Slobbering Over Slobo
Slobodan Milosevic's death is freighted with more than just a tinge of schadenfreude. There's also some unexpected humor. Believe it or not there are those who continue to make out the Butcher of the Balkans as some sort of victim. The U.S. -- it turns out-- was the true source of evil in the decade-long series of wars that took hundreds of thousands of lives. Poor old Slobo, you see, was just a "piker" compared to the real fascists (i.e. whoever the U.S. supported).
Some of these pro-Slobo defenses are somewhat subtle and indirect. You can parse the former species out of the comments section of this posting.
But there are also pro-Slobo statements now appearing that are bold, assertive, unflinching and thereby somewhat nauseating. Rather predictably, the most effusive slobbering over Slobo comes from the red-shirted fascists at the International Action Center. You really must read their statement -- it's priceless. I'm not going to beat this to death, but neither am I going to elude the salient fact that the IAC is the front-group for the political cult that was allowed to organize most of the major events of the Iraq anti-war movement (and yes it is the same crew headed up by the addled Ramsey Clark). Read this statement and perhaps you will understand why I and too few others have been adamant about exposing this group and hoping they would be driven out of the movement. Not because I'm pro-war. But precisely because I oppose it and don't wish to have these sort of jackasses running the show.
March 13th, 2006 at 1:58 pm
I read that statement on Slobo’s death over at the IAC website - it’s truly chilling and embarrassing stuff, especially the last paragraph: “From the day of his kidnapping, President Milosevic waged a heroic defense of his own actions to defend Yugoslavia. He equally exposed the crimes of these leaders of the great powers to the world. For this the peoples of the Balkans and of the world will be indebted to him.” I suppose the widows and mothers of those who died at Srebrenica should feel indebted to the Great Man as well.
It makes me sad that such dangerous loons can consider themselves part of the left, partly because we decent leftists have let them do so. I really hope that when the drumbeat against Iran gets louder, United for Peace and Justice and other less insane groups can take the lead in organizing ahead of ANSWER. I’m never participating in anything those bastards put together ever again.
March 13th, 2006 at 3:16 pm
Notice that two groups of people read the IAC website. Cult-followers of that wing-nut group, and people looking to discredit them. They are best ignored. They are marginal, like most sects.
I have been active in left and antiwar politics for fifteen years. I’ve never met anyone remotely sympathetic to their perspective.
March 13th, 2006 at 3:22 pm
More serious is M Cooper’s subtle orwellianism. He claims that there is no distinction between Ramsey Clark and friends on one hand, and those of us, on the other hand, who put Milosevic AND Bush in the same war criminal category - and point out that in terms of raw numbers, Bush has killed more people.
March 13th, 2006 at 3:38 pm
“those of us, on the other hand, who put Milosevic AND Bush in the same war criminal category”
As if there aren’t plenty of war criminals to go around these days? What is annoying is that if you attack one of them–because, he is in the news having just died–you get criticized if you don’t mention others as well. Is it all supposed to cancel out in the end? Then what is the point. This is Milosevic’s hour, next hour we can return to Bush.
March 13th, 2006 at 3:42 pm
Why should it be someone’s hour when they die?
March 13th, 2006 at 4:04 pm
Mr Cummings: I’d rather stick pins in my eyes before I would read an IAC website. Their filth is pushed into my email box quite against my will.
Sorry to break this to you but Bush and Milosevic are NOT in the same category of war criminal. Not by a long shot. The wars engineered by Milosevic took about 1/4 million lives and uprooted millions of others. He destroyed what was left of Yugoslavia and, in the end, it his own Serbs that have lost the most.
Bush is a conservative Republican who has stretched the powers of his office somewhat farther than most (but not all) previous presidents. He waged a war in Afghanistan which I believe is fully justified. I criticize him for not better prosecuting that war.
His ill-fated war in Iraq was — whether we like it or not– waged with overwhelming congressional approval. Sad but true. Thousands have died in Iraq… I would say for the most part with not much of a good reason. It’s the sort of war that should cost a sitting president’s party their hold on the White House and should be a teaching moment about the limits and pretensions of imperial power. Iraq, however, is not a genocide and it as much or not a war crime as most any war is.
Milosevic was but a thinly disguised Nazi; he blatantly expoited ethnic and religious differences to whip up a murderous nationalism. His militias, death squads and soldiers had a policy of blatant massacre. The butchery at Sbrenjica and the Siege of Sarajevo are horrific, blood curdling crimes.
