-Caveat Lector- From http://www.libertysoft.com/liberty/features/74kosovo.html#steele > The Real Kosovo Tragedy > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > -- by David Ramsay Steele > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > -- > > > I was standing with my wife and children near the Picasso statue. The > priest was singing the prayer in Church Slavonic. There was a > microphone, but it sounded as though he didn't need it. Since it was > Good Friday, we didn't get the usual sullen sidelong looks (Why aren't > those kids in school?). There were not many more than a thousand > people in the square. For nearly all of them, it wasn't Good Friday, > because this year the Orthodox Easter (Pascha) falls a week later than > the Western. Chicago, by the way, has the largest concentration of > Serbs outside Yugoslavia. We might be bombed. You don't think the > Clinton regime would bomb an American city? I wouldn't count on it. > They incinerated the residents of Mount Carmel, just for having > slightly weird religious views and being prepared to defend themselves > against armed assault. No one even thought of impeaching our lovable > rogue merely for this mass murder of American citizens. He bombed a > pharmaceutical factory in Sudan, announced he would very soon release > the proof that this factory had some kind of connection with > terrorism, and never did. The regime wasn't even mildly embarrassed by > that. The priest stopped singing in Church Slavonic and began singing > the translation, into Serbian. Only a few years ago we called that > language Serbo-Croatian. In Church Slavonic, or even in Serbian, the > singing was piercingly beautiful. But for most people there, it was > something routinely familiar. They had heard it on many a Sunday. How > did we come to be in this unlikely company? We had switched on our TV, > and seen our tax dollars at work, raining down death and destruction > on the Yugoslavs. We heard the talking heads saying: Why this > namby-pamby approach? We have to exterminate the Serbs to get results. > Let's do it! (My translation from Beltway Wonkspeak into English.) We > called both Libertarian Party numbers (Chicago and Illinois). Nothing > doing. I sent an email to Senator Peter Fitzgerald, thanking him for > voting against the bombing. I couldn't send him a second one, because > then I would be revealed as a crank, and the minuscule value of my > first email would be wiped out. Whom do you call when you're beginning > to suspect that World War III has begun, and our side are the Nazis? > The Left? The Right? There was no visible sign of any anti-war > activity from either quarter. The Serbian Orthodox Church, said my > wife, Lisa, and called them. A demonstration? Well, a prayer vigil. > Daley Plaza. Friday, 1:00 p.m. So there we were. The younger of our > children clapped when everyone else clapped, even when the speech was > in Serbian. There weren't many in the throng who weren't Orthodox. > About half of them carried icons and at least three quarters crossed > themselves in the Orthodox fashion at appropriate moments. Serbian > flags. Greek flags. Only one or two Russian flags. A message was read > from Yugoslav Jewish leaders denouncing the NATO bombing, then another > from the Crown Prince of Yugoslavia, denouncing the bombing at greater > length. Both messages were cheered. Many in the crowd were carrying > enormous pictures of a deep red flower, somewhat between a rose and a > poppy. Others had a picture of concentric circles on their backs, a > target, with the legend "I am proud to be Serbian. Kill me." A very > few had more secular slogans: "Mr. Clinton! The Serbs Will Not Go Down > On Their Knees Like Monica Did." Yes, we're still at the early stage > where we call this specimen "Mr." After the Serbian version, the > English translation was sung. The priest was asking that all the > Christians killed in the recent bombing be forgiven all their sins, > "both voluntary and involuntary." So someone's looking after that side > of things. My thoughts scanned the heavens for help from a different > quarter, possibly no more reliable. Will Russia do something? The > Russians could start bombing KLA positions in Kosovo and Albania, for > example. (This would be worth it, I think, just to hear Clinton's > argument that there was something wrong with it.) They could announce > publicly that any land invasion of Yugoslavia would result in a state > of war between Russia and the U.S. They could put a token tripwire > force of Russian troops into Kosovo and, while they're at it, into > Montenegro, before the U.S. succeeds in annexing Montenegro as they > have already annexed Bosnia and Macedonia. I am very much afraid that > none of this will materialize. The Clinton administration's statements > seem to indicate that they are very sure of Russia. This would signify > that the Russians have promised that they will do nothing to resist. > The U.S. can invade Yugoslavia, and Russia will roll over for the sake > of an