(english)
Kosovo and the Balkans as a US Presidential Election Issue (3)
1. DEFEATING "TERRORISM?" - Commentaries by R.K.Kent
2. Documentary reveals Albanian arms dealer donated cash to the Kerry
campaign (Scotland on Sunday, 24 Oct 2004)
See also:
Kosovo and the Balkans as a US Presidential Election Issue (1)
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/3917
Kosovo and the Balkans as a US Presidential Election Issue (2) -
INCLUDING MANY USEFUL HYPERLINKS
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/3926
=== 1 ===
DEFEATING "TERRORISM?”
The Real Questions
R.K.Kent, Historian
(24-09-2004)
Throughout the debate on terrorism and how to prevent and arrest it,
two key questions have NOT been addressed adequately, if at all. .
First, “terrorism” has to be defined. In the second place, in order to
be convincing, it has to be clear that the American People oppose and
ARE prepared to oppose concretely terrorism everywhere , including the
U.S.’s .own, and not only against itself and its citizens abroad. This
is absolutely essential if the U.S. can develop and count on external
support it lacks at the present time.Without this external support,
even a Fortress America will not be able to defeat terrorism against
Americans at home and abroad.
Is there only one kind of terrorism? Decidedly not. There are, first,
individual acts,
carried out on ideological grounds, hate against ANY authority or
demands for ransom. There are,also, what one could call “private” acts
of terrorism. Usually, these involve a grouplet not connected with a
state or religion or etrhnicity. They are often directed at a specific
target -a corporation, research involving defensless animals, an
abortion clinic and so on. The next level involves what can be called
“stateless” terrorism. The most obvious _expression of this type is in
present-day Iraq. Here, we have an intersection of local nationalism
with pan-Arab and pan-Islamic dimensions. Finally, there is state
terrorism. It does not much matter if the comes from 35,000 feet above
the ground, or the ground itself or, yet, to shore-up some “moral”
principle, from naval off-shore craft.
Here comes the first question. Are we opposed to and willing to fight
against terrorism directed at all lawful governments and the citizens
of their particular states? Our own record here is far from being very
“clean.” Different U.S. Administrations have we trained the Contras in
Latin America , the Albanian UCK at Kosovo, the Afghans against the
Soviets, the Croats and the Bosnian Muslims against the Serbs, the
Kurds against Iraq and Turkey, only to dump them afterwards. Why is it
that “humanitatrian” interventions abroad gratify the egos of so many
influential people at home but turn the local populations --even the
once openly pro-American-- into real and or alleged “ennemies.?” If the
pattern of supporting terrorists that fit our foreign policy
predilections does not visibly and clearly suffer defeat at home, we
simply cannot win the war against terrorism directed at American
targets.
The basic, very first step, is to forbid by law (with built-in heavy
penalties, including expulsion from Congress)) that our Solons may not
engage in support of this or that ethnicity abroad as a result of funds
donated to them by American-ethnic PACs. The harm abroad, generated by
one or more influential representatives in the Congress can be locally
catastrophic, setting the stage for endless future bloodshed. Perhaps
the most pointed example is the support of Robert Dole for Greater
Albania when he was one of the most powerful members of Congress as
well as Presidential Candidate.This kind of support has served to
destabilize Macedonia and threaten Greece, Serbia and Montenegro. Bob
Dole could not care less. The Macedonians, the Greeks, the Serbs and
the Montenegrins could not care more. The all-powerful Albanian clans
cannot stop demanding “minority rights” outside Kosovo and “majority
rights” at Kosovo. They have been astute in securing repeatedly the
support of the current world power, as they did in the case of Nazi
Germany and Fascist Italy in the 1940’s. The antecedent of the KLA
(Kosovo Liberation Army or UCK) is the S.S. Skenderbeg Division which
“cleansed” Kosovo ethnically through massive killings and generalized
terror against the once-dominant Serb majority at Kosovo. This has
continued since Kosovo went under U.N. and occupation by NATO troops.
While Americans of Serb origins won eight Congressional Medals of Honor
in two World Wars, they were no match for the Americans of Albanian
provenance in securing any Congressional support. The Albanian-American
PACs have donated large amounts of money to carefully selected Solons
in Washington. The steady support for Greater Albania came into force
and it is still extant. It is not a great secret where the money came
from. Albanian-Americans once dominated the drug-traffic in New York
and New Jersey, until the Mafia struck back. This is an example which
illustrates the volatile consequences of “purchasing” our Solons by the
PACs of a single ethnic group at home. This example can be multiplied
easily. but it serves to make the point.There was a chance of arriving
at an Albanian-Serb modus vivendi at Kosovo. The vast majority of
ethnic Albanians and ethnic Serbs cannot be defned by their own extreme
elements. Bob Dole killed that chance before it was born. He did
receive a handful of ducats.
The next step involves the willingness to admit to ourselves that
bombing foreign civilians from 35,000 feet above the ground, for
whatever reason or reasons, is an act of State terrorism. In recent
times, the driving intent, stripped of all the cosmetics, has been to
force local populations to replace, by any means, their own governments
in power. It has been given the deflecting term of “collateral damage.”
“We bombed their military but ‘collateral damage’ is “inevitable.” “War
is Hell.” End of debate. Not long ago, in a CBS interview with Dan
Rather, General Wesley Clark intimated that the Serbs should actually
be grateful for being bombed by NATO (under U.S. command and control).
This kind of “teflonism,” to coin a term, is powerfully responsible for
gradual, increasing and more intense dislike abroad of the United
States and, by extension, “the Americans” in general. It will not allow
us to “win the war” against terrorism. To take another page from Balkan
History, during the four centuries of Ottoman occupation the Slav
resistance fighters were called “Hajduks.” They could neither exist nor
fight the Mighty Porte at Istambul without the “jataci” This is the
name given to supporters of “Hajduks” within virtually the entire
occupied population. The anti-American “jataci” will forever harbor and
sustain their “hajduks” against the Mighty Power at Washington unless
we can grasp that our own violence abroad cannot win us the “jataci.”
