[PEN-L:5107] Re: Serbia and Kosovo/a

[Jim Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

1. People should remember that we don't know what's happening in Kosovo/a.
We get reports from the US/NATO folks but they are clearly biased,
self-justifying. Trusting Clinton and his ilk is like quoting Milosevic as
a font of truth. Or we hear from refugees, who are notorious for
exaggeration (because it evokes sympathy and rewards from US/NATO and the
official media) or for overgeneralizing from their own experience. The fog
of war is a real phenomenon. And as has been said many times, the first
casualty of war is the truth. Both sides (or all three, if you count the
KLA) slaughter truth to serve their goals.

I don't know what's happening in Kosovo/a. It's possible that the US/NATO
bombings (and the removal of external observers) unleashed bottled-up
ethnic animosity, combined with ideas in the Serbian elite that if "we
could just shunt the ethnic Albanians out of Kosovo, then we wouldn't have
to deal with these damned ethnic issues anymore and we'd punish NATO with a
flood of refugees." This is what I've been assuming.

But it may be more nuanced. Among other things, we can't assume that the
Serbs are that well organized (especially now that US/NATO has bombed the
communications network). The US/NATO image of Milosevic as some sort of
Evil Puppetmaster who is to blame for all evil in Yugoslavia is nonsense.

To some extent, ethnic Albanian Kosovars may have fled the area to get away
from NATO bombing. But I think that's very weak; it can't stand alone as an
explanation. It seems much too pat and apologetic, especially because it
leaves so much out. More likely is that they fled the war _as a whole_,
including not only the US/NATO bombing but also the Serb offensive against
the KLA (sparked by, but ultimately not caused by,  the bombing) and the
KLA's counterattacks, some of which may have been designed to make the
Serbs look even worse by hurting ethnic Albanian Kosovars. (These types of
things happen in civil wars and guerilla wars.) I know that I would have
tried to get out of the area if possible.

In addition, the Serbs probably encouraged this reaction, like yelling
"fire" in a crowded theatre. Given the extreme tension in the area, it's
not surprising that people fled. And I bet some massacres of ethnic
Albanians, along with mass round-ups of suspected KLA supporters (many of
whom were no doubt innocent) added force to the shout of "fire." The Serbs
may have decided to follow the US strategy against the Vietnamese of
"killing the fish (the KLA) by removing the water (the people)" by putting
the ethnic Kosovars into flight or in "strategic hamlets." (This is a
common strategy in counterinsurgencies.) Putting people into strategic
hamlets encourages flight to Albania or Macedonia or Montenegro, of course.

(BTW, there's been a lot of speculation about why Milosevic closed the
borders, no longer allowing refugees out. Some talked about Milosevic using
them as "human shields" or even killing them. But don't you think it's
possible that Macedonia and maybe even Albania requested this policy? After
all, look at what the Macedonians did to "their" refugees.)

2. Max likes the slogans:

>stop bombing Serbian civilians <

Again, I ask: is there any technology that can allow the bombing of
military targets without killing civilians? This is an especial problem
since (a) given Serbia's technological disadvantage, there's an incentive
to use civilians as "human shields" to protect their military and (b) the
US/NATO attacks have united the Serbs behind Milosevic, so that most of
them are _voluntarily_ behind his defensive efforts, like those wearing
targets or standing on the last unbombed bridge over the Danube. And by the
way, is a bridge over the Danube a military or a civilian target?

>safeguard an independent Kosovo, by any means necessary <

By any means necessary? does that include nukes?

BAMN is an old slogan that some of the US New Left of the 1960s and the
Black Panthers embraced for awhile. It seems silly. I thought rationality
involved "trying to balance costs and benefits, looking at the whole
picture (all the information available) and the possible long-term
results," which is the opposite of the emotional BAMN. Thus, I would favor
Chomsky's "first do no harm." Max, you have to face the facts: the US/NATO
has done tremendous harm. It's impossible to put things on a scale, but the
US/NATO may likely have done more damage to the people of the old
Yugoslavia than the ethnic chauvinists of Croatia, Serbia, the KLA, etc.

