NATIONALISMS AND THE ABSOLUTE
CORRUPTABILITY OF IMAGINED
ABSOLUTE POWER
(a slight embelishment of Lord Acton’s Dictum)
R.K.Kent
18 Mar 2001
International legalities mean nothing any longer as individuals in
Congress of the United States as well as in the Executive Branch
continuously state and re-state in a host of ways that the U.S. Might
makes everything Right. Last year, the U.N. General Assembly passed
Resolution 54/168 as a step toward an upward growth of Democracy around
the globe. It simply requires of all the member states not to interfere
in foreign elections. Yet, quite openly and with unabashed arrogance,
millions of dollars are funnelled into Yugoslavia precisely to do the
opposite.A State Department Bureau is openly set-up in Budapest to
"run" the Yugoslav opposition in the name of "Democracy." A CIA
office is now in Sofia to train Serb university students in the arts of
resistance to the existing government. Somewhere along the line it will
be grasped that the Serbs are massively against Milosevic because he
stole another, much bigger, election and not because they were "bought"
by the CIA. Even a mega-founded "Intelligence Community" with a huge
capacity for mischief abroad is far from having anything close to
absolute power.
Our Solons and high ranking members of the Clinton Administration are
constantly lecturing Serbs about how they must re-arrange their
government, economy and society They have just invented a thermometer
which monitors the temperature of "Serb Nationalism." Anything less than
complete compliance with the dicta from Washington certifies high fever
and the mounting Nationalist disease requiring strong medecine and even
major surgery. The electoral winner who leads the Serb Democratic
opposition is already on notice that if he does not turn Kosovo over to
the "Kosovars" (almost an endearing name along the Beltway), if he does
not deliver "Serb War Criminals" to the "Hague Tribunal," if he does not
grant autonomy to Vojvodina (with its 3 milion Serbs and a Hungarian
minority of 300,000), sanctionas will be re-imposed and Serbia will be
"boxed-in" from all sides, completely isolated, and doomed to become a
backwater. Even the West European States and other members of the NATO
alliance are warned not to tolerate "Serb Nationalism with a kinder
face" or the U.S. will pursue its own agenda in the Balkans without
seeking Europe’s cooperation or approval. It is astonishing to find two
key Senators on the Foreign Relations Committee plus a Vice-Presidential
candidate, willing to subordinte U.S. relations with the European Union
to an obssession with "Serb Nationalism" which is almost certainly not
even understood in its historical context.
Until only yesterday, the Clinton Administration used "Milosevic" as a
substitute for "the Serbs." It did not bomb the Serbs for 78 days. It
bombed Milosevic. Open threats are now made to and demands are made
upon his Democratic successor-in- the- making who has yet to even
assume the Presidency. As, up front, the Serbs are suddenly transformed
from a nation of neo-Nazi "subhumans" into a "brave and valiant
people," a decade of carefully nurtured Serbophobia lurks in the
background. A host of people in governmemnt, politics, intellectual
journals , scribal and
(2)
audio-visual media have gained in careers and prominence through
hate-mongering against the Serbs. This will not be given up easily. It
does not only threaten long-range relations with the European Union. It
negates, upon minimal reflection, a number of widely understood
Democratic ideals. There is no divine right to "run" other peoples’
democracies. Despite approval in the Senate, the American People have no
desire for an "opportunity" to spend $77 million of tax-payers money ,
with more dollars to come, to "buy" elections abroad so that local
politicians can act as U.S. forign- policy surrogates. A recent
attempt, attributed to China, to buy votes in the U.S. caused an uproar.
It is not an American cultural value to threaten again and again a
people bombed for eleven weeks by the USAF, punished with a decade of
brutal economic sanctions and satanized through the major media just as
long without posing any real threat to the American People. Apparently,
a few dozen influential persons in the U.S. Government have slipped the
civilized leash, descending into the kind of punishing, vengeful
violence-prone passion attributed to "Milosevic" himself. Milosevic is
no longer around to oblige them They will be forced by events to either
find new ways of gratifying their dislike and hate or else shed years of
Serbophobia. In practice,however, they are accountable to no one. All
share the same conviction that the U.S.is omnipotent. None will admit
to any egregious foreign-policy errors and none see any serious
adversities generated mainly by their own arrogance.
Following the demise of the Soviet Union, the U.S., too, jumped on "the
Serbs," first gingerly during the Bush Administration and far more
actively by 1993. One of the short-term goals was to provide a
re-defned NATO with a New Enemy, tough enough to validate the New NATO
as a military arm of the New World Order and yet not strong enough to
threaten NATO’s defeat. The Serbs drew the lot. . They were reputed to
have one of the best armies in Europe. Two of their known national
traits, love of independence and sustained bravery in wars, made them an
ideal choice for the role through which to make the New NATO
"credible." From the outset, hence, the U.S. became a clandestine and
open supporter of any and all anti-Serb forces rising out of
Yugoslavia’s ashes. It sided with the Croat and Bosnian Muslim
successors of extreme Nationalists who had opposed the U.S. in World War
II. At the same time, it condemned strongly the proven Serb allies for
their own nationalist reactions to a replay of Yugoslavia under Hitler.
The cardinal , most pointed Serb "crime" was a refusal to live inside
Franjo Tudjman’s neo-Fascist Croatia and Alija Izetbgovic’s
fundamentally Islamic State. Its close second was Belgrade’s effort to
hold the Federal Yugoslavia together. Thus, while supporting the Croat
and Bosnian Muslim nationalist drives, while promoting
self-determination of ethnicities opposed to the Serbs the Clinton
Administration isolated "Serb Nationaism" as the enemy of Mankind
itself. .
It even went back to the Medieval formula that "the enemy of my enemy is
my friend"and applied it to the Kosovo Liberation Army which has been
the armed tentacle of an international drug
(3)
cartel. One remembers Senator Lieberman’s lofty claim that the "KLA
fights for American Values" According to recently released PAC
contributions and sources, Senator Lieberman
accepted a $10,000 contribution from ethnic Albanians in the U.S.He is
also the co-sponsor of a recent bill that re-states the obssession with
"Serb Nationalism" in the post-Milosevic era.Since Kosovo was
"liberated" from the Serb army and police a clandestine KLA has been
the real ruler of this area. In roughly one year, some 300,000
non-Albanians have been cleansed from Kosovo by Albanian terror. Over
1,000 Serbs have been kidnapped along with hundreds of Kosovo minorities
and even Albanians. . Drug dealing, white slavery, fraud, theft (even
KFOR treasuries have been raided and looted) ) and general lawlessness
dominate Kosovo as the U.S. continues to support the "ex" KLA military
and civilian leadership. Internal oponents of KLA’s political leader
have simply been assassinated. The main sponsor of the logically faulty
Medieval formula was Madeleine Albright. To gain the KLA signature to a
non-existing Accord at Rambouillet and thus have the cosmetic green
light to bomb the Serbs, Madame Secretary of State almost certainly made
a "deal" to get independence for Kosovo in the not too-distant future
She also abandoned the only true representative of the Kosovo Albanians
, the Poet Ibrahim Rugova, believer in non-violence. In turn, this
abandonment entrenched the KLA in Kosovo and makes it impossible to
arrive at some future democratic solution to the Kosovo Problem.The KLA
is working to create a Greater Albania. U.S. and other European troops
are still in Kosovo. Perceived as saviors last year, they will become
soon the "occupying force of Colonial Powers." .
An article written five years ago(1) pointed out a striking historical
pattern in respect to Serbia and the Great Powers. First Austria,
followed by Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union, found obsession
with the Serbs fatal to their real interests. Austria’s 10-point
ultimatum in 1914 became a pretext to launch a massive attack on Serbia.
Initially, Austria was badly beaten on the battlefield and its" body
bags" brought German fury and, with it, the start of World War I. It
obliterated an entire generation in Europe, helped establish Communism
in Russia and paved the ground for Hitler and World War II. When the
Serbs defied Hitler on 27th March 1941 and alone stood with Britain
against the Nazi might in Europe, Hitler promised to reduce Serbia to
ashes. He sent the Stukas and the Wermacht to teach the Serbs a lesson.
Hitler’s little Serb side- show retarded his attack on Russia
(Operation Barbarossa) by three crucial months. His troops got bogged
down in the merciless Russian winter and a number of Germany’s divisions
remained in
Yugoslavia to deal with those recalcitratnt Serbs, royalists and
partisans alike. Without "the Serbs" Hitler might well have won World
War II in Europe. He might even have developed the missle technology
well ahead of anyone else. When the Serbs disobeyed Stalin he kicked
Yugoslavia out of the Cominform in 1948. That was the beginning of the
"poly-centric Communism" gradually dominated by Nationalisms and
decidedly a major factor in the U.S. ability to survive the Cold War as
the only super-Power around . Indeed "Nationalism" had been an
important U.S.ally against Moscow’s attempts to dominate the world
through a Communist Orthodoxy and local parties.It was re-used in
Yugoslavia against the Serbs and their attempts to preserve the Federal
Yugoslavia.
(4)
A sustained international campaign came into being subjecting the
Serbs to cerebral terror. Sporadic Serb atrocities, mainly by the
para-military nationalist revanchists, were blown out of
proportions into full-fledged "genocide" filling the landscape with
"mass garves." Staged "Serb " massacres at Sarajevo and Racak were
employed to use NATO force against the Serbs without serious public
opposition at home, first in Bosnia and later in Serbia . A Tribunal was
set up at the Hague by Madeleine Albright in 1993. Until 1996 it
indicted and tried only alleged Serb war criminals. It even attempted
to try two officers of the Bosnian Serb army who were not accused of
anything and were kidnapped in Sarajevo even after Dayton assured free
movement. Their only "crime" was Serb ethnicity and uniform. Although
mandated by the U.N. Security Council, the Tribunal has had no real
connection to either the International or criminal Law as practiced,
say, in the United States In the U.S. the burden of proof is on the
accuser. At the "Tribunal" it is the other way around. .A fair trial of
such already indicted and publicly condemned "war criminals" as Radovan
Karadzic, General Ratko Mladic and Slobodan Milosevic is simply not
possible at this "Tribunal." But, fair trials are not on Tribunal’s
agenda when it comes to "the Serbs." Even a substantial part of its
most recent funding comes from a single private donor, George Soros, a
Serbophobe with billions to spend in his"eternal combat" against the
dragons of Nationalism. Unfortunately, the fig leaf of such phrases as
the "Hague Tribunal" and "indicted war criminals" has hidden in general
from the American People the true nature of this quasi-legalistic
perversion.
