Here's another criticism of those "nutty short sighted socialistic percepts[sic]" as found on the pages of the World Socialist Web Site. A response by David North, Editorial Board Chairman of WSWS is in the next post.

tommygunns

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THE LETTER:

Letter to the WSWS by P. Harris, a supporter of the US-NATO bombing of Serbia

8 April 1999

Dear editor,

Concerning the NATO bombing campaign against Serbia, I find myself in the unusual position of total disagreement with your editorial stance. Not withstanding the fact that many of your articles on a variety of issues are infected by a kind of low-grade conspiracy fever, I am generally in at least 75 percent agreement with your issues, analyses and positions. In this case, however, I feel that that you have taken the approach of discarding the baby with the bath water.

It is of course true that the United States, Britain and France are imperialist nations. And it is equally true that they are full of hypocrisy and false piety on almost every foreign policy issue you can name, from the Kurds to the Timorese, from Iraq to Israel to Grenada to Panama. But this does not negate the fact that they are surely doing the right thing by (finally!) attacking Milosevic's Serbia to stop his regime's and the Serb nation's crimes against humanity in Kosovo. In fact, it is precisely because they are imperialists and hypocrites that the NATO powers bent over backwards for years, right up until March 24, to avoid any conflict with Milosevic, whom they stupidly believed could be used to serve their interests in the region.

As I write this (March 30) it is perfectly clear to the entire world that the Serb regime has long planned the "ethnic cleansing" of the Kosovar Albanians that is currently underway on an accelerated schedule, after having been conducted in a slower, piecemeal fashion for the last twelve months. Although in the absence of a rapid ground offensive against the Serbs there is little prospect of immediate relief for the Albanians, in the long term there is no way other than military force to save them and to put a permanent halt to Serb aggression against its neighbors. And of necessity, if the Serb government persists in the face of aerial bombardment of strictly military targets, those attacks should and no doubt will be broadened to include economic targets and civilian infrastructure as well--power plants, factories, government ministries, etc.

Milosevic began his rise to power by embracing and legitimizing the strong strain of mystical, fanatical nationalism that had been suppressed during the decades of Tito's rule in Yugoslavia. His 1989 speech to the Kosovo Serbs on this issue was quickly followed by a number of far-reaching acts that, within four years, led to the destruction of the Yugoslav federation.

These acts included stripping the Kosovo region of the official autonomy status that it had been granted under Tito; large scale elimination of government resources for Albanian schools and cultural institutions; mass firing of Albanians from both government and non-government positions; and, ultimately, the suppression by violence of Albanian attempts to maintain their cultural autonomy and identity. All of this was done, it is assumed, to raise Milosevic's own popularity in the Serb Republic, where he quickly replaced his friend and mentor, Ivan Stambolic, as party head and president of the Republic.

At the same time, Milosevic appropriated for the Serb Republic the votes in the council of the Yugoslav Federation that had up to then been wielded by Kosovo and Vojvodina autonomous regions. This gave Serbia disproportionate power, which in turn alarmed the other republics (especially Slovenia and Croatia) in the Federation, and was a main trigger of the federal breakup.

In the wars that followed in Bosnia and Croatia, the Serb Republic gave active support to the local Serb forces on the ground. Although this support was not made public at the time, and was not obvious to many (including me) outside the region, it has since been documented as a fact of those wars. Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader and infamous war criminal, was Milosevic's proxy in Bosnia, as were the notorious Arkan and other militia leaders responsible for much of the butchery.

Now we come to Kosovo, where during the intervening decade the Albanian community had conducted a campaign of political struggle, using the tools of passive resistance to preserve its cultural identity. This campaign was still going on in the face of vicious and unrelenting Serb oppression when, in 1997, the UCK (KLA) emerged in Kosovo, advocating a turn to arms as the only path to freedom for the 90 percent of Kosovo's citizens who are Albanian.

The response of the Serbian police and military was brutal and indiscriminate, and by March of 1998 had become an outright campaign of "ethnic cleansing," in which villages were shelled and burned, the civilians massacred and forced to flee. This campaign continued without interruption until October, when it was somewhat slowed after Milosevic agreed to a force reduction and the imposition of 1400 unarmed OSCE monitors in Kosovo.

Things were relatively--and only relatively--quiet over the winter, but by the time the Rambouillet negotiations began in February, Milosevic had already systematically and blatantly violated the force limitations and was positioning ever more troops in or near Kosovo. These forces had resumed the campaign of violence against the Albanians, as always under the guise of fighting the UCK "terrorists," and as always involving the deliberate and methodical execution of men of military age, the random slaughter of women, children and the elderly, and the systematic destruction of homes and villages.

Having threatened Serbia with air strikes if the violence continued and if the Albanians agreed to the proposed pact, NATO found itself backed into a corner when Milosevic stepped up the violence as the Rambouillet deal collapsed, lacking only Milosevic's signature. After several more days of diplomatic hemming and hawing, the NATO countries finally took the plunge and initiated bombing on the night of March 24, local time.

