https://www.viexpo.com/kosovo-war/archive-through-october-28-1999/ Disaster Message Service Discussion Board en-US Thu, 30 Apr 2026 15:13:04 +0000 wpForo 60 https://www.viexpo.com/kosovo-war/archive-through-october-28-1999/paged/3/#post-6568 Thu, 28 Oct 1999 04:37:00 +0000
SERB REFUGEE COLUMN ATTACKED IN KOSOVO

PEC, Serbia (Reuters) - Up to eight Serbs were reported missing after a column of ethnic Serbs from Kosovo under U.N. protection was attacked in the western town of Pec Wednesday, the U.N.'s refugee agency reported.

A spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said between three and eight members of the column, headed for the republic of Montenegro, were missing after it was attacked by ethnic Albanians in Pec, adding that several vehicles were on fire.

The U.N. said the attack on the convoy of four buses and 21 civilians vehicles headed from Orahovac to Montenegro occurred as it was passing through the western city of Pec at around 3 p.m., adding that at least 15 vehicles were burning.

A U.N. official said 117 of the refugees were later evacuated to Montenegro, while 35 were seeking shelter in a police barracks in Pec.

No one was reported seriously injured, but three to eight people were missing and unaccounted for, the official said.

``It's obviously an appalling incident,'' said Peter Kessler, spokesman for the UNHCR, which organized the convoy in cooperation with the NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping force.

Kessler said he did not know what sort of weapons were used in the attack, but added: ``You can be sure it was not bows and arrows.'']]> Kosovo War suitboy https://www.viexpo.com/kosovo-war/archive-through-october-28-1999/paged/3/#post-6568 https://www.viexpo.com/kosovo-war/archive-through-october-28-1999/paged/3/#post-6567 Wed, 27 Oct 1999 14:34:00 +0000 http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/kosovo3/

Here is a chilling story of 'a day in the life of' a small village in Kosovo, Cuška--Qyshk. This report compiled by 'Human Rights Watch' is also a excellent example of 'good' reporting, not like some of the junk that has been posted previously. phil]]> Kosovo War philtr https://www.viexpo.com/kosovo-war/archive-through-october-28-1999/paged/3/#post-6567 https://www.viexpo.com/kosovo-war/archive-through-october-28-1999/paged/3/#post-6566 Wed, 27 Oct 1999 10:28:00 +0000
Ah who cares, if they want to believe we are NATO wannabees, or in the CIA, let them believe that :-)))))))))))))))) Keeps them off the street, y'know, while the World Management Team is pulling their strings.

It they think they can solve the world's troubling issues by hate and prejudice, and fear struck acts, mouthbashing and sucking up to war criminals, FINE. Their business. If they think they will get Uiniversal Wisdom, by staring at some news on the TV, or at some internet news site, PERFECT! Let them copy-paste everything on this board, so the silence of real thought exchange being absent is not so heartfelt :-(((

Frankly, I haven't been writing on this board for some time, becauwe the low levelled hatred and FEAR, being spread here, is boring me to DEATH.

This place is Zombieland, you know..... Copy-paste-copy-paste-copy-paste, blabla, copy-paste-copy-paste.....Yawn........ But....... be careful with what you do now, guys, the CIA might be watching!!!!!!!! :-00

Zoja]]> Kosovo War zoja https://www.viexpo.com/kosovo-war/archive-through-october-28-1999/paged/3/#post-6566 https://www.viexpo.com/kosovo-war/archive-through-october-28-1999/paged/3/#post-6565 Tue, 26 Oct 1999 14:19:00 +0000 as recorded by DISARRAY 1980
--
love and hate and sex
and war and food and violence
taking up the same space on the air
dialogue or poetry?
talk is cheap
life is cheap
bearing equal impact
with delivery and fade
fade...fade...

and all the college communists
will read from their instructions
and all the rockin' populists
will raise a match to heaven
and the random desperate terrorists
will have had their cause to die for

cho> cutting off my nose to spite my face
second thoughts
there's no account for some folks' taste
aluminum or plaster
whore or whore-master
titles such as these

what year is this?
i need to know
'cause i cant figure out
what year this is...]]> Kosovo War whatyoustillhere https://www.viexpo.com/kosovo-war/archive-through-october-28-1999/paged/3/#post-6565 https://www.viexpo.com/kosovo-war/archive-through-october-28-1999/paged/3/#post-6564 Tue, 26 Oct 1999 08:00:00 +0000
W.B. Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is downed;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."

