Dear cj, You haven't heard from me for many days. Partly it's because I've been working nose-to-grindstone on getting my first major Perl program running. But that's only part of the story. The rest of the story is that I've been disturbed by many of the statements people have been sending in to the list. There seems to be a surge of war hysteria, a willingness by normally critical people to accept the blatant propaganda being dished out about the NATO bombing and the Kosovo crisis. I didn't know how to respond to this, so I just let it all pass by while I worked on other things. I'll send out two additional postings tomorrow, one with pro-bombing statements and another with anti-bombing statements. In this post, I want to share some thoughts about the bombing and about people's reactions to it. Background of the Kosovo crisis ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, US policy toward Russia, the former Soviet realms, and Yugoslavia, has been one of maximal destabilization. Devolution has been encouraged, economies have been systematically wrecked, and organized crime has been encouraged. Just as Rome burned Carthage to the ground and sowed the ashes with salt, so is the US doing everything in its power, both overtly and covertly, to see that these formerly stable socialist nations are never again viable, at least not while any tinge of socialism remains in them. Whatever suffering is caused to the people is of no consequence to US leaders, anymore than was the suffering of the US's first genocide victims, the native Americans. I'm not saying this in defense of socialism or of Native American, I'm simply trying to clarify US motivation and policy. The destabilization of Yugoslavia began, if not before, with the Western recognition of Croation independence. It was well known by Western leaders that this would inevitably lead to a similar demand by Bosnia, which would in turn lead to all kinds of ethnic strife and civil war. For this reason most European nations, with the exception of Germany, were determined _not to recognize Croation independence. But Germany was adamant. It twisted arms. Finally a deal was struck. Germany allowed the UK to opt out of the EU's Social Chapter in return for UK support for Croation independence. "I'll let you exploit your workers, if you let me destabilize the Slavs" was what the deal was essentially about. Croatia was Germany's pro-fascist ally in WWII, and with Germany's help carried out extensive atrocities against Serbians. it was a testament to the leadership of Tito that a stable Yugoslavia could be constructed when WWII was over. But with the the death of Tito, and the precipitous recognition of Croation independence, all the old rivalries re-emerged, as Western leaders knew they would. Croation recognition was only the beginning of the destabilization campaign. Arms were covertly funneled to dissident groups in Bosnia, and they were encouraged to engage in terrorism against the established government. Croatia began to persecute its resident non-Muslims. The Serbian leaders are not saints, but ethnic cleansing only happened _after the destabilization campaign began, and was in fact an intentional outcome of that campaign. In fact, ethnic cleansing, and persecution of minorities, became widespread by all sides in Yugosloavia. But only the actions of the Serbs were portrayed in Western media. The largest single episode of ethnic cleansing happened not in Bosnia, but in Croatia, where the Serbs from an entire province were forcefully expelled and their homes burned. During the few days while this was happening, the Western press ignored it, and instead focused on reports (from the CIA) that satellite photos had revealed "new mass graves" in Bosnia. The event which finally unleashed NATO warplanes and US cruise missiles against Bosnia was the infamous shelling of a marketplace in Sarajevo. The US blamed this on the Serbs, but other NATO commanders believed the shelling might have been by Muslims, in order to justify expanded NATO inetervention. Subsequent evidence reveals they were probably right. In any case, the event was used as an excuse for a major cruise-missile bombardment, the invasion of Bosnia by Croation forces, and major (and unreported) ethnic cleansing in Croatia. These actions had been under preparation for some time, and staging a shelling in Sarajevo would have been typical of the tactics employed by the US to justify its interventions. (See: William Blum's "Killing Hope"). In Kosovo, the trouble seems to have been intentionally started by the US and Germany, who trained and armed terrorist dissidents and sent them into Kosovo to wreak havoc. These terrorists are what is known as the KLA. The KLA are characterized as freedom fighters in the Western media, but even in that media are clues as to what they really are. One report said "negotiatons are difficult because the KLA has no civilian counterpart". Doesn't that tell you something? What kind of "freedom fighters" have no civilian counterpart? In a BBC broadcast I saw last week, they showed footage of KLA operatives in Kosovo. It was interesting to see how the narrator danced around the issue of who the KLA was. He had to admit "many of these men are from outside Kosovo", but he tried to blur this fact as much as possible with various irrelevant observations. With US & German support and arms, the KLA has provoked the crisis in Kosovo and has given Serbia no choice but to respond militarily to keep order. That military response has been seized on by the Western media while the cause has been suppressed. To summarize, the Kosovo situation was intentionally planned and brought about by Germany and the US as part of a bigger campaign to break Yugolslavia up into little pieces, and make it more amenable to Western economic exploitation. Yugolavia is a prototype for how collective imperialism is to be managed under the new globalization regime. The Kosovars are simply pawns in the imperialist game, just like the Kurds and the Afghanis before them, or for that matter, the South Vietnamese. The US cares nothing about the human rights of the Kosovars or anyone else. Once the West gets what it wants in Yugolslavia, the Kosovars will