It does not much matter locally on what “moral” grounds (or in the name
of not very visible “self-defense”) the populations in situ are bombed
from the air or through direct or surrogate ground “interventions.”
The U.S. must not be the sole selector of terrorists who need to be
renderend impotent in one way or another. It should not, equally,
transform “approved” terrorists into “freedom fighters.” There are no
“Virtous Wars.” There has to be an International Anti-Terrorist
Tribunal which takes into account the vaieties of terrorism with the
main focus on state and stateless varieties. Our objections to such a
Tribunal could easily be accomodated by allowing the Tribunal to bring
charges against U.S. citizens into courts within the U.S. It should
follow the same formula for citizens of all other states. The Trbunal
would be mainly an investigative and advisory body not the judge and
the jury serving an ideology or a contemporary super-power.
Last but perhaps the hardest to grasp “at the end of the day,”
indigenous “strong men” are preferable to foreign occupations no matter
under what name they are implemented. Democracy does not come in a
single form. It is not attained in a couiple of years. It has many
variants which allow local populations to “get” to their leaders
without internal anti-government violence.Democracy (rule by demos or
people, in Greek) is, to parphrase Winston Churchill, “the worst form
of government but we have been unable to find anything better.” There
has to come a time when lecturing other countries and populations on
how they should manage their own households will stop in our media and
Government. We do not have a mandate from God to remake the globe in
our particular image. It is also high time to avoid making ennemies
where there are none. It is even more pressing to avoid the
glorification of war itself. At best, it is an obvious necesity for
self-defense. Nothing more.
With the will to address the key questions and problems all of the
foregoing constitutes merely the beginning of the end of stateless and
state terrorism. To beat the anti-American terrorists it will be a
basic necessity to win the hearts and minds of their“jataci.” Military
actions, economic sancations that actually punish a people and not
their elites and “superior” lectures will just not do. We need to
rediscover ourselves through introspection in order to be credible. It
is a huge task against all sorts of special interests out to preserve
and perpatuate the Imperium. Yet, no other nation has had a greater
capacity for change.
The ability to change is, in fact, a defining trait of our American
Culture
Raymond K. Kent, Emeritus
History Department,
University of California at Berkeley
---
TO BE OR NOT TO BE,
THEN AND NOW AND
TOMORROW.
R. K. Kent, Historian
“Let not the waves of the sea separate us now...love
knows not its own depth until the hour of
separation.’ (Khalil Gibran in ‘The Prophet,’ p.9,
1946 Ed., Knopf, N.Y.)
Someone who declaired that this writer was not specifically targeted
despite ample proof to the contrary, forwarded a text to him. It is
entitled “Countdown to Election Day - Muslim Group Endorses Kerry.
Cites civil-liberties restrictions, harsh foreign policies.” It
appeared in WorldNetDaily, 5 October 2004. The intent behind the
targeting was to perform a sort of political lobotomy. Its surgical
mission was to implant a microchip into the recipient’s brain with the
following program based on reasoning by analogy. Any Presidential
Candidate for election who is favored by the voting American citizens
of Muslim faith does not deserve to be elected. The cerebral clincher
was rooted in a simple concept, already in wide dissemination, namely
that our fellow-Americans of Muslim faith cannot be at all trusted
because they are “in reality” against “us.” Perhaps an individual
example of this mentaity in action drives home the point in a poignant
way.
A Muslim scholar who is a Swiss citizen of Egyptian origin, Tariq
Ramadan, had been invited by Notre Dame University to take up residence
as a Chair-Endowed, distinguished Professor of Religion. Two months
later, on his way to the U.S. our Consul in Switzerland informed
Professor Ramadan that his visa had been revoked “by Washington.” So
far, no one has been able to find out exactly why. Professor Ramadan
happens to be Europe’s “best known Muslim intellectual” as is pointed
out in a leading New York Times article (Deborah Sontag, NYT, 6
Octobwer 2004). More than that he has been urging Europe’s Muslims to
take part in the denmocratic process through self-empowrement. He has
been listened to as many European Muslims of some standing have
repudiated terrorism and its hijacked links with Islam. Moreover,
before his scheduled departure to the U.S. a “security review” had
given him clearance to assume the appointment. The pluses of this ban
are hard to imagine and the minuses are numerous.
It is an absolute necessity to inform the readers of the present text
that “reasoning by analogy” died with the European Renaissance,
centuries ago. It was replaced by science. Yet, it is still popular
with the current Administration (“Sadam did it before he will do it
again”) as it was with Mr. Clinton’s own, “the enemy of my enemy is my
friend,” invented ennemies and invented friends not withstanding , all
neatly wrapped -up in moral imperatives leading to war, to the killing
of civilians, destroying their economy and pushing a specific people
back into the Nineteenth Century. Why? Because their leaders,
once deemed useful, had the nerve to disobey the White House. Now. back
to the subject at hand.
Where exactly are we, the people, being led by those who are repeatedly
fanning fires against Muslims? Without a perpetual war against an
amorphous ennemy, defined mainly by religion, what Dwight Eisenhower
called the “Military-Industrial Complex” would suffer a drastic
reduction in all sorts of finances and power to influence decisively
both domestic and foreign policies. Seventy-eight days of a bombing
mission in the Balkans in 1999 depleted severely all the hardware
dropped down from the skies. The re-ordering profits must have been
huge (no exact figure is available) for certain corporations and their
shareholders. A victory was proclaimed and it is repeated constantly.
Yet, it is precisely our intervention in the Balkans that started the
radical transformation which is hardly of any advantage to the American
People. To put it succinctly, we replaced the imploded Soviet Union as
the “Evil Empire” through an unambigous message that our “Might” is
“always Right.” Not Islam, but our own arrogant and pontificating
behavior abroad, has been our most fundamentalist ennemy.
“Fundamentalist” because there has been no fundamental change.. In the
immortal words of Lee Hamilton, after the 911 Report, “we (just) did
not get it.”