No amount of disgust at the hypocrisy, stupidity, venality, or other shortcomings of the United States and the other leading imperialist countries can outweigh the concern we must have for the oppressed Albanian people of Kosovo. No amount of argument that the people of Serbia do not know what Milosevic is doing can negate the fact that it is being done, being done in their name, being done by their husbands and sons and brothers. And no amount of dubious "sovereignty" can relieve civilization's obligation to stop these crimes against humanity.

Finally, what is the alternative? Try more weeks and months of "negotiations" while the genocide continues? Just give up and say it doesn't matter? As the Serbs appear determined no matter what to pursue the greatest terror against a European population since the Germans took that road under Hitler, all this will no doubt end with a pariah Serb state reduced to its smallest geographical extent since the end of Ottoman control of the Balkans. Unfortunately, like the Germans under Hitler, the Serbs under Milosevic only respond to violence. Like the Germans, the Serbs in Serbia have enjoyed years of complete safety and isolation from the violence of all the wars their leader started, while around them those wars burned out of control. As we used to say when protesting the war in Vietnam, it is time to bring the war home.

P. Harris

[END LETTER]

DAVID NORTH'S REPLY
==============================================

8 April 1999

BEHIND THE WAR IN THE BALKANS: A REPLY TO A SUPPORTER OF THE US-NATO BOMBING OF SERBIA

By David North

Below we publish an open reply, prepared by David North, Chairman of the Editorial Board of the World Socialist Web Site, to a letter sent to the WSWS by P. Harris, a supporter of the US-NATO bombing of Serbia.

Dear Mr. Harris:

Before proceeding to reply to the specific points that you have raised in your attack on our opposition to the US-led war against Serbia, I believe that certain introductory remarks on both the prevailing political climate and relevant historical experiences are appropriate in answering the pro-war arguments of someone who once protested the war in Vietnam.

The unabashed and enthusiastic support for the US-NATO bombing of Serbia by former opponents of the American intervention in Vietnam, like yourself, is one of the most politically-significant phenomena of the present war. Virtually all the political leaders in Europe and the United States who are responsible for the prosecution of the war against Serbia participated, at one time or another, in demonstrations and other political protests against imperialism. Indeed, Clinton is unusual in this group only in the fact that his days as an opponent of militarism lasted only as long as his personal exposure to the danger of conscription. Others, such as Chancellor Schroeder, Foreign Minister Fischer, Defense Minister Scharping of Germany and even NATO Secretary General Solana, continued to spout Marxist and "anti-imperialist" phrases well into the 1980s.

The evolution of all these gentlemen is clearly the expression of a broader political process. E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post proclaims that the response of the anti-war protesters of the 1960s to the bombing of Serbia marks the definitive end of the "Vietnam Syndrome." Now that President Clinton "has embraced the idea that American power can be used on behalf of democracy, human rights and legitimate national interests," the conditions have emerged for the complete reconciliation of those who once opposed the Vietnam War with the American military. "This is a case in which most Vietnam-era doves swallowed their ambivalence and endorsed the use of force."

One of those who has swallowed his "ambivalence" is Walter Shapiro, a columnist for USA Today. He describes himself as a "onetime dove" who now "finds himself flying with hawks." Recalling with a tinge of nostalgia his participation in campus protests against the Vietnam War some 30 years ago, Shapiro writes: "I now find myself in the awkward position of trying to justify my support for NATO airstrikes against Slobodan Milosevic." What, according to Mr. Shapiro, accounts for the completion of his transformation into a defender of the latest US-led bombing campaign? It is "the scene of countless atrocities" in Kosovo, "with an estimated 100,000 panicked refugees fleeing the country this week..."

Shapiro assures his readers that his support for the war is determined solely by a moral imperative: "America is the only nation with the resources and the will to take a firm stand against the barbarians at the gates of civilized society."

These words betray an astonishing absence of historical consciousness! Though he may have convinced himself that the bombing of Serbia marks the dawn of a new and altruistic American foreign policy, Shapiro's rhetoric eerily recalls the language employed by those who launched the first imperialist adventures of the United States 100 years ago. "God," declared Senator Beveridge of Indiana in January 1900, "has made us master organizers of the world to establish system where chaos reigns. He has given us the spirit of progress to overwhelm the forces of reaction throughout the earth. He has made us adept in government that we may administer government among savage and senile peoples. Were it not for such a force such as this the world would relapse into barbarism and night."[1]

Among the most peculiar and enduring characteristics of American imperialism has been the manner in which it has employed the rhetoric of democratic altruism to justify its global ambitions. It was during the administration of Woodrow Wilson that hypocrisy was elevated into the essential international modus operandi of the United States. Unlike the old great powers of Europe, its leaders claimed, America only waged war to achieve lasting peace. It only killed in order to liberate. Thus, President Wilson justified the entry of the United States into the great struggle for markets known as World War I with stirring idealistic rhetoric:

"Our object," he declared in his war message to the US Congress in April 1917, "is to vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the life of the world as against selfish and autocratic power. The right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things we have always carried nearest our hearts--for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free ... The world must be made safe for democracy."[2]

Somewhat more recently, in the very early stages of the last big liberal war, similar rationalizations were employed to justify the projection of American military power overseas. In December 1961 President John F. Kennedy depicted the commitment of the United States to South Vietnam as the defense of democracy and national independence against tyranny and aggression. As he wrote to South Vietnam's President Ngo Dinh Diem (whose assassination was to be authorized by the United States two years later):

"I have received your recent letter in which you described so cogently the dangerous conditions caused by North Vietnam's efforts to take over your country. The situation in your embattled country is well known to me and to the American people. We have been deeply disturbed by the assault on your country. Our indignation has mounted as the deliberate savagery of the Communist programs of assassination, kidnapping, and wanton violence became clear.

