I think it's a mistake to explain the western front of Clinton's two-front war by reference to narrow economic interests like oil and mines. The more and more I think about it, the US/NATO attack on Serbia is about the US asserting itself as the sole super-power of the world, a world government in embryo. George Bush -- whose foreign policy was virtually identical to Clinton's -- said it best with his phrase "the New World Order" in justifying the Gulf War against Iraq. That phrase has been abandoned, partly due to the paranoia of the right-wing militias and the like; further, its content has changed as the US/IMF policies drove Russia into deeper poverty, so that Russia is hardly seen as a partner in the NWO. The NWO involves the US trying to be the world government, mobilizing NATO, the IMF, the World Bank, and (when convenient) the UN to impose its version of international law. It's not the _official_ international law (of the sort that Chomsky refers to) that counts here, but the international law that the US imposes _in practice_. On the one hand, the US plays the role of Hobbesian Sovereign imposing Order on places like Kuwait and Kosovo. It's the sheriff that comes in to the Western town to chase the baddies out (or to jail them, like Panama's Noriega). On the other hand, the US has its own interests; the "sheriff" is more like a mafia godfather (who also imposes order, organizing the crime). These goals include promoting the free flow of capital (both financial and real), the profits of US-based businesses, and free trade when it benefits US interests. It's also promoting the vision of the US as Savior. Back in 1919, Pres. Wilson sailed to Europe to take his plan for reorganizing the world to the Versailles Peace Treaty, to "make the world safe for democracy." Mostly, he was ignored, with the League of Nations failing. In 1999, on the other hand, Clinton is able to back up his plans with cruise missiles and bombs. But the stated ideals of Wilson (which Clinton echoes) are applied selectively; "human rights" ends up being a slogan justifying big-power coercion. (As Chomsky notes, the Turks (a NATO ally) have done much worse to the Kurds than the Serbs have done to the Albanian Kosovars.) At this point, it looks like the NWO is stymied, since US/NATO is not going to send in ground troops. The US world government is going to be delayed a few years. Speaking of the League of Nations, while the L of N was a tragedy, the UN is a farce. The latter is used and regularly abused by the US for its purposes. (The US didn't take the Serbia issue to the UN because it knew it would lose.) It has some good agencies, but it's mostly a tool of the US, especially now that the USSR is no longer there to balance US ambitions. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/jdevine.html
