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March
6, 2003
From
Kosovo to Baghdad
The
Past And Coming War
As
the frustrated Empire attempts ever harder to justify the
unjustifiable and launch an invasion of Iraq with some sort
of placating pretext, it was inevitable that the precedent
of Balkans interventions would come up again.
Richard Holbrooke,
former foreign policy hitman for the Clinton regime, complained
in the Washington Post on February 23 that Bushites
have lost the "leadership" he and his masters had
created through Balkans interventions:
"in
1999, the Clinton administration and our NATO allies decided
to bomb Serbia (for 77 days) without even seeking U.N. approval,
after it became clear that Russia would veto any proposal.
This contrast with the supposedly muscular Bush administration
is especially odd when one considers that Saddam Hussein is
far worse than Slobodan Milosevic, and that Iraq has left
a long trail of violated Security Council resolutions, while
there were none on Kosovo."
Holbrooke may
be arrogant, condescending, boorish, mendacious and insufferable,
but he is at least open about it. What he is saying here is
that the US and NATO literally got away with the international
law equivalent of premeditated
murder, and that Bush should have used that same approach
in Iraq. Justification? Who needs one!? Earlier in the piece
he quipped:
"one
should never underestimate the persuasive power of power
itself, as we saw with the powerful and precise use of
air power in Bosnia in 1995 and Kosovo in 1999." (emphasis
added)
Nowhere
in the entire article does he mention the supposedly "humanitarian"
character of Empire's Balkans interventions, while in this
one sentence alone, he uses "power" four times.
While this may not be (but is) indicative of Empire's priorities,
it is clearly enough indicative of Holbrooke's.
False
Challenges
Holbrooke's
musings were quickly challenged
by Bush 41's henchman James Baker, and Viagra pitchman Bob
Dole, just four days later. Well, sort of. While he hotly
denied Holbrooke's charge that Bush 41 didn't "finish
the job" in 1991, Baker agreed with Holbrooke's urging
Bush 43 to attack now, debate later. Dole, on the other hand,
rode his favorite
hobbyhorse by charging that Holbrooke and the Clintonites
did too little, too late to save the "beleaguered Bosnians"
from "Serbian attack." Neither actually disagreed
with Holbrooke's main argument about the usefulness and desirability
of force – laws and even common decency be damned. But this
is what passes for 'debate' in Washington nowadays: the concept
of mass murder as 'statesmanship' is uncontested, and the
only disagreement is with details.
Exercises
in Justification
That
same week, another debate played itself out on the pages of
the International Herald Tribune. Wolfgang Petritsch,
former Imperial viceroy of Bosnia, rejected
comparisons between Kosovo 1999 and Iraq 2003, sounding
almost like a voice of reason. But when one is arguing against
Veton Surroi, that's not hard. Indeed, Surroi's comparison
of Hussein with Slobodan Milosevic from a few weeks back is
riddled with madness, of which this is but a pinnacle:
"Change
will only come when the bombs begin to fall."
Surroi's belief
in the healing power of bombs is simply sick. And he is actually
considered
a 'moderate' among the Kosovo Albanians!
Petritsch's
IHT byline, however, identifies him as "chief
EU negotiator at the Rambouillet peace talks in 1999."
Given that Rambouillet was simply an Empire-engineered extortion
designed to create a pretext for NATO's attack, Petritsch's
professed belief in international law and UN legitimacy rings
manifestly hollow.
Both
Holbrooke-Baker/Dole and the Petritsch-Surroi debates focus
on appearances of Imperial intervention, but never
question its validity. Until it is recognized that
the Empire had no right to use force in Serbia in 1999,
nor does it have that right in Iraq now, comparisons between
the two are merely exercises
in justification.
Beware
of Kosovo
That
is not to say that Kosovo does not offer plenty of hints as
to what may be coming soon to Iraq, from terror-bombing to
fabricated atrocity stories. If the Balkans is anything to
judge by, those who survive can expect an Imperial protectorate,
in which they will be kept in check with armies of bureaucrats,
'revenge attacks' and occasionally, Imperial force. It won't
be a 'liberation,' as the Emperor proclaimed, but a nightmare.
Far from being
a shining example of Imperial virtue, Kosovo is a 'twilight
zone' where logic gives way to madness and nonsense is elevated
to wisdom. When Kosovo Serbs tried
to preserve what's left of their lives and property in
the occupied province, Albanians roared that any "division
of Kosovo" would be "unacceptable," while the
Imperial viceroy condemned
"institutions which are based on mono-ethnicity."