Our war-time governments seem to invariably relish the practice of
performing political lobotomies on the home public’s crania. They are
at it again today with a new war on hand. But, there are two
differences. Our two oceans offer no further protection. They may even
be the duct for future clamities at home. In the previous war “against
the Serbs,” it was “explained” repeatedly as a moral imperative to
protect “human rights.”Yet, a host of contradictions revealed a
different agenda. At the time, our media became both frenzied and
ecstatic in waves of a hate-mongering campaign , focusing its venom on
a specific people, a relentless target. Hundreds of letters and dozens
of scientific, well-documented refutations of the viscious propaganda
were simply tossed into the garbage cans of the Editorial Office. The
media today, however, is not “homogenous” and some of its important
segments are not willing to be the tools of Government.
This was not the situation when the first attack on the World Trade
Center took place in 1993, from the ground up. Immediately, the
satanized Balkan ethnicity came to be blamed without any proof. There
were several dozens of reports about mistreatment by fellow-Americans
of this particular European ethnicity. Some individuals were isolated
by co-workers. Some were fired. Some could not get a job. Some were
verbally abused. Some received telephone threats. Some began to be
shadowed. The bill of particulars hardly ends with the highlights.Some
rather fast work by the FBI, which had as yet not been politicized,
discovered that foreigners of Muslim faith carried out the attack on
the WTC. It took, however, many years to remove this particular stigma,
attached to the citizens of the “wrong” ethnicity. There was even a
movie in which a“co-ethnic” from abroad carried a minitaure atom bomb
into New York City and was thwarted in the last minute by two FBI
agents.
Yet, the mistreastment of fellow-Americans merely under suspicion of
wishing (or potentially) working for some external ennemy is not just
an aberration, without precedent in modern history. . By now, it is
widely known what was done to the Japanese-Americans (both native-born
here and naturalized) after Pearl Harbor, a galvanizing event just like
the second attack on the WTC and the first on Pentagon. It has taken
half a century to admit the wrong and openly regret the detention camps
and the dispossesion of private properties. During the same period, as
we went to war in Asia and in Europe, similar suspicion came into view
involving some Italian-Americans and German-Americans but without
equallty harsh consequences. Then, in the 1990’s, came the turn for
“the Serbs,” a manufactured new “enemy.” As a by-product of modern
communication technology Western media in general satanized this
invented “enemy” to a degree that surpasses by far earlier examples of
this type. The “virtuous war” against “the Serbs” is over. It has cost
them heavily, the stigma still lingers but “Amerika” replaced America
with most of its respect and its credibility on the downslide.
Thereafter, came “the Arabs” and now it is all “Muslims.” As Phillip
Roth has more than sugested in his political novel, “The Plot Against
America,” tomorrow it could well be “the Jews.” But why stop there? One
can go further, with Chinese-Americans “working for China,” American
Latinos working to “annex “ Texas and/or Califiornia to Mexico, the
road into self-Balkanization is almost endless.The irony of the term
resides in the fact that the standard definition of “Balknization”
involves interference by foreign powers with the aim of promoting and
exacerbatiing local “tribal” conflicts in order to split a nation such
as Yugoslavia once was, having emerged after centuries under two
foreign Empires, Austrian and Ottoman. We are doing it to ourselves
just as the American People are increasingly incorporting new and
rapily growing ethnicities from abroad. Most of the new arrivals --and
that includes Americans of Muslim faith-- came here to improve their
lives, not to blow-up American cities.
None can deny that the main terrorism today against us at home and
abroad has its roots in the Middle East, involving many complex local
and international factors which have been and are widely discussed,
from almost any angle. Proportionally, the French have a greater Muslim
population than we do. Most are naturalized or born citizens of France.
Some of the French do resent them but find little real support among
the French People as a whole. They are tolerant of their Muslims.
France has impressed this human capital into the service of moderation
at home, despite attempts by the so-called “jihadists” to radicalize
the French Muslims. The only acts of serious and violent terrorism in
France involves some Basque separatists who have nothing to do with
Islam. They arer seeking independence for the Basques (rom both France
and Spain) but, again, the vast majority of French Basques do not
support them.
Is it not possible to envisage the beginning of deconstruction of
terrorism against us beyond only the clandestine and/or open military
and para-military actions abroad, above and beyond imposing an
unpleasant, fearful existance on our Muslims? The movie “Siege” makes a
powerful statement in respect to the mistreatment .Tariq Ramadan has
managed to create a link between Democracy and Islam through
participation in the political process. More than that, he has grasped
what our mentality has not. In order to defeat terrorism connected with
Islam it is necessary to convince the vast Muslim majorities to deny
any acceptance of the “jihadists,” anywhere. We will not even give a
chance to this difficult task by turning against our Muslims and by
continuing our arrogance abroad, military or otherwise. There has to be
a will to alter the mentality itself and no one can do it for us.
Badly advised at home, President Clinton took the Muslim side in a
Yugoslavia that he had helped to “Balkanize” in the hope that this
would have a beneficial influence on the Middle Eastern peace process.
He even imposed in Bosnia a Muslim-controlled state that never existed.
Yet, this did not at all affect the developments in the Middle East. It
created a problem precisely where three religions and
religiously-defined ethnic groups managed to live together and
intermarry. He allowd the introduction of Iranian arms and externl but
very militant Muslim elements. Just recently and by chance it has been
discovered that Bin Laden had been there and still has connections. The
time has long past when major decisions can be made on th bassis of
reasoning-by -analogy. We need to know what we are doing at the
grass-roots level because foreign policy is now crucial to our own
survival Defining American Muslims by a few extreme elements among them
is the worst mistake we could make. An option is clearly at hand.
Our Muslims can sustain a dialogue and can have an influnce on the
separation of Islam from terrorism, thus delegitimizing it gradually at
the source. Senator Kerry seems to understand that the threat to their
civil liberties must be deconstructed before they too can defend all of
us and our foreign policy must indeed be less solipsistic and“:harsh”
in a sustained, convincing fashion. Otherwise, it will be next to
impossible to replace a perceived need for terrorism with votes. When
it comes to civil liberties, which define America and which make the
nation strong in an inner sense, the incumbent President seems unable
to find any serious attacks on them. Yet, larger and smaller instances
to the contrary are multiplying. We are losing, by inches, the greatest
co-habitational and still free space on Planet Earth. The phenomenon
(and noumenon) called the “American Innocence”had closed our minds to a
striking reality. While the rest of the World started to dislike us and
some of it mutated into hate, we could not arrest the
self-congratulations for being so involved in our marvelous behavior
abroad in defense of “Human Rights.” We just “did not get it.” Will we?