At the same time, while the Serbs were being routinely accused of
everything except bad weather, war crimes and crimes against humanity
perpetrated by the Croat and Bosnian Muslim forces (later by the
Albanian KLA) were hardly ever reported, if at all. The Serbs became
sub-human, without the right of self-determination at Krajina and in
Bosnia, without the right of self-defense at Kosovo. They were set-up to
take the fall no matter what they did or did not do. Serb para-military
"avengers," the stupid and unnecessary shelling of Sarajevo (an"Olympic
Town" in Western eyes}, the holding of U.N. hostages, the
"Macho"counter-poise ("inat") to the far more powerful NATO member
states and the total denial of any atrocities committed against other
ethnic groups played right into the hands of the Serb haters. Hate
invariably warps. It makes caricatures of those who are seduced by it.
It robs them of reason, logic, willingnes to listen and learn. It robs
them of the very humanity they profess with astounding contradictions.
The Clinton foreign policy team, infected by Madeleine Albright’s
masked but acute Serbophobia with a record, could not tolerate defiance
and"disobediance" to its dicta any more than Hitler. Secretary of
Defense Cohen even said that if the Serbs continue to defy the U.S.
Serbia "will be reduced to ashes." It came close to that after
Rambouilled in February 1999 over Kosovo. Serbia and Kosovo werre
bombed mainly by the USAF for 78 days ostensibly to force "Milosevic" to
accept a "Peace Plan" and return Autonomy to Kosovo. The Rambouillet
(5)
ultimatum actually demanded the occupation of Yugoslavia by NATO
troops. It was even harsher than the Austrian ultimatum of 1914 which
may have inspired its March 1999 drafters.
The invincible U.S., sole remaining International Giant , had used air
power to impose its will on a peanut country in Europe.It did not work
at all. It even proclaimed total "victory" at Kosovo. an
interpretation questionable by anyone familiar with facts on the ground
and capable of minimal logic. There is an old Slavic proverb. It
states that when God wishes to punish an individual He first removes the
capacity to reason.
It is obvious that foreign policy makers in Washington are unwilling to
be impressed by the historical pattern of results that have affected
three great powers in their obsession with the Sertbs. With the Soviet
Union out of the way Washington’s foreign-policy, intelligence and
military elites convinced themselves that America’s power is today so
absolute that they can do anything and get away with it, usually on
moralistic grounds The main reason why the Presidential race hardly
touches on foreign policy is not the claim that the American People are
totally disinterested in what goes on "out there." It is becuse the
perception and feeling of omipotence, of absolute power, has eliminated
the need to be held accountable to the American People for egregious
foreign-policy errors in both theory and practice.The leading question
poses now itself. Will the U.S. obssession with" the Serbs" allow it to
orbit out of the historical pattern outlined at the beginning of this
essay? Having proclaimed " victory" at Kosovo, are there losses
involved at all? This is a virtually unexplored area of serious
inquiry. It is in dire need of analysis in its domestic and foreign
dimensions. Some preliminary observations suggest themselves.
Deceit, disinformation, violations of elementary logic through
well-planned lobotomies on the public mind, and misuse of the
"Intelligence Community" to "trick" the American People into supporting
military actions in the name of "National Interest," enter immediately
into view. Of the 47 military engagements since 1945, 33 took place in
the last eight years. The United States had no vital national interests
in the Balkans in World Wars One and Two. Betwen 1956 and 1989 it
supported the Federal and Communist-ruled Yugoslavia’s independence
from Moscow but it committed no major military and financial resources
to prevent a Soviet take-over. Yugoslavia never became a part of NATO
and its is extremely doubtful that Washington would have risked a
thermonuclear war with Moscow over such an attempt. That is because the
U.S. did not really have a vital National Interest in the Yugoslav
space. Now, suddenly in the 1990’s, without any Soviet threat, one is
told that American troops, planes, bombs and missiles and an expenditure
of billions of dollars are there to defend a vital National Interest.
As yet, no one has been able to define persuasively what it is today.
Defense of Human Rights is about the only "over-arching" argument
advanced. It collapses upon closer scrutiny. While professing acute
concerns for Serb violations of Human Rights the "National-Interest"
promoters could not care less for what was done to the Serbs. The
record is there , it is clear and offers a devastating
(6)
indictment of moral poverty involved in the bogus claim to a "vital
National Interest." In Kosovo, today, under NATO and the U.N., the
gross, daily and witnessed violations of Human Rights, perpetrated by
the clandestine KLA against the dwindling Serb and other minorities, has
not produced a single major voice in the Administration or in Congress
to crack down on and dismantle the KLA completely, arrest its leaders
and deliver them to the Hague Tribunal. Instead, members of the
"ex-KLA," transformed into the U.N. Constabulary at Kosovo have just
been funded in Congress despite repeated evidence that they have engaged
and engage in extortion, beatings and even murder. While a five million
dollar reward is offered to anyone able to deliver Milosevic to the
Hague , the political head of the "ex-KLA" attends the Democratic
Convention in Los Angeles exchanging kisses with Secretary of State
Albright. .
As an outgrrowth of deciet and disinformation needed to justify
military interventions abroad, an unusually intimate relationship of
the major scribal and audio visual media and the Administration has
emerged in the shaping of foreign policy. While a "patriotic
mutuality" of government and media was commonplace in major wars, it
never loomed as large in peace-time as in the last decade while focusing
on the Balkans and the Yugoslav tragedy. Most of this "mutuality" was
not directed at any real "enemy" of the United States. Nor was the
country in a state of formal war. Its planes and missiles did bomb
Serbia and Kosovo relentlessly for eleven weeks but lack of casualties
on the NATO side confirmed the purely punitive nature of this military
intervention. A real war between two countries simply did not
materialize. As the USAF General Nash said in plain English, the "air
war": was meant"to break the will of the Serb people." Instead, it
prolongued their support for a leader they had wanted to ditch years
earler, first in 1991 and again in 1996/1997.
It cannot be said enough times that anti-Serb propaganda saturating the
print, the images and the waves was directed mainly at the home
audience. Quite simply, the American People have been massively cheated
out of getting the truth. Thus, from both the foreign and domestic
points of reference there is nothing to brag about despite claims of
"victory." If this is not altered by a re-emergence of true sequence of
events, by the discovery that the Clinton Administration’s meddling in
Yugoslavia was the greater part of the problem and hardly a part of its
solution, the American People risk losing any control at all over a
foreign policy that could spell major disasters yet to come or manifest
themselves. . That is why our politicl leaders do not wish to discuss
openly and at length the truth about American foreign policy in the
1990’s in the Balkans.They are afraid of revealing their own moral and
intellectual fragilities. They invent Geopolitical fantasies because
they do not really know where they are going. But that is not all.
The 78 days of bombing a small European country which hardly put up any
defense created a major problem with its own offshoots. No matter what
moralistic braggadocio comes out of Washington about "protecting
Democratic values ," the mask is off an Imperial Power out to control
the World with a new process and a new ideology, a newly perceived "
Evil Empire." The process has been called "Globalization," the ideology
"Globalism." Millions have died in the
(7)
name of various "isms." There is every chance that millions more will
die. Today, military-political strategists in Washington are asking for
additional billions in order to be able to "fight simultaneously on two
fronts." Reference here is clearly to "regional conflicts" which will
be"sold" to the American People much in the same ways as already worked
out in the Balkans. The process of Globalization was anticipated by
James Burnham in the early 1940’s when he wrote about the "Managerial
Revolution" but localized it in the U.S. In simplified language,
globalized economy will reduce the state to a janitorial role and
replace sovereignty with Multinationals.
In a short cross-over from process to dogma, Globalism replaces
Communism whih also sought to impose itself on the whole world and
dissolve the state. Those who dilligently promote Globalism as an
idology and Globalization as its tool need to be reminded that no global
"ism" has ever defeated local "isms." The former are synthetic while
local Nationalisms are visceral and tend to prevail or re-assert
themselves either aggressively or defensively. Wherever Globalization
and economic prosperity march hand in hand and are visibly
inter-conncted, detonators with which to trigger - off visceral
reactions of latent Nationalism will be missing. At the moment , the
tendency is to jump into the Globalizing band-wagon pulled by the
mighty Multinationals. Yet, it is hardly difficult to predict a host of
the coming defensive Nationalist reactions . If the U.S. uses its
capacity to actually fight in two (or more) regional conflicts at the
same time to attack one ethnic group in support of another it will
neither manage to promote the cause of universal Human Rights nor remove
the detonator that goes off in defense of a tribe. By using a selective
approach to Nationalism in ex-Yugoslavia and, indeed in the Balkans,
the Clinton Administration has already made a most egregious error.
It has shown convincingly that there is no such thing as "humanitarian
military intervention," tnat it is Might that decides who shall and who
shall not have access to Human Rights and that international obedience
to its imagined absolute power has already corrupted Washington
absolutely. One might add, without redemption unless the American
People take their government back. In respct at least to the Serbs and
Yugoslavia this is not so very difficult despite the lasting and
lingering Serbophobia which needs to be cured. To this end a few
concrete proposals seem in order.
It is high time to deliver on the claim that "the U.S. has never been
against the Serb people" but only "against Milosevic." For starters,
home-grown Serbophobes should be made increasingly uncomfortable in
further attempts at getting their jollies by bashing "the Serbs."
Outright hate-mongering of the Serb ethnicity might be something that
Serb-Americans and other fellow-Americans might wish to pursue through
courts.Secondly, if there is no will to downgrade or even punish we
should at least stop glorifying as our "heroes" Madeleine Albright,
Generals Clark and Short.We are demanding that all ethnicities in
Yugoslavia --but especially the Serbs-- stop glorifying as their
"heroes" such people as Radovan Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic
(Serbs),General Rasim Delic and Warlord Nasir Oric (Bosnian Muslims),
deceased General Franjo Tudjman and very much live General Agim Ceku
(Croat and Albanian in Croatia’s Army)
(8)
and, again, Agim Ceku and Hashim Thaci (Kosovo Albanians). Next, even
our current President Clinton can issue an Executive Order to all the
Armed forces that the Serbs are not considered to be an enemy of the
United States. A claim is standing that the" moment Milosevic steps
down" and is replaced as the Yugoslavia’s President by an election, all
sanctions are to be lifted. It is time to stop a decade of a cruel
economic punishment and deliver on the claim no matter what else
happens with or to "Milosevic." At the same time, the White House should
honor the request of Western Europe to extend immediate recogniion to
Vojislav Kostunica. It would be a serious mistake to start labelling him
as a "Serb Nationalist with a kinder face" simply because he is not
immediately assuming the role of Washington’s likeable lapdog. While
stating and restating that the U.S. will share with Western Europe the
burden of paying Yugoslavia for the damages caused by eleven weeks of
bombing its civilian infrastructure and properties, it would be useful
to repair specific damages by an advance of funds. Sending our own
medical experts to determine the extent of released toxins and a mutant
like depleted uranium would show also also some real concern for genetic
damages in the making. We should reopen the Embassy in Belgrade and send
a diplomat untainted by Serbophobia.