Surely some revelation is at hand:
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving it's slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?]]> Kosovo War suitboy https://www.viexpo.com/kosovo-war/archive-through-october-28-1999/paged/3/#post-6564 https://www.viexpo.com/kosovo-war/archive-through-october-28-1999/paged/2/#post-6563 Mon, 25 Oct 1999 22:09:00 +0000

---

THE ASSOCIATION OF JUDGES OF SERBIA

The Association of Judges of Serbia was established as a reaction to the
manipulations performed by the Serbian courts after the local elections in
November 1996. It is estimated that nowadays almost a quarter of the total
number of judges in Serbia belongs to this association. However, most of
its members are reluctant to admit their membership for the fear of possible
consequences from the authorities personified in presidents of courts,
appointed by the government and persons of significant powers.

Although the Association is of a professional kind, comprised of judges
committed to the promotion of the rule of law, it has been exposed to
incessant attacks by the authorities ever since it had been founded.
The latest one presents the denial by the administration of its registration
as a legal entity, a dubious decision according to the very constitutions
of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Republic of Serbia, which
guarantee the freedom of political, trade union and other kind of
association
without preliminary permission, by simple registration with the competent
authority. Regrettably, instead of ordering the Ministry of Interior to
register the Association, the Supreme Court of Serbia upheld this
unconstitutional
administrative decision.

The Association of Judges at present functions as part of the Association
of Jurists of Serbia, an organization which enjoys the status of registered
legal entity and hosts sixteen different societies, also not registered as
separate legal entities. Apparently, this situation does not satisfy the
presidentof the Supreme Court of Serbia, Mr. Balsa Govedarica, who recently
openly
threatened the members of the Association of Judges with removal from their
functions as judges only if their membership in this association would be
detected. It is not known what legal grounds could the Serbian Parliament
find dismiss the judges, since this is the body with the authority in law to
initiate the procedure for a judge's removal. The only personal restriction
of the freedom of association applicable to judges, according to the
Serbian Courts Act, relates to their exercise of political functions, as
well as the commission of deeds incompatible with their role of judges.
As the Association of Judges is by no means a political party, it remains
yet to be seen how the authorities would interpret the membership in
a non-governmental organization promoting the rule of law as being
unbecoming of a judge. Unfortunately, the Serbian Parliament is a
rubber stamp body originating in the 1997 elections, boycotted by most
parties of the democratic opposition.

Following the orders of Mr. Govedarica, the presidents of courts have r
ecently started to summon judges to a peculiar inquisition-kind-of-meetings
in order to investigate their membership in the Association of Judges.
Judges were ordered to admit to their membership and were openly
threatened with removal from their office if the suspicion was to be proved.
The Belgrade Centre for Human Rights issued a protest reminding those
responsible that such activities amounted to serious violations of the right
to freedom of association and the right to privacy according inter alia to
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which FR
Yugoslavia is a party.]]> Kosovo War emina https://www.viexpo.com/kosovo-war/archive-through-october-28-1999/paged/2/#post-6563 https://www.viexpo.com/kosovo-war/archive-through-october-28-1999/paged/2/#post-6562 Mon, 25 Oct 1999 20:56:00 +0000
NATO Bombing Critics Want Lawsuit

By BART JANSEN Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Congressional critics of U.S. participation in NATO military strikes against Yugoslavia asked a federal
appeals court today to revive a lawsuit challenging President Clinton's authority to order the bombing.

