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STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK
“Oh dear... another interesting
invention.....” Oh dear, another pedantic, condescending snootful… “Some of the criticism of me are
indeed of ‘positions’ I haven't espoused, and are therefore
invented.” Patently false and already covered in a previous
correspondence. It might be clear to you, but it's
a mystery to me how you can come to that conclusion - I
hope I never put victims on a moral par with their attackers. Mystery solved!! See below passages, from your correspondence of May 2nd: “Yet some anti-militarist campaigners
are alienated by the fact that many postings on the list put forward
views which _are_ anti- NATO but which are not
anti-militarist - they support militarism and so on if it is
anti-NATO militarism. To a lot of people this is illogical since
it perpetuates the NATO mentality rather than opposing it. 2) Similarly, there is a unified political line amongst many of the contributors: it's a
political line which is as nationalist and reactionary as
that found amongst many pro-NATO people.”… And I get the impression
that some people's motivation is not
primarily anti-NATO but simply Serb nationalist/chauvinist, which
happens to manifest itself (understandably!) as being against
NATO amongst other things. (and recall that you were invited specifically to identify
who these militarists and chauvinists were, what were the odious causes they
represented, etc, and never responded. Just like you were asked to identify the
“peace movements [you’re] involved with” [your correspondence of May 13th]
to state what their positions were on Iraq sanctions before the start of
Operation Desert Storm, whether they called for “sanctions, not war” in the
run-up to Desert Storm, whether they opposed the imposition of sanctions on
Yugoslavia at the moment they were implemented, and we got no response
from you on that either. Your affected wonderment at the idea that it’s now
fashionable in “The Movement” to oppose Iraq sanctions, and claim to not even
know what “The Movement” refers to, are too silly and I won’t dignify any of it
with a response. I worked in NGO’s for 16 years Mr. Beale – don’t bullshit me. You introduced your discussion of the Stop Nato list’s merits with insinuations
about list members and what you suspected to be their lack of involvement in
constructive campaigns, though your knowledge base for making such insinuations
was zero. Since that time, and in all my time on the Stop Nato list, we haven’t heard a thing about all the
campaigns and actions that you and “the peace movements [you’re] involved with”
are doing to “Stop Nato” or what they did/are doing to “Stop Nato” in the
Balkans – not one single post – though there’s absolutely nothing stopping you
and all these “peace movements [you’re] involved with” from literally flooding
the list with such announcements and appeals. It certainly wouldn’t involve any
extra effort or expense on your part – merely the addition of a single e-addy
to your “send group,” a few keystrokes, nothing at all, really.) “I'm not sure that cases of
inter-personal violence are a very good analogy for inter-state
violence, except inasmuch as all the violence done by all states is
ultimately against individual people who then
suffer.” Analogies can only highlight one or certain shared
aspects of different situations.
That’s why they’re “analogies.” The purpose of this analogy was to point
up who the aggressor was. On that
(intended) level – it holds. “Everything I have said about HRW
is perfectly consistent - I don't understand your point.” Then I’ll restate it for you. What you said about HRW (or implied, take your pick,
it really doesn’t matter) in your correspondence of May 2nd to Rick
Rozoff was, that HRW tries “to support human rights in all contexts,” and so I will just ask you to confirm
(that means “yes” or “no”): does HRW try to “support human rights in all
contexts” and if the answer is “yes” could you please explain (I repeat) why
they call for Nato to arrest Serb “war criminals” in Bosnia though they’ve never called Nato to account for their
“textbook war crimes” (to quote American social democrat Prof. Robert Hayden)
against Yugoslav civilians? “I'm afraid that in the real world the truth is
usually messy; the world doesn't divide into camps of the all-good
and the all-bad as some people on the list seem to think.” (yours of May 13th) “Maybe that's because I don't have
a final "position" on every issue, but think that the truth is
sometimes better found by asking questions than by making
dogmatic statements.” (yours of May 29th) Once again, the “people on the list” with the
offending perspectives aren’t identified, but your trite and condescending
observation that reality is always more complex than the words we choose to
describe it is true, and as much so for what you
say as for what others say, btw.
And if you’re not ignorant just
for disagreeing with someone (your response to Barry Lituchy) then I guess that
means I’m not “simplistic” and
“dogmatic” just for disagreeing with the great Albert Beale. What is simplistic
and dogmatic (and see if this sounds familiar) is to equate everyone’s military activity and military
preparations in the Balkans – including self-defense – with “militarism” and to
equate everyone’s (except the
West’s, and England’s) insistence on sovereignty with “tribalism” or some
retrograde “nationalism.” This analysis has the benefit of rationalizing
cop-outs for people like you, and giving Nato a free hand, but accomplishes
nothing else. Serious human inquiry
into any situation progresses by sorting and ranking the available facts by
their weight of importance and their explanatory force, because not all facts
in a situation are of equal importance.
And as Lester Schonbrun has already pointed out to you, it’s a weighty
fact of major importance that the West saw the instrumentality of breaking up
Yugoslavia (by violence, if necessary) in the pursuit of its goal of dominating
southeastern Europe politically, militarily, and economically, and it’s a
weighty fact of major importance that the West had no “defensive” or rightful
or legal basis whatever in its military involvement in the Balkans. These
weighty and important facts tell us that we’re dealing with imperialism here, and we’re not
“chauvinists” or “simplists” for calling it such. But I can understand why the simplistic and dogmatic
analysis is preferable to the social workers of the New World Order who live
off the teat of “foundations” or “grants” or whatever, and whose fundamental
loyalty is to the system. You’ve really got some gall to be dishing out
tut-tut’s to people on the list in Southeastern Europe – countries directly in
the path of the Nato/IMF rampage, and whose people have been immiserated and
terrorized by Western institutions – about their
“nationalism” and “militarism.”
For the first year or so after the Nato OAF blitzkrieg, when I made
contact with any people in Serbia on the internet or elsewhere, my very first
personal communication to them was to say “I’m so sorry for the destruction
which the government of my country has helped to inflict upon your people.” It
would never have occurred to me to lecture them
about their nationalism, nor does
it now. Thanks for providing us
with another real-life example of the Herrenvolk
whom Kosta was talking about. Dr.
Nadic really had your number. “I'm sorry that you seem to send
out such anger towards people you disagree with.” Oh, don’t worry about it! To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] |
