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- a public service of CADRE (Citizens for a Democratic Renaissance) -
What If the Shoe Were on the Other Foot?
Bob Djurdjevic <•••@••.•••>
Truth in Media's GLOBAL WATCH Bulletin 98/4-2
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019-bobdj-Yugoslavia.txt
Publisher's note:
If you aren't familiar with Mr. Djurdjevic and his feisty articles, I
commend this one to you as an introduction. I find his views on occasion
rather extreme, and somewhat foreign to my own admittedly liberal perspective,
but as regards the situation in the former Yugoslavia, he comes like a
breath of fresh air in the midst of the years of anti-Serb propaganda
we've been deluged with from Washington and the global corporate propaganda
media.
rkm
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998
To: •••@••.•••
From: Bob Djurdjevic <•••@••.•••>
Subject: "What If the Shoe Were on Other Foot?" (TiM GW Bulletin
98/4-2, 4/24/98)
FROM PHOENIX, ARIZONA
Truth in Media Web page: http://www.beograd.com/truth
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--------------------------------------
Truth in Media's GLOBAL WATCH Bulletin 98/4-2 24-Apr-98
--------------------------------------
Topic: BALKAN AFFAIRS
--------------------------------------
KOSOVO: What If the Shoe Were on the Other Foot?
BOSNIA: Freedom of Speech: What's That?
---------------------------------------
Diplomacy: A New "Contact Sport?"
WHAT IF THE SHOE WERE ON THE OTHER FOOT?
PHOENIX - Picture a band of some 200 armed terrorists trying to enter the
U.S. illegally across the Mexican border. The group's aim? "Liberating"
the American Southwest (which they call Aztlan) by inciting the local
Hispanic-Americans' insurrection against the U.S. American border patrols
discover them and try to apprehend them. The intruders open fire. The
U.S. officers return fire and call for reinforcements. After an all-night
gun fight, 23 of about 200 guerillas are dead. An undisclosed number of
American troops are also killed or wounded. Some terrorists manage to flee
back to Mexico. Others are apprehended and held at a U.S. prison, pending
an investigation and possible criminal charges against them.
That's the story. Now, picture yourself a judge whose job is to
investigate this incident, affix the blame and recommend further action.
Assuming that the above account does check out, mark off the box below
which, in your opinion, is closest to how you would have judged the case:
[A] U.S. border patrol officers acted appropriately. They
merely carried out their duty to protect the country's border and
sovereignty. The surviving intruders should be prosecuted under the U.S.
law for murder and for illegal entry into the country;
[B] U.S. officers acted appropriately and within the scope of
their duties, but for the sake of good neighborly relations, the imprisoned
intruders should be quietly deported to Mexico;
[C] Both U.S. officers and the intruders engaged in excessive
use of force. Both are to blame. So the U.S. border guards should be
prosecuted along with the intruders;
[D] The U.S. government should be condemned for excessive use
of force. The U.N. Security Council should hold an emergency session to
revoke the U.S. "veto," and to vote on the Mexican resolution seeking
imposition of international sanctions against the U.S., and freezing of all
U.S. assets in overseas banks. The resolution also provides that the
intruders be released immediately. They should be given a choice of either
returning to Mexico, or receiving the U.S. "green cards," full medical
benefits, and unemployment insurance by way of compensation for the pain
and suffering caused by the brutal and repressive American government.
If you've chosen either [A] or [B], you're probably a person of sound mind
and body (maybe leaning a little toward being a "softy" if you marked off
[B]). If you've chosen [C], you're probably a pacifist, or a member of
some animal or vegetable rights' protection group. If you've chosen [D],
you must be a either a State Department official, or perhaps a senior
editor of one of the establishment media organizations.
For, the firefight just like the one described in the opening paragraph did
happen during the night of Apr 22-23. Except that it was on the
Yugoslav-Albanian, not the U.S.-Mexican border. And that the 200 intruders
were Albanian terrorists bent on wresting Kosovo from Yugoslavia, not the
Hispanics trying to "liberate" Aztlan. The Albanians were intercepted and
repelled by the Yugoslav Army whose constitutional duty is to protect that
country's borders, just like our government's is.
Yet the State Department spokesman, James Rubin, condemned the Yugoslav
government for the incident, saying at yesterday's (Apr. 23) press
conference that the U.S. is "working with our allies to develop a package
of additional measures... (which) can only lead to further isolation of the
people of the former Yugoslavia." The Washington Post reported today (Apr.
24) that the U.S. officials expect Yugoslavia's assets to be frozen
(again!), and that a stiffer international ban on foreign investments and
other measures will be approved at next Wednesday's (Apr. 29) meeting of
the Contact Group (U.S., Russia, Britain, France, Germany and Italy).
Well, if that were to happen, not only will the U.S. government again be
behind a travesty of justice, but it will have to break some of the Contact
Group members' knuckles. No, we are not thinking only of Russia. The
Yeltsin government has proven time and time again in Bosnia that it can be
bought, and cheaply at that.
We are thinking of Italy. And to a lesser extent France. Italy is the
only Contact Group country which has a direct "personal," not merely a
geopolitical, interest in the Kosovo affair. Italy borders on the Balkans
and shares the Adriatic Sea with the Balkan countries. Italy also has
economic, historical and cultural ties to that region.