There should be no immediate demands for deliveries to the Hague
Tribunal of alleged Serb war criminals. A little healing time is needed.
A hemorrage has been stopped with a strong bandage and it is too early
to remove it. A little patience is required. In the cited article of
five years ago, this writer suggested that the only sure way of ending
ethnic conflicts in ex-Yugoslavia for good would be to strengthen local
judicial systems to have them try their own alleged war criminals
perceived as "heroes." At the same time, the high life with perks of
those associated with the Hague Tribunal should be no longer funded, the
Tribunal’s funding should go to Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro and
Kosovo and the Tribunal should be replaced by an already ratified in
part World Court to deal with future war crimes and crimes against
humanity. It is not out of question for an ordinary citizen to make
another suggestion. The Puritans, who are the antecedents of America,
absolutely rejected displays of arrogant behavior. Could our present
foreign policy elites be perdsuaded, while forming the United States of
the World, to be at least overtly humble?
MILOSEVIC, THE SERBS AND THE WEST
R.K.Kent
Emeritus Professor of History
University of California at Berkeley
13 Mar 2001
Those who know Serb History will recall that in 1804 Karadjordje almost
refused to lead a revolt against the Turks because of his choleric
nature. " When men disgree with me," he said, "I lop their heads off."
"Can you accept this (kind of leadership)" he asked at an assembly."That
is why we precisely wish you to lead us now." Later on "when you are no
longer needed we will lop YOUR head off." This is exactly what happened.
A page, torn out of the Serb past, connects with the universal fact
that no individual -- declared "bad" or" good"-- can or should replace
an entire people when it comes to its National Interest. It also reveals
that different times and different crises require different types of
leadership. While in power, Milosevic wrapped himself in Serb
Nationalism everywhere in ex-Yugoslavia except in Kosovo where he
attempted to "play the Yugoslav card." Neither of the two constitute an
unforgivable political sin and let it be noted at once that Milosevic
came to Dayton, Ohio, and signed an international agreement without
being considered, charged or arrested at that time as a "war criminal."
There were no other armed conflicts between Dayton and 1998/1999 when
the Kosovo Liberation Army escalated its guerrila war until it
resulted in the NATO (primarily U.S.)"air war" of eleven weeks.
The NATO "humanitarian intervention," dipped in depleted uraniam and
sprinkled with cluster bombs, was a war crime and a crime against
humanity under an Open Sun. It did enrmous and as yet incompletely
assessed damage to the Serb people , their properties, land, air and
rivers. It was not only criminal in nature, deliberately hitting
civilian targets in order "to break the will of the Serbian people," as
General Nash said in public after the "air war" of 78 days. . It was
both an unneccessary and an avoidable war. Its driving mechanism was an
almost insane desire to assert power through physical punishment and
humiliation of a people demonized during an entire decade (1989-1999).
As a result, Milosevic became both a Hero of Serb Resistance to
Foreign Imperialism and an unhappy choice as the Serb leader at a time
when the United States underwent a hi-tech revolution that could shape
and re-shape public opinion at will, within days. Or conduct a war
without losing a soldier. At the same time the ""prevailing ethos"
precluded the labelling of entire populations as "inherently evil."
That would be both "uncivilized" and "undemocratic." It thus found in
Milosevic a villian that could be depicted as the evil "Butcher of
the Balkans." After playing a hefty part in the fall of Milosevic from
power, the Clintonites are demanding --despite losing the
Presidency--that he be delivered to the Hague Tribunal for Yugoslavia.
He has been indicted in public for alleged war crimes and "genocide"
exclusively at Kosovo. No credible, prima facie, evidence to support
this indictment has surfaced in public.Yet, in the post-Clinton America,
the new Sereb Government is now being blackmailed via denials of
economic aid unless they at least arrest and try Milosevic in
Belgrade. A subsequent delivery to the Hague, along with other indicted
top Serb officials in the Milosevic_s government would follow.
(2)
A Petition is being circulated at this moment demanding the end of a
witch hunt involving Milosevic. It castigates all Serbs prone and
willing to deliver Milosevic to the Hague. But, it also attacks all
those willing to put him on trial in Belgrade as boot-lickers and
lackeys of American Imperialism who are selling the Serb people out. The
Petition has chosen the Hero model and only a Serb Medal of Honor is
lacking. This is a gut reaction against international injustice both at
the Hague and over the skies of Serbia and Kosovo. It is also an
attampt, at least indirectly, to uncouple the reconstruction aid which
is owed by any civilized standards as well as promised if Milosevic
fell from power. The drafters and co-signers of the Petition, all
time-honored and tested defenders of the Serbs in the U.S.thus
interpret the current National Intrest of the Serb people not on the
basis of reason but emotion. Let this writer make the case for reason
and see if it can prevail over visceral reactions.
First and foremost, the Serbs have no real friends among the influential
persons in the U.S. who make foreign policy. Many among them have
convinced themselves that they can prevent another Holocaust by
developing a new bunch of "Neo-Nazis" slated not only for punishment but
also for collective humiliation. Most of them are interventionist
hawks, regardless of party affiliation. Some are quite bloody-minded
They would kill and maim and attack the genetic code of Serb civilians.
One is even a political adviser to the KLA.They have no intention of
letting go of either Milosevic or the Serbs. Since "Milosevic" is out
of power these Establishmentarians must have him at the Hague Tribunal
because only THERE he can be humiliated beyond physical punishment. The
Tribunal is a DE FACTO political weapon and not a court of law. It
would provide basically a show trial, for him as well as the other
"indicted" top members of his government.
But, there is a world of diference if Milosevic comes to trial in
Belgrade. In a real domestic Court of Law Milosevic will have the kind
of legal defense he could never secure at the Hague. His attorneys, in
defense, can just as well put NATO on trial for war crimes and crimes
against humanity and peace. They can demand that the Hague Tribunal_s
Prosecutor realease documents which provide prima facie evidence agaisnt
Milosevic as a "genocidal" "war criminal" at Kosovo. This can be done,
amicus curae, to "assist" the High Serb Court in fact- finding in
respect to alleged Hague accusations. A trial of Milosevic in Belgrade
with INVITED FOREIGN OBSERVERS OF LEGAL STATURE could turn the tables on
his Hague indictment, resulting in a law suit at the World Court for
"MALICIOUS DEFAMATION. " Damages could be asked for in the neighborhood
of $100,000,000. At the same time Milosevic would be undeliverable to
the Hague if the indictment for alleged genocide and war crimes
directly linked to him cannot be supported. There would have to be some
prima facie evidence, subject to detailed scrutiny of his defense
attorneys. REAL LAW IS THE ARENA FOR COMBAT, not emotional petitions
even when the sentiment is shared. Witch -hunts die out when
dissected and singed by truth. Some last observations, now..
(3)
When Carla del Ponte wanted to open a Tribunal Office in Belgrade, the
same visceral reaction took place as some wre horrified at the lack of
national backbone in opposing "legitimization" of the Tribunal. The
Tribunal is a political fact of life. It has to be dealt with as
such.This means that an Office of the ICTY should be allowed to open in
Belgrade only to be flooded with thousands of Serb victims willing to
provide evidence of what has been done to them in other parts of
ex-Yugoslavia. The story of atrocities against the Serbs during the last
decade is far from being told or even known to the wider publics in the
U.S. and Western Europe.
It is very much in the Serb National Interest to put Milosevic on
trial in Belgrade to determine the extent and scope of his alleged
guilt. It is his turn to have the symnbolic "head lopped off " if he
is really found guilty of genocide and war crimes. But, there is more to
it. For 36 years (1944-1980), Serbia was ruled by Tito and the
Communist League. . After a rotating Presidency of about a
decade(1980-1990) former Yugoslav Communists became Socialists overnight
and all of their top leaders enveloped themselves in ethno-religious
nationalist cacoons. This writer refuses to accept the contention that
only the supporters of Milosevic and of Tito_s Yugoslavia have the right
to monopolize the interpretation of the current Serb National
Interest.
Serbia has a broken infrastructure. Half of its working force is
without jobs or a social and medical net as the old economy is not quite
out and the new economy has not quite gotten in. Almost a million of the
"precanski Srbi" are now refugees in Serbia proper, not to mention a
couple of hundred thousand ethnic Albanians, thousands of mixed-marriage
Yugoslavs, Croats, Hungarians and other minorities, 26 ethnicities
altogether. Leaving aside the potentially gruesome medical outcome of
the air war that lasted almost three months, Economic Recovery is the
top priority that dominates the National Interest of the Serb People. It
is not the affirmation of National Pride or the perception that it is
gone forever through some "bending" by the new Government in
Belgrade. To put National Pride on a pedestal that cannot be "violated"
through a trial of Milosevic in Belgrade would almost certainly play in
the hands of the anti-Serb brigades throughout the "West" and
especially in the U.S. At the moment, they are eating their collective
liver becuae Kostunica is no Milosevic and the DOS is willing to take
the"capitalist road" into Liberal Democracy. Liberal or not, Winston
Churchill has called Democracy the worst form of government on earth.
The trouble, he added, is that we have not been able to invent anything
better.
Raymond K. Kent
Emeritus
History Department,
University of California,
Berkeley. Ca. 94720
Subject: Prof. R.K.Kent: An open letter to senator Jesse A. Helms
Date: Sat, 03 Mar 2001 17:19:42 -0500
From: "minja m." <minja@...>
To: KPAJ 3A HATO <kpaj-3a-hato@...>
The Honorable Jesse A. Helms,
Chairman,
Foreign Relations Committee,
United States Senate’
Washington D.C.
