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Dear Marc,
Sorry you were offended by Goran. His letter was kind of ...um, spirited, but then it's worth remembering he IS being bombed (and spending many hours in a bomb shelter). I think it fair to cut him a little slack.
I don't think it's fair to tar him at all with the Milosevic government. We haven't yet published all he's written (though it should be up by the end of the day) -- there's a number of letters, as opposed to dispatches. But I think it's been pretty clear, even just in his two dispatches, that he is utterly opposed to the Milosevic government. (By the way, when he says "we" or "my country" he is talking about what's referred to here as "the former Yugoslavia" -- he refuses to acquiesce in its dismemberment by Stalinist [and since Dayton, some 60,000 NATO troops].)
At the heart of what Goran was saying to you (and me too) is rejecting the idea of "we" when thinking about the United States. To us there's two entities in the U.S. --working people on the one hand, capitalists and their government on the other. They have no interests in common -- none.
So "we" in the U.S. are not bombing Yugoslavia, THEY are. In the same way, "we" in Yugoslavia are not ethnically cleansing Kosova, THEY are.
Is there a way out of what THEY are doing? Sure, though not an easy or instant one: we need to oppose the actions of "our own" governments, each one in the country that we live in. No matter how much you hate the Kaiser or Hitler or British or U.S. imperialism, if you enlist to fight somebody else's ruling class (instead of your own) you simply go back to workers standing in the trenches slaughtering each other in the service of the ruling class of their country.
The bloodbath of WW#1 was the most obvious example of the insanity of following THAT path. (Russian workers and farmers got out of that trap by first fighting for peace, bread and land . . . and ultimately overthrowing their rulers. German workers tried, but failed [uprisings in 1918 and 1923].)
WW#2 seems like a harder case because of the awful evilness of the Nazis but it's the same thing -- it was wrong for Americans to back Washington in that war. Washington wasn't fighting Hitler because he was repressing and killing people, it fought Hitler because he was threatening to cut in on their action. That's why (to choose just one example) the bastards never bothered to drop a single bomb on rail lines leading to the concentration camps -- and why they DID bomb one Italian city AFTER workers rose and chased out the Nazis. (The indefensible incineration of Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are related examples. Don't forget, Japan is an island without any oil, iron or enough land to feed itself; don't buy for an instant that nuking civilians was the only option.
The capitalists are clear on THEIR class interests, unfortunately much more so than workers like us are.
Both Iraq and Yugoslavia show the same thing: Washington backed Hussein and Milosevic all the way (Saddam was even on the CIA payroll) and only portrayed them as little Hitlers when they starting working beyond their designated job description. (Goran described this quite well when he explained the role of Third World dictators as Western-hired repressors of their own people -- go back to his letter and check it out.)
I hope this helps make matters clearer. I realize this kind of thinking goes against everything we have been taught, against our whole way of looking at the world, so I don't expect my few inadequate words to make you jump up and down and say "Eureka! You're right! You're right!!"
But keep thinking, writing and watching. I think you'll find that there is no way out of this war except standing up against "your own" government. Leave overthrowing Milosevic to the Yugoslavians.
All the best,
steve
PS Check out the article "Justice, not Mercy" or "Understanding Central Africa" at the website for related examples -- they're better written than this is.
PPS I'm leaving out of this presentation the complications of nationalism in Third World (i.e., nationally oppressed) countries. Seeing "their" government defeated by imperialism would harm, rather than help, working peoples' efforts to put a new and just society in place of the awful one ruled by their capitalists (in the service of the West). That's why it's a big mistake for Kosovars to wave the U.S. flag and call for NATO occupation of Kosova -- you can be sure independence won't be the result of THAT. Of course many Kosovars are opposed to being disarmed and occupied by NATO -- that's why it was so hard to get the KLA to sign the Rambouillet "peace accords."