John Lacny wrote:
> On Sun, 21 Feb 1999, Joseph Green wrote:
>> > The point you gloss over is that war is already going on,
> > and people are already dying, and misery and devastation is already
> > widespread.
>
> Sure. But my point is that bombing Serbia some more is going to
> cause even more devastation. In the course of the war which is already
> going on, has Belgrade's infrastructure-- bridges, factories, the whole
> bit-- been destroyed? No. Ought it to be? Considering the level of
> death and suffering that will mean for people in Serbia, I say no. And
> that IS the question we have to answer right now, as Western governments
> prepare to bomb within the next few days.
>
Albanian villages are being devastated right now. The
fighting has actually intensified. That's not a question we have to
answer right now, in your view. The Albanians may also have sanctions
taken against them, but that too is not a question we have to answer
right now, in your view. But the Serbian military may be bombed
within a few days, that's a question that must be answered, *right
now*, in your view.. To most of the world, such an attitude would
seem to be taking sides in the war against Kosovo. The world is used
to a good deal of the left, such as the Trotskyists, who say that
they can give "military but not political support" to governments
like those of Milosevic. (Note, I am *not* saying that you say this,
but that this argument is very common and has to be dealt with.)
> So, my friend, even though I know you don't mean it, when you say
> things like:
>
> > Meanwhile, no matter what slogans we give here in the U.S., it is not
> > possible to isolate Serbia from the general conflagration going on
>
> you start sounding dangerously like a Pentagon general informing us that
> "collateral damage" is "inevitable."
I am sorry to say this, but this is a demagogical
argument on your part.. Surely you too believe that "collateral
damage" is "inevitable", indeed, you base your current position on an
estimate that there will be a huge amount of collateral damage in
Serbia. The Pentagon general is in favor of the policy of the big
powers and says that "collateral damage" is acceptable because
inevitable. You and I, on the contrary, am denouncing big power
policy and the inevuitable damage that surrounds it.
> No, it's not possible to isolate
> Serbia from the conflagration, but it is possible to keep the
> conflagration from becoming more destructive:
The left should not be in the position of writing off entire
peoples, like the Albanian Kosovars. Your plan amounts to
sacrificing the Albanians for the good of the entire region. Balkan
peace is supposed to depend on allowing a Kosovan village or two to
be sacrificed each day.
But moreover, it's not going to work. The time is past when
Kosovo can be trampled on for years on end (as in Yugoslavia
between the world wars) and there is business as usual elsewhere. The
bitterness created by the present situation in Kosovo is creating
the conditions for a wider conflict.
Your argument is inadvertently similar to the arguments used
in favor of the intervention of the big powers. They justify their
intervention on the ground that they are seeking ceasefires and to
end the military conflict, and indeed they are.
> I agree here; but I would add a corrolary: we should speak the
> truth about Kosovo, but not in a way which feeds the propaganda machine of
> the big powers.
Yourir implication here is that the defense of the right to
self-determination for Kosovo is support for the big powers, even
though they do not defend the right to self-determination in Kosovo.
They have been pressuring the Albanians to give up this goal. Their
would prefer Kosovo stay in Serbia.. And they have threatened
sanctions to that end.
So, contrary to what you say, it is necessary to support the
right to self-determination in order to counter the imperialist
propaganda. The real point isn't that the imperialists support the
right to self-determination (they don't), but that *you* too are
skeptical about the right to self-determination for Kosovo. Instead
of arguing directly on that point, you falsely hint that
advocating the right to self-determination brings grist to
the imperialist mill.
> I'm not for the Workers World Party approach to Iraq
or
> Serbia, which would entail support for the hideous regime in either case.
It is true that the WWP approach entails support for the
hideous crimes of the regime. I fully agree with you about this.
We share a repugnance for WWP policy, and I note that you have
also in other posts expressed support for dissidents in China,
something which WWP would never do.
But note that the WWP *insists* that it is *not* supporting
the Milosevic regime. The WWP's Leo Paulsen swore this up and down in
the debate I had with him on L-I. He presents his support for the
hideous regime as opposing big power intervention.
Moreover, it seems to me that you plan for immediate agitation
would involve, in practice, uniting with WWP and similar groups, on
the grounds that the differences over supporting the regime are
secondary and unimportant.
> What the Serbs are doing in Kosovo is what is called a "nefarious
> bloodbath" in the Chomsky/Herman propaganda model. Savimbi is carrying
> out benign bloodbaths almost everyday, and Turkey is engaged in a
> constructive bloodbath against the Kurds in northern Iraq as we write.
