Rob,
I don't know if Boddhi is still on this list. He certainly has some discussion below.
Charles
>>> "D. L." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 03/31/99 01:08AM >>>
To whom..,
After reading it all, from Chomsky's delightful clarity to Redmond's
bizarre assertion that the E.U. is holding American guns to American heads
with the threat they will find something to do with their money other than
buy Treasuries, it occurs to me that Kosovo is a typical Clinton decision.
It is incomplete, incremental and completely political.
Serbia has the one well-equipped army in Europe that has shown a
tendency towards non-U.S.-approved adventurism. They are also the one
active military state in Europe that has strong ties with Russia. Serbia
also made the dreadful mistake of *embarrassing* the U.S. (meaning
administration officials) by not towing the line in Bosnia, at Dayton or at
Rombouillet. The Serbs also had the misfortune of being involved in a
high-visibility conflict just as the impeachment mess came to an end.
Therefore, the decision to flex NATO/U.S. muscle and insure total air
superiority over Serbia while undermining their ability to launch a
large-scale offensive was simple. It reminds the Russians and the Europeans
the U.S. is their military master. It reminds the Europeans that we are
their bulwark against Russia and large-scale conflict generally. It reminds
less enthusiastic Clinton-Blair-Schroederites that finance capitalism
requires their cooperation and homogeneity. It reminds the Russians that
their days of adventurism are over and they cannot leverage their nuclear
arsenal politically. It reminds all the Slavic states that they cannot
leverage the Russian nuclear arsenal politically. That arsenal insures only
Russian domestic defense and a Russian place at the nuclear grown-ups (as
if) table where we sit at the head. Most importantly, the conflict gets
Monica Lewinsky off the top five news items and makes congressional
criticism of Clinton look like childish carping in the face of the "real"
and "important" "business of the American people". Moreover, it saves the
faces of Albright, etc.. who laid down a ridiculous line and were rebuffed.
After all, these people will have to find new jobs in a couple years.
As for the Albanians, who the hell cares? They're Albanians, after all.
They are unrepentant white trash, Mafiosi, drug-runners and Moslems who live
in a state of anarchy. The violins playing for their sad plight are not
loud in Washington. As for Serbia, Milosovic was a *Commie*, for God's
sake, which means that he has been asking for it from approximately day one.
Getting to the idea it might be politic to bomb Slobo' boys is not exactly a
stretch for a draft-dodging President whose policy of bending over for the
Red Mandarins of the P.R.C. has netted him nothing but scandal. For that
matter the whole lot of these Balkan people were commies at one time or
another so they had better develop some media-friendly characteristics fast
if they want to avoid getting stepped on. Sarajevo is something
sympathetic, it's a nice city that had an Olympic games. Of course people
getting butchered always plays well. The problem is that for a victim to
work, you need a villain. Enter the Serbs once more.
As for the rightness of the thing, the morality, that has nothing to do
with the NATO/U.S. decision. For us it is left to consider whether we want
to start sorting out the claims and counter-claims of Balkan injustice. It
may be possible. You have to think that the Albanians, if only because they
are Moslems, have been getting the short end of the stick. Rooting for the
creation of a Greater Albania is hard to swallow, however. I wouldn't give
you a euro and a half for the Albania we have now. I'm sure the Kosovars
are nice people and they would certainly seem to deserve the chance to
control their own political destiny, but they are not easy people to love.
Their present political institutions seem to rely a bit too heavily on clan
loyalties and AK-47's for my taste. The Serbian people are nice too, but
they could really drop the 600-year-old grudges, if you ask me. World War
Two has also been over for some time now. If Daimler Benz can buy Chrysler,
Serbs might at least acknowledge that all Croats are not *currently* in the
Nazi party. It might be pointed out to Balkan peoples that French and
German speakers live in Switzerland, French and Flemish in Belgium and
Canadians are somehow able to deal with the threat of autonomous republics
without resorting to heavy violence. I'm sure Balkan people do not lack the
capacity for civil society, but they certainly seem to have a dulled
instinct for it. Surely they understand that these ethnic issues have been
fanned to flames by political grifters for several centuries. For how long
are they content to be made chumps? If nothing else good comes out of this,
and that seems likely, at least they all might start hating the United
States in unison.