What’s amazing is the self-hatred that you display as an American. If U.S. military policy were the same as Milosevic’s then you would be committing a war crime by not taking up arms against the Bush regime. You have rendered yourself incapable of distinguishing among liberals, conservatives and beligerant fascists.
And the Balkans are not Iraq. Play any word game you like, the fact is that post-Kosovo intervention, everyone in that region is living better than before. That’s a pretty dtrong argument to knock down with flippant references to “war crimes.”
Remember that FDR cooked about 100,000 civilians in Dresden and that the allied air forces killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in Japanese and German cities. Such is the nature of war. A good reason not to wage it. The person who waged war in the Balkans was Milosevic… Clinton (who I detest) responded. And rather belatedly.
By the way Cummings.. I know u mean it in a different sense.. but Im happy to be associated with George Orwell. far superior company than a mangy thing like Ramsey Clark.
March 13th, 2006 at 4:08 pm
According to the news there were traces of an unauthorized drug in his body–the drug that caused his death supposedly caused his heart medication to become ineffectual. If he was NOT a political threat than why poison him?
March 13th, 2006 at 4:11 pm
Read your other post’s comments, pal - I gotta get off the computer- I’m not American.
March 13th, 2006 at 4:18 pm
Holy Christ Eleanor! If “they” poisoned them why would “they” perform an autopsy and release that information? What an unbelieveable load of crap!
My God… read the news reports a little closer. He was “poisoned” apparently by an un-prescribed anti-biotic. Perhaps Milsosevic wanted to make himself sick to bolster his demand to be transferred to Moscow for treatment and not have to to return to his trial.
I often ask myself what some folks would do wiith their time if there was no U.S. They’d have to invent one.
March 13th, 2006 at 4:25 pm
That statement is nauseating. What a group of simpletons spouting yet another America as Darth Vader fantasy.
Jcumminngs–something just doesn’t seem right in your formulation. There is a kind of flat iron standard being implied, as if the body count (this is Chomsky’s old trick of distinguishing between retail and wholesale terror) is the determining factor in who is a war criminal or not. But there certainly needs to be a measure more sopshisticated than that.
Can we call FDR a war criminal, but only of the piker variety, since he was not responsible for the deaths of quite as many people as the NAZIs? Or perhaps FDR was a greater criminal if we can demonstrate the US was responsible for more deaths (I don’t know the numbers). A more useful measure might be intention. Since the German regime at that time took it upon themselves to apply industrial slaughter to Jews and others, and the Allies opposed this action, then a body count measure seems entirely inadequate and foolishly simplistic. Intention matters a great deal, but of course this is not without its own set of problems.
You seem to have adopted a kind of stripped down Utilitarianism that measures the body count and generates a ranking of war criminal severity from that. There are a whole panoply of issues that get left out of this tissue paper analysis. This is not to say that an American president can’t be a war criminal, or reckless, or stupid or dangerous. But if your analysis leads you to believe that Clinton is the same as Milosevic then I suspect your tools are lacking.
Contrary to your pronouncements elsewhere, the US, despite its many flaws, does stand for a set of values that are quite different than those embodied by people like Milosevic and Hussein. It is to the far left’s continual discredit that they cannot see this difference even as they occasionally pay lip service to it (you know, the “Milo was a bad guy, but, that illegal court, ec. etc….” formulation).
March 13th, 2006 at 4:26 pm
I keep trying to get out etc. - I don’t think many Canadians would want to invent a country that hornswoggles us into NAFTA which has some disturbing effect on Canadian sovereignty over our natural resources, blackmail us into joining wars, cheats us on NAFTA and WTO agreements even after we’ve been dumb enough to sign them assuming America would follow the rules More disturbing is the completely unconcealed interference, going back half a century, in our domestic policies.
March 13th, 2006 at 4:37 pm
Marc–I don’t want to slobber over slobo but I will–besides whats the point in partaking in a blog if you can’t slobber:
NATO bombed Zastavka industrial complex in Kragujevac, 45 miles southwest of Belgrade, which produces the Yugo automobile. NATO jets hit the plant despite the fact that the workers had surrounded the factory in an attempt to ward off a bomb assault. That attack injured 124 people. An additional 36 workers were injured. Some 38,000 workers have been left without a job or livelihood as a result of the damage to the industrial complex.
NATO warplanes bombed an industrial complex in the central Serbian town of Krusevac, razing to the ground the town’s heating plant and the 14 Oktobar factory, a leading manufacturer of building machines in the Balkans. The destruction of these facilities, less than a mile from the center of Krusevac, left 6,000 workers jobless and resulted in an unspecified number of civilian casualties.
