Knowledge, supposedly, is a form of power. But these days, in the age of satellite television and instant communication, knowledge brings a new and more profound sense of powerlessness.
The luxury of ignorance, of being appalled after the event, has been denied us. We get detailed accounts of the unbelievable butchery of faraway Rwanda even as it is unfolding. We can see the women on buses being driven away from Srebrenica, knowing that their husbands and sons who have been left behind are probably, even as we watch the news, being slaughtered in their thousands. International politics is struggling to catch up with this awful knowledge. The great bluff of global morality - if only we had known at the time, we would have done something about it - has been called. But we don't quite know what cards the forces of democracy and civility really hold.
Too often, the rhetoric of humanitarian concern has been a flimsy cover for the pursuit of cynical self-interest by the major Western powers. Too often, internal conflicts within small nations have been manipulated as part of a greater struggle for international hegemony. Too often, today's bloody thug was yesterday's gallant ally, armed and supported by the same countries which now find his savagery intolerable. For too long, the institutions of international law, especially the United Nations have been undermined and flouted by those who pose as the world's policemen.
So, when it comes to the bombing of Yugoslavia, there are ample reasons for cynicism. The desire to "do something" about Serb brutality against the ethnic Albanian population is blunted by legitimate questions to which there are no easy answers.
Where is the legal basis for NATO's effective declaration of war on a sovereign state? Why has the United Nations not even been consulted? What are the long-term effects of alienating and humiliating Russia, an unstable giant with deep emotional ties to the Slavic and Orthodox Serbs? If bombing doesn't work - and most military experts suggest that it won't - what is Plan B?
And, most disturbingly of all, there is the question of consistency. NATO looks the other way when one of its own members, Turkey, attacks its Kurdish citizens, whose situation is almost exactly parallel to that of the Kosovar Albanians. The West's allies and military clients in Indonesia have been allowed to get away with mass murder in East Timor.
Israel's occupation of South Lebanon and its use of terror tactics against Arab civilians hardly attracts criticism from NATO, let alone military intervention. China brutally suppresses Tibet, and Russia has behaved appallingly in Chechnya, but nuclear weapons protect them from international interference.
All of these issues are important. But none provides a good excuse to avoid a more immediate issue - what do we do about Kosovo? Yes, in a less imperfect world, the UN would be the medium for international action. But what did the UN do in Rwanda and Srebrenica? Yes, we need a new international order. But what do we do while it is emerging?
Yes, the alienation of Russia is a serious business. But pandering to the mystical and reactionary pan-Slavic strain of Russian nationalism is hardly a recipe for a peaceful future either. Yes, the principle of sovereignty is being violated. But, as this week's judgment in the Pinochet case showed, sovereignty is no longer, in international law, a more important principle than human rights. Yes, the West is fatally inconsistent in its dealings with abusive regimes. But what do we want? Consistent cynicism? Consistent appeasement of butchers?
Kosovo is not like Iraq where the West first armed and encouraged Saddam Hussein and then, when he became a threat to the stability of oil supplies, turned on him. The NATO countries, admittedly, are not acting in Kosovo out of pure humanitarian concern. Some selfish interests are at stake. NATO wants to establish a role for itself in the aftermath of the Cold War, not least as a way of keeping the lucrative arms trade going.
The EU doesn't want to see Italy flooded with millions of Albanian refugees, or Greece destabilised by the spread of the Kosovo conflict into Macedonia. The Americans don't want uncertainty in Europe to disrupt the global economy.
BUT these selfish interests are not inconsistent with genuine humanitarian concern. And it should be acknowledged that the NATO powers have, in the case of Kosovo, done what those who oppose militarism have always urged.
They sought a diplomatic solution first. They went to great lengths to construct a peaceful and reasonable settlement. Milosevic, who caused the conflict by unilaterally revoking Kosovo's autonomy, was given every chance to retreat with dignity. His answer was delivered with tanks and thugs.
The only honest and sustainable case against the bombing is a practical one. There is no good reason to think that air strikes will actually do much damage to the Yugoslav army or to the paramilitary Serbian police in Kosovo, who are actually carrying out most of the atrocities. There is every likelihood that Milosevic will be strengthened by the attacks and that what remains of the democratic opposition in Serbia will be completely destroyed.
And the bombs can't protect Albanian civilians on the ground. The Serbs don't need radar installations or anti-aircraft to hurt women, men and children. They just need guns, jackboots and cruelty, all of which they seem to have in plentiful supply.
But the opponents of the air strikes have to face the fact that these practical considerations are arguments for more, not less, military involvement. They are arguments for international troops to enter Kosovo and establish safe havens for the ethnic Albanians. They are good reasons for the capture and punishment of the many war criminals who remain at large even in NATO-controlled areas of Bosnia. They make the case, perhaps, for the physical removal of Milosevic and his regime.
The bombing campaign is a pale and unsatisfactory substitute for such a radical course of action. It is an attempt to make war without bearing the risks and responsibilities of war. But who are we to blame the Americans or the British or the Italians for not being prepared to send their own troops into battle against the Yugoslav army? Would we send ours? Would our politicians want to face us when the body bags started to arrive at Dublin Airport? The critics of war and militarism have to acknowledge that the actually available alternative to what we are seeing in Yugoslavia now is not peace and international brotherhood. It is watching the current affairs documentaries a few months from now and asking, as we go out to put the kettle on, why somebody somewhere didn't do something about these awful massacres.
It is looking back from the start of the new century and remembering that, at the end of the 20th century, a cynical little thug like Milosevic could carry out a campaign of mass murder, mass rape and ethnic cleansing at the heart of Europe for almost a decade without once being confronted with even token resistance from the Western democracies.
It is allowing the Serbian military machine to exterminate Europe's Muslims in the name of the white Christian European civilisation of which we are part. In a choice between helpless hand-wringing and air force diplomacy, there be no real doubt about which is the lesser to two evils.