Cockburn
/ St. Clair's Scorching New History of a Decade of War
Now Available!
Today's
Stories
June 24, 2004
Diane Johnstone
Kerry
and Kosovo: the Lie of a "Good War"
June 23, 2004
Laura Carlsen
Bush
and Castro Face Off
Dave Zirin
Barry
Bonds vs. Boston: "A Flea Market of Racism"
Kurt Nimmo
From
Saddam, With Love
Patricia Wolff
Foundation Wars
Mahboob A. Khawaja
"They Had Me Arrested and Shackled My Son"
Patrick Cockburn
The
Pretense of an Independent Iraq
Website of the Day
The Road to Abu Ghraib
June 22, 2004
Dave Lindorff
The
Meaning of Putin's Pronouncement: Mutually Assured Pre-emption
Ron Jacobs
Nuclear Plants in US Protectorate of Iraq?
Vanessa Jones
Coogee, Peter Garrett and Valium Earrings
Mickey Z
An Open Letter to the People of Iraq
John L. Hess
Clinton Exhales
Pedro Marset/Ex-Solidarity
Committee for Pacho Cortés
An Exchange on the Case of Pacho Cortés
Bruce Jackson
Saying
No to Prosecutors: Why Steve Kurtz's Colleagues Refused to Testify
Website of the Day
From Boot Camp to Boot Hill
June
21, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Putin's Helpful Remarks
Lucson
Pierre-Charles
Haiti After the Press Went Home: Chaos
Upon Chaos
Cockburn
/ Khan
Saddam May Face Death Penalty
Uri
Avnery
Irreversible Mental Damage
June
19 / 20, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Inside the Green Zone: US is Paranoid
and Isolated
Bruce
Anderson
Frozen Gringos
Diane
Christian
Morality and Death: a Meditation
on Bush and Blake
Walter
A. Davis
Passion of the Christ in Abu Ghraib
Josh
Frank
How Democrats Helped Bush Rape Mother
Nature
Col.
Dan Smith
Respectable Genocide?: the Crisis
in Sudan
Brian
Cloughley
A Profound Disruption of the Senses
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush and the Timken Plant, a
Year Later
Prudence
Crowther
Mr. Ashcroft, Deport Me!
Poets'
Basement
Iqbal/Alam, Krieger and Albert
Kathy
Kelly
Dying to See Their Kids
June
18, 2004
Chris
Floyd
Blood Victory
Dave
Zirin
Danielle Green, Basketball Player
& Disabled Vet, Speaks Out Against War
Justin
E.H. Smith
The Christian Question in American
Politics
Gary
Leupp
The "Long-Established" Link?:
Iraq, al-Qaeda, and al-Zarqawi
June
17, 2004
Noel
Ignatiev
Zionism, Anti-Semitism and the People
of Palestine
Kurt
Nimmo
The Bush-Kerry Conundrum
Ed
Cardoni
The Persecution of Steve Kurtz
Ron
Jacobs
Power Relations: Rounding Up Everyone Who Knows More Than They
Do
Dave
Lindorff
Philly Daily News: "Four Wasted Years"
Greg
Moses
Geneva Ignored
Norm
Dixon
How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical
Weapons
June
18, 2004
Noel
Ignatiev
Zionism, Anti-Semitism and the People
of Palestine
Kurt
Nimmo
The Bush-Kerry Conundrum
Ed
Cardoni
The Persecution of Steve Kurtz
Ron
Jacobs
Power Relations: Rounding Up Everyone Who Knows More Than They
Do
Dave
Lindorff
Philly Daily News: "Four Wasted Years"
Greg
Moses
Geneva Ignored
Norm
Dixon
How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical
Weapons
June
16, 2004
Lenni
Brenner
A Question for Kerry Supporters
Davey
D
Hip Hop Reflections on Reagan
Daniel
Wolff
Why Did Michael Moore Withhold Video Evidence of US Prisoner
Abuse?
Bruce
Jackson
Harry Levin and the Penultimate Manuscript of Finnegans Wake
Patrick
Cockburn
Boom! Boom! Out Go the Lights: Bombings Target Oil and Power
Facilities
Gary
Handschumacher
Mourn Ben Linder, Not His Killer: Reagan's Death Squads
JG
Turning Haiti into One Big Sweatshop
Mario
Benedetti
Obituary with Cheers
Vicente
Navarro
Meet the New Head of the IMF: Who
is Rodrigo Rato?