24.2.2001
Dear Senator Helms,
I still treasure a note you had sent me requesting copies of my
writings as you had found them generally interesting to read. I did not
have the heart to comply fully with your request. The volume is so
large that you could not possibly find the time to read all of the
texts. This is not preventing me from sending you just four. They are
entitled respectively: (1)Dr. Strangelove is Alive and Well - How
Madeleine got to Bomb the Serbs; (2)Beltway’s Moral Giants and Lessons
from Clio, the Muse of History; (3)Suggestions on Kosovo (with
sub-title); and (4) "Old and New Fascism -Eviva la Pace Americana."
While I am under no illusion that you will agree with all the
major points and suggestions, I regard you as a quintessential Old
American Patriot, one who knows the difference between Right and Wrong ,
one who grasps that the long-lasting attraction of America has come in
three parts. Its magnetic freedoms, its unsurpassed Constitution and
its powerful economy.. It is my contention that the luster of the first
two has dimmed in the last decade. Only the third retains its glow. The
Administration of William Jefferson Clinton was not only "corrupt." It
has attempted to transform America into a Fascist country with a new
face. With a strange resemblance of the First Family to Peron and Evita.
This thesis is stated, with some humor and sexual metaphor most
clearly in the piece on "Old and New Fascism." It is a road that should
be most repugnant to both Republicans and Democrats who can see the
forest and not succumb to a single-tree myopia, supporting any
Presidential action abroad and indulging in humanitarian asymmetry.
It is unfortunate how so many have persuaded themselves that the
"Indispensable Nation" and "sole remaining Super-Power" can do
anything it wants, "Exceptionally," in any society around Planet
Earth. As if the U.S. possesses unlimited Absolute Power. New Moral
Giants came on the Beltway. They are far above us ordinary Americans.
They disregard completely even citizens with specialized knoweldge
and the will to prove that we, the People, are no real pygmies who must
invariably follow their phoney giants. Today, after bombing a small
state and its people into the Nineteenth century for nothing
substantial at all , some of our Solons are blackmailing Belgrade
instead of showing at least tolerance after 78 days of bombings if not
remorse for damages in human lives and unremunerated property. To say
nothing of the totally missing capacity to be magnanimous even in a
self-proclaimed "Victory." Permit me now to summarize the arguments in
the three articles apart from the one on Fascism, old and new. I do so
in an amplified way as a reading option. . Representative Dan Burton
told me once:
Anything longer than six pages is not likely to be read." The reduction
here is to four pages.
President Clinton and Secretary Albright bombed both Kosovo and Serbia
to "save" Kosovo’s ethnic Albanians from "the Serbs." In so doing, they
used false reports, outright lies
and crass duplicity both at home and abroad. They certainly violated
the U.S.Constitution and broke International Law with impunity. The
often repeated trite phrase that "truth is war’s first vicitim " does
not even apply .The U.S. Congress had not declared war on Serbia. The
intended victim of their contemptible manipulations was the American
People. In seeking to impose a Pax Americana in the Balkans the
media-driven Clinton Administration (with some support in Comgress) )
has gradually succumbed to a re-birth of Fascism in a new form. Yet, it
was pre-disposed by its own amorality and will-to-power which are
central to Fascism as a phenomenon and noumenon.
Anyone with sustained knowledge of Balkan History in the 1900’s could
easily perceive that the Clinton Administration turned an American
ally in two World Wars, the Serbs, into an "enemy" without any real
threat to any serious aspect of the National Interest. . It was hardly
a foreign-policy "accomplishment." Training and arming directly and
indirectly the nationalist successors of proclaimed U.S. enemies in
World War II coupled with the doctrine of "levelling battlefield
opportunities" was hardly conducive to peace in the Balkans.
Had the Clinton foreign-policy team not stood in the way of even one of
the two most workable peace proposals (the Lisbon Agreement of February
1992 and Vance-Owen Plan of 1993) most of the fratricidal carnage in
Bosnia would have been avoided. There would have been no Dayton to
inspire an ever-escalating ethnic Albanian insurgency at Kosovo. Had
what was left of Yugoslavia been completely opened as a free market
economy with Western support , Milosevic would have fallen a lot
sooner. Instead, we punished the Serb people with brutal economic
sanctions.While proclaiming the New Age of Humanitarianism , our
sanctions hurt mostly the children , the elderly and the sick. One of
this writer’s friends had sent some bottles of Aspirin to a sick, old
relative in Belgrade. The package was returned by the Post Office ,
citing the embargo.
Had the enclosed "Suggestions" for a solution to the Kosovo Problem
been taken seriously , the U.S. would not have had to post and keep
our troops in a danger zone indefinitely and spend additional
billioins of dollars needed at home. Copies had been sent to the entire
Foreign Relations Committeee of the Senate. Equally, Kosovo today is in
such a state that even some Albanians who had fought with the "Kosovo
Liberation Army " have had enough. It is no longer "liberation" of
Kosovo from "the Serbs." Since June 1999, they have ben virtually
cleansed out, along with all the other ethnic minorities. This took
place with 40,000 NATO troops in a Kosovo under the UN Administration.
This writer has invested huge amounts of time over the years to find
out what National Interest was really involved in the ex-Yugoslav
space and how did the Clinton-Albright foreign policy relate to it.
German influence was perceived. The Vatican was not too far behind.
These were the "traditional" anti-Yugoslav forces, along with a
nostalgia for the Austro-Hungarian Empire among some and for a
re-creation of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans, among others. But, a
U.S. National Interest? If one were to extract the major claims on its
behalf they could be reduced to just a few. One is a virtual
declaration of war on "ethnic nationalism." "Humanitarian intervention"
came into view as a twin. The two were rooted in an "unbendable" claim
that "our" (please note the Royal "we") policy objective was to insure
peace in the area. Let us quickly look at the broad picture.
No one can credibly claim today that there has been any symmetry in
the would-be "Humanitarian Interventions," from Krajina to Bosnia and
Kosovo. While roundly blasting "ethnic cleansing" by the Serbs in
Bosnia, the Clinton Administration took an active part in developing and
permitting the Croat Operation Storm in August 1995 which produced by
far the greatest instance of "ethnic cleansing" up to that time. This
involved between 200,000 and 250,000 Serbs whose ancestors settled in
Krajina centuries earlier. Clearly, support for one ethnicity’s
Nationalism was used to "eliminate the problem" of dealing with
another.. The
architects of the "Kosovo Policy" first "laundered" the
"terrorists" (as defined by the State Department) into a "Liberation
Army." Next, they went on to support the KLA in a number of ways. In
so doing , they sided de facto with ethnic Albanian Nationalism. Most
could and did perceive the rapid advent of " ethnic cleansing " But,
since, this time, those "cleansed" were mainly Serbs the KLA’s crime
against humanity was explained away as "justifiable retribution."
Such a dogmatic explanation of crimes against humanity -even war
crimes- committed , say, by Serb individuals, army soldiers and
para-military units, not only in Bosnia but also in Kosovo, could
only earn "nationalist" accolades. What about the establishment of
peace? Two torpedoed peace proposals, imports of weapons, training of
armies,lending of the USAF to one against another --such is the PATTERN
revealing that "Peace" becomes an Orwellian term meaning "War." If not
peace, as the pivot of foreign policy in the area from 1992 to 1999,
why war? To believe simply that "Milosevoc" was the only or main reason
would require two things. One is to re-write the History of this period
. The second would be that Mickey is a real, ever-live , Mouse. A
strong case can be made for a perceived need to "resurrect" NATO
after the Cold War. Yet, it cannot explain what National Interest was
served in saving NATO from self-extinction by exacerbating the
southeastern Europe’s turmoil? One other "explanation." a
"geo-political" one has been advanced. The route to tapping the
reportedly huge Caspian oil reserves would require an indefinite U.S.
military presence at Kosovo-Metohija. Not an absolute necessity. Yet,
Even if certain, this would and could not explain the U.S. involvement
in ex-Yugoslavia before 1998. So, what is the one, fundamental,
underpinning of the Clinton-Albright policy here? It finally emerges
that there was no policy relating to any real National Interest. In
fact, there was no
policy at all. Its substitute was a capricious use of power for the sake
of power , using different component parts and accents. This was no
crude Fascism of Benito’s time. Our military did not drop captured Serbs
from planes without parachutes as did the Fascists in Lybia witn
Arabs who resisted. Instead, the "missions" have been and are still
endowed with High Moral Purposre which can only exist as a Kantian
noumenon that cannot be demonstrated . All of the phenomena of the
Clinton-Albright policy in ex-Yugoslavia show the contrary. There is
also another revelation. It is INCOMPETENCE masked as "achievement ."
The best example is found in the "Kosovo Policy." Most of its
architects saw in the KLA an Albanian Nationalism at work, aiming at
Kosovo’s independence. Some perceived a drive for "Greater Albania" as
its ultimate goal.One or two even wished it would come about.
What virtually none of the architects grasped is that "Greater Albania"
is a misleading cunstruct. It coveys an ultimate Nationaist Agenda.
In reality, as has clearly emerged at Kosovo since June 1999, the aim
of a "Greater Albania" is not some sort of national unity of all
Albanians under a single government. They have had a time-honored
acephalous society, dominated by clans. Moreover, hardly all of the
Albanians in Albania look with favor to a single, unfied Greater
Albania. Albania’s southern Christians do not wish to see more of the
Albanian Muslims added north into a unified state. The ultimate goal
of the main forces behind the KLA is to secure and control a
Commercial Empire enageged in illegal and criminal activities. It is
not only destabilizing the region. It is destibilizing Western European
societies as well. Over 80 percent of heroin goes into them via Kosovo
despite NATO’s presence in situ. .Many of the West European prostitution
rings and networks are Albanian-controlled as is the flow if illegal
shipments of humans from Asia and Africa. This is surely not a result
working in favor of the NATO intervention. Yet, it remains favored
as such to maintain the myth of an " Air Victory at Kosovo" and
rescue NATO for a second time from becoming irrelevant in one Europe.
In conclusion, I hope that you might find the time to read the four
articles enclosed and perhaps persuade you to enter them into the
Congressional Record, with this letter, despite their political
incorrectness or, possibly, because of it. Can we Amricans transcend
an endless dialogue of the deaf?
Respectfully
Raymond K. Kent, Emeritus
History Department,
University of California,
Berkeley, CA. 94720
(510/642-1971).