be abandoned, just as the Kurds were abandoned (to invasion by Turkey) and the Afghans were abandoned (to their Taliban fate). It is worth recalling that the first person to drop poison gas on the Kurds was Churchill (following WWI), to suppress their independence movement. As part of the current bombing, the US is covering Kosovo with spent-uranium shells that will cause severe health problems for generations to come. Even if the backgroud of the situtation were different than this, if the US and Germany were not to blame for the situation in Kosovo, the NATO bombing would still be an unjustifiable response to the crisis. Even if we accept that independence for Kosovo is a justifiable goal, the US could employ far less destructive means to achieve that goal. There are any number of viable scenarios by which the US, with its advanced weaponry, could expel the Serbian military from Kosovo without destroying Serbia in the process. The fact is that the destruction of Serbia is not a crisis-response by the US, but is rather a pre-existing objective, a part of the general destabiliztion campaign. The Kosovo crisis was engineered in order to permit this objective to be pursued. War Hysteria ^^^^^^^^^^^^ What disturbs me about the statements people have been sending in, in support of the bombing, is that many of the people would normally be against violence, and against warfare as a way to solve problems. But with bombs actually falling, and the propaganda machine in high gear, it seems nearly everyone falls prey to war hysteria. This is disturbing because it implies is that peace activism is largely a waste of time. Regardless of how much "peace consciousnes" might be developed in the population, it all goes down the drain the minute the imperialist war mongers decide it's time for another war. With the imperialists' ability to manipulate and stage events, and to flood the airwaves with lies, the overwhelming bulk of public opinion, including both liberal and conservatives, seems always to swing to support for whatever war has been concocted. If war isn't opposed at the time it's happening, it matters little what sentiments might be espressed by people between wars. The Liberal Fallacy ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Liberalism (using the US definition), despite some contrary propaganda, is in the majority in the West. For this reason, it is liberal sentiments that are appealed to in justifying interventions such as that in Kosovo. That's why the bombing is called "humanitarian". (Pardon me while I puke). It's also why the Kosovo crisis was engineered in the way it was, so that liberal sentiments could be aroused against the Serbian responses to Western initiatives. Why are liberals so vulnerable to this kind of propaganda trickery? What fallacy in their thinking makes them suckers for imperialism? This is the question I've been pondering during my recent days of silence. I'll share with you my tenative analysis. At the core of the liberal mentality, it seems to me, is a belief in "progress from the center", a belief that "things are getting better" due to central government policy. Thus was slavery outlawed, the Nazis defeated, social programs installed, and environmental protections established. The government may be biased toward "conservatism", and influenced by special interests, but by and large, over the course of the past century or two, the tide of liberal pressure has gradually brought about ever-greater social progress. So goes the liberal mythology. What liberals don't seem to understand is that it is not capitalism that has brought about progress, but technology. Capitalism is not the source of technological progress, but is rather an attempt to monopolize control over that progress, and to concentrate the benefits of that progress into the hands of a wealthy minority. The Liberal Fallacy is failing to make a distinction between capitalism and economic progress, and between central governemnts and social progress. Economic progress would occur with or without capitalism, as was proved by the rapid industrialization of the USSR prior to WWII. That's why Western propaganda always emphasized whatever negative it could about the USSR, and (except for the brief years of the WWII alliance) the dramatic economic and social progress in the USSR was largely ignored. Thus, in the liberal mind, it is only capitalism that can lead to economic progress. Not true. Social progress has not resulted from government leadership, at least not in the US, but has been forced on the government from outside. It has been largely an attempt to keep the populace content, while real power continues to reside in the hands of an elite minority. Liberals think public opinion determines government policy, and that public education will improve government policy. They are wrong. To top governement leaders, and to the corporate elite who hire them to run as politicians, public opinion is merely a beast to be managed, not a source of policy guidance. Until liberals realize that they are not kings of the roost, but merely pawns being manipulated, there will be no real progress in the condition of mankind. As long as governement, media, and political parties are controlled by capitalist interests, our democracies will remain a sham and a con game. As long as liberals permit their nations to be run by minorities, and console themselves with economic crumbs from the capitalist table, and fool themselves into believing in the progress of man, imperialism will continue and the majority of the world's population will suffer accordingly. With globalization the formula changes somewhat. Imperialism continues, with different rhetoric, but Western privilege is reduced. Capitalism has learned it doesn't need prosperous Western populations in order to rule the world. With modern weaponry, one nation at a time can be brought to heel, without the need to stage yet another world-war style conflict, requiring large popular armies. Wake up and smell the coffee. rkm ======================================================================== •••@••.••• a political discussion forum. crafted in Ireland by rkm (Richard K. 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