-Caveat Lector-
------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
From: "Michael Albert" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Second ZNet Commentary...Johnstone
Date sent: Sat, 22 May 1999 22:27:49 +0100
The Shalom Commentary you received before this one is for May 23. This one
is for May 24
THE RESTIVE ALLIES: GERMAN OPPOSITION GROWING
from Diana Johnstone
The florid and reckless war rhetoric of British Prime Minister Tony Blair
and his Foreign Secretary Robin Cook is the stuff British tabloids are made
of. Likening the latest recalcitrant foreign leader to Hitler is the sort of
thing readers on the London tube expect to find in between sex scandals and
cleavage photos. It does not go down so well on the continent, however,
where frank enthusiasm for laser-bombing alien populations has yet to become
an accepted form of mass entertainment. Cook's "overblown language" is
almost more than one can stand to hear, Willy Wimmer, a Christian Democratic
member of the German Bundestag said recently. In an interview with the
Berliner Zeitung, he expressed worry at NATO's apparent unwillingness to
seek a negotiated settlement with Belgrade. The "very extreme positions of
foreign secretary Cook" revealed a clear attempt to drag NATO into "a major
war in the Balkans", he said. Wimmer interpreted the desperate efforts of
several European NATO governments countries to promote negotiations as
stemming from their gradual recognition that they could find themselves in
serious trouble in the future if everything is decided by "the right of the
strongest, that is the US".
The US and Britain appear determined to force an unconditional surrrender on
Belgrade, Wimmer observed. Once the war is over, he suggested, all the
questions concerning the legal basis for NATO's war, questions currently
being shoved under the table, could come before the courts. This raised the
sharp suspicion that one of the motives for pursuing war to the bitter end
is to see to it that "international tribunals judge only one side" -- the
losing side of course. Last week, the BBC invited people to debate the
question as to whether or not "Serbia can reform itself". Several speakers,
such as university lecturer Mark Wheeler, answered in the negative,
declaring that Serbia's collective guilt required foreign occupation and a
"denazification" process such as took place in Germany after World War II.
This of course implies unconditional surrender. Wimmer expressed some alarm
at comparisons of Yugoslavia with Eichmann and Hitler alarming, wondering
where Europe was heading. According to the Berliner Zeitung, Wimmer did not
rule out the prospect of Washington and London carrying on their Balkan war
alone, without the rest of NATO, as they are doing in Iraq. As vice
president of the parliamentary assembly of the Organization of Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Wimmer has followed events leading to the NATO
bombing with a very critical eye. In particular, he was aware that European
observers did not agree that Serbian repression of "Kosovo Liberation Army"
rebels warranted a NATO attack in the first place. In his open criticism of
the war, he is not typical of the conservative side of the German political
spectrum. Most of the opposition to the war comes from the left and the
trade union movement. Europe's largest union, IG Metall, has taken a strong
stand against the NATO bombing.
The fact that the NATO war was initially advocated by a left of center
government headed by Social Democratic chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and
Green foreign minister Joschka Fischer on "humanitarian" grounds succeeded,
in Germany as in other NATO countries with center-left governments, in
initially silencing potential opposition. Still, consternation has spread
through the rank and file of both parties. The Greens in particular have
been losing members as a result. Since Fischer has justified the bombing on
grounds that Germany has a special responsibility to combat any repetition
of "Auschwitz", the anti-war minority around the Young Green Alternative
movement is organizing a campaign to point out that Kosovo is not
"Auschwitz".
Meanwhile, Gregor Gysi, leader of the Party of Democratic Socialism, heir to
the former East German communist party, voices opposition within the
Bundestag, while outside the parliament left-wing intellectuals are busy
building a new anti-war movement based on solid legal, historical and
political arguments. Opposition to NATO's war is particularly widespread in
Eastern Germany, but is growing in the West as well in view of the miserable
results of "humanitarian" bombing. The German press, although traditionally
anti-Serb in its editorials, is perhaps the most thorough of all in its
factual reporting, and thereby often neutral and fair. There is also a
relatively low circulation leftist press, including daily newspapers, all
highly critical of NATO in general and Germany's participation in war
against Yugoslavia in particular. Anti-war demonstrations and meetings are
being held frequently throughout the country.
All this helps explain why Chancellor Schroeder this week quite
categorically ruled out German participation in a ground war to conquer
Kosovo. But there are certainly other reasons. The U.S.-led war is
devastating the economies of southeastern Europe, an area largely within the
German economic sphere of interest. It has blocked the Danube River, a main
trade thoroughfare leading from Germany to the Black Sea. It is ruining
relations with Russia and even raising the chances of an eventual military
conflict with Russia -- an experience which the vast majority of Germans
have no desire to repeat. It is leading NATO into an unforeseeable series of
wars, ostensibly for easily trumped up "humanitarian" reasons, that can be
expected to serve geostrategic interests defined in Washington.
Throughout Europe, but especially in Germany, Italy, and France, on both the
left and the right, the conviction has been growing that the Kosovo war is
essentially an Anglo-American "war against Europe". Britain, which refused
to adopt the common European currency, is pursuing its traditional policy of
keeping the continent divided as it urges the United States on in a war for
which Europe risks paying a heavy price, not only economically but
politically and morally as well.
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)
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that
prevents us from living freely and nobly. -Bertrand Russell
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
"Everyone has the right...to seek, receive and impart
information and ideas through any media and regardless
of frontiers."
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
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.
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic
screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters
and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright
frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects
spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL
gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers;
be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and
nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
