On Sun, 11 Apr 1999, Max Sawicky wrote: > So until I hear a better explanation, the simple one of suppressing > nationalism that might by example destabilize Europe, but forestalling > massacres that diminish the political credibility of NATO and the EU (or > U.S. imperialism, if you like) explains almost everything that has happened. Hmm, that's pretty much what I'm thinking. The calculus on this would go, better 500,000 civilian refugees for a few years than 50,000 civil war dead forever. One could argue that such a calculus is itself a piece of barbarism, which is true enough, but I'd want to ask the Kosovar refugees themselves as to what they think should be done, before jumping to conclusions. I find it fascinating that this entire Kosovariad has become a kind of psychological cathexis, as it were, for Cold War ideologies which have no place in the world of the EU-East Asian hegemony. Raging denunciations of US imperialism -- as if we weren't 1.8 trillion euros in debt to the new metropoles -- show up right next to equally raging denunciations of the Balkan gangsteriat -- as if Milo wasn't the epitome of the nomenklatura-turned-comprador bourgeoisie. Behind it all lurks the familiar refrain of Russia-will-turn-its-nukes-on-us. Somehow, it's easier for us to imagine a world still governed by Cold War verities than accepting the fact that the EU and East Asia are divvying up the world-system with the help of their American mercs. It must be galling for us Americans, even us radical social critics, to contemplate giving up those unconscious Imperial privileges... -- Dennis