IMF loan. > > > Ethnic Cleansing and "Ethnic Cleansing" > The American public has been given one fundamental reason for the > bombing: to stop ethnic cleansing. Ethnic cleansing is an interesting > concept. Although the term was reputedly first used by Russians to > describe relations between Armenians and Azerbaijanis, in English it > instantly became, by definition, a crime only Serbs can commit. When > Gerry Adams's boys shot the occasional Protestant in places like South > Fermanagh, to underscore their point that these areas ought to be > homogeneously Catholic, no one called it ethnic cleansing. When the > Quebec provincial government makes life irksome for Anglophones, and a > few enthusiastic Francophones help out with the occasional slashed > tires, no one calls it ethnic cleansing. When the American West was > taken from the Indians, no one called it ethnic cleansing. When Israel > encouraged the indigenous population to move out, handing over their > property to newcomers from Eastern Europe and North Africa, no one > called it ethnic cleansing. When France moved former Algerian colons > into Corsica as a prophylactic against Corsican separatism, no one > called it ethnic cleansing. When Turks massacred Armenians and Kurds, > no one called it ethnic cleansing. When millions of Germans were > dragged out of their dwellings at the end of World War II, and forced > to move hundreds of miles away, no one called it eth nic cleansing. > When Turkey invaded Cyprus, shipping over thousands of new Turkish > settlers to seize the lands of the evicted Greeks, no one called it > ethnic cleansing. And naturally, when the victims are Serbs, no one > calls it ethnic cleansing. The sad fact is that what is called ethnic > cleansing (when Serbs do it) is a very common, almost a universal > feature of the modern world. And the Serbs have been somewhat more > "ethnically cleansed" than ethnically cleansing. (I use quotation > marks to conform with the current semantic convention that only Serbs > can, by definition, commit ethnic cleansing.) If you doubt this, look > at the score: the Serbs were the largest group in Communist > Yugoslavia. The Communists instituted a federal system with > considerable local autonomy. There was never any attempt to Serbianize > the non-Serbs in the way that the Russians Russianized the > non-Russians in the Soviet Union. With the breakup of Communist > Yugoslavia, Slovenia, Croatia, and Macedonia seceded. In 1995, > thousands of Serbs in Krajina, Croatia, where they had lived for > centuries, were killed by Croatians advised by Americans. As part of > this hygienic operation, planes under U.S. direction bombed the U.N. > "safe area" of Krajina. The entire surviving population of 250,000 > Serbs, were forced to leave with what they could carry, and trek > hundreds of miles. No one called it ethnic cleansing. > > > NATO's Ethnic Cleansing > Before World War II, Serbs were over 70 percent of the population of > Kosovo. Now they are less than 20 percent. How did this occur? Because > of "ethnic cleansing" (not, of course, ethnic cleansing) by Albanians. > This was promoted by Mussolini's plan for a "Greater Albania," the > mantle of which has now fallen on the shoulders of the Arkansas > rapist. In between, especially from the 1970s into the 1990s, the > Albanian population of Kosovo grew rapidly, both absolutely and > relatively, while hundreds of thousands of Serbs, encouraged by > Albanian unfriendliness, left Kosovo. With them went many of the > non-Albanian, non-Serbian groups in Kosovo. The province has 26 > nationalities, all with centuries-old roots there. Virtually all of > the non-Albanians, including the Turks, are pro-Serb and > anti-Albanian. They know at first hand who has been initiating the > "ethnic cleansing." Clinton's bombing of Kosovo's Serbs, then, is the > continuation of a long-term "ethnic cleansing" of Serbs. When the NATO > powers began their bombing, a flood of refugees left Kosovo. In an > amazing piece of theater worthy of Dr. Goebbels, the Clinton regime > announced that the refugees were not leaving because of the bombing > and its consequences, but because, coincidentally, the Serbs had > started a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Albanians. We were > asked to believe that, abruptly, under NATO bombardment, the Serbs > were doing something they had not done in decades of firm control of > Kosovo. Once the bombs were falling, the Yugoslavs sensibly moved > against the KLA positions. No doubt there were some gratuitous > atrocities, by local Serbs enraged by the NATO bombing, and no doubt > clearing out the KLA fighters often involved displacing their > families. It may be years before we can achieve a detailed objective > picture, stripping away the propaganda of both sides. Let's recall > that recently many thousands of Albanian refugees flooded out of > Albania. Remember the overladen boats and the hastily constructed > camps in Italy? No one was ethnically cleansing them or even > "ethnically