Website
of the Day
Iraqi Oil Revenue Watch
June
15, 2004
Harry
Browne
Ireland Adds a Brick to Fortress Europe
Neve
Gordon
The Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited
David
Palmer
Richard Armitage, Abu Ghraib and CACI
John
Blair
Lovelock's Misguided Call: Nukes Are No Solution to Global Warming
Dave
Lindorff
God Wins in TKO
Bill
Quigley
Blood-Pouring Peace Activists: State Charges Dropped; Feds Step
In
Patrick
Cockburn
Carbombs and Street Dances: 13 More Killed in Baghdad Blast
John
Chuckman
John Kerry, Political Placebo
June
14, 2004
John
Stanton / Wayne Madsen
Torture, Inc: Oliver North Joins
the Party
Kathy
Kelly
Requiems: What Happens When Compassion Dies?
Bruce
Jackson
Bush Gets Testy About Torture
Lee
Sustar
Strikers Defy Visteon's Company Thugs
Kurt
Nimmo
The Desperate Censors: the Republican Plot to Kill Farhenheit
9/11
Jim
Davis
Hard Right Nativism
Eliot
Katz
Death and War
Uri
Avnery
The Nightmare Comes True
Website
of the Day
Instruments of Statecraft
June 12 / 13, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Remembering the Common Hood: Soweto
and Runnymede
Team
CounterPunch
CP's Favorite Albums
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Troy, Now and Then
Gary
Leupp
Not Really a Puppet Government in Iraq?
Brian
Cloughley
US Military in Crisis
Antonio
Ponvert, III
Iraqi Prisoner Abuse: the Connecticut Connection
Ben
Tripp
The Polls Get Stupider
Joe
Bageant
Mash Note to the "Girl with the Leash"
Ron
Jacobs
The Return of the Hip Hop Insurgency
Forrest
Hylton
Object Lessons from the Case of Francisco Cortés
Christopher
Brauchli
Federal Bureau of Errors
Kurt
Nimmo
Going After Qaddafi, Again
Wayne
Madsen
Israel's Slap at Reagan
Anthony
Loewenstein
Al Jazeera Awakens the Arab World
Michael
Donnelly
A Lightship in the Forest: Greenpeace Docks in the Siskiyous
Greg
Moses
Who Will Tell Us More About the Workers of Nasiriyah?
Susan
Davis
Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban
Joseph
Ramsey
Weather Report: a Review of The Weather Underground
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The 18th Brumaire in the 21st
Century
Wayne
Saunders
The Gipper, D-Day and the Stanley Cup
Poets'
Basement
Richey, Ford, La Morticella, Albert
Website
of the Weekend
Insurgent Music
June
11, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Reagan in Truth and Fiction
Ron
Jacobs
Ray Charles' Legacy of Spirit
Chris
Floyd
Funeral Games
Steven
Sherman
How Reagan Destroyed the Democrats and Paved the Way for Clinton
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Remembering Reagan
Norman
Solomon
Media's Mourning in America
Paul
Alexander
The Kerry Fantasies of Chalmers Johnson
CounterPunch
Wire
The Terror Hour: Miami TV Station Invites Commandoes to Talk
About Planned Attacks on Cuba
June
10, 2004
Noam
Chomsky
The Apotheosis of Reagan : Divinity
Through Marketing
Gary
Leupp
Bush, the Religious Scholar
Patrick
Cockburn
The Iraqi Street Has Spoken: New
Govt. Made Up of CIA Pawns
Saul
Landau
Force-Feeding Lies About Free Trade
Scott
Evans
Settling for the System: How Punkvoter.com Became Just Another
Tool of the Democrats
Jacob
Levich
John Kerry's World of Hurt: Senator Supports Beam Weapons
Zeynep
Toufe
Reagan, Neo-Cons and the "Intelligence Failures"
Nico
Pitney
Reform at Wal-Mart?
Dave
Zirin
Son of a Reagan: What a Sporty 6-Year Old Saw at the Revolution
Jack
McCarthy
Where Were You When Reagan Croaked?
Gary
Corseri
Nouns That Should be Acronyms
David
Price
Reagan and the Black Budget
Website
of the Day
Inequality by the Numbers
June
9, 2004
Mustafa
Barghouthi
Israel's Common Use of Torture
Must be Exposed
Mike
Whitney
Alan Dershowitz, Still Defending
Torture
John
Chuckman
Why the CIA will Always be a Costly Flop
Jim
Tarbell / Roger Burbach
Bush's Democratic Charade in Iraq
Dave
Lindorff
Put Reagan on the $3 Bill
Miguel
D'Escoto
Reagan was the Butcher of My People
Becky
Burgwin
The Betrayal of Smarty Jones: Flogging a Natural Born Hero
Patrick
Cockburn
The Rich Have Been Warned to Leave
Baghdad
June
8, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Nature of Ronald Reagan: Will
the Earth Accept His Corpse?