The 31 lawmakers participating in the case argued that Clinton violated the 1973 War Powers Act when he authorized U.S.
involvement in NATO airstrikes. The Vietnam War-era legislation, which has been ignored by presidents of both parties, requires
congressional approval for ``introduction into hostilities'' of U.S. forces lasting more than 60 days.

But a judge threw out the case in June without addressing the merits of the case. U.S. District Court Judge Paul Friedman said the
lawmakers lacked the standing to sue because they failed to show a genuine impasse between the president and Congress in the
matter.

Lawmakers led by Rep. Tom Campbell, R-Calif., asked a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
to reverse Friedman's decision. The military example in Yugoslavia is considered the best case of several since the War Powers
Act because the bombing lasted 21/2 months and followed two congressional votes that opposed the action.

``Here, they flagrantly ignored it,'' Jules Lobe, a lawyer representing the lawmakers, said of the administration. ``The question here
is since Congress stepped up to the plate and performed its duty, will the courts do so.''

But the judges appeared skeptical that courts could rule over whether military actions fit the definition of a war, citing military
actions in Korea and Iraq.

``You're putting a lot of pressure on the judiciary,'' Judge Laurence Silberman told the lawmakers.

Justice Department lawyers led by William Schultz argued that the courts have no business ruling in disputes between Congress
and the president, except in procedural conflicts like whether a bill was properly vetoed.

The case filed April 30 argues that a 213-213 vote two days earlier killed a request to authorize U.S. participation in NATO
bombing of Yugoslavia. Another vote rejected a declaration of war. The bombing had begun March 24.

But Friedman said Congress sent ``distinctly mixed messages'' by also defeating a bill that would have removed U.S. troops from
Yugoslavia.

Several lawmakers who attended the hearing said the case offers the clearest example of whether Congress can rein in a president
over military actions.

``I would say you will never have a clearer case,'' Campbell said after the hearing.

Others complained that options such as impeachment or withholding funds are impractical in opposing a military action, especially
if troops are already deployed.

``That is a terrifying prospect to consider,'' said Rep. Bob Schaffer, R-Colo.]]> Kosovo War daniela https://www.viexpo.com/kosovo-war/archive-through-october-28-1999/paged/2/#post-6562 https://www.viexpo.com/kosovo-war/archive-through-october-28-1999/paged/2/#post-6561 Sun, 24 Oct 1999 19:55:00 +0000

---

Insigh Magazine, Published Date October 1, 1999, in Washington, D.C.

http://www.insightmag.com


War Tribunal Cleans Up Its Act

---

By Jerry Zeifman

---

Charges of covering up U.S. war crimes and conflicts of interest have led to the resignations of key members of the International
Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia.

As first reported in Insight (see "Just What Is a War Criminal," Aug. 2), on July 8 the International Ethical Alliance, or IEA, submitted
legal pleadings to the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia, or ICTY, calling for evenhanded justice in the prosecution of war
crimes. The IEA supported the prosecution of President Slobodan Milosevic, but it also charged the ICTY's prosecutor, Louise Arbour,
with covering up war crimes committed by President Clinton and Secretary of Defense William Cohen. Drawing upon facts first
detailed by former president Jimmy Carter in the New York Times relating to the use of cluster bombs and the illegal targeting of
civilians, the IEA pointed out that ICTY was receiving substantial contributions, including compensation for members of the panel,
directly from the United States and other countries involved in the alleged crime -- resulting in a substantial conflict of interest.

Despite the fact that IEA's filings seemingly were ignored by the conflicted panel, three of the five justices cited by the IEA for
conflicts have resigned before the end of their terms, including Arbour. Transmitted by fax and priority air mail, the pleadings included
a request for a preliminary hearing by Aug. 10. But IEA received no response until Aug. 25. A cursory note from a deputy registrar
sent by ordinary mail said, "Your letter has subsequently not been filed, but has been forwarded to the Office of the Prosecutor."