In the industrial town of Pancevo, across the Danube River from Belgrade, one of Yugoslavia’s biggest oil refineries was demolished by NATO jets.
A NATO missile struck a residential area in Serbia’s second largest city, Novi Sad. Two of the city’s three bridges over the Danube were destroyed in the first two weeks of the air war.
Twelve civilians died from a bomb that landed in the center of the town of Cuprija, leaving 400 families homeless.
More than twenty civilian buildings were damaged by a NATO missiles into the village of Turekovac, west of Leskovac.
NATO aircraft bombed civilian targets in the environs of Kraljevo, central Serbia, The village school in Bogutovac was destroyed, after being hit by six missiles. NATO bombs also damaged schools in the villages of Raska, Lacevci, Tavnik and Lozno.
Over 50 cruise missiles hit the Kosovan capital of Pristina Saturday night. Shatina airport outside of the city came under renewed attack on Sunday. The region southeast of the capital was also targeted, with cluster bombs striking the southern Kosovan municipality of Lipljani.
A three-year-old girl was one of three people killed in the Saturday night bombing of the village of Mirovac in northern Kosovo. A total of ten missiles were fired on the region.
Two more radio relay stations were hit by cruise missiles.
March 13th, 2006 at 4:38 pm
“His ill-fated war in Iraq was — whether we like it or not– waged with overwhelming congressional approval. Sad but true.”
Sad and false, Marc. HJ Res. 114, which was passed by Congress on October 16, 2002 (which I believe that you are referring to) was not at all a declaration of war, which is required under Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution in order for military action of any kind to be initiated against another nation.
This 2002 resolution was similar to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution of 1964 (particularly in the manufacture of facts resulting in both instances). In wake of the Vietnam War, Congress in 1973 underscored the intent of the constitution in the War Powers Act of 1973, which reiterated that a formal declaration of war is needed to wage battle on sovereign states.
Interestingly, the founding fathers insisted on these measures because, among other reasons, they wanted to set limits on the amount of time that the nation could be at war. They did not believe in “extended engagments,” with no end in sight (sound familiar?)
The founding fathers were also insistent on a formal declaration of war to prevent non-accountability (again, sound familiar?)
It is easy to see why Bush and his friends in the Republican and Democratic Party violated the constitution yet again, since accountability is such an exotic fantasy nowadays, much to the detriment of old-fashioned constitutionalist junkies like myself.
Personally, I would agree that George W. Bush is no worse than some of our previous presidents; like Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, and William McKinnley. But seriously, if I were him or one of his supporters, I would be sick with having the distinction of even being measured against people of that ilk.
“If U.S. military policy were the same as Milosevic’s then you would be committing a war crime by not taking up arms against the Bush regime.”
Not necessarily. Non-violent civil disobedience is, in my opinion, the most effective weapon against a repressive regime. Pacifism enabled Ghandi and his nation to dispel British colonialism. It also enabled the civil rights movement in this country to flourish.
March 13th, 2006 at 5:09 pm
David.. LOL! You dodged the 800lb moral question sitting in front of you, my man. The issue isn’t whether u’d take up armed resistance or ghandian non-violence, the issue I presented was the false moral symmetry being drawn between the U.S. and Slobo’s Serbia. Would you like to comment on that issue? And ur covering up for the Democrats on the congressional resolution is plain pathetic. How come I and everyone else I knew at the time believed that was a blank check for war and all those smart Democratic elected officials didnt? Come on, man, get real. We all knew it and so did you. If war is illegal without a congressional declaration of war then the entire Congress should be deemed guilty for complicity as they continue to appropriate funding for that war. Back to earth, David!
Eleanor: You have GOT to be kidding! Neat little list of atrocities u’ve got there. You think they balance out the 250,000 murdered principally by Milosevic’s policies?
Let me offer you an historic example by way of parable: When I was writing about Central America in the 1980’s I spent a lot of time reporting on the Salvadoran FMLN — which I am sure you support(ed). They also had my sympathies. I knew that one of their leaders, Carpio, had knifed his second in command, a woman, 82 times and was then arrested in Managua for it. That’s an established fact. I knew one of their other leaders, Joaquin Villalobos (who is sort of a friend of mine), had conspired back in the 70’s in the murder of famous leftist poet Roque Dalton. I knew the FMLN had assasinated 35 town mayors — I had been to some of their funerals. I knew it was the FMLN who shot a Chilean who was standing next to me thru the neck on election day in 1982. He bled to death on the street in front of me as the guerrillas kept us pinned down with gunfire. I personally witnessed a military attack by the FMLN in which their mortars fell into civilian homes, killing an infant of 18 mos. (You can see it in the PBS Frontline I produced “The Forgotten War”). I knew the guerrillas shot those they judged to be informants.