Dave
Lindorff
The March on Rumsfeld's House: Is
the US Anti-War Movement Running Out of Steam?
Phillip
Cryan
Torture, Bombings & the Press in
Colombia
Mark
Zepezauer
Getting Reagan Wrong
Mickey
Z.
Reagan, Radicals and Repetitive Reactions
John
L. Hess
Reagan and Bush in Normandy
Alex
Dawoody
Reagan and Saddam: the Unholy Alliance
Christopher
Fons
Reagan in a Word: Mean
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Some Tenets are More Important Than Others
Ahmed
Bouzid
Nothing New Under the Israeli Sun
Michael
Leon
Bush the Narcissist
June
7, 2004
Jason
Leopold
New Enron Docs Show Lay and Skilling
Knew of California Trading Schemes
Patrick
Cockburn
The Baghdad Bombings: the Pattern
of Attacks is Changing
Dennis
Hans
From Afghanistan to El Salvador: Reagan's
Dark Global Legacy
Tracy
McLellan
Nader at the National Press Club:
a Glimpse at a Different Kind of Politics
Bill
Blum
The Myth of the Gipper: Reagan Didn't
End the Cold War
Ben
Tripp
What I Owe Reagan: the Brylcreemed
Bullshitter
Susan
Davis
Reagan, In a Nutshell
Phil
Gasper
Reagan: Goodbye and Good Riddance
Website
of the Day
A Child's ABCs of Terrorism
June
5 / 6, 2004
C.
Douglas Lummis
Toward a Universal Declaration of
Human Wrongs
Saul
Landau
Five Cubans in Prison, Victims of Bush's Obsession
Dave
Lindorff
John Walker Lindh, Revisited
Brian
Cloughley
Apologies, Please, From Those Who Got It Wrong
Rich
Gibson
The Grenada 17: the Last Prisoners of the Cold War are Black
Elaine
Cassel
A Sorry FBI
Cathrin
Schütz
On the Ruins of Yugoslavia
Ben
Tripp
Call Me, Mr. Cassandra
Kurt
Nimmo
The Madness of King George
Ron
Jacobs
They Ain't Goin' Nowhere (Unless We Make It So)
Laura
Flanders
The Lynne Cheney Show?
Lenni
Brenner
Renaissance Noir: Caravaggio at the Met
Abigail
Jones
Whatever Happened to Lori Berenson, President Toledo's Trophy
Prisoner?
Mark
Latham
Nothing Bush Said Has Changed Our Hopes
Gerry
Adams
I Was Photographed While Tortured, Too
Toni
Solo
Venezuela 2004, Nicaragua's Contra War Reprised
Derek
Seidman
Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old
M.
Junaid Alam
Torture is Just the Symptom
Matt
Siegfried
An American Way of War
Dave
Zirin
The Politics of Charles Barkley
Poets'
Basement
Albert, Krieger, St. Clair
Website
of the Weekend
Overnight Sensations
June
4, 2004
Chris
Floyd
Masked and Anonymous: Inside America's
Animal House
Cornwell
/ Penketh
Exit Tenet: the Fall of a Fall Guy
Wayne
Madsen
Apprehension & Frustation: Neo-Cons on the Brink
Greg
Moses
Agitating for Workers' Rights in Iraq
Yitzak
Laor
Before Rafah
Ghali
Hassan
Ambassador to Death Squads: Who is Negroponte?
Jane
Stillwater
God, the Rapture and Vera Casey
CounterPunch
Wire
D-Day Reconsidered: Was It Really Worth the Carnage?
John
Borowski
Woo-Wooism v. Meteorites: Why the Dems Are No Match for Bush
Mike
Griffin
Caterpillar's Assault on the UAW
Alexander Cockburn
Has Bush Gone Over the Edge?
Website
of the Day
Aquae Urbis Romae:
Water and Empire
June
3, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
Iran's Nuclear Dilemma
Dr.
