-Caveat Lector- From: "Michael Albert" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: ZNet Commentary, May 8 -- Edward Herman Date sent: Fri, 7 May 1999 22:20:28 +0100 Here is today's ZNet Commentary Delivery from Edward Herman. The attached file is the same material in nicely formatted html so that you can read it in your browser if you wish. To pass this comment along to friends, relatives, etc. please note that the Commentaries are a premium sent to monthly donors to Z/ZNet and that to learn more about the project folks can consult ZNet (http://www.zmag.org) and specifically the Commentary Page (http://www.zmag.org/Commentaries/donorform.htm). Our address for submitting checks is 18 Millfield St. Woods Hole, MA 02543, though we much prefer credit card arrangements via the site. Here then is today's ZNet Commentary... ------------------------------------------ HITCHENS DEGRADED Edward S. Herman It would be hard to imagine better evidence of the sorry state of supposedly left opinion in this country than Christopher Hitchens' "Belgrade Degraded" in the May 17 issue of The Nation. Hitchens never comes to any firm conclusion on what ought to be done, but he clearly regrets that the full-scale invasion option "might not now receive (as it once might have done) popular support from Serbian civilians." The notion that it ever would have received such support is ludicrous, and Hitchens offers no evidence for this claim. With great pomposity he tells his readers that a principled peace movement "should at least attempt to contact the few genuine Serbian internationalists, ask them what they think and inquire how they can be helped." (Always beware of words like "internationalists." Those recognized as in this category by the western establishment have commonly been members of denationalized elites who have swallowed western attitudes and ideologies, have lost sight of national ideals and interests, and are proud of their links to the morally superior West. They are often pleased to display their "internationalism" to the western media, and they are regularly spokespersons for the "reforms" of Russia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America.) Hitchens enlightens us with the opinions of two "internationalists"--one, Srdja Popovic, favors a NATO invasion from Hungary to remove Milosovic as "a precondition for a settlement." The other, Dusan Mkavejev, who used to support NATO bombing of Serb positions in Bosnia, is entirely against the current bombing. It never occurs to Hitchens, who opens his article with a critique of NATO bombing policy and objectives, that a man who would urge a NATO invasion of his own country and a NATO-organized restructuring of Yugoslav politics is a fanatic and nut. And the nut and his other Serb "internationalist" contradict one another. Hitchens also tells us that Serbs who are "the serious opposition...understand that the main enemy is at home." But my informants who have recently visited Belgrade tell me that Hitchens' friends and "serious opposition" are unrepresentative of the intellectuals there, who oppose Milosevic, consider him a political trickster and terrible strategist, but do not feel that even his worst actions justify a death penalty for an entire nation. Many informed Serbs also believe that the earlier NATO policies seriously biased against Serb interests, and the failure to pursue an equitable negotiated settlement, all helped consolidate Milosevic's power. And the bombing, which has had a generally acknowledged unifying effect on the Serbs, has made it clear to them that the main enemy is abroad. Hitchens says that one segment of the peace movement here "speaks smugly about how all this bombing has upset the Serbian democrats." Why this is "smug" except as a petty smear tactic is unclear--Serb democrats almost uniformly condemn the bombing for its internal effects on Yugoslavian politics, as well as for other reasons. In his article Hitchens shows not the slightest awareness that the NATO powers have been carrying out policies hostile to Yugoslavia and the Serbs for years, and well before ethnic cleansing took hold. Although Hitchens says that serious Serbs recognize that "the enemy is at home," he does not say that serious U.S. citizens should recognize that their [emphasis on their] enemy is "at home." Like so many other supposed leftists Hitchens has swallowed the imperial perspective that finds the demons--"another Hitler"--somewhere else, and exactly where Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albright find it. While Hitchens makes no critical remarks about the branch of the left that favors bombing, he sneers further at the bad branch--the one that smugly says bombing has hurt Serbian democrats--saying that "Such people also describe the bombing as an 'aggression' and cleverly ask why we don't bomb to save Kurds or the Timorese." Hitchens once again denigrates by the use of rhetorical ploys-- quote marks around aggression and the word "clever" for the Kurd- Timorese comparisons--which he substitutes for dealing with substance. NATO is violating the UN Charter and a very good case can be made that it is committing both aggression and serious war crimes. (The head of the Serbs in Croatian Krajina was indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague because his forces lobbed some shells into Zagreb. Among its other anti-civilian bombing operations NATO is now destroying electric power stations, which has closed out running water in Belgrade and Novi Sad, which are pumped by electricity, and is interfering with hospital operations, including the maintenance of life support systems.) It is also awkward for Hitchens that we don't bomb for Kurds or Timorese, as it points up the unlikelihood that NATO is bombing for humanitarian reasons and the probability of a hidden agenda that he chooses not to address. But he is captured by the demonization of Milosevic and clearly accepts the western establishment's elevation of the removal of the demon to top priority, although he finds it painful that the instrument of removal of this beast must be his old enemy Bill Clinton. So in the end Hitchens gnashes his teeth, because Clinton and his gang will probably engage in "a sordid carve-up brokered with Russia," and the Serbian people might no longer support a full-scale invasion. The Serbs obviously need more "internationalists" to straighten themselves out. >From TheNation May 17, 1999 CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS <Picture: bio> Belgrade Degraded <Picture: Minority Report>See below for background and