise slavery was vaguely involved in 
    the War Between The States.  But I always thought I was 
    being a really sophisticated student of American history 
    in reminding all & sundry of Abe's: '...If I could save the Union 
    & free some of the slaves, if I could save the Union & save 
    all of the slaves, if I could save the Union & save NONE
    of the ...etc.'

    Scottie B.
    PS  I might possibly have made some comment on John Touzios'
    posts but for the fact that my poor old brain refuses to disentangle 
    communications in undifferentiated, all-lower-case typing.