The term "Office of the Prosecutor," of course, referred to Arbour's own office. The IEA had petitioned the tribunal to disqualify her
(as well as four other justices) for "receiving compensation from funds contributed to the Tribunal in whole or in part by NATO
countries; and biases in favor of NATO countries."

Christopher Black, a Canadian lawyer with more than 20 years experience in criminal-defense practice, has investigated the tribunal's
funding. He advised the IEA that the ICTY is not financed solely from the U.N. budget, as required by its authorizing statute.

According to Black, in the last year for which public figures are available (1994-95) the United States provided $700,000 in cash and
$2.3 million worth of equipment. In the same year, the court received substantial tax-deductible private financing from such groups
as the Open Society Institute (a foundation established by billionaire George Soros), the Rockefeller Foundation and the Central and
East European Law Institute (created by the American Bar Association and lawyers close to the United States).

In more recent years, the ICTY's chief justice, Gabrielle Kirk McDonald (an American) and prosecutor Arbour (a Canadian) both have
been engaged in soliciting tax-deductible donations for the tribunal from private sources, Black reports. However, since 1995 the
ICTY has published the amounts of private contributions and the names of donors.

In alleging that Arbour was ignoring war crimes by Clinton, IEA's pleadings included verbatim quotes from an article by Carter in the
New York Times May 27, calling "the destruction of civilian life ... senseless and brutal." Carter also attacked the use of antipersonnel
cluster bombs that caused damage to hospitals, offices and residences of ambassadors.

The IEA's unfiled pleadings charged that the acts described by Carter were being ignored intentionally by Arbour even though they
indisputably were violations of U.N. treaties.

On June 10, shortly after the Carter article appeared, more charges of NATO war crimes were published in Spain's Articulo 20. It was
reported that Capt. Adolfo Luis Martin de la Hoz of the Spanish air force had participated in NATO bombings but now denounces them
as "one of the biggest savageries of history.... NATO's repeated bombings of civilian victims and nonmilitary targets were not 'errors.'"


According to de la Hoz, NATO chiefs were selecting such targets intentionally and also were using bombs containing uranium. De la
Hoz and other Spanish pilots learned that "there was a coded order of the North American military that we should drop antipersonnel
bombs over the localities of Pristina and Nish." The Spanish group refused to carry out the order. The Spanish pilots thus
provided eyewitness corroboration of Carter's prior charges. Although the de la Hoz article received much attention abroad, it went
unreported in mainstream U.S. media. With the exception of Insight and the New York Times, Carter's denunciation of the bombings
also has been all but ignored by the U.S. media.

Also first reported in Insight was the endorsement of the IEA's pleadings by Tom Hutson, who has served for 32 years as a State
Department official. After spending the last four years as a top career diplomat in Yugoslavia, Hutson protested the bombings of
Belgrade and left State. He also corroborates -- and denounces -- U.S. use of uranium-containing weapons.

Even before the IEA prepared its pleadings, the group had little hope that Arbour would investigate the basis for Carter's charges or
those of such eyewitnesses as de la Hoz and Hutson. By then other war-crimes charges against NATO leaders previously had been
submitted by the Movement for the Advancement of International Criminal Law, founded by British lawyers from Cambridge University.
In early June, one of these lawyers, Glen Rangwala, met personally with Arbour, stating, "This is a historic opportunity to
demonstrate the evenhandedness of international justice. A failure to indict NATO leaders would be a severe blow to international
law."

Similar charges also were submitted by organizations formed in Norway, Canada and Greece. Although ignored by most American
journalists, the claims drew the attention of the British Broadcasting Corp., the British press and English Nobel laureate Harold Pinter
-- and generated numerous antiwar demonstrations in Germany, Italy and other NATO countries. However, Arbour refused to act or
even comment on the extensive evidence formally submitted to her by any of the prior organizations.

On June 18 (the week after the de la Hoz story had broken) the Times of London journalist John Laughlin wrote: "The International
Criminal Tribunal shows little sign of caring that NATO has itself broken nearly every rule of war.... It displays considerable contempt
for the very thing which distinguishes the rule of law from retributive justice, namely due process."