Susan Block
America in tha Hood
Michael
Donnelly
The Bully and the Brahmin
John
Chuckman
Insanity in America: US Ranks Number
One in the Deranged
Christopher
Brauchli
The Return of Cardinal Law: Rome
on $12,000 a Month
Samia
Nassar Melki
Caravaggio in Iraq
Mike
Whitney
Subverting Justice: Pre-Trial Ruminations in the Padilla Case
Diane
Rejman
Memorial Day Isn't Just About the Dead
Scott
Morris
"WMDs" in Cuba
Paul
de Rooij
Palestinian Misery in Perspective
June
2, 2004
Brian
Cloughley
The Liars are Winning
Ray
McGovern
How Far Would They Go? Beware "Credible
Intelligence"
Josh
Frank
The Anybody But Bush Offensive
Mike
Whitney
The Afghanistan Failure: Bush's Warlord Patriots
Jackie
Corr
Iraq and Ireland: Three Tales from Butte, Montana
Robert
Jensen
The US Lost the Iraq War...and It's a Good Thing, Too
Alexander
Cockburn
"Bye, Bye Boonville!"
June
1, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Instant Karma: Bush's Sins Catch Up
with Him
William
A. Cook
Manufacturers of Fear and Loathing in
Rafah
Dave
Lindorff
Will the Times Clean House?
Kevin
Zeese
Inside the Kerry / Nader Meeting: Did
the Kerry Campaign Lie About What Was Discussed?
Jacob
Levich
Coming Soon: Return of the Draft,
a Bipartisan Production
Kathy
Kelly
Voices in the Wilderness v. the US
Government
Website
of the Day
Remind Us
May
29 / 31, 2004
Lee
Ballinger / Dave Marsh
The Origins of Memorial Day
Janine
Pommy Vega
Memo for Memorial Day
Mike
Ferner
On Their Way to Abu Ghraib
Alfred
W. McCoy
The Cruel Shadow: the Long History of CIA Torture Research
Douglas
Valentine
An Open Letter to the NYT: Questions, Questions, Questions
Chris
White
First to Fight Culture: a Former Marine on the Marine Motto
Bruce
Anderson
The Awful Injustice to Tai Abreu
David
Vest
Get Ready for Kerry's War: the 100 Year Quagmire
Saul
Landau
Torture: the Logical Outcome of Bush's War for Democracy?
Kurt
Nimmo
Abu Hamza al-Mazri, Made in the USA
Elaine
Cassel
The Secrets of Surveillance: Ashcroft, Snoops, and Gag Orders
Will
Potter
The New War on "Terror": Protest the Torture of Chimps;
Get Arrested as a "Terrorist"
Ben
Tripp
They Fiddled While Nero Got the Matches
Dr.
Susan Block
Save Abu Ghraib!
Kia
Kojouri
Nukes, the US, Israel and Iran: an
Interview with Sasan Fayazmanesh
Mickey
Z
D-Day: 60 Years is Enough!
Jon
Brown
Correcting the Correction at the Times
Patrick
B. Barr
Pre-emptive War Insurance
Stephen
Gowans
Bad Apples in a Bad Barrel
Tom
Gorman
Gore on Bush in Iraq: the Approach May be Exotic, But It's Hardly
New
Dave
Zirin
Fighting for Boxers' Rights: an Interview with Eddie Mustafa
Muhammad
Gregory
Weiher
Bush to Arabs: "Go Get Yourself Some Democracy"
Erik
Cummings
Jung Meets Bush
Poets'
Basement
Davies, Ford, Kearney, McLellan and Albert
May
28, 2004
Rafael
Rodriguez Cruz
Curtain of Silence on the Cuban 5
Greg
Moses
Bush's Misleading Speech on Abu Ghraib
Dave
Lindorff
Dissing Independent Contractors:
Those Who Do the Dirty Work
Norman
Solomon
Leaping for Lies at the Times
Rep.
Bill Delahunt
Bush's Cruel New Rules on Cuba
Paul
McGeough
Chalabi Baba and the 40 Thieves
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
India and Nehru: 40 Years After
Alexander
Cockburn
NYTs: "Maybe We Did Screw Up...a
Little"
May
27, 2004
Amy
Goodman / David Goodman
Fatal Errors: the Lies of Our Times
Douglas
Valentine
Ragging the Dogs of War at the
NYTs
John
L. Hess
The Times Confesses...Kind Of
Stew
Albert
Dellinger, the Wrestling Pacifist
Dave
Dellinger
a 1993 Interview
Christopher
Brauchli
Tax Breaks for Scions...to Hell with Poor Kids
Rampton
/ Stauber
Banana Republicans: Pumping Irony
May
26, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
Goodbye, David Dellinger: He Was a
Friend of Ours
Robert
Fisk
The Things Bush Didn't Say in His Speech
Zeynep
Toufe
New Draft UN Resolution Permits Perpetual Occupation
Conn
Hallinan
Bush and Sharon: the Oil Connection
Tom
Stephens
2 + 2 is On My Mind: More Morons
and War Crimes
Derek
Medley
Protesting Gov. Bigot
CounterPunch
Wire
FBI Abducts Artist; Seizes Art
Andrew
Cockburn
The Trail to Tehran
May
25, 2004
Joe
Bageant
The Covert Kingdom: On Earth as It
is in Texas
Col.