"Your letter underlines what our own information has convincingly shown--that the campaign of force and terror now being waged against your people and Government is supported and directed from the outside by the authorities at Hanoi...

"The United States ... remains devoted to the cause of peace and our primary purpose is to help your people maintain their independence."[3]

Pardon the history lesson. But it seems that many of those whose political education began in the 1960s are in the process of forgetting, or have already forgotten, the bitter lessons they learned 30 years ago about the predatory and truly criminal character of American imperialism. Judging from your letter, it seems that you, too, are falling victim to this rather widespread outbreak of political amnesia.

In an inappropriate use of metaphor, you argue that in our opposition to the US-NATO bombing of Serbia, the World Socialist Web Site has "taken the approach of discarding the baby with the bath water." This is precisely what you yourself are guilty of. In your outrage over the mistreatment of the Kosovars, you have chosen to ignore all the essential problems of historical, political, social and economic context within which this war is unfolding. The result is an utterly simplistic and impressionistic response to events that leaves you at the mercy of the vast and powerful propaganda mechanisms of the American media.

The underlying intellectual bankruptcy of your approach is revealed in the sentences that immediately follow:

"It is of course true that the United States, Britain and France are imperialist nations. And it is equally true that they are full of hypocrisy and false piety on almost every foreign policy issue you can name, from the Kurds to the Timorese, from Iraq to Israel to Grenada to Panama. But this does not negate the fact that they are surely doing the right thing by (finally!) attacking Milosevic's Serbia to stop his regime's and the Serb nation's crimes against humanity in Kosovo."

You write as if the term "imperialist" were merely an epithet, a somewhat dramatic and sophisticated way of denouncing the nasty behavior of one country or another. In the language of political economy, however, it has a more profound significance. Imperialism, as a scientific term, denotes a definite stage in the historical development of world economy bound up with the domination of finance capital. The political tendencies associated with imperialism, such as militarism and war, are the necessary by-products of objective economic processes, i.e., monopolization, the emergence of transnational corporations, the immense power of globalized capital markets, the economic dependency of small and less developed countries upon the powerful international lending agencies, etc. Whether or not a country is defined as imperialist is not determined by examining, on a case by case basis, its good or bad deeds, but by analyzing its objective role and place in the world economic system. From this essential standpoint, there is a qualitative difference between the United States, France, Britain and Germany, on the one side, and Serbia and Iraq on the other.

What is completely lacking in your attitude toward the war is any consideration of this objective economic and political foundation of world politics. Instead, one is presented with an eclectic approach to events that precludes the possibility of any coherent and integrated analysis. The United States, France and Britain are, you gladly concede, imperialist powers. You go even further and declare their attitude toward virtually every exploited and oppressed people in the world is "full of hypocrisy and false piety." But is it not the case that the "hypocrisy and false piety" of the imperialist powers is rooted in the ruthless subordination of the democratic principles that they formally espouse to the imperatives and interests of a world economic order dominated by their ruling financial and industrial elites? And if these interests and imperatives result in their sanctioning of, and direct participation in, the oppression of the Kurds, Palestinians, Timorese, Iraqis, Grenadans, and Panamanians, why are the imperialist powers "surely doing the right thing" in the Balkans? How can one explain such an extraordinary departure from the norm? Is it not more likely that you--beneath the pressure of a propaganda campaign that has skillfully exploited the plight of the Kosovars--have made an exception to your general principles, than that they have to theirs?

You devote several paragraphs to a review of the events that led to the outbreak of the war. In your account, which in no fundamental respect differs from that which is presented by the mass media, all the violence of the past decade is the product of the policies pursued by Milosevic, who was able to draw upon the "mystical, fanatical nationalism" of the Serbs. The role played by Slovenian, Croatian, and Bosnian Moslem nationalism is not mentioned. But even more serious, in my opinion, is your apparently uncritical attitude toward the break-up of the Yugoslav Federation and the role played by American and European imperialism in that process. Even if we were to accept that Milosevic exceeds all other Balkan nationalists in his wickedness--which would be a difficult call given the competition he faces from the likes of Croatia's Tudjman, Slovenia's Kucan, and Bosnia's Izetbegovic--that would still leave us without the necessary insight into the deeper forces at work in the disintegration of Yugoslavia.