I didnt support or endorse any of those acts. I didnt romanticize them nor fogive them. I found them brutal, illegal, immoral and blood-chilling. I merely thought (as I do today) that given the institutionalized brutality and inequity embodied in the Salvadoran government, the fight of the FMLN was, with all of its many flaws, just and justified and that it might contribute to a better, if imperfect, future.
Now, can’t you do the same when it comes to Balkans? Except this time the consumate evil is Milosevic. You dont have to support, endorse, or applaud whatever excesses or atrocities may have been committed by NATO to still understand that the intervention — on balance– produced more good than bad. And ur hearing that from someone who opposed the invasion at the time.
Why do folks like you have such a manichean view? You know the flip side of your denunciatory politics is an even more dangerous sycophancy for those who have ur sympathy. Life and politics is not a football game of red versus blue. It’s complicated, messy, imperfect and unsatisfying. In that context, I am joyful that Milosevic was overthrown (by his own people by the way) and that he is now safely dead. My only regret is that he didnt slowly, slowly rot in a prison cell for another 30 years.
March 13th, 2006 at 5:11 pm
I won’t shed tears for Slobo, but his death will probably make it harder to get Radic and Karadzic and will probably strengthne the hardliners.
March 13th, 2006 at 5:13 pm
Absolutely correct Randy. That is indeed a downside of his death. That he was not yet convicted and sentenced is also unfortunate. It opens the door to a degree of martyrdom.
March 13th, 2006 at 5:19 pm
And he had a history of self-prescribing medicines that counteracted his BP medication. Cummings’ false anaologies are breathtaking. I’m surprised he hasn’t just martyred himself.
March 13th, 2006 at 5:22 pm
To Dan-O (arguing really kills time when you’re working on a book and need to exercise your brain)
Your point is cogent to an extent. We disagree and the core of it is ideology, to the extent that I believe intent is far less important in politics, and in human affairs, than effect. It doesn’t matter if America deludes itself into high motives. Germans thought they had high motives, as did Milosevic.
FDR DID commit war crimes. Defeating fascism was important, and probably could have been done without the crimes comitted. World War 2 was just in theory, but often misguided if not worse in practice. From Dresden to the internment of Japanese to the failing to act on intelligence indicating death camps, along with the secret railways that could have been bombed (for which it would seem FDR had no real interest in saving Jews,) along with prodcution of American corporations doing business with Nazis, I would say FDR was at the very least comitting petty war crimes.
You are right to compare my perspective to Chomsky’s retail/wholesale example, but it would seem obvious whether Chomsky said it or not. I believe Bush is worse than most wholesale terrorists or “rogue states” because he and America have the resources and intellectual as well as financial capital to choose not to commit crimes, and his crimes affect the planet, whereas Milosevic was a particularly nasty player who believed the ends justified the means in what seemed to him, keeping his country together - and his intent didn’t matter either to his victims.
March 13th, 2006 at 5:37 pm
Marc—No one is saying that politics is simply good vs. evil, of course, there are many shades of grey—in fact chiaroscuro is the characteristic element of most political machinations—My only disappointment, is that the end result is always the same—-might makes right.
March 13th, 2006 at 5:44 pm
In light of Cummings’ comments and the link below: Too bad Hitler didn’t live long enought to testify against FDR! See—> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeremy-scahill/rest-easy-bill-clinton-_b_17235.html
March 13th, 2006 at 6:39 pm
“arguing really kills time when you’re working on a book and need to exercise your brain”
You?
March 13th, 2006 at 6:58 pm
Marc wow! Unbelievable. What causes this? Because I had no idea about this sort of hard left nutballery. At first I didn’t know what you were talking about but boy, perfessor, lesson learned. Christ on a cracker.
March 13th, 2006 at 7:28 pm
Marc Cooper says:
“The issue isn’t whether u’d take up armed resistance or ghandian non-violence, the issue I presented was the false moral symmetry being drawn between the U.S. and Slobo’s Serbia. Would you like to comment on that issue?”
Of course I’d like to comment - it goes without saying that there the symmetry being drawn between the U.S. and Slobo is false. duh! The very fact that the two entities are even being compared is ridiculous, which is why I didn’t even think that it even merited comment.