Can we?
Raymond K.Kent (Emeritus)
History Department, U. of California at Berkeley
(510/642-1971)
8 October 2004
---
FOURTH OPEN LETTER
TO SENATOR KERRY
R.K.Kent, Historian
Dear Senator Kerry,
A few minutes ago I heard you ask us, the American People, to trust
you. This trust is to encompass both domestic and foreign policies.
On the domestic side I have few bones to grind. The middle class is
squeezed in favor of the waelthy.Out-sourcing is severely taxing the
lives of our workers and their families.Health protections are
extremely uneven and hence un-American in texture.Education and
“re-tooling” is the key to American prosperity in the Twenty-first
Century. You made no substantive reference to our civil libarties and
rights, however. Our FBI, once a protector of our civil liberties,
became a political police during the Clinton Administration. It is
increasingly expanding in this direction for an ostensibly higher goal,
namely to prevent terrorist attacks against us at home. This can be
“fixed,” as you like to say, by such measures as a directive not to go
around checking what kind of books we take out of libraries, a
disgusting prelude to worse. The problem you will encounter and cave
under is in the area of foreign policy.
No matter what you SAY you are surrounded by the same foreign-policy
truth-benders and manipulators that prevailed in the Administration of
Bill Clinton. I know them minutely and well through their words and
deeds in the Balkans. It is precisely our entry into the Balkans, as a
result of their would-be “Moral Imperatives” to get involved and their
glaring arrogance, that we began to be disliked and, increasingly,
hated around the globe. All of them have spread around the same
message” “our Might makes us invariably Right.” Remember Nazi Germany?
Yet, they are wrapping themselves around you like a boa constrictor and
you seem to WELCOME them.
The more prominent among the ilk, hell-bent on demanding unquestioned
obedience to our power abroad, are Richard H., Madeleine A., Wesley C.,
Madeleine’s Rubin but there are a number of others less well known to
our public at large that belong to the same opinionated, arrogant lot
that we simply MUST eliminate from foreign policy altogether if we ever
can hope to torpedo terrorism coming from abroad. The time has past
when the old “pommade” of morality and “human” rights used to befuddle
through bafflegab, engineered mayhem , would-be “mass graves” and the
viscious, venomous media destructions of individuals and groups deemed
basically “disobedient” vis-a-vis the center of Universe, Washington,
D.C.
In short, if you really hope to be able to change our current image
abroad, you MUST not give foreign-policy positions to any one with the
previous “Balkan” record, to mention only the area I am familiar with.
We must not yield to calls for being “:smart.” We can only be stupid by
thinking that we are smart enough to outsmart everyone abroad (and at
home). This is the main reason why we have lost credibility abroad and
why so many of our own people question increasingly the foreign
policies which make us the target of hate and vengeance. If we are to
get more of the same I hope that you will not win. It is better to have
a President who apears to be “underdevloped” abroad than to have a
President who is so “smart” as to secretly assume that the universal
truth, stated by Abraham Lincoln about fooling people, is bunk.
Respectfully.
Raymond K. Kent
(Emeritus)
History Department,
University of California,
Berkeley, CA. 94720
(510/642-1971)
14.10.2004
=== 2 ===
http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1244732004
Scotland on Sunday - International
Documentary reveals Albanian arms
dealer donated cash to the Kerry campaign
Sun 24 Oct 2004
FRASER NELSON
IN NEW YORK
JOHN Kerry has acquired a financial backer likely to provide him with
more problems than support in his battle for the White House: the
Kosovo Liberation Army.
A documentary produced by a Dutch television crew alleges Florin
Krasniqi, an Albanian arms dealer, is buying weapons in the US and
sending them to Kosovo - while perfecting contacts with the Democratic
Party in the United States.
Mr Krasniqi is filmed at a Kerry fundraising event handing over a
cheque, then chatting and joking with senior Democrats including Wesley
Clark, the former NATO commander and Richard Holbrooke, Mr Kerry's
senior foreign policy adviser.
The documentary, broadcast last month in The Netherlands and seen by
The Scotsman, follows Mr Krasniqi from his home in Brooklyn in New York
to his Albanian base where he distributes arms to mercenaries on the
Kosovo border.
Showing remarkable candour, Mr Krasniqi says the KLA has "unfinished
business" with the Serbs and predicts that war will break out again in
"about a year and a half" if the UN does grant Kosovo independence from
Serbia and Montenegro.
The Kerry fundraising event is shown making a direct pitch for Albanian
money. Mr Holbrooke warns in a speech that Mr Bush is planning to pull
troops out of Kosovo - the implication being the Serbs would be
unconstrained.
John Belushi, the Albanian-American actor, then appears in a video
soliciting donations. "If you care about the fate of Albanians in the
Balkans, I hope you'll do anything to can to make sure John Kerry is
elected as our next President," he says.
The documentary goes on to show Mr Krasniqi buying guns from a dealer
in St Mary's, Pennsylvania.
With frankness bordering on the brazen, he explains to the film crew
how easy it is to smuggle arms. "We had set up a hunting club in
Albania," he says - and simply tell anyone who asks they are planning
an excursion to Tasmania.
He admits being "caught twice" - by Italian and Swiss authorities - but
allowed to proceed after saying the Albanian hunting club was preparing
for an expedition to hunt elephants in Tasmania. Other arms are
smuggled under humanitarian aid, he says.
While there is no suggestion that Mr Kerry had knowledge about the
funds being donated by Mr Krasniqi, the video will be deeply
embarrassing for the Massachusetts senator as he combats accusations of
being soft on terror.
Mr Krasniqi is named in the Federal Election Commission returns as a
registered donor to the Kerry campaign at his Brooklyn address. The sum
is dollars 1,000. The Kerry-Edwards campaign was asked to comment, but
did not return calls to The Scotsman yesterday.