cleansing" them; there was civil strife and social > breakdown in Albania, that was all. One piece of corroboration for the > commonsense view (if you bomb hundreds of civilian targets in a > country where there is already a secessionist war, you create > refugees) is that Albanians fled Kosovo in all directions. Belgrade > has a permanent Albanian population of 100,000. With the bombing, > independent observers testify that new Albanians started arriving in > Belgrade by the tens of thousands. It seems unlikely that they would > do this if they believed the Yugoslav state was what they were fleeing > from. In recent years, Serbian moves against Albanians in Kosovo > appear to have been either strictly concerned with defending the > non-Albanian population against the KLA, or occasional isolated acts > of brutality, comparable to the killing of unarmed blacks in New York > City by white police -- deplorable but sadly not unusual the world > over, and hardly sufficient justification for bombing. Until quite > recently the U.S. government officially categorized the KLA as > dangerous terrorists with whom NATO could never deal. The U.S. bombed > Khartoum because of some highly obscure and indirect connection with > Bin Laden, but now works completely hand-in glove with the KLA, whose > associations with Bin Laden are not denied. The Yugoslavs claim the > KLA was instigated and inserted into Kosovo by NATO, who trained the > most bigoted Albanian youth they could find in camps in Germany, then > brought them back to Kosovo with NATO-supplied guns and money. Prior > to the rise of the KLA within the last year, the pre-eminent figure > among the Kosovo Albanians was Ibrahim Rugova, hailed in the West as > "the Gandhi of the Balkans." The Kosovo Albanians boycotted > Yugoslavian elections and held their own. In these elections, Rugova > was returned unopposed. When NATO started bombing Kosovo, Rugova went > to Belgrade, met with Milosevic and denounced the bombing. The NATO > side immediately claimed that videos of Rugova with Milosevic were > faked. But it came out that Rugova had had discussions with the > Russian ambassador. By the time the story appeared in The New York > Times, Rugova was referred to merely as an "Albanian pacifist," the > Times not choosing to remind its readers that Rugova was, a few years > back, the leading figurehead of the Kosovo Albanians. The Times also > insinuated without evidence that Rugova might have been held under > duress. (I can't prove that this is not so, though my guess would be > that Rugova went to Belgrade to avoid being assassinated by the KLA.) > > > The Acropolis in Rubble? > Now the U.S. has a new rationale for its presence in the Balkans and > its coming invasion of Yugoslavia -- to do something about the > appalling "humanitarian tragedy" its own bombing has created. Some > European observers, such as Vaclav Klaus, speaker of the lower house > of the Czech parliament, stated that it was clear that the > humanitarian tragedy was a direct result of NATO bombing, but these > statements were, to say the least, under-reported in the U.S. (And > what does Klaus think he's playing at? Does he want cruise missiles on > Prague?) The rationale for bombing Yugoslavia is so threadbare, so > ludicrous, so absurd, that it carries a simple message: anyone, > anywhere in the world may be bombed. The only precondition I can see > is that it's necessary to prepare American opinion first, but this is > a simple matter, given the "oral-anal contact," to borrow a phrase > from the Starr Report, between the genuflecting American press corps > and the U.S. ruling class. Milosevic has been compared with Hitler, > the symbolic message being that a "dictator" must be stopped before he > tries to take over the world. Aside from the fact that Germany was the > world's second industrial power, whereas Yugoslavia is one of the > poorest countries in Europe. Germany in the 1930s kept on adding > territory, whereas Yugoslavia has been losing it. In the 1930s nervous > people wondered, where will Germany strike next? Today, nervous people > ask, whom will NATO bomb next? There has been talk of some NATO > members leaving the alliance. But they must hesistate to do this, for > surely any country that leaves NATO might very well be bombed. This is > how it would work. Greece leaves NATO. Immediately, or after a brief > delay to cement the American decimation of the Serb population and > occupation of Yugoslavia, there is a flurry of well-funded seminars > about Greek treatment of ethnic minorities. With NATO funding, Turkish > and Albanian troublemakers do everything they can to engineer > incidents that will exacerbate relations. The thrilling intellectual > exercise for the seminars is this: can Greek behavior be termed > "ethnic cleansing," a term until now reserved only for Serb > atrocities? After six months of this, that question is quietly > dropped, and references to Greek ethnic cleansing become regular and > unchallenged. Now the question is: what shall NATO do about Greek > ethnic cleansing? Shall we stand idly by while this mayhem goes on, or > shall we act decisively? Every urban legend about the Greeks > distributed by the Turkish or Albanian equivalents of the Roswell nuts > is taken for gospel by the American media. On the serious TV talk > shows, in the pages of The New York Times and other ruling-class house > journals, all the blinkered apologists for mass murder, one robotic > Kondracke or Barnes or Fund or Ingraham after another, raise this > vital question which we neglect at our peril. On the many Beltway wonk > circuits, plans are eagerly discussed for the bombing of Greece, > incorporating all the practical lessons gained from the bombing of > Serbia. Then, one day, perhaps when the president is, quite by > coincidence, facing a sex or an espionage scandal, we turn on our TV > sets to see the Acropolis in rubble. (We never claimed these weapons > had pinpoint accuracy. And, it so happens, we have just received a > disturbing report that the Greeks were about to use the Acropolis for > the mass killing of 50,000 Albanians.) It comes out that the French > had raised an objection to the bombing of Athens, but were whipped > into line with a raised eyebrow. (Do you want to see the Louvre in > flames?) The model for this operation, and for today's Yugoslav war? > Germany's annexation of the Sudetenland in 1938. > > > What Is NATO's Objective? > When it became clear that NATO would not achieve Greater Albania > within a week, we began to hear about the removal of Milosevic as a > new objective. This is a particularly ignorant and idiotic > rationalization for the war. Milosevic's election as President of > Yugoslavia was quite narrow (53 percent of the vote). If most Albanian > Yugoslavs had voted in Yugoslav elections, instead of boycotting them, > Milosevic would never have stood a chance of election. (Imagine > Israeli politics if virtually all Arab Israelis refused to vote.) > Milosevic responded to the narrowness of his victory by inviting all > the opposition parties to join his government, which most of them did. > Milosevic was twice elected as President of Serbia, then once as > President of Yugoslavia. The respective constitutions require that the > limit for President of Serbia is two terms, for President of > Yugoslavia, one term. Therefore, at some time in the next couple of > years (Yugoslavia has a movable-term democratic system, like the > British) he would not have been able to run for the Presidency. > Milosevic was therefore already riding out his last year or two in the > Yugoslav leadership. Many Serbs are opposed to Milosevic on many > issues, but virtually none favors having Kosovo occupied by NATO, with > the KLA given a free hand to escalate its ethnic cleansing — or rather > "ethnic cleansing" — of Serbs, which is essentially what Rambouillet > calls for. Rambouillet was a facetious document. It must always have > been intended as something that Yugoslavia could never sign, a flimsy > pretext for ethnically cleansing the Serbs and establishing Greater > Albania Now. So why is NATO doing it? If we extrapolate from the > predictable results of their actions, NATO's chiefs must want the > entire Balkan peninsula to be under U.S. occupation for the next > hundred years, hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops permanently > garrisoned there. (Budget surplus? That's one problem you can now > forget.) These are not the garrisoned troops of the old movies, > sitting around in the local taverns and flirting with almond-eyed, > bare-shouldered Mediterranean maidens in flouncey folk-embroidered > skirts. The troops would be constantly killed in reprisals if they > mingled with the locals. These brave soldiers will be maintained in > self-contained biospheres, like giant lizards from another star, which > given the moral status of their behavior, they might as well be. Their > function will be to "keep the peace," to terrorize the population into > passivity by the threat of death raining down from the sky. And, I'm > just wondering, are similar garrisoned colonies to be installed in > several places on each conti nent? Maybe I'm naively missing > something, but I can't actually credit that this is what the > policymakers intend, however much their behavior points to it. My > hypothesis, perhaps simple-minded, is that these people actually > believe what they say about the Serbs. Just as there are rumor panics > and outbreaks of mass hysteria among the uneducated population, > connected with UFOs or Satanic ritual killing of babies, and just as > there are domestic policy crusades of demented fanaticism, like the > War on Drugs, with its preposterous lies about the pharmacological > properties of various chemicals and its ferocious demonization of drug > consumers and drug providers -- so we have the international > counterpart of these irrational movements of unruly religious fervor, > leading to coercive conspiracies against millions of innocent people. > I