CORRUPTABILITY OF IMAGINED
ABSOLUTE POWER
(a slight embelishment of Lord Acton’s Dictum)
R.K.Kent
18 Mar 2001
International legalities mean nothing any longer as individuals in
Congress of the United States as well as in the Executive Branch
continuously state and re-state in a host of ways that the U.S. Might
makes everything Right. Last year, the U.N. General Assembly passed
Resolution 54/168 as a step toward an upward growth of Democracy around
the globe. It simply requires of all the member states not to interfere
in foreign elections. Yet, quite openly and with unabashed arrogance,
millions of dollars are funnelled into Yugoslavia precisely to do the
opposite.A State Department Bureau is openly set-up in Budapest to
"run" the Yugoslav opposition in the name of "Democracy." A CIA
office is now in Sofia to train Serb university students in the arts of
resistance to the existing government. Somewhere along the line it will
be grasped that the Serbs are massively against Milosevic because he
stole another, much bigger, election and not because they were "bought"
by the CIA. Even a mega-founded "Intelligence Community" with a huge
capacity for mischief abroad is far from having anything close to
absolute power.
Our Solons and high ranking members of the Clinton Administration are
constantly lecturing Serbs about how they must re-arrange their
government, economy and society They have just invented a thermometer
which monitors the temperature of "Serb Nationalism." Anything less than
complete compliance with the dicta from Washington certifies high fever
and the mounting Nationalist disease requiring strong medecine and even
major surgery. The electoral winner who leads the Serb Democratic
opposition is already on notice that if he does not turn Kosovo over to
the "Kosovars" (almost an endearing name along the Beltway), if he does
not deliver "Serb War Criminals" to the "Hague Tribunal," if he does not
grant autonomy to Vojvodina (with its 3 milion Serbs and a Hungarian
minority of 300,000), sanctionas will be re-imposed and Serbia will be
"boxed-in" from all sides, completely isolated, and doomed to become a
backwater. Even the West European States and other members of the NATO
alliance are warned not to tolerate "Serb Nationalism with a kinder
face" or the U.S. will pursue its own agenda in the Balkans without
seeking Europe’s cooperation or approval. It is astonishing to find two
key Senators on the Foreign Relations Committee plus a Vice-Presidential
candidate, willing to subordinte U.S. relations with the European Union
to an obssession with "Serb Nationalism" which is almost certainly not
even understood in its historical context.
Until only yesterday, the Clinton Administration used "Milosevic" as a
substitute for "the Serbs." It did not bomb the Serbs for 78 days. It
bombed Milosevic. Open threats are now made to and demands are made
upon his Democratic successor-in- the- making who has yet to even
assume the Presidency. As, up front, the Serbs are suddenly transformed
from a nation of neo-Nazi "subhumans" into a "brave and valiant
people," a decade of carefully nurtured Serbophobia lurks in the
background. A host of people in governmemnt, politics, intellectual
journals , scribal and
(2)
audio-visual media have gained in careers and prominence through
hate-mongering against the Serbs. This will not be given up easily. It
does not only threaten long-range relations with the European Union. It
negates, upon minimal reflection, a number of widely understood
Democratic ideals. There is no divine right to "run" other peoples’
democracies. Despite approval in the Senate, the American People have no
desire for an "opportunity" to spend $77 million of tax-payers money ,
with more dollars to come, to "buy" elections abroad so that local
politicians can act as U.S. forign- policy surrogates. A recent
attempt, attributed to China, to buy votes in the U.S. caused an uproar.
It is not an American cultural value to threaten again and again a
people bombed for eleven weeks by the USAF, punished with a decade of
brutal economic sanctions and satanized through the major media just as
long without posing any real threat to the American People. Apparently,
a few dozen influential persons in the U.S. Government have slipped the
civilized leash, descending into the kind of punishing, vengeful
violence-prone passion attributed to "Milosevic" himself. Milosevic is
no longer around to oblige them They will be forced by events to either
find new ways of gratifying their dislike and hate or else shed years of
Serbophobia. In practice,however, they are accountable to no one. All
share the same conviction that the U.S.is omnipotent. None will admit
to any egregious foreign-policy errors and none see any serious
adversities generated mainly by their own arrogance.
Following the demise of the Soviet Union, the U.S., too, jumped on "the
Serbs," first gingerly during the Bush Administration and far more
actively by 1993. One of the short-term goals was to provide a
re-defned NATO with a New Enemy, tough enough to validate the New NATO
as a military arm of the New World Order and yet not strong enough to
threaten NATO’s defeat. The Serbs drew the lot. . They were reputed to
have one of the best armies in Europe. Two of their known national
traits, love of independence and sustained bravery in wars, made them an
ideal choice for the role through which to make the New NATO
"credible." From the outset, hence, the U.S. became a clandestine and
open supporter of any and all anti-Serb forces rising out of
Yugoslavia’s ashes. It sided with the Croat and Bosnian Muslim
successors of extreme Nationalists who had opposed the U.S. in World War
II. At the same time, it condemned strongly the proven Serb allies for
their own nationalist reactions to a replay of Yugoslavia under Hitler.
The cardinal , most pointed Serb "crime" was a refusal to live inside
Franjo Tudjman’s neo-Fascist Croatia and Alija Izetbgovic’s
fundamentally Islamic State. Its close second was Belgrade’s effort to
hold the Federal Yugoslavia together. Thus, while supporting the Croat
and Bosnian Muslim nationalist drives, while promoting
self-determination of ethnicities opposed to the Serbs the Clinton
Administration isolated "Serb Nationaism" as the enemy of Mankind
itself. .
It even went back to the Medieval formula that "the enemy of my enemy is
my friend"and applied it to the Kosovo Liberation Army which has been
the armed tentacle of an international drug
(3)
cartel. One remembers Senator Lieberman’s lofty claim that the "KLA
fights for American Values" According to recently released PAC
contributions and sources, Senator Lieberman
accepted a $10,000 contribution from ethnic Albanians in the U.S.He is
also the co-sponsor of a recent bill that re-states the obssession with
"Serb Nationalism" in the post-Milosevic era.Since Kosovo was
"liberated" from the Serb army and police a clandestine KLA has been
the real ruler of this area. In roughly one year, some 300,000
non-Albanians have been cleansed from Kosovo by Albanian terror. Over
1,000 Serbs have been kidnapped along with hundreds of Kosovo minorities
and even Albanians. . Drug dealing, white slavery, fraud, theft (even
KFOR treasuries have been raided and looted) ) and general lawlessness
dominate Kosovo as the U.S. continues to support the "ex" KLA military
and civilian leadership. Internal oponents of KLA’s political leader
have simply been assassinated. The main sponsor of the logically faulty
Medieval formula was Madeleine Albright. To gain the KLA signature to a
non-existing Accord at Rambouillet and thus have the cosmetic green
light to bomb the Serbs, Madame Secretary of State almost certainly made
a "deal" to get independence for Kosovo in the not too-distant future
She also abandoned the only true representative of the Kosovo Albanians
, the Poet Ibrahim Rugova, believer in non-violence. In turn, this
abandonment entrenched the KLA in Kosovo and makes it impossible to
arrive at some future democratic solution to the Kosovo Problem.The KLA
is working to create a Greater Albania. U.S. and other European troops
are still in Kosovo. Perceived as saviors last year, they will become
soon the "occupying force of Colonial Powers." .
An article written five years ago(1) pointed out a striking historical
pattern in respect to Serbia and the Great Powers. First Austria,
followed by Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union, found obsession
with the Serbs fatal to their real interests. Austria’s 10-point
ultimatum in 1914 became a pretext to launch a massive attack on Serbia.
Initially, Austria was badly beaten on the battlefield and its" body
bags" brought German fury and, with it, the start of World War I. It
obliterated an entire generation in Europe, helped establish Communism
in Russia and paved the ground for Hitler and World War II. When the
Serbs defied Hitler on 27th March 1941 and alone stood with Britain
against the Nazi might in Europe, Hitler promised to reduce Serbia to
ashes. He sent the Stukas and the Wermacht to teach the Serbs a lesson.
Hitler’s little Serb side- show retarded his attack on Russia
(Operation Barbarossa) by three crucial months. His troops got bogged
down in the merciless Russian winter and a number of Germany’s divisions
remained in
Yugoslavia to deal with those recalcitratnt Serbs, royalists and
partisans alike. Without "the Serbs" Hitler might well have won World
War II in Europe. He might even have developed the missle technology
well ahead of anyone else. When the Serbs disobeyed Stalin he kicked
Yugoslavia out of the Cominform in 1948. That was the beginning of the
"poly-centric Communism" gradually dominated by Nationalisms and
decidedly a major factor in the U.S. ability to survive the Cold War as
the only super-Power around . Indeed "Nationalism" had been an
important U.S.ally against Moscow’s attempts to dominate the world
through a Communist Orthodoxy and local parties.It was re-used in
Yugoslavia against the Serbs and their attempts to preserve the Federal
Yugoslavia.
(4)
A sustained international campaign came into being subjecting the
Serbs to cerebral terror. Sporadic Serb atrocities, mainly by the
para-military nationalist revanchists, were blown out of
proportions into full-fledged "genocide" filling the landscape with
"mass garves." Staged "Serb " massacres at Sarajevo and Racak were
employed to use NATO force against the Serbs without serious public
opposition at home, first in Bosnia and later in Serbia . A Tribunal was
set up at the Hague by Madeleine Albright in 1993. Until 1996 it
indicted and tried only alleged Serb war criminals. It even attempted
to try two officers of the Bosnian Serb army who were not accused of
anything and were kidnapped in Sarajevo even after Dayton assured free
movement. Their only "crime" was Serb ethnicity and uniform. Although
mandated by the U.N. Security Council, the Tribunal has had no real
connection to either the International or criminal Law as practiced,
say, in the United States In the U.S. the burden of proof is on the
accuser. At the "Tribunal" it is the other way around. .A fair trial of
such already indicted and publicly condemned "war criminals" as Radovan
Karadzic, General Ratko Mladic and Slobodan Milosevic is simply not
possible at this "Tribunal." But, fair trials are not on Tribunal’s
agenda when it comes to "the Serbs." Even a substantial part of its
most recent funding comes from a single private donor, George Soros, a
Serbophobe with billions to spend in his"eternal combat" against the
dragons of Nationalism. Unfortunately, the fig leaf of such phrases as
the "Hague Tribunal" and "indicted war criminals" has hidden in general
from the American People the true nature of this quasi-legalistic
perversion.
