An Open Letter to Lord Paddy Ashdown (ex-SAS) Raymond K. Kent January 06, 2005 23 December 2004
Belonging to the Liberal Party in Great Britain seems to have done nothing to divest you of an atavistic colonial mentality, formed when your homeland dominated the world, about a century ago. You are indeed a bloody-minded relic of a bygone era when an arrogant Englishman could walk alone and unharmed across a Continent of would-be "inferior natives" and "warring tribes" and come out just as he went in, self-righteous, an unreconstructed martinet. Somewhat later, as an appointed "Governor," this would-be "civilized" repository of power glands in a state of constant agitation, could dispense "justice" to the "natives" and teach them how to acquire "good manners." Translation? Absolute OBEDIENCE to His Majesty's Proconsul in some obscure section of the Dark Continent of yore. So, you have been transferred in this century to the Balkans (now in the name of the European Union) and you've got a thing about a "disobedient" local tribe, .the Bosnian Serbs. You are trying to impress them into the service of good manners. Translation? You are teaching them DEMOCRACY. So, you fire their elected and appointed officials. You sanction the banning of certain books in schools attended by the Bosnian Serb children (including the Nobel-Prize winner "Bridge on the Drina "). You demand that they get together PRONTO with other tribes despite a bloody past that separated them, with a great deal of outside help (from The Third Reich, followed by the Fourth Reich, followed by NATO). Bosnian Serbs simply MUST submit to a "unified rule," clearly dominated by another tribe which you obviously favor. Why? For two basic reasons. First, you are encapsulated in a conviction that this "other tribe" has been the historical victim of Bosnian Serbs whom you perceive as the sole aggressors in the area. When the Bosnian Serbs provide a report documenting the role of the other tribe's atrocities against them, you throw the report out without bothering to read it and order a new version, prepared by obedient surrogates. So much for any search that might lead to a form of truth which is credible from any angle. But, of course, you are not interested in any endeavors searching for such a result. You are not even constrained by a valid international agreement (generally called "the Dayton Accords") which does not provide for the creation of a unitary state that never existed in Bosnia. The second basic reason is that you cannot tolerate disobedience from "inferiors" over whom you are to govern. However you define it, lack of overt obedience from "subordinates" drives you up the wall, inducing a narcolepsy which makes you afraid that it might become catatonic. You are even blackmailing the Bosnian Serb "authorities" for their "failure" to "deliver," to you,say, a former military commander of the Bosnian Serb Army, General Mladic No one seems to know where he is exactly. But, in the inverted tradition of the Anglo-Saxon Common Law, Mladic has already been judged and condemned as a war criminal guilty of "genocide" without a trial in a court of law. This has been done by advocacy from that parody of "justice," at the Hague's " Tribunal" (ICTY). Here, your SAS background undoubtedly over-rules your would-be humanitarian concerns (as a Liberal) that any attempted capture of Mladic, by any designated unit, will involve considerable bloodshed and loss of life, mostly of young men on both sides. Do more killings amount to justice? And WHOSE justice? To conclude, relics like you are incapable of compromise, of wisdom instead of pursuing their own bloody-minded logic. They generate greater tensions and pave the ground for more instability in the not too-distant a future. Clearly, the only noble act -of which you are surely incapable- would be to step down in favor of someone more balanced in assessing the past, the present and the possibilities of a better future. In my personal opinion you should be replaced by an open-ended and direct order from the European Union, and with the greatest possible dispatch. Raymond K. Kent, Emeritus History Department, University of California at Berkeley. Page: http://news.serbianunity.net/bydate/2005/January_06/26.html Time: Friday, 01/07/2005, 06:33:09 AM C Serbian Unity Congress. All rights reserved Unless specifically noted, the views expressed through various news items received are not necessarily the views of the Serbian Unity Congress. The same are posted under fair use provision for education and public information. Serbian News Network - SNN news@antic.org http://www.antic.org/
