TAKE
YOUR PICK
Why
is the administration leaking this bizarre story? While I
am no expert in abnormal psychology, there are two possibilities:
they believe that this accusation somehow justifies the embassy
bombing, and/or they are admitting that, yes indeed, they
bombed the embassy deliberately, alright, and what of
it?
RETURN
OF THE CREDIBILITY GAP
According
to the
London Telegraph, "NATO had carefully singled
out the most sensitive section of the embassy complex for
attack." But if they didn't know it was the Chinese embassy,
how could they have singled it out? The New York Times,
which broke the story, quotes their Pentagon source as saying
"that's exactly why [the Chinese] don't buy our explanation,"
all while reiterating the US government official line that
the whole thing was a terrible mistake. During the Vietnam
War, there was a name for the cognitive dissonance between
what we saw and what we heard, the split between the obvious
facts and what the government was telling us. We called it
the "credibility gap," and it has returned with
such a vengeance during the reign of our perjurious and warlike
President that it has become a veritable credibility chasm.
TRANSLATION,
PLEASE
"I
had no earthly idea our system would permit that kind of mistake,"
said Clinton, in the aftermath of the bombing, adding: "I'm
terribly sorry about the embassy." While the Chinese
supposedly have this country honeycombed with a vast spy network,
I doubt whether they are familiar with the special translation
software that most Americans require to understand what their
President is saying. Every sentence must be parsed, every
word examined under a microscope, before the real meaning
can be meticulously teased out. Keeping this in mind, note
the curious formulation: Clinton had "no earthly
idea" – to the veteran Clinton-hater (welcome to
the club, all you Chinese students!) this opens up a vast
range of possibilities, all of them distinctly unearthly
if not downright eerie in their cold-blooded ruthlessness.
Remember, with Clinton, anything is possible: let your imagination
roam free, untrammeled by restraint or any sense of moral
decency.
AGENTS
OF INFLUENCE
Bob
Novak reports the latest wrinkle in the Cox Report scandal:
that "the White House fought attempts to label the government
of China 'communist' in the select House committee's report
revealing espionage in US nuclear labs." The preferred
phrase was "Chinese leadership." Cox met them halfway,
agreeing to "PRC [People's Republic of China] leadership."
According to Novak, the Clintonians invoked national security
concerns and argued "that use of the word communist could
jeopardize US intelligence gathering in China." In other
words, the US has its own spies and agents of influence
within the Chinese Communist Party, and – who knows?
– perhaps within the PRC leadership itself.
COMMIES
FOR CAPITALISM
Certainly
that is the argument orthodox Maoists would make about such
"capitalist-roaders" as China's prophet of reform,
the late Deng Xiaoping, and his successors. What else are
we to think of a Chinese "Communist" leader whose
philosophy was best summed up in the famous maxim: "To
get rich is glorious!" If the Great Helmsman of "socialism
with Chinese characteristics" wasn't an American agent
in the sense of being on the CIA payroll, the consequences
of his dramatic reforms were no different than if he had been.
In the years since the Cultural Revolution and the fall of
the "Gang of Four," billboards advertising Coke
have replaced posters exhorting the workers and peasants to
smash revisionism and learn from Mao Zedong Thought. "Socialism
with Chinese characteristics," as the Beijing ideologists
like to describe the Chinese system, turns out to be far freer
in many ways than capitalism with American characteristics.
With no income tax, no affirmative action, and no labor unions,
China today is far closer to the laissez faire ideal, at least
in terms of economics, than the ostensibly "capitalist"
West. This point is made at length in my article on "China
and the New Cold War," but there is yet another odd
post-Soviet role reversal to report before I depart from this
subject.
ROLE
REVERSAL
It
used to be that it was the Communists of every variety who
were the internationalists, and the Western democracies who
upheld the principle of national sovereignty. Today, in the
era of the New World Order, with the USSR just a memory, it
is Tony Blair and Bill Clinton who raise the banner of militant
internationalism triumphant and disdain national sovereignty
as an atavistic myth. Conversely, ex-Stalinist dinosaurs like
Slobodan Milosevic and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) staunchly
defend the right of sovereign nations to control their own
internal affairs.
COSMIC
CONVERGENCE
In
a world where "globalization" is the primary issue,
the old ideological categories are beginning to break down
completely: whether or not they know it, left and right are
no longer locked in combat, but united in common cause against
the center. The main battle in the world today is between
those who yearn for a world government, and those who abhor
the very idea. The evolution of transnational institutions
such as the World Court, the International Tribunal, the EU,
NATO, and the UN into a world government is a trend abhorred
by American nationalists as well as Chinese "communists,"
by Pat Buchanan as well as the CCP. Blind to the real danger,
the Buchananites are railing about some illusory threat from
China, a Third World nation with a fourth-class military,
when the main danger is on the other side of the Atlantic
. . .
A
UNITED NATIONS ARMY?
Britain's
recent announcement that it
is raising a "standby" force of thousands for United
Nations "peacekeeping" operations ought to set
off alarm bells from Beijing to Buchanan campaign headquarters
in Fairfax, Virginia. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan greeted
the news with hosannas, and opined that in the future it might
be possible for the UN to "nip the problem in the bud."
8,000 Brits will be available to be dispatched anywhere in
the world at a moment's notice. How long before the US is
asked to match that number, and more?