At the same time, while the Serbs were being routinely accused of
everything except bad weather, war crimes and crimes against humanity
perpetrated by the Croat and Bosnian Muslim forces (later by the
Albanian KLA) were hardly ever reported, if at all. The Serbs became
sub-human, without the right of self-determination at Krajina and in
Bosnia, without the right of self-defense at Kosovo. They were set-up to
take the fall no matter what they did or did not do. Serb para-military
"avengers," the stupid and unnecessary shelling of Sarajevo (an"Olympic
Town" in Western eyes}, the holding of U.N. hostages, the
"Macho"counter-poise ("inat") to the far more powerful NATO member
states and the total denial of any atrocities committed against other
ethnic groups played right into the hands of the Serb haters. Hate
invariably warps. It makes caricatures of those who are seduced by it.
It robs them of reason, logic, willingnes to listen and learn. It robs
them of the very humanity they profess with astounding contradictions.
The Clinton foreign policy team, infected by Madeleine Albright’s
masked but acute Serbophobia with a record, could not tolerate defiance
and"disobediance" to its dicta any more than Hitler. Secretary of
Defense Cohen even said that if the Serbs continue to defy the U.S.
Serbia "will be reduced to ashes." It came close to that after
Rambouilled in February 1999 over Kosovo. Serbia and Kosovo werre
bombed mainly by the USAF for 78 days ostensibly to force "Milosevic" to
accept a "Peace Plan" and return Autonomy to Kosovo. The Rambouillet
(5)
ultimatum actually demanded the occupation of Yugoslavia by NATO
troops. It was even harsher than the Austrian ultimatum of 1914 which
may have inspired its March 1999 drafters.
The invincible U.S., sole remaining International Giant , had used air
power to impose its will on a peanut country in Europe.It did not work
at all. It even proclaimed total "victory" at Kosovo. an
interpretation questionable by anyone familiar with facts on the ground
and capable of minimal logic. There is an old Slavic proverb. It
states that when God wishes to punish an individual He first removes the
capacity to reason.
It is obvious that foreign policy makers in Washington are unwilling to
be impressed by the historical pattern of results that have affected
three great powers in their obsession with the Sertbs. With the Soviet
Union out of the way Washington’s foreign-policy, intelligence and
military elites convinced themselves that America’s power is today so
absolute that they can do anything and get away with it, usually on
moralistic grounds The main reason why the Presidential race hardly
touches on foreign policy is not the claim that the American People are
totally disinterested in what goes on "out there." It is becuse the
perception and feeling of omipotence, of absolute power, has eliminated
the need to be held accountable to the American People for egregious
foreign-policy errors in both theory and practice.The leading question
poses now itself. Will the U.S. obssession with" the Serbs" allow it to
orbit out of the historical pattern outlined at the beginning of this
essay? Having proclaimed " victory" at Kosovo, are there losses
involved at all? This is a virtually unexplored area of serious
inquiry. It is in dire need of analysis in its domestic and foreign
dimensions. Some preliminary observations suggest themselves.
Deceit, disinformation, violations of elementary logic through
well-planned lobotomies on the public mind, and misuse of the
"Intelligence Community" to "trick" the American People into supporting
military actions in the name of "National Interest," enter immediately
into view. Of the 47 military engagements since 1945, 33 took place in
the last eight years. The United States had no vital national interests
in the Balkans in World Wars One and Two. Betwen 1956 and 1989 it
supported the Federal and Communist-ruled Yugoslavia’s independence
from Moscow but it committed no major military and financial resources
to prevent a Soviet take-over. Yugoslavia never became a part of NATO
and its is extremely doubtful that Washington would have risked a
thermonuclear war with Moscow over such an attempt. That is because the
U.S. did not really have a vital National Interest in the Yugoslav
space. Now, suddenly in the 1990’s, without any Soviet threat, one is
told that American troops, planes, bombs and missiles and an expenditure
of billions of dollars are there to defend a vital National Interest.
As yet, no one has been able to define persuasively what it is today.
Defense of Human Rights is about the only "over-arching" argument
advanced. It collapses upon closer scrutiny. While professing acute
concerns for Serb violations of Human Rights the "National-Interest"
promoters could not care less for what was done to the Serbs. The
record is there , it is clear and offers a devastating
(6)
indictment of moral poverty involved in the bogus claim to a "vital
National Interest." In Kosovo, today, under NATO and the U.N., the
gross, daily and witnessed violations of Human Rights, perpetrated by
the clandestine KLA against the dwindling Serb and other minorities, has
not produced a single major voice in the Administration or in Congress
to crack down on and dismantle the KLA completely, arrest its leaders
and deliver them to the Hague Tribunal. Instead, members of the
"ex-KLA," transformed into the U.N. Constabulary at Kosovo have just
been funded in Congress despite repeated evidence that they have engaged
and engage in extortion, beatings and even murder. While a five million
dollar reward is offered to anyone able to deliver Milosevic to the
Hague , the political head of the "ex-KLA" attends the Democratic
Convention in Los Angeles exchanging kisses with Secretary of State
Albright. .
As an outgrrowth of deciet and disinformation needed to justify
military interventions abroad, an unusually intimate relationship of
the major scribal and audio visual media and the Administration has
emerged in the shaping of foreign policy. While a "patriotic
mutuality" of government and media was commonplace in major wars, it
never loomed as large in peace-time as in the last decade while focusing
on the Balkans and the Yugoslav tragedy. Most of this "mutuality" was
not directed at any real "enemy" of the United States. Nor was the
country in a state of formal war. Its planes and missiles did bomb
Serbia and Kosovo relentlessly for eleven weeks but lack of casualties
on the NATO side confirmed the purely punitive nature of this military
intervention. A real war between two countries simply did not
materialize. As the USAF General Nash said in plain English, the "air
war": was meant"to break the will of the Serb people." Instead, it
prolongued their support for a leader they had wanted to ditch years
earler, first in 1991 and again in 1996/1997.
It cannot be said enough times that anti-Serb propaganda saturating the
print, the images and the waves was directed mainly at the home
audience. Quite simply, the American People have been massively cheated
out of getting the truth. Thus, from both the foreign and domestic
points of reference there is nothing to brag about despite claims of
"victory." If this is not altered by a re-emergence of true sequence of
events, by the discovery that the Clinton Administration’s meddling in
Yugoslavia was the greater part of the problem and hardly a part of its
solution, the American People risk losing any control at all over a
foreign policy that could spell major disasters yet to come or manifest
themselves. . That is why our politicl leaders do not wish to discuss
openly and at length the truth about American foreign policy in the
1990’s in the Balkans.They are afraid of revealing their own moral and
intellectual fragilities. They invent Geopolitical fantasies because
they do not really know where they are going. But that is not all.
The 78 days of bombing a small European country which hardly put up any
defense created a major problem with its own offshoots. No matter what
moralistic braggadocio comes out of Washington about "protecting
Democratic values ," the mask is off an Imperial Power out to control
the World with a new process and a new ideology, a newly perceived "
Evil Empire." The process has been called "Globalization," the ideology
"Globalism." Millions have died in the
(7)
name of various "isms." There is every chance that millions more will
die. Today, military-political strategists in Washington are asking for
additional billions in order to be able to "fight simultaneously on two
fronts." Reference here is clearly to "regional conflicts" which will
be"sold" to the American People much in the same ways as already worked
out in the Balkans. The process of Globalization was anticipated by
James Burnham in the early 1940’s when he wrote about the "Managerial
Revolution" but localized it in the U.S. In simplified language,
globalized economy will reduce the state to a janitorial role and
replace sovereignty with Multinationals.
In a short cross-over from process to dogma, Globalism replaces
Communism whih also sought to impose itself on the whole world and
dissolve the state. Those who dilligently promote Globalism as an
idology and Globalization as its tool need to be reminded that no global
"ism" has ever defeated local "isms." The former are synthetic while
local Nationalisms are visceral and tend to prevail or re-assert
themselves either aggressively or defensively. Wherever Globalization
and economic prosperity march hand in hand and are visibly
inter-conncted, detonators with which to trigger - off visceral
reactions of latent Nationalism will be missing. At the moment , the
tendency is to jump into the Globalizing band-wagon pulled by the
mighty Multinationals. Yet, it is hardly difficult to predict a host of
the coming defensive Nationalist reactions . If the U.S. uses its
capacity to actually fight in two (or more) regional conflicts at the
same time to attack one ethnic group in support of another it will
neither manage to promote the cause of universal Human Rights nor remove
the detonator that goes off in defense of a tribe. By using a selective
approach to Nationalism in ex-Yugoslavia and, indeed in the Balkans,
the Clinton Administration has already made a most egregious error.
It has shown convincingly that there is no such thing as "humanitarian
military intervention," tnat it is Might that decides who shall and who
shall not have access to Human Rights and that international obedience
to its imagined absolute power has already corrupted Washington
absolutely. One might add, without redemption unless the American
People take their government back. In respct at least to the Serbs and
Yugoslavia this is not so very difficult despite the lasting and
lingering Serbophobia which needs to be cured. To this end a few
concrete proposals seem in order.
It is high time to deliver on the claim that "the U.S. has never been
against the Serb people" but only "against Milosevic." For starters,
home-grown Serbophobes should be made increasingly uncomfortable in
further attempts at getting their jollies by bashing "the Serbs."
Outright hate-mongering of the Serb ethnicity might be something that
Serb-Americans and other fellow-Americans might wish to pursue through
courts.Secondly, if there is no will to downgrade or even punish we
should at least stop glorifying as our "heroes" Madeleine Albright,
Generals Clark and Short.We are demanding that all ethnicities in
Yugoslavia --but especially the Serbs-- stop glorifying as their
"heroes" such people as Radovan Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic
(Serbs),General Rasim Delic and Warlord Nasir Oric (Bosnian Muslims),
deceased General Franjo Tudjman and very much live General Agim Ceku
(Croat and Albanian in Croatia’s Army)
(8)
and, again, Agim Ceku and Hashim Thaci (Kosovo Albanians). Next, even
our current President Clinton can issue an Executive Order to all the
Armed forces that the Serbs are not considered to be an enemy of the
United States. A claim is standing that the" moment Milosevic steps
down" and is replaced as the Yugoslavia’s President by an election, all
sanctions are to be lifted. It is time to stop a decade of a cruel
economic punishment and deliver on the claim no matter what else
happens with or to "Milosevic." At the same time, the White House should
honor the request of Western Europe to extend immediate recogniion to
Vojislav Kostunica. It would be a serious mistake to start labelling him
as a "Serb Nationalist with a kinder face" simply because he is not
immediately assuming the role of Washington’s likeable lapdog. While
stating and restating that the U.S. will share with Western Europe the
burden of paying Yugoslavia for the damages caused by eleven weeks of
bombing its civilian infrastructure and properties, it would be useful
to repair specific damages by an advance of funds. Sending our own
medical experts to determine the extent of released toxins and a mutant
like depleted uranium would show also also some real concern for genetic
damages in the making. We should reopen the Embassy in Belgrade and send
a diplomat untainted by Serbophobia.