related information. Every now and then it really happens. A "military spokesman" emerges to prove that Joseph Heller was a realist, and Catch-22 a work of reportorial integrity. Right in the middle of the "Military Analysis" column in the Ne w York Times: Indeed, Pentagon and NATO officials have even mused that the complete expulsion of Albanians from Kosovo would give the alliance a big military advantage. "There would be Serb troops primarily left, and we would be able to attack them with more precision and more concentration," a Pentagon spokesman, Kenneth H. Bacon, said recently. Even the name of the spokesman seemed right somehow: Pork-barreled to the roots of his tight and curly tail, the porcine propagandist squeals the inadvertent truth. Throw all the pesky civilians out to make a new life on the rubbish-tips of neighboring lands (it was this same Bacon who instructed us earlier that the mass expulsion had been foreseen and, so to speak, factored in), and we can have our ultimate wargasm--a free-fire zone and a clear field of bombardment. What's the frequency, Kenneth? In a Catch-22 scenario, as well as in the abjectly real world, this would also help insure that the Kosovar refugees had nowhere to go home to. This objective collusion, between the aims of Milosevic and the aims of NATO, is what renders null the current debate between the remnants of the American "peace movement." On one wing are those who say that NATO is doing the right thing by taking an antifascist position at last. On another are those who speak smugly about how all this bombing has upset the Serbian democrats. Such people also describe the bombing as an "aggression" and cleverly ask why we don't bomb to save the Kurds or the Timorese. The other day at a "peace" event in Cambridge, I was solemnly handed a "target" symbol of the kind worn as a fashion statement in Belgrade these days. I threw it away at once. Those who wear such symbols are the self- pitying and not-so-reluctant supporters of a national- socialist demagogue--people who have never said a word about the aggressions and massacres in Bosnia and Kosovo. It was noticeable, at the recent funeral of the murdered Belgrade editor Slavko Curuvija, that none of the mourners displayed this false-populist logo. They were the serious opposition, who understand that the main enemy is at home. One who attended the ceremony told me that the silence, even between friends, was terrifying. "If we could not talk about the fact that he was murdered by the police death-squads, then what could we talk about?" A principled peace movement in this country should at least attempt to contact the few genuine Serbian internationalists, ask them what they think and inquire how they can be helped. I try at least once a week to hold a conversation with either Srdja Popovic or Dusan Makavejev, both of whom have long and honorable records as Serb antifascists. Popovic was the human rights champion of the former Yugoslavia and acted as defense counsel for the leaders of various national minorities, including the Kosovar Albanians. Makavejev, a brilliant film director, is still remembered for his WR: Mysteries of the Organism, one of the defining movies of the seventies and a cultural achievement that earned him a jail sentence until it became clear that the motion picture was also the country's chief cultural export. Popovic says openly that NATO should cross the Hungarian border in strength and remove the Milosevic regime as a precondition for a settlement. He feels terribly torn about the bombing of Belgrade and other cities, because he favors the military defeat of his own government but finds it uncomfortable to take such a position from a place of exile. Clearly unkeen on the actual bombardment, he still fears that if it stopped, the Serbian leadership would claim, and perhaps win, a victory. The worst possible outcome-- foreshadowed in the Bacon scenario--is one where the Albanian civilians are dispersed and the Serbian civilians get punished for it. Milosevic would then have confirmed his membership in that exclusive club-- founded by Saddam Hussein and ornamented by Manuel Noriega--of despots who can switch between demonization and strategic value. Makavejev used to demand, while actually living in Belgrade, that NATO destroy the Serbian positions that were torturing the people of Sarajevo. (His reward was to be denounced as a Jew, which he said was no insult to a Serb like himself.) But he is entirely against the present bombing and also speaks scornfully of the ineptitude of NATO propaganda. "None of the Serbian democrats--not even the Orthodox bishop in Kosovo who favors coexistence with Albanians--was even invited to the Rambouillet conference. The Montenegrin leadership was also excluded completely. Now Clinton says that Milosevic can pick up the phone anytime and call. This is to treat everyone as if they were puppets." Both men feel that a huge opportunity was lost when NATO failed to help the nascent movement for democracy and independence in Montenegro. A democratic secession would have altered the whole balance of internal power against Milosevic and his openly fascist coalition partners like Seselj and Arkan. "But nothing was done-- they kept putting it off--and now the Serbian Army has threatened the editor of a Montenegrin paper with jail if he even prints an interview with me," I was told by Popovic. Moreover, and despite the pleas of the Montenegrin leadership, NATO bombs have actually fallen on Montenegrin soil. This crass policy now faces NATO with two options--either a sordid carve-up brokered with Russia, as Clinton and especially Gore show signs of favoring, or a full-scale invasion, which might not now receive (as it once might have done) popular support from Serbian civilians. "I hate it when people blame someone else and don't take responsibility for what they did." Thus our eloquent President in the aftermath of the school bloodbath in Colorado. At last, a Clintonian statement that we can all get behind. To speak with men like Popovic and Makavejev is to learn what this principle means in a real crisis, which is why it is alarming to understand that their names are unknown to the Bacons of this world. A<>E<>R ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled one is truly vanquished. -Johann Christoph Schiller, German Writer (1759-1805) + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Forwarded as information only; no endorsement to be presumed + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. 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