Prior to WW II, for example, parts of Croatia's Adriatic coast were a part
of Italy. Also, during WW II, for example, Italy had occupied and then
ruled both Albania and Montenegro, a Yugoslav province on the Adriatic with
predominantly Serb population. Finally, as we speak, Italy now has troops
on the ground in Albania, following that country's brief civil war in 1997,
and the international intervention which helped end it.
No wonder, therefore, that the Italians see the U.S. as a global bully
pursuing its geopolitical ambitions at other nations' expense. Lucio
Caracciolo, editor-in-chief of LiMes, an Italian quarterly geopolitical
review, had this to say in an OpEd piece, "Italy and the United States
Clash Over Kosovo," published by La Repubblica in Rome on April 7:
"The US superpower can afford to adopt a strategy of attack
because, among other things, it is covered by its own formidable military
umbrella. Italy, on the other hand, needs stability because we would be
powerless in the face of any conflagration in the Adriatic or Balkan area
that, at the very least, would bring refugees in fresh droves to our shores.
The same defensive reflex is triggered also by our geographic
proximity to the area of tension: We, rather than the Americans, would be
the ones to bear the cost of US geopolitical tinkering in the area.
Finally, while we view the Balkans from a regional
perspective, the United States uses a global lens. Its support for Bosnian
and for Albanian Muslims, for example, is linked above all to its policy
toward Turkey, toward the Middle East, and toward the entire world of Islam."
Caracciolo also charges that, "the United States backs the Albanians in
every possible manner... (and that the U.S. is) doing nothing to stem the
influx of money and of arms to Kosovo that is funded with remittances sent
home by migrants and with the drug traffic controlled by the powerful
Albanian mafia."
Italy has a far more conservative approach, the Italian editor claims. In
the Contact Group, "our diplomacy, along with that of Russia, is the one
most inclined to take into consideration the viewpoint of the Serbs. If the
United States pushes for increasingly harsh sanctions against Belgrade --
in this, effectively bolstering the very man, Milosevic, that it claims to
be seeking to punish -- Italy compensates the Serbian leader with the
Telecom operation that put fully 800 billion crisp new lire into Belgrade's
pocket only a few months ago."
So stand by for fireworks not only in Kosovo, but maybe also at the next
Contact Group meeting. The State Department spin doctors may yet regret to
have chosen this name and to have included Italy. For, after next
Wednesday, diplomacy may also become a "contact sport." Remember Rocky
Marciano (1924-1969), the former boxing champion of the world? Guess from
what country his ancestors came? [A clue: Not Albania!].
-------
FREEDOM OF SPEECH: WHAT'S THAT IN BOSNIA?
WASHINGTON - Separately, but still related to the Balkans, the New York
Times reported today (Apr. 24) that, "the United States and its Western
allies in the Bosnia peacekeeping operation are creating a tribunal that
will have the power to shut radio and television stations and punish
newspapers that it decides are engaged in propaganda that is undermining
the peace."
The move is raising concerns among journalists' organizations and other
civil liberties groups. Those groups say they are concerned about any
attempt by an alliance of democratic nations to impose restraints on the
press and broadcasting in another country.
The proposed tribunal, which would be partly financed by the United States,
highlights the awkward situation in which the United States finds itself,
both as an international defender of free speech and as a military power
trying to enforce a peacekeeping agreement among fractious ethnic groups,
the New York Times said.
"An international defender of free speech?" What were the New York Times
editors inhaling when they wrote that? The U.S. government and some of its
allies are among some of the worst OFFENDERS of free speech. The Truth in
Media articles would not be needed if free speech were truly practiced in
our country.
As for being "an international defender of free speech, "in a truly
Hitleresque style..." the U.S. troops serving within the NATO/S-FOR
occupying forces in Bosnia, "moved in on October 1 (1997) and took over the
four television transmitters which the Bosnian Serbs were using," we wrote
in the TiM GW Bulletin 97/10-8, 10/31/97.
The story titled "Different Strokes for Different Folks: Croats Told to
Apologize; Serbs Lose Freedom of Speech," also quoted a passage from this
writer's Oct. 24 letter to a former senior U.S. diplomat. The Oct. 1 S-FOR
move to seize the TV transmitters "was one of the more despicable acts of
'nation building' I have ever heard of. Goebbels might have approved of it."
As for Washington's other friends, Turkey, for example, our closest ally in
the Middle East after Israel, is holding more journalists in its jails than
any other country in the world - bar none, according to the Paris,
France-based Reporters Sans Frontieres organization. Yes, more than even
Iraq or Iran.
And just two days ago (Apr. 22), the New York Times reported that a
quasi-military court had sentenced the Mayor of Istanbul, one of Turkey's
most prominent Islamists, to 10 months in jail for a speech "that fell
afoul of the growing secularist crackdown."
Is that what the "natives" can expect from the new, U.S.-sponsored Bosnian
Thought Police whose mandate sounds awfully similar to the Kommunist
Kommisars' Kontrol (KKK) of the press? Worse, is that what we can expect
one day in AmeriKa? Way to lead the world by example, Uncle Sam a.k.a.
Bill Klinton!
------
Bob Djurdjevic
TRUTH IN MEDIA
Phoenix, Arizona
e-mail: •••@••.•••
Visit the <http://www.beograd.com/truth>Truth in Media Web site for more
articles on geopolitical affairs.
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