I'm not sad to see the Serbs with fewer tanks and a less effective air
force. I pray no more civilian lives will be lost and ideally no military
ones either. I understand that while it might have been inevitable that air
strikes spurred the Serbs on to greater violence, the Albanian Kosovars did
not actually launch the air strikes and it is both unreasonable and criminal
to drive Albanian civilians from their Kosovo homes because of what the U.S.
is doing. By the same token, if the Serbs had real reason to fear the KLA
would come in heavy behind the air strikes, they would have been
irresponsible not to prepare against it. Preparation and ethnic cleansing
are not the same thing by a long shot, but a little of both is probably
going on. Unfortunately the character of the rest of what's going on is
unknown and doesn't matter. The ill will has been distilled and every
two-bit political operator of Albanian and Serb descent has an issue to use.
Chomsky's "first do no harm" admonishment seems the reasonable course
here. It seems unlikely we can do any real good. Yet, one is extremely
uneasy about the possibility of a well-armed army going against a sparsely
defended rural population. Visions of Guatemala are inevitable. It would
be reasonable to diminish the practical lethality of the army if, in fact,
that is possible. It might be reasonable to arm the other side, but that
has terrible possibilities as well. Ultimately the solution will be found
with mass action. Our cruise missiles will do nothing to encourage that
action or make it more effective but we are really not trying to do that.
This bombing is a half-hearted, half-baked, thoroughly corrupted attempt to
stop a massacre. This attempt will probably start a long, nasty war that no
one will win. It should be stopped before more people get hurt by it. The
only things that will stop this madness are democracy, civil society and a
lot more money in the hands of regular people. They're the only things that
ever work.
It should be noted by those who demand the bombing be stopped that this
position implies accepting an inevitable Albanian reprisal and the
subsequent conflict. Once diplomacy failed, it failed, and it cannot be
re-started until people are thinking beyond their own bloodlust. Picking
heroes and villains now will exacerbate the situation. The only answer is
blanket condemnation of the warring parties.
peace
To whom..,
After reading it all, from Chomsky's delightful clarity to Redmond's
bizarre assertion that the E.U. is holding American guns to American heads
with the threat they will find something to do with their money other than
buy Treasuries, it occurs to me that Kosovo is a typical Clinton decision.
It is incomplete, incremental and completely political.
Serbia has the one well-equipped army in Europe that has shown a
tendency towards non-U.S.-approved adventurism. They are also the one
active military state in Europe that has strong ties with Russia. Serbia
also made the dreadful mistake of *embarrassing* the U.S. (meaning
administration officials) by not towing the line in Bosnia, at Dayton or at
Rombouillet. The Serbs also had the misfortune of being involved in a
high-visibility conflict just as the impeachment mess came to an end.
Therefore, the decision to flex NATO/U.S. muscle and insure total air
superiority over Serbia while undermining their ability to launch a
large-scale offensive was simple. It reminds the Russians and the Europeans
the U.S. is their military master. It reminds the Europeans that we are
their bulwark against Russia and large-scale conflict generally. It reminds
less enthusiastic Clinton-Blair-Schroederites that finance capitalism
requires their cooperation and homogeneity. It reminds the Russians that
their days of adventurism are over and they cannot leverage their nuclear
arsenal politically. It reminds all the Slavic states that they cannot
leverage the Russian nuclear arsenal politically. That arsenal insures only
Russian domestic defense and a Russian place at the nuclear grown-ups (as
if) table where we sit at the head. Most importantly, the conflict gets
Monica Lewinsky off the top five news items and makes congressional
criticism of Clinton look like childish carping in the face of the "real"
and "important" "business of the American people". Moreover, it saves the
faces of Albright, etc.. who laid down a ridiculous line and were rebuffed.
After all, these people will have to find new jobs in a couple years.
As for the Albanians, who the hell cares? They're Albanians, after all.
