Dear rn,
The following essay arose as a response to an angry letter from a reader on
the cj list, and several people responded that they found it particularly
useful. So I thought I'd share it with rn.
all the best,
rkm
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[rkm had written, regarding the NATO bombing]:
>This rosy view was only partially correct. Western populations continue to
>abhor the rhetoric of nazism and fascism - but they are as willing to
>accept barbarism-in-their-name as were the Good Germans - provided it's
>wrapped in a more up-to-date propaganda package.
[A reader responded]:
Who in the hell started the barbarism some 8 years ago? We've been hearing
about atrocities being commited by the serbs for quite some time. We finally
act, rather than sit and wait for him to call our bluff and suddenly we're
nazi's? Quit talking out of your ...
---------------
Dear Chuck,
You raise useful questions...
> Who in the hell started the barbarism some 8 years ago?
Answer: The German government, which forced the premature recognition of
independence for Croatia, leading directly to general destabilization in
the rest of Yugoslavia, especially Croatia.
Yugoslav stability was a delicate balance, based on various kinds of
accomodations among the different regions and ethnic communities. The
breakaway of Croatia, under an anti-Serb regime, would fatally undermine
that stability, and lead to fears in each ethnic community that further
breakaways would put them in an underdog position in their own homelands.
These consequences were understood and predicted by European leaders, and
that's why so much German arm-twisting was required to force a Yes vote
re/recognition.
Old ethnic rivalries and fears were re-fanned following the breakaway, and
all sides were subjected to abuses and atrocities by other sides, depending
on who was in the majority in a particular place.
> ...We've been hearing
> about atrocities being commited by the serbs for quite some time.
Television entered the story midway through this destabilization process,
and from the beginning carried a totally one-sided picture of what was
going on. It's exactly as if a fist fight were going on between two men,
and the media showed only frames of person A hitting person B, leaving out
when B hits A, and the then presented the story under the heading: "Thug
attacks helpless man". That is not just "bias", it is intentional
deception.
As the situation continued to worsen, many European initiatives were put
forward to mediate, to introduce some kind of effective sanctions, or to
otherwise do something to calm things down and work toward a resolution.
Public US policy was erratic and seemingly confused, but the consistent
result was that every European effort was thwarted or rendered ineffective
by lack of US cooperation or outright US opposition.
Meanwhile, behind the scenes, the US funneled secret arms to Croatia and to
favored factions in Bosnia, and advised Croatia on modernizing their battle
plans for the day when they'd be allowed to invade Serb-controlled parts of
Croatia.
And then there's the KLA. The KLA is a terrorist organization, organized
and armed under the tutelage of US and German intelligence, and was sent in
to stir up the current crisis in Kosovo. In some ways, you can compare the
KLA to the Contras in Nicaragua, who were also US-funded terrorists, sent
in on a similar destabilization mission, and who were also funded out of
the drug trade. Ever since the days of Air America and the Montgnard
Tribesmen in Laos, the CIA has been using drug-trade franchises, vended to
one terrorist organization or the other, as a way to fund a whole series of
destabilization campaigns. Some of these destabilization campaigns have
been, and still are, within America itself, eg. minority communities in LA,
as Gary Webb revealed in his SJ Mercury series.
The KLA can also be compared to the Taliban, since the KLA is being groomed
to become the core of the next government. The latest issue of Foreign
Affairs, a publication of the Council on Foreign Relations, where you can
see elite planning explicitly revealed, announces a favorable KLA article
at the top of its cover in 48 pt. bold red type:
"Kosovo's Next Masters? - Chris Hedges goes inside the rebellion"
Like the Taliban, the KLA is an extremist faction, organized primarily as a
military outfit, with no respect for human rights, and without any
qualifications in governance. Installing them in power in Kosovo would be
totally inconsistent with any desire to promote human rights or stability
in the region. Nonetheless, the US position, as candidly revealed in the
Foreign Affairs article, is that "The KLA fighters are the province's new
power brokers." Even though "The KLA is uncompromising in its quest for an
independent Kosovo now and a Greater Albania later."
Don't you see what they're doing? They're putting in the worst government
they could come up with, a government which will create ongoing instability
in the reigion. The KLA's cry for a "Greater Albania" sounds just like the
Serbian cry for a "Greater Serbia", which is one of the things we condemn
Serbia for. Is this a desirable outcome? Is this worth bombing Serbia
back to the stone age for? Is this the "human rights" result that
justifies "humanitarian bombing"?
---
> We finally act, rather than sit and wait for him to
> call our bluff...
As you can see, the US has been very active for quite some time in the
region, but most of its actions aren't carried on TV. The US has done
everything it can to stir up trouble in the region, and to prevent any
solution from being attempted, while all the while it was preparing public
opinion to accept it's own "solution" to the same crisis which the US
itself had largely been responsible for nurturing along.
An aside: When I say "US", I hope you realize I'm talking about the
Federal government and its military/intelligence branches, under the
control of corporate interests - not the US as a society. I'm a US citizen
and I don't hate my country. Once we get rid of the
capitalist-aristocracy, banking-elite, neo-imperialist regime, it will be a
great country again.
---
You use an interesting phrase, "wait for him to call our bluff". The US
presented Serbia with an ultimatum, the terms of which Serbia couldn't
possibly accept, and then when they don't capitulate, we say "he's calling
our bluff". As I see it, "he was a victim of our charade".
The whole media treatment of events is at the level of cartoon characters,
or a Western shootout. It's a staged drama, much of it fabricated, the
rest one-sided, and hauntingly parallel to the "Wag The Dog" film.