Dan Smith
A Question of Human Dignity
Gary
Handschumacher
Visiting Lori Berenson: Time to Bring Her Home
Toni
Solo
A Developing War in the Andes
Marc
Estrin
September Song: Disturbing Questions
About 9/11
Stephen
Banko, III
A Vietnam Vet on "Supporting the
Troops"
Website
of the Day
The Wizard of Whimsy
May
24, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
Dan Senor is Safe!
Kurt
Nimmo
Dirty Tricks & TortureGate: the
Missing Taguba Pages
Sam
Hamod
Gen. Zinni: "Wrong War, Wrong
Place, Wrong Time"
Mike
Whitney
The Wedding was a Bomb
Stan
Goff
Open Season on MAMs
Image
of the Day
A Photo from Abu Ghraib We Didn't See on the Front Page of the
NYTs
May
22 / 23, 2004
Paul
de Rooij
Colin Powell, a Political Obituary
Jeffrey
St. Clair
When War is Swell: Bush and the Carlyle Group
Elizabeth
Weill-Greenberg
Her Son Was Told He Wouldn't See Combat; Now He's Dead: an Interview
with Sue Niederer
Brian
Cloughley
America is Committing War Crimes in Iraq
Saul
Landau
Democracy in Latin America: Great for Investors; Not So Good
for People
Brandy
Baker
Feminists Stand By Their Man: Abortion, Judges and Kerry
Randall
Robinson
Bushwhacked in the Caribbean
Uri
Avnery
The Rape of Rafah
Ben
Tripp
Assume the Worst
Bruce
Anderson
News from Ecotopia: the Truth About the Wine Business
Josh
Ruebner
Why I Burned My Israeli Military Papers
Peter
Wolson, Ph. D.
Exhibitionistic Revenge at Abu Ghraib
Chloe
Cockburn
In Defense of "Troy": What Hector Could Teach Rummy
Linda
Burnham
Sexual Domination in Uniform: an American Value
Adrien
Rain Burke
War of the Necrophiliacs: Spc. Sabrina Harman and Her Corpse
David
Krieger
Charting a New Course for US Nuclear Policy
Ron
Jacobs
Turnaround
Poets'
Basement
Ford, Albert & LaMorticella
May 21, 2004
Ray
Close
The Canards of the Apologists
Christopher
Brauchli
"The Object of Torture is Torture"
Amira
Hass
Darkness at Noon
Jack
McCarthy
Camilo Mejia: Can the Son of a Sandinista Get a Fair Trial from
the US Army?
Bill
Kauffman
Nader v. Bush
Omar
Barghouti
No More Tears for America
Ghali
Hassan
Moral Failure of the "Free World" in Gaza
Christopher
Reed
How the CIA Taught the Portuguese to
Torture
Website
of the Day
Eric Idle on the Bush Administration: Fuck You, So Very Much
May
20, 2004
Andrew
Cockburn
The Truth About Chalabi
Kathy
Kelly
A Visit from the FBI
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Brown and Bored of Education in India
Tom
Stephens & John Philo
The War Crimes of Bush, Cheney & Co.
Sam
Bahour / Michael Dahan
Genocide by Public Policy
Robert
Ovetz
Ending the Race for the Last Turtle
Billy
Wilson
The Most Important Thing I Learned at School This Year
Website
of the Day
Rafah Today
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
|
June
24, 2004
Clinton,
Kerry and Kosovo
The
Lie of a "Good War"
By
DIANA JOHNSTONE
For U.S. politicians, if all wars are
good, some are better than others. Democrats prefer Clinton wars
and Republicans prefer Bush wars. But in the end, they almost
unanimously come together to support all wars. The differences
concern the choice of official rationale..
To suggest subtle criticism
of the Republican war against Iraq, while making it clear that
they are by no means opposed to war as such, the 2004 Democratic
election campaigners can be expected to glorify the Kosovo war.
The prominence of General Wesley Clark in the Democratic camp
makes that quite clear.
John Kerry's foreign policy
adviser Will Marshall of the Progressive Policy Institute, author
of "Democratic Realism: the Third Way", points to the
exemplary nature of the 1999 "<U.S.-led> intervention
in Kosovo". It was "a policy consciously based on a
mix of moral values and security interests with the parallel
goals of halting a humanitarian tragedy and ensuring NATO's credibility
as an effective force for regional stability".