Of the five tribunal members for whose disqualification the IEA had petitioned, three have resigned prematurely:

* On Sept. 6, Justice Antonio Cassese of Italy (whose term was not due to expire until November 2001) announced his retirement
and plans to resume an academic career at the University of Florence.

* On Sept. 15, Arbour resigned. She has been appointed to the Canadian supreme court. Many Canadian critics of Prime Minister Jean
Chretien have opposed her appointment, considering it a reward for suppressing evidence of Chretien and Clinton's war crimes in the
bombing of Serbian civilians. As Arbour's replacement, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has appointed Carla Del Ponte, a former
attorney general of Switzerland. Del Ponte appears to be highly qualified, given her record for professional integrity and traditional
Swiss neutrality in military affairs.

* After Nov. 17, ICTY's Chief Justice McDonald also will be stepping down. As her replacement, Annan has appointed Patricia Wald,
currently a judge of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

As president of the IEA, this reporter is particularly pleased by the appointment of Wald since he has some personal knowledge of her
prior career. She served as assistant attorney general during the Carter administration, and Carter eventually appointed her to a
federal judgeship.

In 1993, after pledging "the most ethical administration in history," Clinton publicly announced that he wished to appoint Wald as U.S.
attorney general. To the astonishment of the media and other observers, Wald publicly declined. Her refusal to accept the
appointment led to a scramble for alternatives and the upheaval of "nannygate," in which the next two successive nominees
proposed by Clinton to head the Justice Department were of questionable ethics. Why did Wald decline? Even before her name
surfaced, the president and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton had chosen the now criminally discredited Webster Hubbell to be
associate attorney general. They also already had appointed the now ethically tarnished Bernie Nussbaum to be the White House
counsel.

The plan was evident: The first lady had plotted to run the Justice Department from the White House through her cronies with a
figurehead woman as attorney general. Wald would have none of it; she long has demonstrated an integrity and nonpartisanship that
sadly is lacking in Clinton's ultimate choice, Janet Reno.

As soon as Wald officially becomes the tribunal's new chief justice in November, IEA will resubmit even more extensive pleadings --
and also call for an official investigation and public disclosure of the tribunal's past questionable financing.

- Jerry Zeifman, who was counsel to the House Judiciary Committee for 13 years, is the author of Without Honor: The Impeachment
of President Nixon and the Crimes of Camelot (www.iethical.org/book.htm).


Copyright © 1999 News World Communications, Inc.


Related link: http://www.iethical.org/iea/writing9.htm]]> Kosovo War daniela https://www.viexpo.com/kosovo-war/archive-through-october-28-1999/paged/2/#post-6561 https://www.viexpo.com/kosovo-war/archive-through-october-28-1999/paged/2/#post-6560 Sun, 24 Oct 1999 12:43:00 +0000 great stuff, that three parter. seriously.
BWAAA-HA-HAAAAAA
the annoying part of all this being that you'd
think of it as some kinda infliction upon me.
and =this= is where your asinine presumptions and
conjectures have set me off and essentially driven
me out of here.
like, um, what, do i have to 'defend my cool' for
your benefit?
i think not.
where were you in '95 when i was writing in my
fanzine column about the "psychotic rerun of WW1"
down yugoslavia way? for just one example.
where were you this summer when i made it clear
that i wasnt pro-NATO, i was anti-war? kissie,
you've just gotta remember that part.
and our viewers at home dont realize i've written
you off-group several times, trying to defuse this
silliness.
but no, for you it's more fun to posture in front
of daniela, she who hates albanians. BTW daniela,
assuming that invective involved the two sisters,
i dont even know their ethnicity.
i DO know, however, that it's the equivalent of a
playground taunt to ask them, more than once, w/a
straight face, if they're in the CIA. not to
mention just plain stupid.
so really, i've already put too much effort in
replying. hate to disturb my =koff= esteemed
=koff= former peers here.
knock yo damn selves out.]]> Kosovo War L'menexe https://www.viexpo.com/kosovo-war/archive-through-october-28-1999/paged/2/#post-6560 https://www.viexpo.com/kosovo-war/archive-through-october-28-1999/paged/2/#post-6559 Sun, 24 Oct 1999 11:23:00 +0000
THE TWILIGHT OF THE EUROPEAN PROJECT