Kosovo and the Balkans as a US Presidential Election Issue (3)
1. DEFEATING "TERRORISM?" - Commentaries by R.K.Kent
2. Documentary reveals Albanian arms dealer donated cash to the Kerry
campaign (Scotland on Sunday, 24 Oct 2004)
See also:
Kosovo and the Balkans as a US Presidential Election Issue (1)
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/3917
Kosovo and the Balkans as a US Presidential Election Issue (2) -
INCLUDING MANY USEFUL HYPERLINKS
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/3926
=== 1 ===
DEFEATING "TERRORISM?”
The Real Questions
R.K.Kent, Historian
(24-09-2004)
Throughout the debate on terrorism and how to prevent and arrest it,
two key questions have NOT been addressed adequately, if at all. .
First, “terrorism” has to be defined. In the second place, in order to
be convincing, it has to be clear that the American People oppose and
ARE prepared to oppose concretely terrorism everywhere , including the
U.S.’s .own, and not only against itself and its citizens abroad. This
is absolutely essential if the U.S. can develop and count on external
support it lacks at the present time.Without this external support,
even a Fortress America will not be able to defeat terrorism against
Americans at home and abroad.
Is there only one kind of terrorism? Decidedly not. There are, first,
individual acts,
carried out on ideological grounds, hate against ANY authority or
demands for ransom. There are,also, what one could call “private” acts
of terrorism. Usually, these involve a grouplet not connected with a
state or religion or etrhnicity. They are often directed at a specific
target -a corporation, research involving defensless animals, an
abortion clinic and so on. The next level involves what can be called
“stateless” terrorism. The most obvious _expression of this type is in
present-day Iraq. Here, we have an intersection of local nationalism
with pan-Arab and pan-Islamic dimensions. Finally, there is state
terrorism. It does not much matter if the comes from 35,000 feet above
the ground, or the ground itself or, yet, to shore-up some “moral”
principle, from naval off-shore craft.
Here comes the first question. Are we opposed to and willing to fight
against terrorism directed at all lawful governments and the citizens
of their particular states? Our own record here is far from being very
“clean.” Different U.S. Administrations have we trained the Contras in
Latin America , the Albanian UCK at Kosovo, the Afghans against the
Soviets, the Croats and the Bosnian Muslims against the Serbs, the
Kurds against Iraq and Turkey, only to dump them afterwards. Why is it
that “humanitatrian” interventions abroad gratify the egos of so many
influential people at home but turn the local populations --even the
once openly pro-American-- into real and or alleged “ennemies.?” If the
pattern of supporting terrorists that fit our foreign policy
predilections does not visibly and clearly suffer defeat at home, we
simply cannot win the war against terrorism directed at American
targets.
The basic, very first step, is to forbid by law (with built-in heavy
penalties, including expulsion from Congress)) that our Solons may not
engage in support of this or that ethnicity abroad as a result of funds
donated to them by American-ethnic PACs. The harm abroad, generated by
one or more influential representatives in the Congress can be locally
catastrophic, setting the stage for endless future bloodshed. Perhaps
the most pointed example is the support of Robert Dole for Greater
Albania when he was one of the most powerful members of Congress as
well as Presidential Candidate.This kind of support has served to
destabilize Macedonia and threaten Greece, Serbia and Montenegro. Bob
Dole could not care less. The Macedonians, the Greeks, the Serbs and
the Montenegrins could not care more. The all-powerful Albanian clans
cannot stop demanding “minority rights” outside Kosovo and “majority
rights” at Kosovo. They have been astute in securing repeatedly the
support of the current world power, as they did in the case of Nazi
Germany and Fascist Italy in the 1940’s. The antecedent of the KLA
(Kosovo Liberation Army or UCK) is the S.S. Skenderbeg Division which
“cleansed” Kosovo ethnically through massive killings and generalized
terror against the once-dominant Serb majority at Kosovo. This has
continued since Kosovo went under U.N. and occupation by NATO troops.
While Americans of Serb origins won eight Congressional Medals of Honor
in two World Wars, they were no match for the Americans of Albanian
provenance in securing any Congressional support. The Albanian-American
PACs have donated large amounts of money to carefully selected Solons
in Washington. The steady support for Greater Albania came into force
and it is still extant. It is not a great secret where the money came
from. Albanian-Americans once dominated the drug-traffic in New York
and New Jersey, until the Mafia struck back. This is an example which
illustrates the volatile consequences of “purchasing” our Solons by the
PACs of a single ethnic group at home. This example can be multiplied
easily. but it serves to make the point.There was a chance of arriving
at an Albanian-Serb modus vivendi at Kosovo. The vast majority of
ethnic Albanians and ethnic Serbs cannot be defned by their own extreme
elements. Bob Dole killed that chance before it was born. He did
receive a handful of ducats.
The next step involves the willingness to admit to ourselves that
bombing foreign civilians from 35,000 feet above the ground, for
whatever reason or reasons, is an act of State terrorism. In recent
times, the driving intent, stripped of all the cosmetics, has been to
force local populations to replace, by any means, their own governments
in power. It has been given the deflecting term of “collateral damage.”
“We bombed their military but ‘collateral damage’ is “inevitable.” “War
is Hell.” End of debate. Not long ago, in a CBS interview with Dan
Rather, General Wesley Clark intimated that the Serbs should actually
be grateful for being bombed by NATO (under U.S. command and control).
This kind of “teflonism,” to coin a term, is powerfully responsible for
gradual, increasing and more intense dislike abroad of the United
States and, by extension, “the Americans” in general. It will not allow
us to “win the war” against terrorism. To take another page from Balkan
History, during the four centuries of Ottoman occupation the Slav
resistance fighters were called “Hajduks.” They could neither exist nor
fight the Mighty Porte at Istambul without the “jataci” This is the
name given to supporters of “Hajduks” within virtually the entire
occupied population. The anti-American “jataci” will forever harbor and
sustain their “hajduks” against the Mighty Power at Washington unless
we can grasp that our own violence abroad cannot win us the “jataci.”