There should be no immediate demands for deliveries to the Hague
Tribunal of alleged Serb war criminals. A little healing time is needed.
A hemorrage has been stopped with a strong bandage and it is too early
to remove it. A little patience is required. In the cited article of
five years ago, this writer suggested that the only sure way of ending
ethnic conflicts in ex-Yugoslavia for good would be to strengthen local
judicial systems to have them try their own alleged war criminals
perceived as "heroes." At the same time, the high life with perks of
those associated with the Hague Tribunal should be no longer funded, the
Tribunal’s funding should go to Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro and
Kosovo and the Tribunal should be replaced by an already ratified in
part World Court to deal with future war crimes and crimes against
humanity. It is not out of question for an ordinary citizen to make
another suggestion. The Puritans, who are the antecedents of America,
absolutely rejected displays of arrogant behavior. Could our present
foreign policy elites be perdsuaded, while forming the United States of
the World, to be at least overtly humble?
MILOSEVIC, THE SERBS AND THE WEST
R.K.Kent
Emeritus Professor of History
University of California at Berkeley
13 Mar 2001
Those who know Serb History will recall that in 1804 Karadjordje almost
refused to lead a revolt against the Turks because of his choleric
nature. " When men disgree with me," he said, "I lop their heads off."
"Can you accept this (kind of leadership)" he asked at an assembly."That
is why we precisely wish you to lead us now." Later on "when you are no
longer needed we will lop YOUR head off." This is exactly what happened.
A page, torn out of the Serb past, connects with the universal fact
that no individual -- declared "bad" or" good"-- can or should replace
an entire people when it comes to its National Interest. It also reveals
that different times and different crises require different types of
leadership. While in power, Milosevic wrapped himself in Serb
Nationalism everywhere in ex-Yugoslavia except in Kosovo where he
attempted to "play the Yugoslav card." Neither of the two constitute an
unforgivable political sin and let it be noted at once that Milosevic
came to Dayton, Ohio, and signed an international agreement without
being considered, charged or arrested at that time as a "war criminal."
There were no other armed conflicts between Dayton and 1998/1999 when
the Kosovo Liberation Army escalated its guerrila war until it
resulted in the NATO (primarily U.S.)"air war" of eleven weeks.
The NATO "humanitarian intervention," dipped in depleted uraniam and
sprinkled with cluster bombs, was a war crime and a crime against
humanity under an Open Sun. It did enrmous and as yet incompletely
assessed damage to the Serb people , their properties, land, air and
rivers. It was not only criminal in nature, deliberately hitting
civilian targets in order "to break the will of the Serbian people," as
General Nash said in public after the "air war" of 78 days. . It was
both an unneccessary and an avoidable war. Its driving mechanism was an
almost insane desire to assert power through physical punishment and
humiliation of a people demonized during an entire decade (1989-1999).
As a result, Milosevic became both a Hero of Serb Resistance to
Foreign Imperialism and an unhappy choice as the Serb leader at a time
when the United States underwent a hi-tech revolution that could shape
and re-shape public opinion at will, within days. Or conduct a war
without losing a soldier. At the same time the ""prevailing ethos"
precluded the labelling of entire populations as "inherently evil."
That would be both "uncivilized" and "undemocratic." It thus found in
Milosevic a villian that could be depicted as the evil "Butcher of
the Balkans." After playing a hefty part in the fall of Milosevic from
power, the Clintonites are demanding --despite losing the
Presidency--that he be delivered to the Hague Tribunal for Yugoslavia.
He has been indicted in public for alleged war crimes and "genocide"
exclusively at Kosovo. No credible, prima facie, evidence to support
this indictment has surfaced in public.Yet, in the post-Clinton America,
the new Sereb Government is now being blackmailed via denials of
economic aid unless they at least arrest and try Milosevic in
Belgrade. A subsequent delivery to the Hague, along with other indicted
top Serb officials in the Milosevic_s government would follow.
(2)
A Petition is being circulated at this moment demanding the end of a
witch hunt involving Milosevic. It castigates all Serbs prone and
willing to deliver Milosevic to the Hague. But, it also attacks all
those willing to put him on trial in Belgrade as boot-lickers and
lackeys of American Imperialism who are selling the Serb people out. The
Petition has chosen the Hero model and only a Serb Medal of Honor is
lacking. This is a gut reaction against international injustice both at
the Hague and over the skies of Serbia and Kosovo. It is also an
attampt, at least indirectly, to uncouple the reconstruction aid which
is owed by any civilized standards as well as promised if Milosevic
fell from power. The drafters and co-signers of the Petition, all
time-honored and tested defenders of the Serbs in the U.S.thus
interpret the current National Intrest of the Serb people not on the
basis of reason but emotion. Let this writer make the case for reason
and see if it can prevail over visceral reactions.
First and foremost, the Serbs have no real friends among the influential
persons in the U.S. who make foreign policy. Many among them have
convinced themselves that they can prevent another Holocaust by
developing a new bunch of "Neo-Nazis" slated not only for punishment but
also for collective humiliation. Most of them are interventionist
hawks, regardless of party affiliation. Some are quite bloody-minded
They would kill and maim and attack the genetic code of Serb civilians.
One is even a political adviser to the KLA.They have no intention of
letting go of either Milosevic or the Serbs. Since "Milosevic" is out
of power these Establishmentarians must have him at the Hague Tribunal
because only THERE he can be humiliated beyond physical punishment. The
Tribunal is a DE FACTO political weapon and not a court of law. It
would provide basically a show trial, for him as well as the other
"indicted" top members of his government.
But, there is a world of diference if Milosevic comes to trial in
Belgrade. In a real domestic Court of Law Milosevic will have the kind
of legal defense he could never secure at the Hague. His attorneys, in
defense, can just as well put NATO on trial for war crimes and crimes
against humanity and peace. They can demand that the Hague Tribunal_s
Prosecutor realease documents which provide prima facie evidence agaisnt
Milosevic as a "genocidal" "war criminal" at Kosovo. This can be done,
amicus curae, to "assist" the High Serb Court in fact- finding in
respect to alleged Hague accusations. A trial of Milosevic in Belgrade
with INVITED FOREIGN OBSERVERS OF LEGAL STATURE could turn the tables on
his Hague indictment, resulting in a law suit at the World Court for
"MALICIOUS DEFAMATION. " Damages could be asked for in the neighborhood
of $100,000,000. At the same time Milosevic would be undeliverable to
the Hague if the indictment for alleged genocide and war crimes
directly linked to him cannot be supported. There would have to be some
prima facie evidence, subject to detailed scrutiny of his defense
attorneys. REAL LAW IS THE ARENA FOR COMBAT, not emotional petitions
even when the sentiment is shared. Witch -hunts die out when
dissected and singed by truth. Some last observations, now..
(3)
When Carla del Ponte wanted to open a Tribunal Office in Belgrade, the
same visceral reaction took place as some wre horrified at the lack of
national backbone in opposing "legitimization" of the Tribunal. The
Tribunal is a political fact of life. It has to be dealt with as
such.This means that an Office of the ICTY should be allowed to open in
Belgrade only to be flooded with thousands of Serb victims willing to
provide evidence of what has been done to them in other parts of
ex-Yugoslavia. The story of atrocities against the Serbs during the last
decade is far from being told or even known to the wider publics in the
U.S. and Western Europe.
It is very much in the Serb National Interest to put Milosevic on
trial in Belgrade to determine the extent and scope of his alleged
guilt. It is his turn to have the symnbolic "head lopped off " if he
is really found guilty of genocide and war crimes. But, there is more to
it. For 36 years (1944-1980), Serbia was ruled by Tito and the
Communist League. . After a rotating Presidency of about a
decade(1980-1990) former Yugoslav Communists became Socialists overnight
and all of their top leaders enveloped themselves in ethno-religious
nationalist cacoons. This writer refuses to accept the contention that
only the supporters of Milosevic and of Tito_s Yugoslavia have the right
to monopolize the interpretation of the current Serb National
Interest.
Serbia has a broken infrastructure. Half of its working force is
without jobs or a social and medical net as the old economy is not quite
out and the new economy has not quite gotten in. Almost a million of the
"precanski Srbi" are now refugees in Serbia proper, not to mention a
couple of hundred thousand ethnic Albanians, thousands of mixed-marriage
Yugoslavs, Croats, Hungarians and other minorities, 26 ethnicities
altogether. Leaving aside the potentially gruesome medical outcome of
the air war that lasted almost three months, Economic Recovery is the
top priority that dominates the National Interest of the Serb People. It
is not the affirmation of National Pride or the perception that it is
gone forever through some "bending" by the new Government in
Belgrade. To put National Pride on a pedestal that cannot be "violated"
through a trial of Milosevic in Belgrade would almost certainly play in
the hands of the anti-Serb brigades throughout the "West" and
especially in the U.S. At the moment, they are eating their collective
liver becuae Kostunica is no Milosevic and the DOS is willing to take
the"capitalist road" into Liberal Democracy. Liberal or not, Winston
Churchill has called Democracy the worst form of government on earth.
The trouble, he added, is that we have not been able to invent anything
better.
Raymond K. Kent
Emeritus
History Department,
University of California,
Berkeley. Ca. 94720
Subject: Prof. R.K.Kent: An open letter to senator Jesse A. Helms
Date: Sat, 03 Mar 2001 17:19:42 -0500
From: "minja m." <minja@...>
To: KPAJ 3A HATO <kpaj-3a-hato@...>
The Honorable Jesse A. Helms,
Chairman,
Foreign Relations Committee,
United States Senate’
Washington D.C.
