Of course, to make such points is to risk being charged with indifference to suffering, if not with treason. Those who support the Nato action find it difficult to accept that those who do not are also moved by a concern for human life and a contempt for Milosevic. Everyone is expected to be "on message", to the point where independent reporting from Belgrade earns the displeasure of the Government. Such a response suggests that uncertainty lurks behind the calm exterior of Tony Blair and Robin Cook; that, for all the military expertise of Nato, no one is sure how to proceed The bombing may continue for months. So far, its only effect has been to make Milosevic popular with those Serbs who, until a month ago, despised him. Among the gullible the war has made a hero of a monster. What Tony Blair describes as "the first progressives' war" - a peculiarly asinine phrase from a man who has shown such moderation, statesmanship and courage in seeking to end the war in Ireland - has aggravated, not alleviated, the humanitarian disaster in the Balkans. In the year before Nato struck, some 2,000 people died in the civil war in Kosovo Now many more are likely to follow them.
Under cover of Nato bombs more than half a million Albanians have been forced from their homes, and 20,000 have crossed borders in an attempt to find safety since Wednesday. The situation on the ground will get worse.But aggressive pessimism is as inappropriate as bland optimism. As we noted last week, Nato cannot be seen to fail in this war. As Mr Blair continues to disallow the possibility of ground troops, diplomacy remains the best hope. Perhaps it will be possible, after some particularly impressive display of smart bombing (incinerating a convoy of Serbian trucks might do the trick), to declare victory, and to begin negotiations again with Milosevic.
His status as a war criminal will complicate matters, but that need not be an insuperable problem to the agile minds of the Foreign Office and the State Department. It is unlikely that Clinton and Blair will get what they want: peace and goodwill among all the peoples of former Yugoslavia. The implacable hatreds of the region are not going to be tamed by "the first progressives' war". The poor bloody Albanians will continue to suffer hideously, and so, to a lesser extent, will the Serbs The civil war will eventually resolve itself. Nato must extract itself with as much honour as it can muster. All it is doing now is to prolong the agony and deepen the injustice.
The Prime Minister wants to end the obscene suffering of the Kosovar Albanians So do we. All the same, the war that he has taken us into is inept, cowardly and dishonest.. Methinks she doth protest too much! My somewhat catty colleague, Miss (Mssss!) Ann Wilson penned a characteristically contrary column in these pages last week in which she suggested that the traditional English public school was in some ways "racist" (dread accusation!). "Pull the other one, Ann!" I wanted to scream, "It has the proverbial bells on!" Ann's experience at Rugby in the Sixties was greatly at odds with my own experience at Rugby in the Forties. As my Who's Who entry makes quite clear, I spent most of my school days at Basters Academy for Young Gentlemen, and I continue to rejoice in my position as an Old Basterd. But English and languages were thought of as sissy at Basters, which specialised in the more manly pursuits of mathematics and blood sports, so my parents (woolly liberals, alas) had me sent on day release to Rugby, where one or two of the more effeminate schoolmasters were believed to have a smattering of Shakespeare up their sleeves. Ah, memories, memories! I look back on the time I spent at Rugby as one of innocent joy. Every morning, I would knock on the door of the Headmaster's office.
After a couple of minutes in which I would listen to keys being turned and doors unbolted, I would be met by the Head Matron, a retired Sergeant-Major who had been forced to change sex after being dealt a particularly rotten hand in a game of forfeits at some point in the mid-1930s. The Head Matron would then strip-search me, forcing my buttocks apart with a pair of household pliers on the off-chance of discovering a spanner, a jemmy, a packet of Capstan or a half-bottle of Teacher's. If none were found, she would bid me forward with a gentle pat of her fully-licensed cattle prod.Oh, balmy days of innocence and hope! I would then make my way to the Junior Gymnasium, where a small selection of Eskimos would be chained to the climbing bars. Lesser public schools dealt in the bullying of Jews, Blacks, Indians and what-have-you, but at Rugby this outdated practice was always considered wishy-washy and absurdly generalised. For this reason, a dozen Eskimos would be hired each year for the young gentlemen of the school to taunt and poke at our own discretion."Esky! Esky! Get back to your igloo, Esky!" we would chant while the poor Eskimos writhed and squirmed. Every now and then, one of us would have a word with the Headmaster about borrowing the school Polar Bear costume, and, fully dressed up, we would then enter the gym making Polar Bear noises - only to frighten the young Eskys out of their proverbial wits! No doubt the "caring" professions (!!!!) would now accuse us of "racism" or even "bullying".