It does not much matter locally on what “moral” grounds (or in the name
of not very visible “self-defense”) the populations in situ are bombed
from the air or through direct or surrogate ground “interventions.”
The U.S. must not be the sole selector of terrorists who need to be
renderend impotent in one way or another. It should not, equally,
transform “approved” terrorists into “freedom fighters.” There are no
“Virtous Wars.” There has to be an International Anti-Terrorist
Tribunal which takes into account the vaieties of terrorism with the
main focus on state and stateless varieties. Our objections to such a
Tribunal could easily be accomodated by allowing the Tribunal to bring
charges against U.S. citizens into courts within the U.S. It should
follow the same formula for citizens of all other states. The Trbunal
would be mainly an investigative and advisory body not the judge and
the jury serving an ideology or a contemporary super-power.
Last but perhaps the hardest to grasp “at the end of the day,”
indigenous “strong men” are preferable to foreign occupations no matter
under what name they are implemented. Democracy does not come in a
single form. It is not attained in a couiple of years. It has many
variants which allow local populations to “get” to their leaders
without internal anti-government violence.Democracy (rule by demos or
people, in Greek) is, to parphrase Winston Churchill, “the worst form
of government but we have been unable to find anything better.” There
has to come a time when lecturing other countries and populations on
how they should manage their own households will stop in our media and
Government. We do not have a mandate from God to remake the globe in
our particular image. It is also high time to avoid making ennemies
where there are none. It is even more pressing to avoid the
glorification of war itself. At best, it is an obvious necesity for
self-defense. Nothing more.
With the will to address the key questions and problems all of the
foregoing constitutes merely the beginning of the end of stateless and
state terrorism. To beat the anti-American terrorists it will be a
basic necessity to win the hearts and minds of their“jataci.” Military
actions, economic sancations that actually punish a people and not
their elites and “superior” lectures will just not do. We need to
rediscover ourselves through introspection in order to be credible. It
is a huge task against all sorts of special interests out to preserve
and perpatuate the Imperium. Yet, no other nation has had a greater
capacity for change.
The ability to change is, in fact, a defining trait of our American
Culture
Raymond K. Kent, Emeritus
History Department,
University of California at Berkeley
---
TO BE OR NOT TO BE,
THEN AND NOW AND
TOMORROW.
R. K. Kent, Historian
“Let not the waves of the sea separate us now...love
knows not its own depth until the hour of
separation.’ (Khalil Gibran in ‘The Prophet,’ p.9,
1946 Ed., Knopf, N.Y.)
Someone who declaired that this writer was not specifically targeted
despite ample proof to the contrary, forwarded a text to him. It is
entitled “Countdown to Election Day - Muslim Group Endorses Kerry.
Cites civil-liberties restrictions, harsh foreign policies.” It
appeared in WorldNetDaily, 5 October 2004. The intent behind the
targeting was to perform a sort of political lobotomy. Its surgical
mission was to implant a microchip into the recipient’s brain with the
following program based on reasoning by analogy. Any Presidential
Candidate for election who is favored by the voting American citizens
of Muslim faith does not deserve to be elected. The cerebral clincher
was rooted in a simple concept, already in wide dissemination, namely
that our fellow-Americans of Muslim faith cannot be at all trusted
because they are “in reality” against “us.” Perhaps an individual
example of this mentaity in action drives home the point in a poignant
way.
A Muslim scholar who is a Swiss citizen of Egyptian origin, Tariq
Ramadan, had been invited by Notre Dame University to take up residence
as a Chair-Endowed, distinguished Professor of Religion. Two months
later, on his way to the U.S. our Consul in Switzerland informed
Professor Ramadan that his visa had been revoked “by Washington.” So
far, no one has been able to find out exactly why. Professor Ramadan
happens to be Europe’s “best known Muslim intellectual” as is pointed
out in a leading New York Times article (Deborah Sontag, NYT, 6
Octobwer 2004). More than that he has been urging Europe’s Muslims to
take part in the denmocratic process through self-empowrement. He has
been listened to as many European Muslims of some standing have
repudiated terrorism and its hijacked links with Islam. Moreover,
before his scheduled departure to the U.S. a “security review” had
given him clearance to assume the appointment. The pluses of this ban
are hard to imagine and the minuses are numerous.
It is an absolute necessity to inform the readers of the present text
that “reasoning by analogy” died with the European Renaissance,
centuries ago. It was replaced by science. Yet, it is still popular
with the current Administration (“Sadam did it before he will do it
again”) as it was with Mr. Clinton’s own, “the enemy of my enemy is my
friend,” invented ennemies and invented friends not withstanding , all
neatly wrapped -up in moral imperatives leading to war, to the killing
of civilians, destroying their economy and pushing a specific people
back into the Nineteenth Century. Why? Because their leaders,
once deemed useful, had the nerve to disobey the White House. Now. back
to the subject at hand.
Where exactly are we, the people, being led by those who are repeatedly
fanning fires against Muslims? Without a perpetual war against an
amorphous ennemy, defined mainly by religion, what Dwight Eisenhower
called the “Military-Industrial Complex” would suffer a drastic
reduction in all sorts of finances and power to influence decisively
both domestic and foreign policies. Seventy-eight days of a bombing
mission in the Balkans in 1999 depleted severely all the hardware
dropped down from the skies. The re-ordering profits must have been
huge (no exact figure is available) for certain corporations and their
shareholders. A victory was proclaimed and it is repeated constantly.
Yet, it is precisely our intervention in the Balkans that started the
radical transformation which is hardly of any advantage to the American
People. To put it succinctly, we replaced the imploded Soviet Union as
the “Evil Empire” through an unambigous message that our “Might” is
“always Right.” Not Islam, but our own arrogant and pontificating
behavior abroad, has been our most fundamentalist ennemy.
“Fundamentalist” because there has been no fundamental change.. In the
immortal words of Lee Hamilton, after the 911 Report, “we (just) did
not get it.”