RECRUITING
DRIVE
For
the first time, the Air Force is running television ads in
search of new recruits. Could it be that the Coward's War,
in which American pilots rained death on Serbia at 30,000
feet, was such a success that they are planning a sequel?
THE
SEQUEL: VOJVODINA
I
awoke yesterday morning to the news, posted prominently on
Antiwar.com, that the Serbian province of Vojvodina, with
its sizeable Hungarian minority, is now seeking "autonomy,"
just as I predicted in my
June 3th "War Diary" column. The
story, from the London Telegraph, was written in
the breathless propagandistic tone that has afflicted the
Brit press (except for the Independent): while admitting
that "there have been no human rights violations"
in the province, the article nevertheless goes on to state
without equivocation that "the 300,000 ethnic Hungarians
there are demanding the return of the wide-ranging autonomy
they held until 1991." We are told that "in the
aftermath of the Kosovo conflict, ethnic Hungarian leaders
have now enlisted the support of Hungary in their efforts
to persuade Belgrade to restore their autonomy." Vojvodina
was part of Hungary before World War I, and the cause of Hungarian
irredentism recently received a big boost when Andras Agoston,
chairman of the Hungarian Democratic Party of Vojvodina, met
with Viktor Orban, Hungary's Prime Minister. Both called for
the restoration of autonomy. A hint that Vojvodina could well
be the next NATO target was raised at a recent NATO meeting
where the Hungarian Prime Minister stated that "the protection
of minority rights in Vojvodina enjoys a special place in
the settlement of the crisis."
JUST
THE FACTS, PLEASE
The
jingoistic drivel that passes for journalism in the Mother
Country these days is really quite appalling. No news story
is without its NATO-esque spin, every line dripping with contempt
for all things Serbian, without regard for facts or common
sense: the Telegraph goes on to report that "recent
threatening statements from Serb hard-line nationalists have
persuaded ethnic Hungarian leaders of the need to regain autonomy.
During the Kosovo conflict, for example, Istvan Csurka, leader
of one ultra-nationalist party, said in a television interview
that action should be taken to foil alleged attempts by the
Hungarian minority in Vojvodina to secede from Serbia and
seek unification with Hungary." This sounds perfectly
plausible: after all, those nasty nationalistic Serbs probably
didn't learn their lesson, and no doubt what they need is
another good bombing to drive it home – except for the
fact that Istvan Csurka, far from being a Serbian nationalist,
is a Hungarian irredentist, and does not even live
in Vojvodina. He is indeed an "ultra-nationalist,"
but of the Hungarian and not the Serbian variety. As I noted
in my "War Diary" of June 3rd, no sooner had the
war sputtered to a halt then the Hungarian far-right leader,
Istvan Csurka, called for the annexation of Vojvodina by Hungary.
Csurka's "Party of Hungarian Life and Justice" declared
that any Kosovo peace treaty must also redress Hungary's territorial
claims. In the rush to demonize the Serbs, the only nationalism
that seems to exist is headquartered in Belgrade: it is inconceivable
that Hungarian or Albanian nationalism could ever equal (let
alone surpass) the Serbian sort in its virulence. But, even
so, don't they employ fact-checkers at the Telegraph?
SURRENDER
DOROTHY
Like
the Wicked Witch of the West skywriting "Surrender Dorothy"
and buzzing the Emerald City on her broomstick, Madeleine
Albright's State Department is demanding that the Serbs hand
over Slobo to the International Tribunal. To sweeten the deal,
US
officials have announced that they are offering a $5 million
reward for information leading to Slobo's arrest and conviction.
Albright may get her man much sooner than she or anyone else
expected. If and when Vojislav Selsej and his Serbian Radical
Party stage a coup, or take power in the next elections, they
will gladly hand over the man who sold out the Serbian cause
and gave up Kosovo to NATO and the KLA without a real fight
– free of charge.
LIBERATION
AND IMMIGRATION
You
didn't have to be Nostradamus to predict that the Kosovar
refugees who were granted asylum in the United States would
never go back to their homeland regardless of the war's outcome.
Well, now that Kosovo has been "liberated" by NATO,
are the refugees returning to rebuild their communities and
enjoy life under the KLA? Not a chance.
NO
RUSH
"I
think I'll stay here three or five years, and later go back,"
said
Sabit Trupi, a 33-year-old economics student who fled
the fighting and arrived in Fort Dix, New Jersey, with thousands
of other refugees. With lavish government subsidies, free
housing, free medical care, extensive educational services,
and automatic citizenship, the Kosovar refugees are nearly
unanimous in their reluctance to leave: "I love my country,"
says Bekin Shala, 17, "but I'd like very much to stay
in this country. I want to stay here forever. " And so
she will, along with most of the other refugees, who show
no signs of giving up the good life: Paul Herbert, of the
International Rescue Committee, confirms that, of the half
dozen Kosovar families who settled in Georgia, "none
of them are even considering it. I just don't think anybody's
in a real rush to go back."
GOD
IS A DEMOCRAT
Nezhdet
Loxha is raring to become an American, and the Clinton administration
can hardly wait to oblige him and the 13 other Kosovar refugees
living in an apartment house in Rhode Island. Why is the Clinton
administration opening the floodgates? Here's one explanation:
"If anyone is God right now for us Albanians, averred
Mr. Loxha, "it is Mr. Clinton." If they sign them
up for citizenship right off the boat, they can have them
registered and in the voting booth by the time Hillary announces
her bid for the White House.
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