Yet Albanians saw nothing wrong in dividing Serbia
(of which Kosovo is, after all, a part), while NATO's occupation
has created a 95% mono-ethnic (Albanian) Kosovo, with the
remaining Serbs and others serving as a fig leaf of 'multi-ethnic'
legitimacy.
Even Albania
condemned the Serb autonomy as something "unacceptable"
(that word again) that would "damage
ethnic coexistence" (!). As if the official Tirana
is unaware that 'coexistence' in Kosovo today means militant
Albanians murdering Serbs – and even fellow Albanians – with
impunity, and destroying
priceless monuments of culture.
The
'War Crimes' Scam
Critics
will contend that 'impunity' ended when four KLA terrorists
were indicted
by the Hague Inquisition last week for torturing and murdering
Serbs and Albanians. Specifically, Empire's favorite sycophants,
the Human
Rights Watch, said the indictments "defeat the claims
of the Tribunal's critics that it was ignoring abuses committed
by Kosovo Albanian rebels." Well, no it does not. Had
the 'Tribunal' been truly interested in 'abuses' by the KLA,
it would have indicted Hashim Taqi, Agim Ceku and Ramush Haradinaj
long ago. That's assuming it is a legitimate institution to
begin with, which
it isn't. Given the Inquisition's political nature, assuming
that the small-fry KLA were indicted specifically to
create a pretense of fairness would not be far-fetched at
all.
It's not the
first time the Hague Inquisition came up with 'indictments'
at the most opportune moment; Milosevic was indicted when
NATO's attack needed a legitimacy boost. Several Croatian
generals have been indicted as 'proof' of even-handedness
(and HRW commented on them the
exact same way as above), and Bosnian Serb politicians
were hauled off in chains once their usefulness on the ground
ended.
One of them,
Biljana Plavsic, was just sentenced
to 11 years in prison – a virtual life sentence for the
72-year old. Plavsic's lawyers were shocked with this reward
for her spectacular 'confession'.
On the other hand, some Bosnian Muslims protested the sentence
as "lenient".
Death isn't good enough? There goes the empty talk of 'reconciliation'.
This outcome
was painfully obvious months
ago. Confessions did not help the victims of Stalin's
show trials – why would they help the victims of Empire's?
Ironically enough, Plavsic and associates fought against a
regime allied
with Al-Qaeda. So much for the 'War on Terror,' too.
And
now, in yet another re-run of the Balkans in the Middle East,
the Empire is campaigning to get Saddam Hussein and other
Iraqi officials indicted
for 'war crimes', whether from 1991 or in the war that
hasn't happened yet. This nightmarish combination of Kafka
and Philip
K. Dick is only possible because of the Hague Inquisition.
Effects
of Intervention
One
more thing to keep in mind is the impact of Imperial intervention
in Kosovo and the subsequent occupation of the province, and
the likelihood of similar effects in Iraq.
That NATO bombed,
invaded, and got away with it meant international law no longer
had any meaning. In addition to the loss of life and destruction
of property stemming from the bombing, there was a mass expulsion
of non-Albanians from Kosovo, a NATO-sanctioned ethnic cleansing
that remains a problem to the present day. Countless medieval
cultural treasures in Kosovo have been deliberately destroyed.
Iraq is rife with remnants of the most ancient human civilizations;
how many will perish in the planned missile
storm? The 'liberated' Kosovo has been a haven for traffickers
in drugs, weapons and sexual slaves, as well as a base for
terrorist movements in Macedonia
and Presevo
Valley. Now the rot is spreading to northern Serbia, where
ethnic and political separatists jockey
shamelessly for power. Even the current policy of 'regime
change' was tested on Serbia first, with Kosovo as leverage.
Thanks to it, Serbia is now ruled by a gang of thieves with
dangerous delusions, who owe their positions of power (nearly
absolute in Serbia, however petty in global terms) to the
Empire.
The
Ring of Madness
The
circle is thus complete. Scratch the surface of any conflict,
and you'll find the Empire there; if not this one, then its
predecessors. And everywhere it goes, death and despair follow.
The power of empire cannot be abused – its very use
results in evil. Tolkien
was right: power is the fiery Ring, an end unto itself. Power
for power's sake, to paraphrase Holbrooke.
Is it not obvious,
from everything here, what Imperialism
produces? It is a parasitical madness that infests and afflicts
nations, leading inevitably to rot and death. First in the
areas the host conquers – the Balkans, the Middle East, or
anywhere else – but eventually, it reaches the host itself,
and kills it just as brutally as it killed its other victims.
There may yet be time to stop this vile madness, but only
if there is readiness to learn the real lessons
of the Balkans, rather than debate the details of evil.
–
Nebojsa Malic
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