The "humanitarian"
rationale sounds better than the "weapons of mass destruction"
or the "links to Al Qaeda" which never existed. But
then, the "genocide"from which the NATO war allegedly
saved the Albanians of Kosovo never existed either.
But while the WMD deception
has been exposed, the founding lie behind the Kosovo war is still
widely believed. It effectively distracts from the very existence
of the what Marshall calls the "parallel goal"of strengthening
NATO. Aside from the crippling material damage inflicted on the
targeted country, the Kosovo lie has caused even more irreparable
damage to relations between the Serb and Albanian inhabitants
of Kosovo.
The situation in that small
province of multiethnic Serbia was the result of a long and complex
history of conflict, frequently encouraged and exploited by outside
powers, notably by the support to Albanian nationalism by the
Axis powers in World War II. Each community accused the other
of plotting "ethnic cleansing" and even "genocide".
But there were reasonable people on both sides willing to work
out a compromise solution. The constructive role of outsiders
would have been to calm the paranoid tendencies in both  communities and support constructive
initiatives. Indeed, the Kosovo problem could have been easily
managed, and eventually solved, had the Great Powers so desired.
But as in the past, the Great Powers exploited and aggravated
the ethnic conflicts for their own purposes. In total ignorance
of the complex history of the region, sheeplike politicians and
media echoed and amplified the most extreme nationalist Albanian
propaganda. This provided NATO with its pretext to demonstrate
"credibility". The Great Powers have in effect told
the Albanians that all their worst accusations against the Serbs
were true. Even Albanians know who know better (such as Veton
Surroi) are intimidated and silenced by the racist nationalists
backed by the United States.
The result is disastrous. Empowered
by their official status as unique victims of Serb iniquity,
the Albanians of Kosovo -- and especially the youth, raised on
a decade of nationalist myth -- can give free rein to their cultivated
hatred of the Serbs. Armed Albanian nationalists proceeded to
drive the Serbian and gypsy populations out of the province.
Those remaining do not dare venture out of their ghettos. Albanians
willing to live with the Serbs risk being murdered. Ever since
the NATO-led force (KFOR) marched into Kosovo in June 1999, violent
persecution of Serbs and Roma has been regularly described as
"revenge" -- which in the Albanian tradition is considered
the summit of virtuous conduct. Describing the murder of elderly
women in their homes or children at play as acts of "revenge"
is a way of excusing or even approving the violence.
Last March 17, following the
false accusation that Serbs were responsible for the accidental
drowning of three Albanian children, organized mobs of Albanians,
including many teenagers, rampaged through Kosovo destroying
35 Serbian Orthodox Christian churches and monasteries, some
of them artistic gems dating from the fourteenth century. Well
over a hundred churches had already been attacked with fire and
explosives in the past five years. The objective is quite clearly
to erase all historic trace of centuries of Serb presence, the
better to assert their claim to an ethnically pure Albanian Kosovo.
The self-satisfaction of the
"international community" was severely shaken by the
March violence. The occasional KFOR units that tried to protect
Serb sites found themselves in armed clashes with Albanian mobs.
In the wake of the rampages, Finnish politician Harri Holkeri
resigned two months before expiration of his one-year renewable
mandate as head of the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) supposed
to administer the province. He was the fourth to get out of the
job as fast as he could. Apparently on the verge of a nervous
breakdown, Holkeri lamented to a press conference that UNMIK
has no intelligence service of its own, and had received no prior
hint of the March pogroms. In short, the mass of international
administrators, military occupation forces and non-governmental
agencies have no idea what is going on in the province they are
theoretically running. Indicating his awareness that the only
role left for UNMIK was that of scapegoat, Holkeri warned of
"difficult days ahead". That is a safe prediction.
Trouble
ahead
On June 11, the former leader
of the Kosovo Liberation Army leader Hashim Thaci, the protege
of Madeleine Albright and her press officer James Rubin, denounced
UNMIK as a "complete failure" and announced that, if
he wins Kosovo's forthcoming elections in October, he will implement
his "vision of Kosovo as an independent and sovereign state".
The circumstances suggest that
not only Thaci, but any newly elected Kosovo may do the same.
Proclamation of Kosovo's independence on the eve of U.S. presidential
elections could be shrewd timing. With Iraq exploding, American
leaders need to maintain the myth of the "success"
in Kosovo. Getting into open conflict with the Albanians could
be politically disastrous.
