Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK
---------------------------------------------
Personally I find Bodansky's work sickening. His single minded focus on the
"Islamic threat" makes him more of a hate monger than a serious security
analyst that adopts nuanced views towards international politics (come to
think of it most US security analysts, as ones who service US power, engage
in hate-mongering of some aspect of Third World political, economic, military
and socio-cultural systems). As a political scientist his focus should be on
power and power relations and how they shape, or distort, prevailing social,
political, economic, strategic and cultural patterns. Instead Bodansky's
only purpose is to "prove" that the Islamic world constitutes the primary
threat to US interests (just like other US security analysts try to proove
that other people's and ideologies produced in the Third World constitue
threats to these same interests). I am, and always was, truly embarassed by
Bodansky's advocacy of the Bosnian Serb cause that was always accompanied by
transparently anti-Muslim vitriol. The fact that the Serbian Unity Congress
(in the USA) embraced him and his writings not only betrays their political
immaturity, but also betrays their right wing bias. Is it any surprise that
the SUC and Bodansky hailed "Kostunica the Patriot" and both engaged in
compromising with regional US imperialism by attacking Milosevic? Although
Bodansky is quite knowledgeable about the presence of Mujahadeen in Bosnia, I
would suggest that if we want to discuss this chapter of the Balkan drama we
avoid his writings as sources, there is no reason to increase this man's
legitimacy in progressive circles. The line that Bodansky, the SUC, and most
of the members of DOS take towards regional imperialism is to show the
imperialist powers and especially the US that they are mistaken with their
focus on Yugoslavia, that their real enemy is, and was, Milosevic, and that
the Serbs should actually be US allies in the "real" fight against "Islamic
extremism". Thus these organizations produce a discourse that essentially
seeks to displace the demonization that the Serbs themselves suffered onto
the shoulder's of another people (Muslims) and the political-ideological
pro-Yugoslav socialist tendencies of Milosevic and the SPS, while positioning
themselves as the regional "favorites" of US power interests. Personally I
find, and have always found, this stance revolting not only b/c it was
damaging to Yugoslav and especially Serbian interests as a result, but also
b/c it perpetuated the very same aspects of the post-Cold War era that were
dictating the destruction of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and
the mutual butchery of its peoples. In short people like Bodansky, the SUC,
most currents within the DOS, and even elements of the Bosnian Serb SDS and
VRS, confirmed to public oppinion in the West the discourses that were being
bandied about by Western intellectuals to legitimize Western intervention and
the large-scale ethnic-cleansing of Serbian populations throughout the
Balkans. Their positions were, in short, reactionary in every sense of the
term. Usually it is Milosevic who is blamed for these deeds, but in
retrospect and even at the time it is and was clear that the "PR" of the
right-wing Serbs only actually served the foreign policy interests of the
USA. In my mind American Serbs bare a large share of the responsibility for
what befell Yugoslavia. By refusing to make common cause with Milosevic and
the Yugoslav defense of the country's territorial integrity, and insisting
instead on a damaging ideology whose objective was also the destruction of
Yugoslavia, the American Serbs in effect helped pave the way for the NATO
aggressions in 1991-1995 and 1999 as well as today's occupation and slow
legislative dissolution of the FRY. It is to Milosevic's credit that he
distanced himself from these elements and actively steered the country
towards an internationalist perspective that stood in solidarity with Arab
and Islamic states that also suffered under US sanctions, bombs, and
genocide. Milosevic understood that it was the contours of world-order
dictating the destruction of the SFRY and the single-minded focus of
eradicating "the Serbs" as an integral animating force on the Balkan scene.
To this end he engaged his public relations on the meta-political plane of
ideologies and morality, instead of the basely political (and power serving)
strategies that sought to fit Yugoslavia and especially the Serbs within the
prevailing currents of world order. Milosevic understood that the only way
for Serbs to be free could be through emancipation from an unjust political,
economic, military and social global system beeing pursued by the United
States. For this struggle the Serbs could not stand alone, but would have to
fight with equally oppressed Balkan peoples for the emancipation of the
entire region. Only through a united Balkans could the peoples of the region
resist the US/NATO onslaught and help reconfigure international politics in
such a way that would allow breeding space for the highest ideals of freedom
and justice embodied by Balkan progressive movements in the last 200 years;
as well allowing the people, that as a result of geographic location and
sheer force of circumstance were forced to defend justice and freedom within
the global system three times in one century, to prosper along with their
neighbors. It sadens me that Serbia and Yugoslavia - that have been beacons
of freedom for so long - are once again falling into the long-night of
isolation and foreign military occupation. It is imperative for Serbs and
Serbia to leave those destructive and self-distorting discourses behind once
and for all, for therein lies not only the path of Vuk Brankovic but with it
also the path of self-anhialation.
cheers!
Kole
In a message dated 13/09/01 18:10:56 Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
writes:
> Bodansky, the task force's director since its inception, is a native
Israeli
> who became a naturalized American citizen. He is currently associated with
> the Freeman Center for Strategic Studies in Houston, a group WJW sources
> described as a "small outfit of people holding right-wing
views."Bodansky's
> work also includes the 1993 book "Target America," in which he advanced
now
> discredited theories such as allegations that the gunman who killed two
> people outside CIA headquarters was an Iranian agent "infiltrated into the
> U.S. for operations in the Washington area..." (5/14/93, Houston
> Chronicle)Even a number of pro-Israel writers have denounced Bodansky's
work.
>
> Daniel Pipes, editor of Middle East Quarterly, called Bodansky's writing
> "absolutely alarmist and unreliable." Barry Rubin, editor of Middle East
> Review of International Affairs, said task force reports are the "product
of
>
> extremists who care nothing for serious research, responsible intelligence
> assessment, or accurate analysis." (Metro West Jewish News, 2/6/97)
> Congressional sources say that task force reports are now generally
ignored.
>
> A 1993 profile of Bodansky by Fred Abood of the American-Arab
> Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) even alleged that he was or is a spy
for
>
> Israel. (The Arizona Republic, 6/21/1993) According to the ADC profile:
"In
> 1985, shortly after Naval intelligence employee Jonathan Pollard was
caught
> as an Israeli spy, Bodansky dropped out of sight. According to sources,
> Bodansky was one of Pollard's controllers and had, they say, always
operated
>
> as an agent of LEKEM, the Israeli defense ministry's technological
espionage
>
> branch. Bodansky had reportedly been sent to the United States in respect
to
>
> Israel's plans, at the time, to build the LAVI, a modified version of the
> U.S. F-16. Even Davar, the Israeli Labor Party newspaper, reported that
> Bodansky was tied to Pollard." (see
> http://msanews.mynet.net/Scholars/Bodansky/aadc)
-------------------------------------------------
This Discussion List is the follow-up for the old stopnato @listbot.com that has been
shut down
==^================================================================
EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9spWA
Or send an email To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
This email was sent to: archive@jab.org
T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail!
http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register
==^================================================================