Long before Milosevic appeared on the scene, the economic pressures exerted on Yugoslavia in the 1970s and 1980s by the austerity policies demanded by the International Monetary Fund were eroding the economic foundations which maintained the viability of the Federation. The wave of industrial bankruptcies, the rapid growth of unemployment, inflation, the decline in real wages, and the erosion of the social infrastructure rekindled the old national and ethnic rivalries that the Titoist regime had attempted to suppress. Incidentally, the subordination of the Yugoslav economy to the discipline of the market principles demanded by the IMF played no small role in the rise of Slobodan Milosevic. While you express amazement that the NATO powers "stupidly believed" Milosevic could serve their interests, this appraisal did not lack ample foundation. Milosevic obtained a degree of credibility with Western banks and governments because of his apparent enthusiasm for the reorganization of the Yugoslav economy along capitalist lines. As Susan L. Woodward of the Brookings Institute has explained:

"...Milosevic was an economic liberal (and political conservative). He was director of a major Belgrade bank in 1978-82 and an economic reformer even as Belgrade party boss in 1984-86. The policy proposals commissioned by the 'Milosevic Commission' in May 1988 were written by liberal economists and could have been a leaf straight out of the IMF book. It was common at the time (indeed into the 1990s) for Westerners and banks to choose 'commitment to economic reform' as their prime criterion for supporting East European and Soviet leaders (as well as many in developing countries) and to ignore the consequences that their idea of economic reform might have on democratic development. The man who replaced János Kádár as leader of Hungary in May 1988, Károly Grósz, was similarly welcomed for the same profile of economic liberalism and political conservatism--what locals at the time called the Pinochet model."[4]

You also fail to make any assessment of the role played by the United States and Europe in encouraging the dissolution of the Yugoslav Federation in 1991-92. It is difficult to judge whether malice or stupidity played a greater role in the events that led to the eruption of civil war in the Balkans. Whatever the answer, the actions taken by the imperialist powers encouraged, rather than restrained, the tensions among the Yugoslav republics. It was entirely foreseeable--and, indeed, it was foreseen--that any attempt to internationalize the internal borders of the Yugoslav republics would have calamitous results. It came as no great surprise that the borders that had been established between the republics within the framework of a unified Yugoslavia would not be viable were the federation to break up. Ethnic minorities within the different republics--i.e., Serbs within the Croatian Republic, Croatians within the Serb Republic, and Croatians, Serbs and Moslems within Bosnia--looked to the federal state as the ultimate guarantor of their civil rights. Within the framework established in the aftermath of World War II, it had been possible for Tito to organize compromises between the various Balkan nationalities that comprised the new "Yugoslav" nation. In fact, the Bosnian republic had been designed by Tito to serve as a buffer that would ameliorate the traditional antagonisms between Serbs and Croats.

Thus, the German demand for speedy international recognition of Croatian independence in 1991--without a negotiated settlement of borders that would be acceptable to the populations of the republics in a post-Yugoslav state--made catastrophe inevitable. This is not simply an "after the fact" assessment of a Marxist opponent of imperialism. In a letter written to German Foreign Minister Genscher, appealing for a delay of the German government's plan to recognize Croatia as an independent state, Lord Carrington warned:

"There is also a real danger, perhaps even a probability, that Bosnia-Herzegovina would also ask for independence and recognition, which would be wholly unacceptable to the Serbs in that republic in which there are something like 100,000 JNA [Yugoslav People's Army] troops, some of whom had withdrawn there from Croatia. Milosevic has hinted that military action would take place there if Croatia and Slovenia were recognized. This might well be the spark that sets Bosnia-Herzegovina alight."[5]

Another letter written at the time by the UN Secretary General, Javier Perez de Cuellar, to the President of the EC Council of Foreign Ministers, Hans van den Broek, expressed similar fears:

"I am deeply worried that any early, selective recognition would widen the present conflict and fuel an explosive situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina and also Macedonia, indeed serious consequences could ensue for the entire Balkan region."[6]

As for the role of the United States, Britain's Lord David Owen, who played a central role in the events surrounding the breakup of Yugoslavia, offers an appraisal that can hardly be described as flattering:

"...The EC mistake over recognizing Croatia could have been overcome if it had not been compounded by going forward regardless of the consequences with the recognition of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The US, who had opposed recognition of Croatia in December 1991, became very active in pushing for recognition of Bosnia-Herzegovina in the spring of 1992. Yet it should not have been judged inevitable, nor indeed was it logical, to push ahead and recognize Bosnia-Herzegovina, an internal republic of Yugoslavia that contained three large constituent peoples with very different views on independence."

Thus, in Owen's judgment, the decision to press ahead with recognition was "foolhardy in the extreme."[7]

The outcome of these sordid diplomatic intrigues--all of which unfolded within the context of the destruction of the old nationalized industries and the establishment of the supremacy of the capitalist market--has been the "re-Balkanization" of the Balkans.

You manage to avoid any serious assessment of this political record, and the responsibility of the imperialist powers for the violence of the last 10 years, by simply proclaiming that "No amount of disgust at the hypocrisy, venality, or other shortcomings of the United States or the other leading imperialist countries can outweigh the concern we must have for the oppressed Albanian people of Kosovo."

What an amazing formulation! The consequences of this "hypocrisy, venality" and what you call "shortcomings" has been a catastrophe that has cost the lives of tens of thousands of people. But all this should be forgotten, or at least ignored. What we must now do is line up, without thinking, behind the war machine of those who led the Balkans into an abyss and cheer as they pound the Serbs to smithereens!