BY PETER GOWAN

PART 2: THE THEORY OF EUROPEAN STUPIDITY

The alternative take on the origins of the NATO war against Yugoslavia starts from the fact that the war did not derive from big power reactions to local events in the Balkans at all. Instead, this theory starts from the premise that the Clinton administration was seeking a war against Yugoslavia as a means for achieving political goals outside the Balkans altogether. The conflict between the Serbian state and the Kosovar Albanians was to be exploited as a means to achieve US strategic goals outside the Balkans on the international plane.

This conception turns the cognitive map used by the proponents of American stupidity on its head. Thus, for example, instead of thinking that the US was read y to overthrow the norms of the international order for the sake of the Kosovar Albanians, we assume exactly the opposite: the US was wanting to overthrow the principles of state sovereignty and the authority of the UN Security Council and used the Kosovo crisis as an instrument for doing so. Instead of imagining that the US was ready to shut Russia out of European politics for the sake of the Kosovar Albanians, we assume that the Clinton administration used the NATO attack on Yugoslavia precisely as an instrument for consolidating Russia's exclusion. Instead of assuming that the US was ready to abandon its policy of engagement with China for the sake of the Kosovo Albanians, we assume that the Clinton administration used the war against Yugoslavia to inaugurate a new phase of its policy towards China. And last but not least, instead of assuming that the US firmly subordinated the West European states to its military and political leadership in order create a new dawn in the Western Balkans, it used a number of ingenious devices -- especially the dilettantish vanity of messieurs Chirac and Jospin -- to drag the West European states into a Balkan war that would consolidate US hegemony over them, the EU and the Euro's development.

This is where the European stupidity enters the theory. The one strategic interest of the main West European states (Germany and France) in the Balkans lies in maintaining stable and strong enough states in the region to keep their impoverished populations firmly in place. West European military intervention in the Balkans has essentially been concerned with preventing mass migrations Westwards when states collapse. Anglo-French military involvement in Yugoslavia through UNPROFOR was essentially about that: 'humanitarian aid' in the war zone to ensure that the civilian population did not leave the war theatre. Italian military intervention in Albania in 1997 was about the same thing: stanching the flood of humanity out of Albania Westwards, by rebuilding an Albanian state while blocking emigration and asylum rights. Anglo-French efforts in Macedonia and Albania in the current war are similarly about caging the Kosovar Albanians within the Western Balkans. Yet now the American air force has, with European support, turned the Western Balkans into twenty years (minimum) of chaos from which all the energetic younger generations of all ethnic groups will rightly wish to flee West for decades to come. This is the first European stupidity.

The second strategic interest of the West European states (especially Germany) in Eastern Europe is to maintain stable, friendly governments in Russia and Ukraine. That too can be ruled out as a result of this war as far as Russia is concerned; Ukraine will have to choose between Russia and the USA (the EU is not a serious alternative. And both Russia and Ukraine could spiral out of control with disastrous consequences for Central Europe Western Europe. This is the second European stupidity.

The third strategic interest of the main West European states has been to combine an effort to bandwagon with US power with preserving an effective check on US efforts to impose its will on their foreign policies, whether in Europe or other parts of the world. That too seems finished now. The basic West European check on US power was the French veto at the UN Security Council, restraining the US with its 2 votes (including that of the UK). Now that Chirac has chosen to discredit the UN Security Council, he has undermined his own ability to speak for Europe at the UNSC and to be a useful partner for other states seeking to gain European help to restrain the US. That is a third stupidity.

