Dear cj,
Many thanks to Mark for his many forwards re/Yugoslavia. The one below is
particularly interesting, especially given the source, a relatively
mainstream British paper.
As I see it, the analysis isn't that bad, for a mainstream paper, and what
he says about Yugoslavia is mostly spot on. I'll put the rest of my
comments at the bottom, so as not to prejudice your reading...
rkm
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Date: Tue, 11 May 1999 00:05:37 -0500
To: •••@••.•••
From: Mark Douglas Whitaker <•••@••.•••>
Subject: The Ominous Shades of 1939
---------------<fwd>---------------
The Ominous Shades of 1939
Rob Gowland
The Guardian, Culture and Life: April 14, 1999
At the Rambouillet conference on Kosovo, the Government of
Yugoslavia was presented with an ultimatum from the US. It
demanded the severing of the Serbian province of Kosovo from
Yugoslavia and its occupation by NATO military forces.
Far from giving Kosovo independence, it would in fact have
been run as a neo-colony, with power vested in non-elected
representatives of Washington and Brussels. The refusal of
Yugoslavia to bow to this ultimatum was the excuse for the US
to launch air attacks and start the first war in Europe for almost
half a century.
The US claims it is acting to save the ethnic Albanians of
Kosovo from ethnic cleansing and human rights violations at the
hands of the Government of Yugoslavia.
But shortly before the Rambouillet meeting, the US stood alone
in the UN General Assembly as the only country prepared to
support the human rights violating, ethnic cleansing regime in
Israel.
The activities of the Netanyahu Government in waging war on its
neighbours, oppressing its Palestinian population, destroying their
homes and forcibly removing them to be replaced by Israeli
settlers ("ethnic cleansing'' by any definition), and thumbing its
nose at US-brokered peace agreements would seem to be
precisely the sort of thing that brings massive US sanctions and
military intervention.
That is, if the principles that Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albright
are so fond of proclaiming to the world are actually genuine and
not merely a smokescreen for US policy driven by the interests
of US big capital.
The UN General Assembly, by 115 votes to two, resolved to
reiterate the UN's condemnation of Israel's failure to halt
settlement activity. The only two countries to vote against the
resolution were Israel and the US, the champion of freedom,
democracy and human rights.
The General Assembly bluntly blamed the "deterioration" in the
Middle East peace progress on "the lack of compliance by the
Government of Israel with the existing agreements". Despite this,
Netanyahu seems to be in no danger of having his country
subjected to US cruise missile attacks or occupied by NATO
"peace keepers".
Israel's settlement program in occupied Palestine contravenes the
fourth Geneva Convention. The UN General Assembly called on
the signatories to the Convention to meet for a conference in
Geneva on July 15.
There, the US will undoubtedly champion Israel's right to
continue violating the rights of Palestinians and thumbing its nose
at world opinion.
It is also very likely that the global bully will get another
diplomatic black eye at the conference in the form of yet another
humiliating rebuff.
But its international isolation and increasingly frequent diplomatic
rebuffs on an earlier but almost identical vote in the UN
condemned the US for its policy towards Cuba but has not
deterred the big banks and transnational corporations that
determine US policy from their aim not just of global domination
but of global control.
US-based transnational big-business is out to control world
trade, world food production, world energy supplies, and world
finance. They want open access to all markets, freedom to
manipulate all currencies, and through the IMF the power to
control all the world's economies.
It's a big order, but capitalists have no limits on their thirst for
power and profits. The US banks and the TNCs have a way to
go yet to achieve their aim but they're on their way sure enough.
Along the way they are going to have to contend with some
imperialist rivals in the form of Japan and an integrated Europe,
which, with the euro is already trying to screw up US financial
domination.
Germany, anxious to become the leading European power, its
capitalists yearning for the global power they used to hold before
World Wars One and Two, has been an active rival of the US in
the dismemberment of Yugoslavia.
Over half the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army is made up of
mercenaries, the bulk of them brought in from Germany, their
pockets full of marks.
The dismemberment and economic destruction of Yugoslavia is
but a part of the drive by the biggest of big business to enforce a
new world order.