At the same time, many Europeans
saw the anti-Serb pogroms in March as evidence that Kosovo has
a long way to go to reach the "standards" of democratic
human rights and ethnic harmony which UNMIK is mandated to achieve
before any final decision on the province's status.
There are serious reasons not
to give in to the Albanian demand for an "independent and
sovereign Kosovo".
1. Legality.
First of all, there is the
minor question of legality: minor, inasmuch as the NATO powers
have ignored it from the start. The war itself was totally devoid
of any legitimate basis in international law. It was officially
concluded in June 1999 by a peace accord incorporated into U.N.
Security Council Resolution 1244, which, among other things,
obliged the occupying powers to :
-- "ensure conditions
for a peaceful and normal life for all inhabitants of Kosovo"
-- which logically should mean "all", and not solely
the Albanians;
-- "ensure the safe and
free return of all refugees and displaced persons"
-- by which the U.S. negotiators
probably meant the Albanians who had fled during the bombing,
but since they promptly returned on their own, without difficulty,
this stipulation in reality refers to Serbs, Rom and other non-Albanians
forced to flee;
-- establish an interim political
framework "taking full account of [...]the principles of
sovereignty and integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia"
-- which amounts to recognition that Kosovo remains part of a
larger political entity made up of Serbia and Montenegro;
-- permit the return of an
agreed number of Yugoslav and Serbian personnel, including border
control police and customs agents;
-- effect the maintenance of
civil law and order and the protection of human rights.
In reality, once the United
States got its big military foot in the door, Resolution 1244
was scarcely worth the paper it was written on. The United States
had other priorities:
-- First, in record time, the
Pentagon built an enormous military base, "Camp Bondsteel",
on a thousand areas of illegally expropriated farmland strategically
located near trans-Balkan transit routes, on the approaches to
the Middle East and Caspian Sea oil transport.
-- The other obvious U.S. priority
was to preserve the clandestine wartime alliance with the "Kosovo
Liberation Army", not only against the Serbs, but also,
implicitly, against any European allies which might seek influence
in post-conquest Kosovo. After a sham "disarmament"
disposing of a few obsolete light arms, the KLA was renamed the
"Kosovo Protection Force" and put on the U.N. payroll.
Certain of its officers proceeded to mount armed actions to extend
"greater Albania" to neighboring Macedonia and parts
of Southern Serbia next to Kosovo. These operations were launched
from the American sector, next to Camp Bondsteel.
-- As for the internal organization
of Kosovo itself, the U.S. priority is, as usual, privatization
of the economy. Privatization in practice starts with dismantling
whatever government services existed, on the theory that without
government interference, private initiative will flourish.
In a very special sense, this
has indeed proved to be the case. Kosovo, already a transit area
for the largest amount of heroin smuggled from Turkey to Western
Europe, has rapidly become the center of a new trade in women
sex slaves. The Albanian mafia is by far the biggest operator
in these trades. The "internationals" who have come
to "civilize" the province provide a thriving local
market for prostitutes. If they ever go home, the Albanian mafia
can count on the networks it has developed throughout Western
Europe to keep business going
2. The economy.
In socialist Yugoslavia, Kosovo
was by far the poorest area in Yugoslavia, with the highest rate
of chronic unemployment. It still is. But then, it benefited
from injection of the largest amount of development funds from
the rest of the country. Although the sentiment that their poverty
was a result of exploitation contributed to the rise of Kosovo
Albanian nationalism, the fact is that Kosovo was always heavily
subsidized by the rest of Yugoslavia, and as a result was considerably
more developed than neighboring Albania.
Since the NATO occupation,
Kosovo lives off other sources of income, mainly the flourishing
drugs and sex trades. The "international community"
has contributed a patchwork of social services (from UNMIK police
to NGO counselos) that provide a temporary substitute for the
expulsion of the local branches of the Serbian government. Camp
Bondsteel provides the largest number of legitimate jobs to Albanians,
and may continue to do so even after the demand for chauffeurs
and interpreters dries up as the NGOs go home. Saudi Arabia can
be counted on to finance mosque construction. But with a per
capita income of about $30 per month, it is hard to see where
an "independent Kosovo" could scrape up the tax base
to pay for a government, especially since so much of the real
income is illicit, outside the reach of tax collectors.
Kosovo is only an extreme case
of the "transition" from socialism to the free market,
as imposed on Eastern Europe by the "international community".
The State and its services were removed by NATO military force,
whereas elsewhere the demolition process has been more gradual
and less dramatic, the result of pressures from the IMF, the
World Bank and the European Union. The mass of unemployed young
men have little prospect of earning a living other than by getting
in on the crime business. It is hard to see what can prevent
"independent Kosovo" from being an uncontrollable crime
center.