A fourth West European priority was to be able to claim that the EU is an independent, West European political entity with a dominant say at least over European affairs. Yet the current war demonstrates that this is a piece of pretentious bluff: the EU has played absolutely no role whatever in the launching or the management of this war. It will play no role whatever in the ending of the war. It is simply a subordinate policy instrument in the hands of a transatlantic organisation, the North Atlantic Council, handling the economic statecraft side of NATO's policy implementation. And within the North Atlantic Council the United States rules: the way the war ends will shape the future of Europe for at least a decade, yet that decision will be taken in the White House: the West European states (not to speak of the EU institutions) are political voyeurs with their noses pressed against the windows of the Oval Office trying to read the lips of the people in there deciding Europe's fate. This is a fourth stupidity.

To explain the background to these stupidities we must examine US strategy since the collapse of the Soviet Bloc.

US GLOBAL STRATEGY IN THE 1990s

In some conditions the cognitive framework -- local actions, big power reactions -- is useful. Such conditions exist when the superpower is satisfied and secure that the structures which it has established to ensure its dominance are safely in place. It is sitting astride the oceans comfortably and it reacts now and again to little local blow-outs and break downs.

Some might regard that as being the situation of the United States after the collapse of the Soviet Bloc. If we look at the power of the United States in the 1990s in resource terms, it has had no rival or even potential group of rivals in the military field, it dominates the international political economy, there is no power on earth remotely able for the foreseeable future to challenge the United States for world leadership.

Yet curiously enough, the United States has been far from satisfied with its situation in the 1990s. It has felt itself to be facing a number of important challenges in the two key traditional regions of the world where it must exercise leadership -- Europe and the Pacific Rim -- and the challenges there are linked to another big challenge: the battle to ensure the preponderant weight of US capitalism in the so-called 'emerging markets'. Leadership of Europe and of the Pacific in turn ensure that the United States can channel the activities of these states to ensure that US interests predominate in designing regimes to open up and dominate the 'emerging markets'.

These problems were all connected to another, deeper issue: concerns about the basic strength and dynamism of the American economy and American capitalism. When the Clinton administration came into office it was determined to rejuvenate the dynamism of American capitalism through an activist foreign drive to build a new global set of political economy regimes accented to the strengths and interests of American capitalist expansion. Getting leverage over the Europeans and Japanese to achieve that was key.

To understand US policy in the 1990s, we must appreciate the double-sided situation that it found itself in: on one side, its old way of dominating its capitalist 'allies' had been shattered by the Soviet Bloc collapse, giving lots of scope for these 'allies' to threaten important US interests in their particular regional spheres. But on the other side, the US had gigantic resources, especially in the military-political field and if it could develop an effective political strategy it could convert these military power resources into a global imperial project of historically unprecedented scope and solidity. We must grasp both the challenges and the great opportunities after the Soviet Bloc collapse to understand the strategy and tactics of the Bush and Clinton administrations.

a) The Post-Cold War Problems

The challenge to the US in Europe created by the collapse of the Soviet Bloc has too often been ignored. That collapse not only made the USA the sole global super-power. It also simultaneously destroyed the political structures through which the USA had exercised its direct leadership over West European capitalism. And it simultaneously opened the whole of Eastern Europe for business with the West, a business and political expansion opportunity which the West European states, especially Germany, would spontaneously tend to control. What if West European capitalist states threw off US leadership, forged their own collective military-political identity, joined their capitals with Russian resources and Russian nuclear capacity? Where would that leave the USA in Western Eurasia outside of Turkey?

The central political pillar of US leadership over Western Europe during the Cold War was NATO. The US-Soviet confrontation positioned Western Europe on the front line in the event of a US-Soviet war. This situation enable the USA to gain political leadership over Western Europe by supplying the military services -- the strategic nuclear arsenal -- to protect Western Europe. In return for these military services, the West European states agreed to the US politically brigading them under US leadership. The US could exercise control over their foreign policy apparatuses, integrating the bulk of their military forces under US command, imposing discipline of the dealings of West European capitalism with the East and so on. And the US could also exercise this political leadership for economic purposes, especially to assure the free entry of US capitals into Europe, to ensure that Europe worked with the US over the management of the global economy etc. So NATO was a key military- political structure. The hierarchy was: US military services give political leadership which gives leadership on the big economic issues, those to do with the direction of accumulation strategies.