don't conclude, however, that all that's necessary is to debunk > these crazy systems of belief, though that has to be done. The fact > that an international terror machine like NATO can fall into the hands > of unreasoning fanatics whose dotty ideas make them desperately > brutal, is merely one more reason why no such institution of mass > destruction should ever exist. Even if all the tales of atrocities > laid at the door of Milosevic and the Serbs (tales disseminated more > hysterically with every NATO setback) were true — just grant that > premise — is it really so self-evident that the right thing to do is > the terror bombing of eight million civilians, the vast majority of > whom (even ex hypothesi) had no responsibility for these atrocities > and (in fact) don't believe they occurred? Is it really the best we > can do, to cripple the industrial infrastructure of a country, destroy > religious shrines and ancient works of art, slaughter innocent people > of many ethnicities, pulverizing even farms and livestock in the > countryside? How do millions of people respond when you do all that to > them? In the words of The Mikado, they usually object. > > > What Is Humanity's Objective? > Our first objective must be the dismantling of NATO. NATO, or > something like it, was (in my judgment, but let's not fall out over > this now) necessary to deter and contain the Soviet bloc. NATO was > formed as a defensive alliance against the Soviet Union's expansion. > When the Evil Empire fell, why wasn't NATO dissolved? When NATO went > recruiting new member-states from the former Soviet satrapies, it told > the Russians they had nothing to worry about, since NATO was purely > defensive. NATO's own charter states that it will act only > defensively. But now NATO has commenced the devastation of a small > country, which has been losing territory, and which has not been > threatening any other country, let alone attacking any NATO member. > NATO is largely an instrument of the U.S. Since Europe is much bigger, > in both population and output, than the U.S., it might be embarrassing > to explain to U.S. taxpayers why the U.S. should alone shoulder the > costly burden of terrorizing and massacring people on every continent. > But essentially, what NATO does is always the U.S.'s doing. The second > immediate goal, therefore, is to scale back and reshape U.S. military > spending so that it is adequate for just one role: the defense of the > United States itself against military attack, thus incidentally > yielding a substantial decrease in taxation and increase in living > standards. Though it may seem tactless to point it out while NATO is > slaughtering the innocents, this hi-tech bombardment is not only mass > murder and vandalism, it comes at the expense of American well-being. > In Illinois we have recently had another fatal accident at the > intersection of a road and a rail crossing. There are hundreds of > these accidents every year in the U.S. Every rail-road intersection > could be replaced with a bridge or underpass, completely eliminating > any such accidents thereafter, for the price of a few cruise missiles, > a tiny fraction of the cost of Clinton's war on Yugoslavia. Ideally, > we should also make sure that Clinton, Albright, Blair, and the rest > of the contemptible terror gang are shipped off to Belgrade to be put > on public trial as war criminals. Or, to be scrupulously fair, to some > neutral country like Libya or Iraq. Of the very few people by the > Picasso statue who were not Orthodox Christians, one was a lone woman > with her own banner. She made a loud remark about how "stupid" it was > to conduct so much of the proceedings in Serbian. No, it's not stupid, > just early. When a priest got up to ask everyone to keep watching for > news of future events, he didn't bother to give a phone number. He > must have assumed everyone would hear through their churches. The > struggle against the NATO murder machine is no doubt in its infancy. > The priest had no thought of an anti-war coalition with non-Orthodox. > At the end of the vigil, the priest asked everyone to hold up "your > icons and your flags." The red flowers were Kosovo Peonies, a flower > that, they say, grows only in Kosovo, and blooms abundantly on the > battlefield, site of the proudest day in Serbian history. It was 28th > June, 1389, the Battle of Kosovo. The Serbs were defeated, their > entire aristocracy was slaughtered, and they were consigned to 500 > years of subjection under the Ottoman empire. Now they are absolutely > willing to face being butchered by the American empire, and knuckle > down to another 500 years of, probably more oppressive, subjection. > But they'd prefer to avoid it, and I'd also prefer that they avoid it. > "Come back, and bring your good Serbian Orthodox Christian hearts," > said the priest. Yes, and just a very few good Anglo-Saxon atheist > hearts, too. 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." 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