---
The biggest news story out of Yugoslavia, as I see it, is the total
destruction of an entire national infrastructure, wholesale bombing of
civil-society targets, and the intentional dispersal of highly toxic
substances into populated areas (by bombing chemical plants in the middle
of cities). If Russia or some other non-NATO country were carrying out
such an attack, you can be sure TV would be filled with gory scenes from
this "crime against humanity", as it surely, and fairly, would be called.
Russian cruise missiles would be called "cowardly weapons of mass
destruction", which is exactly what cruise missiles are - in anyone's
hands. They're the direct descendents of Hitlers V1 buzz bombs.
---
The biggest news story, on "RKM Nightline", would be about the abandonment
of a centures old international system, based on the sovereignty of
nations, and its replacement by a global military regime.
Europe and the US pushed around the rest of the world for centuries, and it
was called imperialism. In those days, the Western powers competed for
spheres of influence - over who got the right to exploit whom. Today the
Western powers have banded together, consolidated their bookkeeping in the
IMF-World Bank system, and achieved cost-savings by merging their
militaries into a single Imperial-Legions NATO. For the first time in
world history, the globe is on the verge of being ruled by a single
military power, in support of a collective Western imperialist system.
Who sets NATO and Pentagon policy? Who decides when they sit and watch,
when they act, and what actions they select or targets they pick? Do you
see any democratic process behind such decisions? Do you see any desirable
outcomes from their actions? Are they bettering human rights or worsening
them? Are they increasing stability or are they spreading instability?
Are they reducing terrorism or creating terrorists?
---
I've mentioned Samuel Huntington several times on this list, and I
sincerely suggest that people take a look at his book, "The Clash of
Civilizations", or at his earlier article of the same title in Foreign
Affairs. It's not his writing per se that's important - by any objective
standard it's uninformed and illogical. But the way it's been received in
official circles makes it an historically important document. The
Economist described his work as being "the sea in which Washington policy
makers swim". It's not that Huntington, by his own whim and reputation, is
creating history, but rather that he happens to be the person best
qualified and positioned to articulate and package elite policy in a way
that can be sold to certain audiences.
In a nutshell, Huntington identifies a "problem" and a "solution". The
"problem" is a global increase in cultural polarization, and the "solution"
is an embracing of regional divisiveness by the West, and an assumption by
the West of a "disinterested brokering" role in maintaining world order.
In Huntington's pseudo-history mythology, the increase in polarization is
an inevitable trend. He ignores the role of the West, primarily the US, in
creating the instabilities in the first place, for example by installing
first the Shah and then the Ayatollah in Iran, the Taliban in Afghanistan,
Marcos in the Phillipines, Samosa in Nicaragua, Noriega in Panama, Pinochet
in Chile, Batista in Cuba, and next the KLA in Kosovo.
And in Huntington's mythology, the West's brokering role is the
good-citizen shouldering of a commuinity policing burden. He describes his
different regional "civilizations" as if they were living their independent
lives back in the Middle Ages, and ignores the fact that most of the world
is living under the thumb of IMF rules, has its markets controlled by
TNC's, and its finances controlled by the whims of Western bankers. He
ignores the fact that a Western "brokering role" is a flimsy sheep's
clothing over a modernized imperialist wolf.
But despite Huntington's mythological rationales and apolgies, the
substantive "results" of his pseudo-analysis are well worth reading. The
world order he describes is precisely the world order that US and NATO
actions are leading us to. Huntington gets the horse and cart in the wrong
order, but his description of the horse, and of the cart, are spot on.
It's a gangland world system, with regional overlords, "disciplined" when
necessary by "disinterested Western brokering", which we can translate to
mean "the launching of cruise missiles by US or NATO". It's a system that
generates instability and thrives on conflict - and provides a perfect
excuse for US fleets to roam the world dispensing death and destruction in
close support of the global capitalist regime. "Bad guys", like Saddam and
Milosevic, are an important part of this system. They keep divisiveness
alive and well, and keep Western populations glad they have the smartest
missiles.
---
These are the stories that would be "in your face" if there was an honest
and observant media. Instead we are fed a stream of mini-stories, edited
out of the historical drama, and orchestrated to create support for
whatever adjustment in the world system is deemed necessary by our esteemed
leaders at any particular moment. The corporate interests which build the
weapons, control international trade, and write the scripts for the
politicians, also own the television networks and decide the overall slant
of your news and entertainment.
---
> ... and suddenly we're nazi's?
What I said was that modern Westerners seem to be
"...as willing to accept barbarism-in-their-name as were the Good
Germans - provided it's wrapped in a more up-to-date propaganda
package."
I am not at all saying that Westerners are Nazis, quite the contrary. I'm
saying that the Good Germans allowed themselves to be fooled _by Nazis, and
that we are today allowing ourselves to be fooled by today's version of
Nazi's.
Hitler talked about a Thousand Year Reich, and dreamed of conquering the
world. His approach was that of frontal assault, and it spent itself in a
few horrendous years of warfare and genocide. Today's capitalist elite, on
the other hand, have all but succeeded in conquering the world. Their
approach has been a constant low-intensity stealth assault, on many fronts
at once, so the frog doesn't realize it's being boiled alive. The fascist
globalization regime may in fact last a thousand years, if people don't
rise up to stop it. The window of opportunity is closing fast.
With regimes like the Taliban and KLA (and Milosevic and Saddam) in power,
much of the world won't be any better off under the globalization regime
than Europe was under the Nazis. And with CIA-managed drug cartels
flooding the West with drugs, intentionally creating crime, and justifying
police-state "war on drugs" legislation, one wonders whether things will be
any better in the West itself.
Regards,
rkm
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