In your version of events, all the suffering of the last decade is to be explained as the product of Serb nationalism. You offer no clear explanation why this brand of nationalism is worse than that of other Balkan chauvinists, including the Albanian xenophobia of the Kosovo Liberation Army. Indeed, you seem to suggest the Serbs as a people deserve the punishment that is being inflicted upon them by US-NATO bombers. "No amount of argument," you declare, "that the people of Serbia do not know what Milosevic is doing can negate the fact that it is being done, being done in their name, being done by their husbands and sons and brothers."

How does this blanket indictment of the Serbs differ in principle from the type of chauvinist stereotyping that is employed by the various nationalist Balkan cliques to legitimize their reactionary policies? To the extent that the policies of the pogromists--whether in Croatia, Serbia or Bosnia--have found popular support, it reflects the inability of the masses to see any alternative to the sectarian framework within which Balkan politics is presently confined. But rather than combating this reactionary poison, you fortify it with additional dosages.

I would not like to imagine what policies you would be pursuing were you living in the Balkans; for like those you are denouncing, your evaluation of the political situation proceeds entirely within the prevailing national framework. It is, for you, merely a question of opposing a good nationalism (Albanian) to a bad nationalism (Serbian). This outlook emerges most clearly in your enthusiastic endorsement of the KLA, whose policies, you suggest, represented "the only path to freedom" for the people of Kosovo.

I beg to differ: the policies of the KLA represent not a "path to freedom" but the road to further defeats, despair, and disaster for the people of Kosovo. For lack of space, I will not review the unsavory details of the KLA's history--its political and ideological origins in Enver Hoxha's reactionary mixture of Albanian xenophobia and Stalinism, its intimate links with organized crime throughout Europe, and its thoroughly corrupt alliance with the CIA. Even if it did not carry all this smelly baggage, the central perspective of the KLA--that of an independent Kosovo--is fundamentally reactionary and bankrupt. What sort of "independence" could be possible for Kosovo? It would be, from the first hour of its existence, nothing more than an impotent protectorate of US and European imperialism. And what sort of economic, social and cultural progress would be possible within this landlocked and impoverished mini-state? Those raw materials that are to be found within its borders--i.e., coal, zinc, manganese, copper, bauxite--would be integrated quickly into the holdings of the massive transnational conglomerates.

To form an idea of what would await an "independent" Kosovo, one needs only look at the fate of Bosnia, which is governed by what amounts to a colonial-style administration. Upon its establishment, real political power rested in the hands of the High Representative of the United States and the European Union, Carl Bildt, the fanatical monetarist who once headed a right wing government in Sweden. The decisions of the nominal governments of the Bosnian Federation and the Republika Srpska depended on Bildt's approval. The Bosnian Central Bank is run by a governor appointed by the IMF, and does not even have the right to issue currency without obtaining international authorization. The outcome of the Dayton Accords is described quite concisely by Professor Michel Chossudovsky of the University of Ottawa:

"As the West trumpets its support for democracy, actual political power rests in the hands of a parallel Bosnian 'state' whose executive positions are held by non-citizens. Western creditors have embedded their interests in a constitution hastily written on their behalf. They have done so without a constitutional assembly and without consultations with Bosnian citizens' organizations. Their plans to rebuild Bosnia appear more suited to sating creditors than satisfying even the elementary needs of Bosnians."[8]

As for the long-term prospects for peace and security, within a regional environment of ongoing conflicts between politically insecure and economically ravaged Balkan states, it would not be long before the Kosovans were drawn into a new wave of violence.

What, then, is the way out of the nightmare through which Kosovars and Serbs are now passing? The first thing that must be said, unequivocally, is that nothing positive can be created with American bombs. If, as you suggest, the cause of "civilization" is represented by the Pentagon and its arsenal of "PGMs" [Precision Guided Munitions], then humanity certainly finds itself in a hopeless state. An appropriate slogan for those who are truly concerned about the plight of the Kosovars and Serbs is: "US Hands off the Balkans!"

However, this slogan is of limited value unless it is rooted in a broader perspective--one that draws on historical experience and addresses itself to the social force that has the potential to fight for the realization of a progressive resolution of the crisis that afflicts the Balkans--the working class.

It is well known that the first imperialist war emerged out of the confrontation between the major European powers that was sparked by a crisis in the Balkans. It is far less well known that in the years before the outbreak of World War I, the contradictions of Balkan life were followed with intense interest and concern by the finest minds of European socialism, among them Leon Trotsky. It is with a certain amazement that one discovers in articles written nearly 90 years ago insights that retain an extraordinary degree of relevance. Permit me to quote from an article written in 1910, entitled "The Balkan Question and Social Democracy." Of course, certain terms are dated. The dynasties which once ruled the Balkans have been swept away by wars and revolutions. But the thoughtful reader should not find it too difficult to make the necessary mental emendations.

"The frontiers between the dwarf states of the Balkan Peninsula were drawn not in accordance with national conditions or national demands, but as a result of wars, diplomatic intrigues, and dynastic interests. The Great Powers ... have always had a direct interest in setting the Balkan peoples and states against each other and then, when they have weakened one another, subjecting them to their economic and political influence. The petty dynasties [of Milosevic in Serbia, of Tudjman in Croatia] ruling in these 'broken pieces' of the Balkan Peninsula have served and continue to serve as levers for European [and American] diplomatic intrigues."[9]

In the writings of Trotsky--an impassioned foe of all forms of nationalism--one finds a profound appreciation of the complex interplay of international and regional influences and of socio-economic factors at work in the crisis of Balkan life. The salvation of the Balkan people, he insisted, depended upon the transcendence of national and ethnic particularism. "The only way out of the national and state chaos and the bloody confusion of Balkan life is a union of all the peoples of the peninsula in a single economic and political entity, on the basis of national autonomy of the constituent parts."

