@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 00:00:17 -0700 Sender: LECLERC YVES <•••@••.•••> Subject: Re: cj#259> Editorial: Bosnian Prospects Dear Richard, This was certainly one of your best-argued and supported opinion pieces defending the conspiracy theory. Your writing is more solid (if I may say so without patronizing, just take it as a compliment from an old hand at it) and I must admit your logic makes a lot of sense -- so does John's reaction (both excerpted at the end of this). A couple of points I'd like to add. a) I still don't believe the conspiracy is as pervasive as you've previously made it ou to be, but it's hard to interpret recent events without considering its existence probable. A point very well made. b) Once again using external military intervention for internal political (mostly electoral) purposes is both cruel and megalomaniac in the extreme. But it is a long-standing "tradition" in the U.S. Hard to see how a country practicing this on a near-regular basis (Spanish-American war, Vietnam, Panama, Iraq) can give others lessons on human rights and democracy. Every time, Washington comes up with very good "moral" arguments for sending the troops into other nations' backyards, but if you put these aside for a moment, it becomes obvious that it tends to see the solution to international problems in terms of armed action rather than negotiation and apeasement. c) Two recent elements can be added to your analysis, and make it even more chilling: (1) Yeltsin's violent tirale thursday against the NATO strikes in Serbian Bosnia, and (2) the fact that Russia *is now too poor to afford to destroy its own nuclear stockpiles* as promised by Gorbachev in '91. Don't forget Jirinovsky, Boris's most likely successor, is even more critical of Western intervention -- and would have fewer qualms about intervening in former Jugoslavia. I do think these make your "WWIII" scenario both more credible and scarier. Remember a piece of mine last winter, when I predicted a renewal of the Cold War? Not only do events bear me out, I now fear it could be even worse. Replace "Cold" by "Open". I think we now see that the "threats to peace" of the last three decades didn't come mostly from the "bad Communists" -- the U.S., now free from the balance of terror, is alas showing itself the more aggressive and imperialistic of the former super-powers. Not only by its international actions: the triumph of the Gingrich brand of Rightism can be compared to the Jirinovsky trend in Russia. One may be more hypocritical and intellectually subtle than the other, but deep down, they are of the same ilk. And they both extend far outside the "inner circle" of your conspirators, to gather significant support in their respective citizenries. Chilling. I know too little about the internal politics of Germany to make valid assumptions about its evolution, but it's clear that the U.K is following closely the American lead, while the renewal of the French nuclear tests (I can't believe they didn't get secret U.S. approval first -- if this wasn't simply "ordered" by Washington) and the Bosnia events show that Chirac is also aligning himself very closely on the NWO agenda. My final thought is that we need another super-power to arise, to be a counterweight to U.S. aggressiveness. It's clear that Europe can't and won't do it. Russia is now much too impoverished and disorganized to play any kind of brinkmanship game witout hair-raising results. What is left? IMHO, the "best bet" is an unlikely but not impossible China-Japan alliance. They are old enemies and very distrustful of each other, but in this, I think they have clear common interests. Both have global economic agendas which certainly won't be served by renewed conflicts, *unless the conflict ca be circumscribed to the North Atlantic area*, which would weaken all their commercial rivals and put them in even better position than they are now. And their strenghts and weaknesses dovetail quite nicely. Japan has the money, the market penetration and the know-how, but little military and political push and no natural resources. China is capital-starved and backward in technology and marketing, but it has a huge, well-trained workforce, abundant resources, a powerful military, a permanent seat on the Security Council and the ear of still a large number of Third World countries. Both despise Western democratic and human rights traditions and would hardly hesitate to play "hardball" without any of our urge to cloak our power-grabs in high-sounding principles. So this is far from an ideal solution to our dilemma -- we would end up again with two blocs, both of which would have even less humanitarian and social pretence than the old ones. Still quite a bit better than nuclear war, though. We do live in "interesting times", don't we? Yves Leclerc Dead-End Democracy? or open-ended government... Montreal, Quebec @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
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