At the end of World War II,
in order to defeat the Fascists and combat the Communists, U.S.
intelligence services cynically brought the Mafia back to Sicily.
The parallel with Kosovo does not go beyond that. For unlike
Kosovo, Sicily is an essentially rich island, with a diversified
economy and numerous centuries-old sophisticated urban centers
where large sectors of a highly educated population have courageously
resisted the corruption and violence of the mafia. This aspect
of Sicilian society is insufficiently appreciated abroad, where
it is more "romantic" to glorify the gangsters. In
comparison, Kosovo Albanian society simply does not possess such
material or cultural resources for resisting the power of the
new mafias that, while feeding on certain clan traditions, are
above all a product of neoliberal globalism.
3. Human
rights.
The protection of "human
rights" was the pretext for the 1999 war. In terms of everyday
human relations, the situation is far worse than before. This
is not widely recognized for two reasons. One, since the "international
community" rather than Milosevic is in charge, media interest
in Kosovo has virtually evaporated. Second, the victims of persecution
and harassment, the children whose school buses are stoned, the
old people who are beaten and whose houses are set on fire, the
farmers who do not dare go out to cultivate their fields, the
hundreds of thousands of refugees from "ethnic cleansing"
... are Serbs. Or sometimes gypsies. Western media early on identified
"the Serbs" as the enemies of "multi-ethnic society"
and the perpetrators of "ethnic cleansing". The curious
result seems to be that the absence of Serbs is understood as
the best guarantee of a multi-ethnic society. This, at any rate,
is the logic of the attitude taken by the international community
in regard to the Ibar valley region of Kosovo north of Mitrovica.
That area, which forms a sort
of point reaching into central Serbia, is the largest remaining
part of Kosovo where Serbs retain a traditional majority sufficient
to defend themselves from Albanian intimidation. When, as happens
from time to time, Albanian militants from the ethnically purified
region south of the Ibar attempt to cross the river, they are
stopped by Serb guards. In this situation, "international
community" spokesmen almost invariably take the line that
Serb extremists are standing in the way of "multi-ethnic"
Kosovo. The fact is deliberately overlooked that, while a certain
number of Albanians are still living in Serb-controlled northern
Mitrovica, all Serbs and Rom have been driven out of southern
Mitrovica, and that if the Albanian activists were granted free
access to the north, the probable result would be further ethnic
cleansing of what remains of the Serb population.
For some in the "international
community", that would be an ideal solution. Once all non-Albanians
have been driven out, the professional humanitarians can declare
that Kosovo is "multi-ethnic", and there will be nobody
left there to dispute this triumphant assertion.
The overriding concern of the
West now is to get out of the Kosovo mess in a way that will
allow it to continue to celebrate the Kosovo war as a great humanitarian
success. Having left the Balkans in a shambles, the human rights
warriors can go on to other victories. The only thing to stop
them might be a belated recognition of the truth.
Diana Johnstone is the author of Fools'
Crusade: Yugoslavia, Nato, and Western Delusions published
by Monthly Review Press.
Weekend
Edition Features for June 12 / 13, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Remembering the Common Hood: Soweto
and Runnymede
Team
CounterPunch
CP's Favorite Albums
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Troy, Now and Then
Gary
Leupp
Not Really a Puppet Government in Iraq?
Brian
Cloughley
US Military in Crisis
Antonio
Ponvert, III
Iraqi Prisoner Abuse: the Connecticut Connection
Ben
Tripp
The Polls Get Stupider
Joe
Bageant
Mash Note to the "Girl with the Leash"
Ron
Jacobs
The Return of the Hip Hop Insurgency
Forrest
Hylton
Object Lessons from the Case of Francisco Cortés
Christopher
Brauchli
Federal Bureau of Errors
Kurt
Nimmo
Going After Qaddafi, Again
Wayne
Madsen
Israel's Slap at Reagan
Anthony
Loewenstein
Al Jazeera Awakens the Arab World
Michael
Donnelly
A Lightship in the Forest: Greenpeace Docks in the Siskiyous
Greg
Moses
Who Will Tell Us More About the Workers of Nasiriyah?
Susan
Davis
Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban
Joseph
Ramsey
Weather Report: a Review of The Weather Underground
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The 18th Brumaire in the 21st
Century
Wayne
Saunders
The Gipper, D-Day and the Stanley Cup
Poets'
Basement
Richey, Ford, La Morticella, Albert
Website
of the Weekend
Insurgent Music
Keep
CounterPunch Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home
/ subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
|