Trotsky continued:

"State unity of the Balkan Peninsula can be achieved in two ways: either from above, by expanding one Balkan state, whichever proves strongest, at the expense of the weaker ones--this is the road of extermination and oppression of weak nations ... or from below, through the people themselves coming together--this is the road of revolution..."[10]

Upon reading these words one is struck by how deeply mired our civilization remains in the unresolved problems of the 20th century. The great question is whether the working class will learn the lessons of the past, so that the problems bequeathed by this century can be finally resolved in the one that we are about to enter.

Yours sincerely,

David North

Notes

1. Cited in Merle Curti The Growth of American Thought (New Brunswick: 1991), p. 657. 2. Ibid., p. 661.

3. Department of State Bulletin, January 1, 1962

4. Balkan Tragedy: Chaos and Dissolution After the Cold War (Washington, D.C., 1995), pp. 106-07.

5. Cited in David Owen, Balkan Odyssey (New York: 1995), p. 343.

6. Ibid., p. 343.

7. Ibid., p. 344.

8. "Dismantling Yugoslavia; Colonizing Bosnia," Covert Action, No. 56, Spring 1996.

9. The Balkan Wars 1912-13 [New York: 1980], p. 39.

10 Ibid., pp. 39-40.

T'gunn, North never did address Harris' 14 major points. He said he would, but it looks like all North managed to do was use 4,283 words to get caught up in the euphoria of his own pedantry.

He is rather imaginative in the way he re-configures reality in terms of some form or another of "class struggle."

But what the hell, he's an idealist and everybody loves a good "class struggle" based on "paranoid delusions of oppression" which means there will "always" be someone else to blame for their shortcomings, which is reassuring. phil

You can find out . . . . .


THE TRUTH ABOUT RAJMONDA

here: http://tv.cbc.ca/national/pgminfo/kosovo3/rajmonda.html

tommygunns

Well T'gunn, I'm just about finished reading ICG's Feb 24, 1998 report "Serbia-The Milosevic Factor" and I'm begining to better understand why the Socialist's are screaming their heads off. They're stuck with their buddy Milosevic who they know would give to them up the poop-shoot in a heart beat to stay in power. He doesn't give two shits about anyone but himself. Can't say your buddies don't deserve what they get. Toodle-dee guy. phil

So T'gunn, we got history turning on the story of a 16 year old girl? Pathetic man, pathetic. phil

Correction: 18 year old... I remembered the number 16 from below...Still pathetic...phil

---

Subject: [KDN] NPost: CBC airs documentary to explain error in stories from Kosovo
Date: Thu, 09 Sep 1999 12:40:57 -0400
From: Daniel Dostanic
To: KDN

NATIONAL POST, Thursday, September 9, 1999

CBC airs documentary to explain error in stories from Kosovo

Teen's false claims discovered during follow-up story

Paul Waldie
National Post

The CBC broadcast one of the biggest clarifications in Canadian television history yesterday --a 16-minute documentary about how two news reports from Kosovo by one of its senior reporters turned out to be false...

If that was the only one it wouldn`t be that bad!

Making the news
Western war reporting is selective and the real stories of the Kosovan crisis remain largely untold

John Pilger
Tuesday August 24, 1999
The Guardian

Last week, 14 members of the same Iraqi family were reportedly killed when their house was hit by a missile. There were no military
installations nearby. On August 11, an unconfirmed number of people died when a 4th-century Christian monastery was bombed as
they gathered to watch the solar eclipse. In May, a friend travelling in northern Iraq came upon the remains of a flock of sheep with
blast injuries. A shepherd and his family of six had been bombed to death on one day, his sheep the next. Apart from a news-in-brief
item in the Guardian, this was not news in Britain.

Such acts of murder are routine, carried out by US and British pilots over Iraq. "We do not target civilians" and "pilots are defending
themselves", say the foreign office. It is a deceit reminiscent of the long-running lie that Hawk aircraft were not operating in East
Timor. Mostly, lying is unnecessary, as Orwell pointed out in the preface to Animal Farm, when "inconvenient facts [are] kept dark". A
recent Unicef report that child deaths in Iraq had doubled to half a million briefly broke the silence, presumably because it was
"measured" - that is, it usefully shifted the blame a few centimetres from the Anglo-American- led sanctions to the Iraqi regime.

Numerous other studies on the suffering of the civilian population of Iraq have been ignored or buried. A Unicef report in 1997, which
left no doubt that the malnourishment of a million children was caused by "the impact of sanctions", was confined largely to an article
in the Economist. In 1995, the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation concluded that "the moral, financial and political standing of the
international community intent on maintaining economic sanctions is challenged by the estimate that since August 1990, 567,000
children in Iraq have died as a consequence." That is four times the number of children who died at Hiroshima.