At this point, the US has already done so much harm that it has to do a
total reversal, declaring victory and pulling out, offering Serbia
gazillions to rebuild and then using the leverage that results from the aid
to protect the ethnic Albanians from the Serbs (and vice-versa, especially
since revenge killings seem next on the agenda). BTW,  I don't think that
the US will do this. Instead, expect continued bombing, more civilian
casualties, and possibly ground troops. The official opinion-makers (e.g.,
Daniel Shorr of US NPR) are currently drumming up support for the last.

3. This reminds me of my diatribe about jingoism. I talked about how the
jingoistic supporters of Clinton's war against Serbia were excessively
abstract and moralistic, ignoring the historical context and the
consequences of the actions they were supporting. I left out something:
jingoism involves nationalism (or chauvinism) and I didn't talk about that.

Nationalism is one of those words perfect for the old semantics game: "I'm
a patriot; you're a nationalist; but _he's_ a chauvinist." So I'm not going
to make any distinction between these degrees of nationalism.

In the US, the main form of nationalism (in terms of foreign policy)
involves the denial that "we" are nationalist at all. (However, note the
almost-universal use of the word "we" to describe a class- ethnically- and
gender- divided country, the implicit assumption that there is a shared
interest among all of "us.") The main basis for this is the fact that
big-power nationalism (like in the US) is different from the ethnic
nationalism of small countries (like the Serbs or the ethnic Albanians).

As the main big power in the capitalist world for the last 50 years or so,
the US is the case of big-power chauvinism that people know about (though
I'm sure something like it prevailed in the old USSR). The US elite claims
to act in the interest of the whole world "making the world safe for
democracy" or human rights or whatever. In recent decades, the US  has
pushed the neoliberal model onto the world, in the "name of efficiency" and
TINA. Any opposition, even from "respectable" countries like France, is
dismissed as special pleading or even worse, nuts. (It is typical in the
official press to portray leaders of the poor countries as nuts if they
don't toe the US line.) US nationalism thus isn't always the standard
us-vs.-them nationalism (though this is unleashed regularly, against the
USSR, Saddam Hussein, the Serbs, etc.) as much as the view that Uncle Sam
knows best.

I think that Max has gotten himself bound up in this vision with the
slogans above. While, in the abstract one can see these slogans as good and
reasonable as political ends, it's important to remember that there are not
just ends but means. The ends may justify the means once and awhile but the
the chosen means shapes and limits the ends actually achieved.

Less abstractly, the chosen means is the power of the US and NATO. Max asks
them to be nice, but the elites are the ones with the power. They're the
ones who like to impose solutions from bombers. I think Max has fallen for
the assumption that they're benevolent in some way, that they're better
than the "nationalist" leaders outside the rich capitalist countries.
They're the one who might put Max's slogans into action and they'll warp
them to serve their own interests.

4. According to Skolnick, > There is a growing clamor by Serbs in the U.S.
against the Clinton White  House and Pentagon. In efforts to stop this,
Clinton has ordered that  Serbians with green cards, resident aliens, be
deported as silently as  possible.

> However, this original plan has, apparently, been scrapped in favor of an
 alternative one: send Serbians to detention camps -- a replay of the Third
 Reich.<

If I remember Skolnick correctly from Chicago (where I used to live), he's
a nut, one of those fanatics pushing conspiracy theories about the JFK
assasination. (I saw him speak once. He was not reasonable.) The above
confirms my memory. A Hitler-style plan would involve _mass murder_ of
Serbs. But at worst, given the political mood of the country, the Serbs
would be put in detention camps like the ones the Nisei were shoved into
during World War 2. That was horrible, a war crime, but it wasn't a
Hitler-style crime.

It's time for a moratorium on Hitler analogies, especially given the way
that they were used to jettison efforts by NATO to come to a _modus
vivendi_ with Serbia.

5. One of the nice aspects of the computer era is that I was able to print
up my own bumper sticker ("Bombing DESTROYS human rights. US out of
Serbia") on the computer and then tape it to the inside of the back window
of my car.

Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx &
http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/JDevine.html