“And ur covering up for the Democrats on the congressional resolution is plain pathetic.”
HUH? Huh? Ex-squeeze me? When did I ever cover up for the Democrats on the congressional resolution? Did you read a word I said?
I took an oath after that October in 2002: I will never vote for any politician, regardless of party, who voted for that resolution. I am not even a registered Democrat! Talk about “LOL”…I have nearly gotten in fights with people because I went door to door gathering petitions for Nader’s campaign in 2004!
“If war is illegal without a congressional declaration of war then the entire Congress should be deemed guilty for complicity as they continue to appropriate funding for that war. ”
Well, I would leave some people out of that equation who have voted consistently against such funding, but otherwise - I’M WITH YOU.
“Back to earth, David!”
Someone needs to get back to earth, but it ain’t me. Your two posts say two different things. It didn’t even appear in your first post that you were even aware that there wasn’t a formal declaration of war. In fact, I will paste your comments here:
Marc Cooper Says:
March 13th, 2006 at 4:04 pm
“His ill-fated war in Iraq was — whether we like it or not– waged with overwhelming congressional approval.”
March 13th, 2006 at 7:31 pm
To show your fairness and honestly, Marc Cooper, I would like for you to paste any post of mine where I “covered up for the Democrats.”
March 13th, 2006 at 7:33 pm
And by the way, I’m “David” Cummings. Not “J.” Maybe you have me confused with someone else.
March 13th, 2006 at 7:41 pm
The fact is, the Iraqi War was never given formal congressional approval. The resolution was informal approval, but not a formal declaration of war. The resolution does two things: (1) It shirks the Dems and Reps of any kind of accountability (the President did it), and (2) Although not recognized as “approval” by the constitution, the Iraq Resolution and The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution allows a president to point his fingers at Congress (Congress went along with me).
March 13th, 2006 at 7:44 pm
David.. calm down, man. Here’s the story. I said that Congress had — like it or not– voted for the war in Iraq.
You wrote: “Sad and false, Marc. HJ Res. 114, which was passed by Congress on October 16, 2002 (which I believe that you are referring to) was not at all a declaration of war, which is required under Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution in order for military action of any kind to be initiated against another nation.”
I wrote that you were covering for the Democrats. Declaration, shmecklaration, that vote — supported by the Dems– was a vote for war.
Beyond that I dont care to get in a pissing match as to whether or not you are a Democrat or a Green or anything else. Doesnt matter to me.
Im not indicting you. Im only telling you that ur letting Congress off too easy.
March 13th, 2006 at 8:06 pm
Yeah there’s two Cummings’ conflated here. J is a Canadian. As an historical caveat there ahs been no formal declaration of war since after Pearl Harbor so…
March 13th, 2006 at 8:13 pm
Marc Cooper, I think its my fault. It was kind of a misunderstanding. I was like, “no way this war is legal,” and that was misconstrued as, “Garsh, that George W. Bush really fooled me! First the betrayal in “No Child Left Behind,” Enron, etc….but I really believed him! Who knew?!”
The centrist point of view, in other words: Boy, he really fooled us yet again! No, no….I was just being a pain in the butt on the semantics of the declaration of war vs. the resolution….pardon me for that.
March 13th, 2006 at 8:34 pm
NOTE: I’m not posting the Wes Clark op ed below to either endorse or argue with it, but simply to add it to the dialogue as I thought it was interesting, particularly ol’ Wes’ assessment of the various dinner table conversations with Slobo.
(Forgive the fact that I’m posting it in its entirety, but the WSJ, where it ran, won’t let you in the door without a subscription.)
*************************
A Petty Hitler
By Wesley K. Clark
March 13, 2006; Page A18
The Wall Street Journal
Slobodan Milosevic’s death in The Hague is a real tragedy for the international community. But most of all it will be a tragedy for the Serbs themselves. It will likely be another step in a series of historic Serb failures, martyrdom and isolation, all of which Milosevic himself grandly evoked to gain and maintain his power. I knew him as a nationalist leader and wartime adversary.
Along with the other Americans on Richard Holbrooke’s 1995 Balkan peace talks mission, I spent countless hours with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. As NATO’s then supreme allied commander, Europe, I haggled with Milosevic about war criminals and the Dayton Peace Agreement implementation in 1997, delivered NATO’s warnings and threat in 1998, implored his cooperation in heading off renewed conflict, and then, when all else failed, I led the NATO military campaign which forced him to end ethnic cleansing and remove his troops and police from Kosovo. In 2003, I faced him again when I testified for the prosecution in his war crimes trial at The Hague.