According to the Guardian's data base, it was reported in two paragraphs in this newspaper and the Times, and in one sentence in
the Financial Times. There was no political debate, and there is none now. The prime minister is never required to defend policies
which, by the definition of various international conventions, are genocidal.

Unpeople are a common phenomenon in the media age. Victims are deemed worthy or unworthy, depending on the degree of western
culpability. Since the "just war" in the Balkans, more than 170,000 Serbs have been "ethnically cleansed" from their homes in Kosovo
in the same way that ethnic Albanians were driven out.

This is equal to the number of Serbs forced out of Krajina seven years ago by the Croatian regime and its US state department
backers. Many Serbs fleeing Kosovo are survivors of the Krajina atrocity. Now they are as much victims of Nato's ethnic hate
campaign as they are of Albanian gangs, whose intimidation and murder extends to Montenegrins and Roma.

Is this news? Sort of. Several exceptional pieces of reporting come to mind. Otherwise, it is well on the way to news-in-brief. The
drum-beaters are long silent, having testily assured the prime minister's press spokesman that they did as good a job of propaganda
as he did.

Silent, too, is the effete bomber himself, whose "moral crusade" was dutifully elevated from the crapulous to every front page and
BBC bulletin and whose "new internationalism where the brutal repression of whole ethnic groups will no longer be tolerated" is now
revealed to be fake as Nato presides over precisely that repression in Kosovo.

The truth behind all this, which Harold Pinter calls "the depth of shame", is that untold thousands of innocent Serbs and ethnic
Albanians, victims of Nato's "war," would be alive today had western leaders pursued three outstanding opportunities for peace. Two
were at the Rambouillet talks: in February when Robin Cook boasted to parliament of agreement on 90% of peace terms which the
Serbs were prepared to sign, then in March, when the Serbs were again willing to sign - until a secret appendix was handed to them
on the last day, demanding, in effect, they surrender all of Yugoslavia to Nato's occupation.

On top of this, the elected Yugoslav parliament, on March 23, called on the UN to negotiate a diplomatic solution leading "toward the
reaching of a political agreement on a wide- ranging autonomy for Kosovo." Almost all of this remains unknown to the British public.
Neither was the complete list of Nato targets hit ever published or broadcast. This shows not "blunders" but an unmistakable pattern
of civilian terrorism: hospitals, schools, nurseries, housing estates, power sources, markets, farms, churches, monasteries, against
which horrific "anti-personnel " cluster bombs were used.

A group of prominent international lawyers argue that if the recent indictment of Slobodan Milosevic is to be credible, not merely
victor's justice, then the evidence against all prima facie war criminals should be heard. They have prepared a compelling indictment
of Nato's leaders, including Blair, Robertson and Cook. That is the news.


© Copyright Guardian Media Group plc. 1999

This just adds up to a letter by Doncheva.

Also I saw a document that was shown by Vojislav Seselj, with a logo of the CIA and "strictly confidential" printed all over it. I believe once the document became hacked from the CIA, they decided to claim it as a public one. Bad lying,
I`ll say.

http://www.usip.org/oc/sr/sr990414/sr990414nb.html
"Yugoslavia":
Building Democratic Institutions


Briefly ...

The possibility of finding solutions to the "Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia's" long-standing and complex
problems, including Kosovo, would be vastly enhanced
if the "FRY" were a democracy, governed by the rule of
law and open debate.

Democratic transition in Serbia has been blocked by
the Milosevic regime, which remains the major threat to
regional stability in the Balkans. This regime has
created an atmosphere of fragmentation, fatigue, and
fear in Belgrade and Pristina.

The United States must develop a consistent and
coherent strategy for the Balkans that takes into account
the effects that developments in one country or region
have on neighboring states.

The United States and its allies and partners need to
focus on bringing about a democratic transition
throughout the "FRY," one based on civic institutions
and not on the empty ritual of elections that are neither
free nor fair.

Additional spending of $35 million this fiscal year (over
and above the planned $18 million) could contribute to
the democratic transition by making resources and
expertise available to those who seek to establish
democracy in Serbia. Important targets are Belgrade
and other Serbian cities. Spending should focus on
institutions and coalitions--not individuals--and on
long-term grassroots efforts rather than instant results.




The logo used by Radio B92 after
the Serbian republic closed the station on April 2.



Recommendations

Add $35 million to the $18 million the United States
government is already spending on democratization
programs throughout "FRY";

Focus the United States government and allies'
assistance on building democratic institutions, such as
open media, free trade unions, universities, judiciary,
political parties, and indigenous NGOs;

Make efforts long-term and focused on institutions and
coalitions, not individuals;

Include support for a democratic transition in Serbia in
the peace settlement for Kosovo; this agreement should
not support the continuation of the current autocratic
regime in Belgrade;

Protect and further encourage progress toward
pluralism and democracy in Montenegro and
Macedonia;

Strengthen regional activities and networks within the
Balkan region.