24.2.2001
Dear Senator Helms,
I still treasure a note you had sent me requesting copies of my
writings as you had found them generally interesting to read. I did not
have the heart to comply fully with your request. The volume is so
large that you could not possibly find the time to read all of the
texts. This is not preventing me from sending you just four. They are
entitled respectively: (1)Dr. Strangelove is Alive and Well - How
Madeleine got to Bomb the Serbs; (2)Beltway’s Moral Giants and Lessons
from Clio, the Muse of History; (3)Suggestions on Kosovo (with
sub-title); and (4) "Old and New Fascism -Eviva la Pace Americana."
While I am under no illusion that you will agree with all the
major points and suggestions, I regard you as a quintessential Old
American Patriot, one who knows the difference between Right and Wrong ,
one who grasps that the long-lasting attraction of America has come in
three parts. Its magnetic freedoms, its unsurpassed Constitution and
its powerful economy.. It is my contention that the luster of the first
two has dimmed in the last decade. Only the third retains its glow. The
Administration of William Jefferson Clinton was not only "corrupt." It
has attempted to transform America into a Fascist country with a new
face. With a strange resemblance of the First Family to Peron and Evita.
This thesis is stated, with some humor and sexual metaphor most
clearly in the piece on "Old and New Fascism." It is a road that should
be most repugnant to both Republicans and Democrats who can see the
forest and not succumb to a single-tree myopia, supporting any
Presidential action abroad and indulging in humanitarian asymmetry.
It is unfortunate how so many have persuaded themselves that the
"Indispensable Nation" and "sole remaining Super-Power" can do
anything it wants, "Exceptionally," in any society around Planet
Earth. As if the U.S. possesses unlimited Absolute Power. New Moral
Giants came on the Beltway. They are far above us ordinary Americans.
They disregard completely even citizens with specialized knoweldge
and the will to prove that we, the People, are no real pygmies who must
invariably follow their phoney giants. Today, after bombing a small
state and its people into the Nineteenth century for nothing
substantial at all , some of our Solons are blackmailing Belgrade
instead of showing at least tolerance after 78 days of bombings if not
remorse for damages in human lives and unremunerated property. To say
nothing of the totally missing capacity to be magnanimous even in a
self-proclaimed "Victory." Permit me now to summarize the arguments in
the three articles apart from the one on Fascism, old and new. I do so
in an amplified way as a reading option. . Representative Dan Burton
told me once:
Anything longer than six pages is not likely to be read." The reduction
here is to four pages.
President Clinton and Secretary Albright bombed both Kosovo and Serbia
to "save" Kosovo’s ethnic Albanians from "the Serbs." In so doing, they
used false reports, outright lies
and crass duplicity both at home and abroad. They certainly violated
the U.S.Constitution and broke International Law with impunity. The
often repeated trite phrase that "truth is war’s first vicitim " does
not even apply .The U.S. Congress had not declared war on Serbia. The
intended victim of their contemptible manipulations was the American
People. In seeking to impose a Pax Americana in the Balkans the
media-driven Clinton Administration (with some support in Comgress) )
has gradually succumbed to a re-birth of Fascism in a new form. Yet, it
was pre-disposed by its own amorality and will-to-power which are
central to Fascism as a phenomenon and noumenon.
Anyone with sustained knowledge of Balkan History in the 1900’s could
easily perceive that the Clinton Administration turned an American
ally in two World Wars, the Serbs, into an "enemy" without any real
threat to any serious aspect of the National Interest. . It was hardly
a foreign-policy "accomplishment." Training and arming directly and
indirectly the nationalist successors of proclaimed U.S. enemies in
World War II coupled with the doctrine of "levelling battlefield
opportunities" was hardly conducive to peace in the Balkans.
Had the Clinton foreign-policy team not stood in the way of even one of
the two most workable peace proposals (the Lisbon Agreement of February
1992 and Vance-Owen Plan of 1993) most of the fratricidal carnage in
Bosnia would have been avoided. There would have been no Dayton to
inspire an ever-escalating ethnic Albanian insurgency at Kosovo. Had
what was left of Yugoslavia been completely opened as a free market
economy with Western support , Milosevic would have fallen a lot
sooner. Instead, we punished the Serb people with brutal economic
sanctions.While proclaiming the New Age of Humanitarianism , our
sanctions hurt mostly the children , the elderly and the sick. One of
this writer’s friends had sent some bottles of Aspirin to a sick, old
relative in Belgrade. The package was returned by the Post Office ,
citing the embargo.
Had the enclosed "Suggestions" for a solution to the Kosovo Problem
been taken seriously , the U.S. would not have had to post and keep
our troops in a danger zone indefinitely and spend additional
billioins of dollars needed at home. Copies had been sent to the entire
Foreign Relations Committeee of the Senate. Equally, Kosovo today is in
such a state that even some Albanians who had fought with the "Kosovo
Liberation Army " have had enough. It is no longer "liberation" of
Kosovo from "the Serbs." Since June 1999, they have ben virtually
cleansed out, along with all the other ethnic minorities. This took
place with 40,000 NATO troops in a Kosovo under the UN Administration.
This writer has invested huge amounts of time over the years to find
out what National Interest was really involved in the ex-Yugoslav
space and how did the Clinton-Albright foreign policy relate to it.
German influence was perceived. The Vatican was not too far behind.
These were the "traditional" anti-Yugoslav forces, along with a
nostalgia for the Austro-Hungarian Empire among some and for a
re-creation of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans, among others. But, a
U.S. National Interest? If one were to extract the major claims on its
behalf they could be reduced to just a few. One is a virtual
declaration of war on "ethnic nationalism." "Humanitarian intervention"
came into view as a twin. The two were rooted in an "unbendable" claim
that "our" (please note the Royal "we") policy objective was to insure
peace in the area. Let us quickly look at the broad picture.
No one can credibly claim today that there has been any symmetry in
the would-be "Humanitarian Interventions," from Krajina to Bosnia and
Kosovo. While roundly blasting "ethnic cleansing" by the Serbs in
Bosnia, the Clinton Administration took an active part in developing and
permitting the Croat Operation Storm in August 1995 which produced by
far the greatest instance of "ethnic cleansing" up to that time. This
involved between 200,000 and 250,000 Serbs whose ancestors settled in
Krajina centuries earlier. Clearly, support for one ethnicity’s
Nationalism was used to "eliminate the problem" of dealing with
another.. The
architects of the "Kosovo Policy" first "laundered" the
"terrorists" (as defined by the State Department) into a "Liberation
Army." Next, they went on to support the KLA in a number of ways. In
so doing , they sided de facto with ethnic Albanian Nationalism. Most
could and did perceive the rapid advent of " ethnic cleansing " But,
since, this time, those "cleansed" were mainly Serbs the KLA’s crime
against humanity was explained away as "justifiable retribution."
Such a dogmatic explanation of crimes against humanity -even war
crimes- committed , say, by Serb individuals, army soldiers and
para-military units, not only in Bosnia but also in Kosovo, could
only earn "nationalist" accolades. What about the establishment of
peace? Two torpedoed peace proposals, imports of weapons, training of
armies,lending of the USAF to one against another --such is the PATTERN
revealing that "Peace" becomes an Orwellian term meaning "War." If not
peace, as the pivot of foreign policy in the area from 1992 to 1999,
why war? To believe simply that "Milosevoc" was the only or main reason
would require two things. One is to re-write the History of this period
. The second would be that Mickey is a real, ever-live , Mouse. A
strong case can be made for a perceived need to "resurrect" NATO
after the Cold War. Yet, it cannot explain what National Interest was
served in saving NATO from self-extinction by exacerbating the
southeastern Europe’s turmoil? One other "explanation." a
"geo-political" one has been advanced. The route to tapping the
reportedly huge Caspian oil reserves would require an indefinite U.S.
military presence at Kosovo-Metohija. Not an absolute necessity. Yet,
Even if certain, this would and could not explain the U.S. involvement
in ex-Yugoslavia before 1998. So, what is the one, fundamental,
underpinning of the Clinton-Albright policy here? It finally emerges
that there was no policy relating to any real National Interest. In
fact, there was no
policy at all. Its substitute was a capricious use of power for the sake
of power , using different component parts and accents. This was no
crude Fascism of Benito’s time. Our military did not drop captured Serbs
from planes without parachutes as did the Fascists in Lybia witn
Arabs who resisted. Instead, the "missions" have been and are still
endowed with High Moral Purposre which can only exist as a Kantian
noumenon that cannot be demonstrated . All of the phenomena of the
Clinton-Albright policy in ex-Yugoslavia show the contrary. There is
also another revelation. It is INCOMPETENCE masked as "achievement ."
The best example is found in the "Kosovo Policy." Most of its
architects saw in the KLA an Albanian Nationalism at work, aiming at
Kosovo’s independence. Some perceived a drive for "Greater Albania" as
its ultimate goal.One or two even wished it would come about.
What virtually none of the architects grasped is that "Greater Albania"
is a misleading cunstruct. It coveys an ultimate Nationaist Agenda.
In reality, as has clearly emerged at Kosovo since June 1999, the aim
of a "Greater Albania" is not some sort of national unity of all
Albanians under a single government. They have had a time-honored
acephalous society, dominated by clans. Moreover, hardly all of the
Albanians in Albania look with favor to a single, unfied Greater
Albania. Albania’s southern Christians do not wish to see more of the
Albanian Muslims added north into a unified state. The ultimate goal
of the main forces behind the KLA is to secure and control a
Commercial Empire enageged in illegal and criminal activities. It is
not only destabilizing the region. It is destibilizing Western European
societies as well. Over 80 percent of heroin goes into them via Kosovo
despite NATO’s presence in situ. .Many of the West European prostitution
rings and networks are Albanian-controlled as is the flow if illegal
shipments of humans from Asia and Africa. This is surely not a result
working in favor of the NATO intervention. Yet, it remains favored
as such to maintain the myth of an " Air Victory at Kosovo" and
rescue NATO for a second time from becoming irrelevant in one Europe.
In conclusion, I hope that you might find the time to read the four
articles enclosed and perhaps persuade you to enter them into the
Congressional Record, with this letter, despite their political
incorrectness or, possibly, because of it. Can we Amricans transcend
an endless dialogue of the deaf?
Respectfully
Raymond K. Kent, Emeritus
History Department,
University of California,
Berkeley, CA. 94720
(510/642-1971).