Our war-time governments seem to invariably relish the practice of
performing political lobotomies on the home public’s crania. They are
at it again today with a new war on hand. But, there are two
differences. Our two oceans offer no further protection. They may even
be the duct for future clamities at home. In the previous war “against
the Serbs,” it was “explained” repeatedly as a moral imperative to
protect “human rights.”Yet, a host of contradictions revealed a
different agenda. At the time, our media became both frenzied and
ecstatic in waves of a hate-mongering campaign , focusing its venom on
a specific people, a relentless target. Hundreds of letters and dozens
of scientific, well-documented refutations of the viscious propaganda
were simply tossed into the garbage cans of the Editorial Office. The
media today, however, is not “homogenous” and some of its important
segments are not willing to be the tools of Government.
This was not the situation when the first attack on the World Trade
Center took place in 1993, from the ground up. Immediately, the
satanized Balkan ethnicity came to be blamed without any proof. There
were several dozens of reports about mistreatment by fellow-Americans
of this particular European ethnicity. Some individuals were isolated
by co-workers. Some were fired. Some could not get a job. Some were
verbally abused. Some received telephone threats. Some began to be
shadowed. The bill of particulars hardly ends with the highlights.Some
rather fast work by the FBI, which had as yet not been politicized,
discovered that foreigners of Muslim faith carried out the attack on
the WTC. It took, however, many years to remove this particular stigma,
attached to the citizens of the “wrong” ethnicity. There was even a
movie in which a“co-ethnic” from abroad carried a minitaure atom bomb
into New York City and was thwarted in the last minute by two FBI
agents.
Yet, the mistreastment of fellow-Americans merely under suspicion of
wishing (or potentially) working for some external ennemy is not just
an aberration, without precedent in modern history. . By now, it is
widely known what was done to the Japanese-Americans (both native-born
here and naturalized) after Pearl Harbor, a galvanizing event just like
the second attack on the WTC and the first on Pentagon. It has taken
half a century to admit the wrong and openly regret the detention camps
and the dispossesion of private properties. During the same period, as
we went to war in Asia and in Europe, similar suspicion came into view
involving some Italian-Americans and German-Americans but without
equallty harsh consequences. Then, in the 1990’s, came the turn for
“the Serbs,” a manufactured new “enemy.” As a by-product of modern
communication technology Western media in general satanized this
invented “enemy” to a degree that surpasses by far earlier examples of
this type. The “virtuous war” against “the Serbs” is over. It has cost
them heavily, the stigma still lingers but “Amerika” replaced America
with most of its respect and its credibility on the downslide.
Thereafter, came “the Arabs” and now it is all “Muslims.” As Phillip
Roth has more than sugested in his political novel, “The Plot Against
America,” tomorrow it could well be “the Jews.” But why stop there? One
can go further, with Chinese-Americans “working for China,” American
Latinos working to “annex “ Texas and/or Califiornia to Mexico, the
road into self-Balkanization is almost endless.The irony of the term
resides in the fact that the standard definition of “Balknization”
involves interference by foreign powers with the aim of promoting and
exacerbatiing local “tribal” conflicts in order to split a nation such
as Yugoslavia once was, having emerged after centuries under two
foreign Empires, Austrian and Ottoman. We are doing it to ourselves
just as the American People are increasingly incorporting new and
rapily growing ethnicities from abroad. Most of the new arrivals --and
that includes Americans of Muslim faith-- came here to improve their
lives, not to blow-up American cities.
None can deny that the main terrorism today against us at home and
abroad has its roots in the Middle East, involving many complex local
and international factors which have been and are widely discussed,
from almost any angle. Proportionally, the French have a greater Muslim
population than we do. Most are naturalized or born citizens of France.
Some of the French do resent them but find little real support among
the French People as a whole. They are tolerant of their Muslims.
France has impressed this human capital into the service of moderation
at home, despite attempts by the so-called “jihadists” to radicalize
the French Muslims. The only acts of serious and violent terrorism in
France involves some Basque separatists who have nothing to do with
Islam. They arer seeking independence for the Basques (rom both France
and Spain) but, again, the vast majority of French Basques do not
support them.
Is it not possible to envisage the beginning of deconstruction of
terrorism against us beyond only the clandestine and/or open military
and para-military actions abroad, above and beyond imposing an
unpleasant, fearful existance on our Muslims? The movie “Siege” makes a
powerful statement in respect to the mistreatment .Tariq Ramadan has
managed to create a link between Democracy and Islam through
participation in the political process. More than that, he has grasped
what our mentality has not. In order to defeat terrorism connected with
Islam it is necessary to convince the vast Muslim majorities to deny
any acceptance of the “jihadists,” anywhere. We will not even give a
chance to this difficult task by turning against our Muslims and by
continuing our arrogance abroad, military or otherwise. There has to be
a will to alter the mentality itself and no one can do it for us.
Badly advised at home, President Clinton took the Muslim side in a
Yugoslavia that he had helped to “Balkanize” in the hope that this
would have a beneficial influence on the Middle Eastern peace process.
He even imposed in Bosnia a Muslim-controlled state that never existed.
Yet, this did not at all affect the developments in the Middle East. It
created a problem precisely where three religions and
religiously-defined ethnic groups managed to live together and
intermarry. He allowd the introduction of Iranian arms and externl but
very militant Muslim elements. Just recently and by chance it has been
discovered that Bin Laden had been there and still has connections. The
time has long past when major decisions can be made on th bassis of
reasoning-by -analogy. We need to know what we are doing at the
grass-roots level because foreign policy is now crucial to our own
survival Defining American Muslims by a few extreme elements among them
is the worst mistake we could make. An option is clearly at hand.
Our Muslims can sustain a dialogue and can have an influnce on the
separation of Islam from terrorism, thus delegitimizing it gradually at
the source. Senator Kerry seems to understand that the threat to their
civil liberties must be deconstructed before they too can defend all of
us and our foreign policy must indeed be less solipsistic and“:harsh”
in a sustained, convincing fashion. Otherwise, it will be next to
impossible to replace a perceived need for terrorism with votes. When
it comes to civil liberties, which define America and which make the
nation strong in an inner sense, the incumbent President seems unable
to find any serious attacks on them. Yet, larger and smaller instances
to the contrary are multiplying. We are losing, by inches, the greatest
co-habitational and still free space on Planet Earth. The phenomenon
(and noumenon) called the “American Innocence”had closed our minds to a
striking reality. While the rest of the World started to dislike us and
some of it mutated into hate, we could not arrest the
self-congratulations for being so involved in our marvelous behavior
abroad in defense of “Human Rights.” We just “did not get it.” Will we?