But the Soviet collapse led to the redundancy of the US strategic arsenal which led to the redundancy of NATO, the collapse of the political leadership structure for the US in Europe and the undermining of the US's ability to impose its core political economy goals for Europe and for the world on the West Europeans. This is one of the key things that has made the United States a paradoxically dissatisfied power in the 1990s. It has had to combat all kinds of European schemes for building political structures that deny the US hegemonic leadership in Europe. And in combating such schemes it has had to develop a new European programme and strategy for rebuilding US European leadership. In short, the USA has been an activist and pro-active power in Europe during the 1990s, not a satisfied and reactive power. The 1990s have been a period of political manoeuvres amongst the Atlantic capitalist powers as the key players have sought to advance their often competitive schemes for reorganising the political structures of the continent.

And in these manoeuvres, the territory and peoples of the former Yugoslavia have played a very special role. The states bearing competing programmes for a new European political order have all sought to demonstrate the value of their political project for Europe by showing how it can handle an important European problem: the long Yugoslav crises. Yugoslavia has been the anvil on which the competing great powers have sought to forge the instruments for their new European orders. No power has been more active in these endeavours than the United States.

And this means that a cognitive framework for understanding the Balkan wars cannot take the form of: local actions, great power reactions. We need an entirely different framework: great power European strategies, and the tactical uses of Yugoslavia's crisis for advancing them.

b) The New Opportunities.

Yet the United States was not just a power dissatisfied with the international arrangements it confronted at the end of the Cold War. It was also aware that it had a gigantic relative lead over all other powers in the world in terms of the resources for entirely reshaping arrangements on the planet. It had not only unrivalled military capacity but command of new military technologies that could enable it to strike safely and fairly accurately at will anywhere on the planet. It could, for example, out of a clear blue sky, destroy the great dam on the Yangtse river and drown 100 million Chinese at the heart of the Chinese economy without the Chinese government being able to stop it: that kind of power. It could take on China and Russia together and win. It could militarily seal of Japan and Western Europe from their sources of vital inputs for their economies and from the export markets vital for their economic stability.

The United States also have supreme command over the international political economy through the dominance of the Dollar-Wall Street Regime over international monetary and financial affairs and through US control over the key multilateral organisations in this field, especially the IMF and the World Bank.

With resources like these, the collapse of the Soviet Bloc opened up the possibility of a new global Empire of a new type. An empire made up of the patchwork of the states of the entire planet. The legal sovereignty of all these states would be preserved but the political significance of that legal sovereignty would be turned on its head. It would mean that the state concerned would bear entire juridical and political responsibility for all the problems on its territory but would lose effective control over the central actual economic and political processes flowing in and out of its territories. The empire would be centred in Washington with Western Europe and Japan as brigaded client powers and would extend across the rest of the world, beating against the borders of an enfeebled Russia and a potentially beleaguered China.

And it would be an Empire in which the capitalist classes of every state within it would be guaranteed security against any social challenge, through the protection of the new Behemoth, provided only that they respected the will and authority of the Behemoth on all questions which it considered important. It the US played its new strategy for empire building effectively, it could thus earn the support and even adulation of all the capitalist classes of the world.

Thus the decade from 1989 to 1999 has been marked above all by one central process: the drive by the US to get from (a) to (b): from political structures left over from the Cold War which disadvantaged and even threatened the US in the new situation, to entirely new global political and economic structures which would produce an historically new, global political order: New Democrats, New Labour, New NATO, new state system, new world economy, new world order. This is the context in which we can understand the various Yugoslav wars, including the current one. CP

Peter Gowan is a correspondent for the New Left Review.

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