REIGN
OF TERROR
This
reign of terror is not overlooked by the Western media. Instead,
it is excused and even celebrated: the over 1200 Serbs abducted
and since the "liberation" are routinely described as victims
of "revenge killings" – as if their murderers were merely
instruments of justice, however rough, and therefore somehow
admirable. What has happened to Kosovo since the great "victory"
brings to mind a famous Weekly Standard editorial that
gleefully anticipated how we would get to "crush Serb skulls"
– if only Clinton would listen to Bill Kristol (and Hillary)
and start bombing. Kristol's wish has come true. Certainly
Hillary say can that Bill didn't let her down this time. The
skulls of Serbs are literally being crushed by the mobs that
encircle them if they even so much as speak Serbo-Croatian
in the streets of Pristina – as several unfortunates,
including a few foreigners, discovered soon after "liberation."
Are you happy, Bill?
REIGN
OF ERROR
The
number of murdered and missing Serbs, to date, is 1,282 –
more than half the total number of bodies found in Kosovo's
much-touted "mass graves." The NATO-crats, you remember, initially
claimed that the Serbs were engaged in a program of "genocide."
At the height of the war hysteria, CNN and other news outlets
were routinely reporting claims of 100,000-plus Kosovars killed
at the hands of "Milosevic's willing executioners." This was
halved before the last bombs fell on Belgrade, and further
revised downward to 10,000. To date, the exhumation of these
alleged "mass graves" has yielded a little over 2,000 bodies,
total – including Serbs, Gypsies, and others considered
enemies by the KLA. This is the Kosovar "holocaust" descried
by the "humanitarian" saviors of the Balkans and their brainwashed
supporters.
SO
WHAT ELSE IS NEW?
While
most of Kosovo is ethnically cleansed of Serbs, they persist
in the north, the site of their most sacred and ancient shrines,
and it is there that the battle lines have formed. The city
of Mitrovica has become a Serbian Alamo, with the Kosovar
majority moving on the last Serb neighborhoods, held back
by French troops – who found themselves under Albanian
sniper fire the other day. The "peacekeepers" arrested some
46 residents of Mitrovica, 45 Albanians and a lone Serb. But
don't worry, we'll get around to the Serbs soon enough: "Yesterday
was a bad day for the Albanians," said Mario Morcone, Mitrovica's
UN overseer, "but that will not be all." So what else is new?
The crimes of the KLA against the Serbian minority have so
far been carried out with the full acquiescence of NATO's
army of occupation. As their forensic investigators comb Kosovo
for scant evidence of a "genocide" that was said to have victimized
tens of thousands, the NATO-crats are presiding over the creation
of an ethnically pure Kosovo state – the government of
which is now beginning to assert itself.
READING
BETWEEN THE LINES
The
New York Times described
the lament of the French general whose troops were caught
in the crossfire: "General de Saquui de Sannes, who has blamed
the violence on both sides, said individuals were instigating
attacks purposely to escalate the violence and to destroy
the last multiethnic town in Kosovo where Serbs and Albanians
are living side by side, if uneasily." But what can this mean
in the context of a Kosovo almost entirely "cleansed" of Serbs?
If "extremists" are determined "to destroy the last multiethnic
town in Kosovo," then surely the General must mean Albanian
extremists, for they are in power and in the majority. He
confesses he is "worried that we may be in the process of
an escalation of intolerance." On whose part, he does not
say – but clearly only one ethnic faction in Kosovo is
in a position to exhibit intolerance, and that is the Party
of Intolerance itself, known as the KLA.
THE
PROVOCATEURS
Founded
by student visionaries who combined the doctrines of Albanian
Communist dictator Enver Hoxha with a homegrown pan-Albanian
messianism, the KLA has never moderated its program of ethnic
particularism and militant expansionism. In Mitrovica, these
two themes merge seamlessly and logically. As they launch
a campaign to drive the last of the Serbs out of the country,
the KLA also hopes to provoke Milosevic and the hardliners
in Belgrade – and the north is the most likely battleground.
Using NATO as a shield, KLA provocations will play a key role
in the next war, just as they did in the last:.
A
PAUSE FOR STATION IDENTIFICATION
From
the NATO-crats' point of view, this is far preferable to contending
with the militant Albanians in the streets of Pristina. In
the face of a KLA insurrection against NATO, the only alternative
is to turn that anger and violence outward, against
Milosevic and away from NATO. The only way to delay
the inevitable clamor for Kosovo's formal declaration of independence
and the consolidation of the KLA dictatorship is for the NATO-crats
to go on to phase two of the war – which did not end
with the signing of a cease-fire but only paused long enough
for the US to elect a new Hegemon-in-chief.
COMPLAINT
DEPARTMENT
As
US sanctions bite deeply into Serbian flesh this bitterly
cold winter, and yet another regional player – Austria
– is demonized and isolated, the next President of the
United States will have a great deal to do with whether or
not the developing crisis explodes into war. And this brings
me to a subject that occasionally comes up in letters, especially
recently, which is why I spend so much time analyzing American
politics. This usually comes from leftists, and all too many
"libertarians" (i.e. free market leftists), who chafe at my
praise for Pat Buchanan's noninterventionism, praise they
find entirely too effusive. After all, what does presidential
politics have to do with foreign affairs?
HEAVY
ON THE ITALICS
The
obvious answer is: everything. The usurpation of the
power to make war, reserved to Congress by the Constitution,
has swelled the American presidency into an office far more
exalted and powerful than that of any Roman Emperor.
Compared to the original Caligula, the depraved aggressor
who presently inhabits the White House exhibits his bloodlust
on a far grander scale – a world scale.
When we elect the President of the United States we are really
electing the Emperor of the World. This is the job
that John McCain is applying for, and if that doesn't
concern everyone who fears another war, then what will?
THE
McCAIN THREAT
McCain
has repeatedly said that he thought the Kosovo war ended too
soon, that the US should have gone in and "finished the job"
– presumably by occupying Belgrade and subjugating the
entire country. Determined to avenge the nagging defeat of
Vietnam, and caught up in his own megalomanic myth, President
McCain would have us in a shooting war in the Balkans within
months of his inauguration – and don't think he would
stop there.
LET
HISTORY JUDGE
What
fascinates me is the complete and utter silence on the vital
matter of foreign policy in this presidential election: in
spite of all that has happened, the endless interventions
of the Clinton era and the ongoing carnage in Kosovo, we hear
not a peep of criticism from the so-called "insurgents." Bradley,
the alleged liberal, who strives to be a latter day Adlai
Stevenson, says not a word of criticism about the starvation
tens of thousands of Iraqi children due to US-UN sanctions.
This humanitarian – and profoundly human –
gesture is left to "archconservative" Pat Buchanan. Documenting
this inversion, this role-reversal on the question of war
and peace in the age of globalization, is surely a major theme
of this column, and reporting on this exciting new development
is central to what Antiwar.com is all about. Hopefully this
will suffice to answer some of my critics (who I thank for
writing, and giving me material for a column). If not, then
we shall have to let history judge whether or not American
politics is the primary battlefield on which the fate of the
world is decided.
|