Can we?
Raymond K.Kent (Emeritus)
History Department, U. of California at Berkeley
(510/642-1971)
8 October 2004
---
FOURTH OPEN LETTER
TO SENATOR KERRY
R.K.Kent, Historian
Dear Senator Kerry,
A few minutes ago I heard you ask us, the American People, to trust
you. This trust is to encompass both domestic and foreign policies.
On the domestic side I have few bones to grind. The middle class is
squeezed in favor of the waelthy.Out-sourcing is severely taxing the
lives of our workers and their families.Health protections are
extremely uneven and hence un-American in texture.Education and
“re-tooling” is the key to American prosperity in the Twenty-first
Century. You made no substantive reference to our civil libarties and
rights, however. Our FBI, once a protector of our civil liberties,
became a political police during the Clinton Administration. It is
increasingly expanding in this direction for an ostensibly higher goal,
namely to prevent terrorist attacks against us at home. This can be
“fixed,” as you like to say, by such measures as a directive not to go
around checking what kind of books we take out of libraries, a
disgusting prelude to worse. The problem you will encounter and cave
under is in the area of foreign policy.
No matter what you SAY you are surrounded by the same foreign-policy
truth-benders and manipulators that prevailed in the Administration of
Bill Clinton. I know them minutely and well through their words and
deeds in the Balkans. It is precisely our entry into the Balkans, as a
result of their would-be “Moral Imperatives” to get involved and their
glaring arrogance, that we began to be disliked and, increasingly,
hated around the globe. All of them have spread around the same
message” “our Might makes us invariably Right.” Remember Nazi Germany?
Yet, they are wrapping themselves around you like a boa constrictor and
you seem to WELCOME them.
The more prominent among the ilk, hell-bent on demanding unquestioned
obedience to our power abroad, are Richard H., Madeleine A., Wesley C.,
Madeleine’s Rubin but there are a number of others less well known to
our public at large that belong to the same opinionated, arrogant lot
that we simply MUST eliminate from foreign policy altogether if we ever
can hope to torpedo terrorism coming from abroad. The time has past
when the old “pommade” of morality and “human” rights used to befuddle
through bafflegab, engineered mayhem , would-be “mass graves” and the
viscious, venomous media destructions of individuals and groups deemed
basically “disobedient” vis-a-vis the center of Universe, Washington,
D.C.
In short, if you really hope to be able to change our current image
abroad, you MUST not give foreign-policy positions to any one with the
previous “Balkan” record, to mention only the area I am familiar with.
We must not yield to calls for being “:smart.” We can only be stupid by
thinking that we are smart enough to outsmart everyone abroad (and at
home). This is the main reason why we have lost credibility abroad and
why so many of our own people question increasingly the foreign
policies which make us the target of hate and vengeance. If we are to
get more of the same I hope that you will not win. It is better to have
a President who apears to be “underdevloped” abroad than to have a
President who is so “smart” as to secretly assume that the universal
truth, stated by Abraham Lincoln about fooling people, is bunk.
Respectfully.
Raymond K. Kent
(Emeritus)
History Department,
University of California,
Berkeley, CA. 94720
(510/642-1971)
14.10.2004
=== 2 ===
http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1244732004
Scotland on Sunday - International
Documentary reveals Albanian arms
dealer donated cash to the Kerry campaign
Sun 24 Oct 2004
FRASER NELSON
IN NEW YORK
JOHN Kerry has acquired a financial backer likely to provide him with
more problems than support in his battle for the White House: the
Kosovo Liberation Army.
A documentary produced by a Dutch television crew alleges Florin
Krasniqi, an Albanian arms dealer, is buying weapons in the US and
sending them to Kosovo - while perfecting contacts with the Democratic
Party in the United States.
Mr Krasniqi is filmed at a Kerry fundraising event handing over a
cheque, then chatting and joking with senior Democrats including Wesley
Clark, the former NATO commander and Richard Holbrooke, Mr Kerry's
senior foreign policy adviser.
The documentary, broadcast last month in The Netherlands and seen by
The Scotsman, follows Mr Krasniqi from his home in Brooklyn in New York
to his Albanian base where he distributes arms to mercenaries on the
Kosovo border.
Showing remarkable candour, Mr Krasniqi says the KLA has "unfinished
business" with the Serbs and predicts that war will break out again in
"about a year and a half" if the UN does grant Kosovo independence from
Serbia and Montenegro.
The Kerry fundraising event is shown making a direct pitch for Albanian
money. Mr Holbrooke warns in a speech that Mr Bush is planning to pull
troops out of Kosovo - the implication being the Serbs would be
unconstrained.
John Belushi, the Albanian-American actor, then appears in a video
soliciting donations. "If you care about the fate of Albanians in the
Balkans, I hope you'll do anything to can to make sure John Kerry is
elected as our next President," he says.
The documentary goes on to show Mr Krasniqi buying guns from a dealer
in St Mary's, Pennsylvania.
With frankness bordering on the brazen, he explains to the film crew
how easy it is to smuggle arms. "We had set up a hunting club in
Albania," he says - and simply tell anyone who asks they are planning
an excursion to Tasmania.
He admits being "caught twice" - by Italian and Swiss authorities - but
allowed to proceed after saying the Albanian hunting club was preparing
for an expedition to hunt elephants in Tasmania. Other arms are
smuggled under humanitarian aid, he says.
While there is no suggestion that Mr Kerry had knowledge about the
funds being donated by Mr Krasniqi, the video will be deeply
embarrassing for the Massachusetts senator as he combats accusations of
being soft on terror.
Mr Krasniqi is named in the Federal Election Commission returns as a
registered donor to the Kerry campaign at his Brooklyn address. The sum
is dollars 1,000. The Kerry-Edwards campaign was asked to comment, but
did not return calls to The Scotsman yesterday.