About the Report

This report is based on meetings of the United States Institute
of Peace's Balkans Working Group and a subgroup working
on democratization in Serbia. This work was previously
presented in abbreviated form on December 10, 1998, by
Daniel Serwer in testimony before the United States'
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe at "The
Milosevic Regime vs. Serbian Democracy" hearing (and was
posted on the Institute's website on December 12, 1998).
That testimony was also presented on January 12, 1999, by
Serbian Deputy Prime Ministers Vojislav Seselj, Ratko
Markovic, and Milovan Bojic, as an allegedly "top secret"
Central Intelligence Agency document. On January 14, 1999,
the Institute issued a statement clarifying that the document is
a publicly available discussion paper prepared by an Institute
fellow, and emphasizing that the Institute has continually made
an effort to reach out to all sides of the conflicts in the Balkans
in order to facilitate a constructive dialogue on moving the
region toward peace.

The Balkans Working Group, composed of employees of
various government agencies, think tanks, and
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), acting in their
personal capacities, meets frequently to address issues of
Bosnia peace implementation and Balkans stability.
Ambassador John Menzies, former ambassador to Bosnia
and Herzegovina and currently a senior fellow at the Institute,
chairs working group sessions. The opinions and
recommendations of the working group sessions on Serbia
are summarized by Senior Fellow Daniel Serwer, Program
Officer Lauren Van Metre, and Research Assistant Kristine
Herrmann, with further research by Intern Jenet Redfern.

You're a real cutie, Daniela This should make your day.

---

97,000 Serbs Remain In Kosovo
According To Kouchner

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 11, 1999 -- (Reuters) Some 97,000 Serbs and 73,000 other minorities are still in Kosovo, a number higher than previously estimated, Bernard Kouchner, the U.N. administrator for the Yugoslav province, said on Friday.

Kouchner spoke at a news conference after briefing the Security Council where he asked for more civilian U.N. staff, more money to pay Kosovo public employees and twice as many civilian police as the United Nations had authorized.

Disclosing a new survey by NATO-led troops in Kosovo, Kouchner said the United Nations had believed more than three-quarters of the pre-war Serb population had fled the ethnic Albanian-dominated region.

But he said 97,000 Serbs remained while another estimated 130,000 fled and are now refugees in Serbia proper. In addition 73,000 Roma or Gypsies, Turks, Bosnians and other minorities
remained.

The survey estimated the ethnic Albanian population at 1.4 million, including the return of more than 800,000 who fled or were driven out by Serb security forces during the U.S.-led
NATO bombing of Serbia earlier this year.

Some 10,000 ethnic Albanians were estimated to have died during a Serb crackdown that ended in June when Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic accepted a peace plan for Kosovo.

Kouchner also released crime statistic surveys by the 45,000-strong international force in Kosovo, called KFOR, that showed the murder and arson rates greatly reduced between June and August. But the burning of homes soared in July and in mid-August before dropping again by August 30.

Despite efforts to make the province multi-ethnic, Kouchner, a physician and the former French health minister, said hatreds among the Albanians were still strong with fresh mass graves discovered daily.

"We must break the spirit of revenge among the whole people," he said, adding that the tasks could not be accomplished "in weeks or months" but in years like in Lebanon, Cambodia or El Salvador.

He said his own country, France, as well as Italy took a long time to recover from "those who resisted and those who did not" during World War II.

Diplomats said he told the Security Council that he needed at least 6,000 international civilian police officers.

The council had authorized 3,100 and some 1,000 are on the ground. He also said he was short $3 million of the $12 million the United Nations needed to pay the salaries of Kosovo public
employees and medical staff for September.

Kouchner and U.S. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke have formed a close relationship since Holbrooke travelled to Kosovo earlier this month. Calling Kouchner's briefing to the council
"brilliant," Holbrooke said, "Dr Kouchner is the right man in the right place at the right time."

(C)1999 Copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters Limited.

oh, Kouchner is a real gem!

"You're a real cutie, Daniela"

Phill, beware not to fall in love with me!

>>>I have just finished watching the Charlie Rose interview of Bernard Kouchner. Let me just say that this was the first time that I had
seen an extensive interview with Kouchner. This gave me a chance to remark his characteristics.

I got the impression that he was the most vile (we should have bombed the "Belgrade regime" earlier), ill-informed (before 1989,
Kosovo was "peachy" he says), most idiotic (I hate the word "ethnic", this is the base for hate, as if without the name "Serbian" and
"Albanian" there would be no distinction between the two!) and most naive that I have ever seen walk the earth.

His admiration for the Jasharis and his pleading of the KLA's propaganda cause is revoltingly disgusting. His hypocrisy surfaces when
he speaks of "reconciliation" and then stalls for time in order to get as much Serbs killed or expulsed and does everything to satisfy
the KLA which is at the root of the problems.

As well, he somehow claims that "Every Serb killed makes Milosevic". Apparently, the Serbs are guilty because their 80 year-old
granmothers are getting killed.

But what is most interesting when he says: "I believe that military action should be taken to protect an endangered minorities, even
if this means disregarding territorial integrity".

Well, isn't that fine. Then I guess that Yugoslavia should immediately intervene to protect the non-Albanian minorities in Kosovo
because they are subject to a genocide. Furthermore, no territorial integrity would be violated as Kosovo is already part of
Yugoslavia.

But, Kouchner is THE biggest hypocrite of all, he of course, is opposed to any Yugoslav soldiers coming back. <<<<