> In a world like this, front-page stories with gruesome pictures of
> massacres carried out by an official enemy are not courageous statements
> of the truth but acts of cynical propaganda, and we should recognize this.
>
I am opposed to Savimbi , and I support the right of the Kurds
to self-determination.. In supporting the Kurds,however, I have had
to contend with the same arguments that this is allegedly falling
victim to Western propaganda (against Iraq and against Iran) as you
use against my support for the right to self-determination for
Kosovo.
> You've put your finger on the key question. It is indeed awful to
> witness what the Serbs are doing to Kosovo, but we have to keep in mind
> first and foremost that THERE IS NOTHING WE CAN DO.
That is not true. Whether the left supports or opposes the
right to self-determination *makes a difference*, both to what
happens in Kosovo and to what the peoples in the region think of
the left.
But the real issue is that you don't see the point of the
right of self-determination of nations for either Kosovo or the
republics of former Yugoslavia. You expressed your doubts about the
right of self-determination for these areas in a post of Oct. 11 to
L-I. If you don't see why it was essential to support the right to
self-determination to oppose the bourgeois chauvinism of all
nationalities, and that it is essential if there is to be support for
all national rights (including those of minorities), then of course
it will appear that *there is nothing we can do*. For the discussion
to be more fruitful, it would have to center on whether there is a
point to the right to self-determination, rather than on the pretense
that supporting the right to self-determination means falling victim
to Western propaganda.
> There is nothing
> we can do because if we pressure our rulers to "do something," they will
> make things worse.
But it is your policy, with its concern for results in a few
days, that must ultimately hinge on finding some imperialist forces
that support Serbia on this question. My policy hinges on
encouragement to the left and proletarian trends, and it will take
some time. But inside the Contact Group there are forces that are
more friendly to Milosevic. Even the U.S. government would prefer to
normalize relations with Milosevic, and in fact supported Milosevic
until he began military hositilities with Slovenia.
> Sure. But my policy will work more quickly, because it has a much
> more easily definable goal: namely, to keep the U.S. out of this.
Actually, so far, you have defined a much narrower goal. You
have put forward a goal of, essentially, keeping the U.S. from
pressuring Milosevic. You didn't mention keeping the U.S. from
pressuing the Albanians to abandon the demand for the right of
self-determination, even though that is going on.
But in any case, your policy will not work more quickly than mine,
except insofar as it is based on hopes left demonstrations will
help nudge the Contact Group to substitute one imperialist
policy for another.
> We can't stop U.S. involvement in the war any time soon, or at
> least any time soon enough.
Then why do you keep emphasizing that the next few days are
crucial?
> But we can do the things we always do to
> challenge the authority of the U.S. war machine. That includes
> demonstrations, but why is it that there are no demonstrations around this
> issue being organized by the left the way the left organized demonstratios
> during the bombing of Iraq? Could it be that the left has been snookered
> into thinking that bombing may not be all that bad of a thing considering
> the circumstances?
> Saddam Hussein is quite a bit worse than Milosevic, and the left
> has no problem straightforwardly opposing the attacks on Iraq. Why not
> the attacks on Serbia?
I don't think your description of the left is accurate, but
I only wnat to deal with one aspect of it (aside from the fact
that your comparison implies that, even if there are
demonstrations like those over Iraq, there can be no quick
results).
A lot of the radical left believes that Saddam Hussein is
doing something anti-imperialist. Sometimes this is expressed under
the slogan that of giving "military but not political support" to
Hussein, as if military support didn't mean political support.
There is also a lot of the radical left that believes that the
Milosevic regime is sort of socialist and sort of anti-imperialist.
Among the liberal left the situation is a bit different.
But then, they use something close to your reasoning of trying to
stop the immediate carnage. So they try to decide what policy for the
Contact Group or for U.S. imperialism would calm things down. To
refute this, one has to approach the matter from the standpoint of
the interests of the working masses including the right to
self-determination. To simply appeal against deaths won't work.
> Could it perhaps be due to a little too much
> enthusiasm for the "plucky little Belgium" of our day, Kosovo?
>
Among the radical left, there is a lot of slanderous
denunciation of the Albanian Kosovars, similar to that found on
"Radio Yugoslavia" (which, by the way, is available on the internet).
Comradely regards,
Joseph Green