At the moment the USA and its faithful lapdog Britain are leading
the charge, but Germany at the head of a unified Europe and
Japan are not likely to be content for long with the status of
retainers.
The resemblance between the Rambouillet conference and
Munich has been remarked on elsewhere. Munich too was about
dismembering a country for strategic reasons that had nothing to
do with the loudly trumpeted "rights" of the Sudeten Germans.
Unable to get its way reliably in the UN Security Council (China,
Russia and occasionally France tend to oppose US policy) the
US is trying now to sideline the UN altogether. It is endeavouring
to replace it with NATO as the world arbiter on questions of
aggression and threats to peace.
Meanwhile attacks on working people and democratic rights are
assuming forms once only associated with openly terroristic
fascist regimes.
The working class and the mass organisations of the people need
to find solutions to dealing with the global drive of big business
for total domination, for the ominous shades of 1939 are
gathering fast.
</end of article>
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rkm:
Where Rob begins to drift from reality is when he says...
US-based transnational big-business is out to control world
trade, world food production, world energy supplies, and world
finance. They want open access to all markets, freedom to
manipulate all currencies, and through the IMF the power to
control all the world's economies.
He's putting too much emphasis on "US-based"... the paragraph becomes more
accurate if you substitute "Western-based". All Western-based TNC's are
the beneficiaries of the global system, on a more-or-less equitable basis.
The US carries most of the police burden currently, but even that is
leveling out somewhat as NATO is dragged into an active imperialist role.
A few year back I would have left out any reference to "based", and would
have just said "Transnational big-business is out to control...", but the
coordinated assault on SouthEast Asia made it clear that the time-honored
principles of Western imperialism come first, and new-fangled market-force
competition is only to be given freedom within that constraint.
Rob then falls deeper into the abyss of his pre-globalization logic...
Along the way they are going to have to contend with some
imperialist rivals in the form of Japan and an integrated Europe,
which, with the euro is already trying to screw up US financial
domination.
The myth of an "integrated Europe", as a counter-balance to perceived US
economic power, is one of the most dangerous and prevalent myths at large
today. It's a very seductive myth, because it promises hope, especially
when Uncle Sam is on one of his wild-west rampages - and it lets British
columnists dream that Britain will once again enjoy greater world prestige,
as part of a resurgent Europe.
But it's myth nonetheless. What Rob is ignoring is the fact that the whole
thrust of the EU, including the Maastricht treaty itself, is aimed toward
the neoliberal, free-trade, globalization agenda. The same folks who are
behind the top-level EU institutions are active in the WTO and the other
globalist agencies. Globalization is systematically undermining national
economic sovereignty, and an integrated Europe would be just one more
nation, subject to the globalist regime just like all the rest.
In the Third World and Southeast Asia, with the actions of the IMF, it is
plain to see that national economic sovereignty has become subservient to
the interests of TNC's, and that the consequences of direct TNC rule are
devastating. In the West, the intrusion of WTO rules into our daily lives
hasn't yet reached visible proportions. But the precedents are beginning
to accumulate, and MAI-like initiatives are continuing with dogged
persistence. The Eythyl case in Canada shows that all envirnomental laws
are, in the long run, skating on very thin ice.
The top European leaders, who mouth the rhetoric of a resurgent Europe,
know full well where globalization is headed, as does Bill (didn't inhale)
Clinton for that matter. If there were any such thing as Constitutional
accountability, the lot of them would be on trial for high treason,
although their trail for crimes against humanity might take precedence.
Rob raises the central issue of our times...
The working class and the mass organisations of the people need
to find solutions to dealing with the global drive of big business
for total domination, for the ominous shades of 1939 are
gathering fast.
Unfortunately, with analyses like Rob's being so widespread, Europeans are
wasting their hopes on an integrated Europe. Their attention is diverted
to this pointless endeavor even while the roots of the global regime are
being firmly establihsed by binding treaties and by NATO blitzkriegs. The
enemy is not the US, it is Western capitalism, and now is the time to face
it - for the ominous shades of global fascism are indeed "gathering fast".
rkm
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