They are unrepentant white trash, Mafiosi, drug-runners and Moslems who live
in a state of anarchy. The violins playing for their sad plight are not
loud in Washington. As for Serbia, Milosovic was a *Commie*, for God's
sake, which means that he has been asking for it from approximately day one.
Getting to the idea it might be politic to bomb Slobo' boys is not exactly a
stretch for a draft-dodging President whose policy of bending over for the
Red Mandarins of the P.R.C. has netted him nothing but scandal. For that
matter the whole lot of these Balkan people were commies at one time or
another so they had better develop some media-friendly characteristics fast
if they want to avoid getting stepped on. Sarajevo is something
sympathetic, it's a nice city that had an Olympic games. Of course people
getting butchered always plays well. The problem is that for a victim to
work, you need a villain. Enter the Serbs once more.
As for the rightness of the thing, the morality, that has nothing to do
with the NATO/U.S. decision. For us it is left to consider whether we want
to start sorting out the claims and counter-claims of Balkan injustice. It
may be possible. You have to think that the Albanians, if only because they
are Moslems, have been getting the short end of the stick. Rooting for the
creation of a Greater Albania is hard to swallow, however. I wouldn't give
you a euro and a half for the Albania we have now. I'm sure the Kosovars
are nice people and they would certainly seem to deserve the chance to
control their own political destiny, but they are not easy people to love.
Their present political institutions seem to rely a bit too heavily on clan
loyalties and AK-47's for my taste. The Serbian people are nice too, but
they could really drop the 600-year-old grudges, if you ask me. World War
Two has also been over for some time now. If Daimler Benz can buy Chrysler,
Serbs might at least acknowledge that all Croats are not *currently* in the
Nazi party. It might be pointed out to Balkan peoples that French and
German speakers live in Switzerland, French and Flemish in Belgium and
Canadians are somehow able to deal with the threat of autonomous republics
without resorting to heavy violence. I'm sure Balkan people do not lack the
capacity for civil society, but they certainly seem to have a dulled
instinct for it. Surely they understand that these ethnic issues have been
fanned to flames by political grifters for several centuries. For how long
are they content to be made chumps? If nothing else good comes out of this,
and that seems likely, at least they all might start hating the United
States in unison.
I'm not sad to see the Serbs with fewer tanks and a less effective air
force. I pray no more civilian lives will be lost and ideally no military
ones either. I understand that while it might have been inevitable that air
strikes spurred the Serbs on to greater violence, the Albanian Kosovars did
not actually launch the air strikes and it is both unreasonable and criminal
to drive Albanian civilians from their Kosovo homes because of what the U.S.
is doing. By the same token, if the Serbs had real reason to fear the KLA
would come in heavy behind the air strikes, they would have been
irresponsible not to prepare against it. Preparation and ethnic cleansing
are not the same thing by a long shot, but a little of both is probably
going on. Unfortunately the character of the rest of what's going on is
unknown and doesn't matter. The ill will has been distilled and every
two-bit political operator of Albanian and Serb descent has an issue to use.
Chomsky's "first do no harm" admonishment seems the reasonable course
here. It seems unlikely we can do any real good. Yet, one is extremely
uneasy about the possibility of a well-armed army going against a sparsely
defended rural population. Visions of Guatemala are inevitable. It would
be reasonable to diminish the practical lethality of the army if, in fact,
that is possible. It might be reasonable to arm the other side, but that
has terrible possibilities as well. Ultimately the solution will be found
with mass action. Our cruise missiles will do nothing to encourage that
action or make it more effective but we are really not trying to do that.
This bombing is a half-hearted, half-baked, thoroughly corrupted attempt to
stop a massacre. This attempt will probably start a long, nasty war that no
one will win. It should be stopped before more people get hurt by it. The
only things that will stop this madness are democracy, civil society and a
lot more money in the hands of regular people. They're the only things that
ever work.
It should be noted by those who demand the bombing be stopped that this
position implies accepting an inevitable Albanian reprisal and the
subsequent conflict. Once diplomacy failed, it failed, and it cannot be
re-started until people are thinking beyond their own bloodlust. Picking
heroes and villains now will exacerbate the situation. The only answer is
blanket condemnation of the warring parties.
peace