While his death at The Hague ends his interminable trial, nothing is resolved. His death only compounds many of the difficult issues still facing the international community, Europe and Serbia itself.
In his 64 years, Milosevic was an army officer, a Communist, a bureaucrat, a banker and, above all, a Yugoslav Serb who used his skills and harsh nationalist rhetoric to parlay himself into the highest office in Yugoslavia only to then alienate and attack his fellow Yugoslav citizens. In four successive conflicts which he all lost, Milosevic used war as a means of plundering and disassembling his own country. He forced millions from their homes and caused several hundred thousands of deaths. He was rational and sometimes cunning, often a brilliant tactical negotiator but ultimately a fool of a strategist, whose reckless crimes included murder and genocide, and who has cost humanity as a whole and his own Serbs dearly.
* * *
As a young man Milosevic was a dutiful communist and an outstanding student who scored top marks in school. His mother was a teacher who encouraged his studies but kept him away from sports. He fell in love with Mira Markovic, a personal favorite of Tito, who lost her mother during World War II in still unresolved circumstances. Her partisan mother was captured by the Nazis who interrogated, tortured, confessed and then supposedly killed her. More likely she was released only to be killed as a collaborator by fellow partisans. Milosevic himself lost both his parents and an uncle to suicide. But though he clearly had a dark side, I never saw Milosevic as a suicide risk — he was too committed to himself and to his ideas.
During the many hours of our negotiations in the summer and autumn of 1995, we dined with him, chatted with him about history and geopolitics, and talked about everything from his experiences as a young man in America to his concerns for his family. Given his gruff, commanding manner, many joked during the Dayton peace talks that he was the real Godfather. But we quickly came to think of him more appropriately as a petty Hitler, an unlawful dictator capable of malice, murder and ethnic cleansing. Any arrangement with him had to be weighed morally: for its legitimization of Milosevic as well as its value in ending a bloody conflict.
During the Dayton peace talks, all of Milosevic’s “qualities” were at display: his stubborn cunning and blustering outbursts, his often grandiose dreams of Serbia as one of the seven gateways of Europe, his patent disloyalty to his fellow Serbs and transparent lies about everything from Srebrenica to his attitudes toward other nations. He smoked and drank excessively, even as he complained about his blood pressure and his health. At the Paris signature ceremony for the Dayton negotiations, Milosevic was center stage, conversing with world leaders like President Bill Clinton. But he failed to deliver on many of his promises, especially regarding indicted war criminals like former Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic. By the late summer of 1997, Serb resistance to NATO-led enforcement of the peace accords was rising and we called again on Milosevic for help. But he stubbornly refused to assist us. He still held dreams of a greater Serbia and he thought he had NATO’s measure.
In the spring of 1998 he unleashed the next round of ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, this time turning his Special Police against a prominent Albanian family in Kosovo, killing 60 of them, including women and children. For most of that year NATO struggled to find a balanced approach, alternating negotiations with intensifying threats to head off another war in former Yugoslavia. But Milosevic foolishly believed he could defy NATO warnings and launch a broad ethnic cleansing effort with impunity.
It was another strategic miscalculation by Milosevic. NATO followed through in its threats, unleashing a 78-day, gradually intensifying air campaign and threatened ground intervention. Coupled with Russian diplomatic assistance and his indictment for war crimes, Milosevic was forced to pull his forces out of Kosovo. It was yet another blow to his vision of a greater Serbia. When he tried the next year to win re-election, his opponents in Belgrade were ready — demanding an honest vote and his resignation. Soon he was delivered to The Hague.
Predictably, his cause of death is being disputed by some of his Serb countrymen who blame the U.N. He will surely be lionized and glorified by the radical nationalists he so nurtured.
History’s longest war crimes trial will never be concluded. Milosevic’s many victims and their families will be denied justice. And the Serb people themselves will have one more escape from the awful truth of the crimes under Milosevic’s leadership. His death comes at a bad time.
Serbia is struggling to acknowledge its past and face its future.
Indicted war criminals like Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic are still at large — most likely living under official protection. The future status of Kosovo is unresolved and Serb participation in a resolution would be helpful. Another challenge will be Montenegro’s upcoming referendum on its independence. And even as Serbia looks westward for help, its future alignment is still unsettled as the Serb people struggle to recognize how badly they have been deceived and misled.
Even during Milosevic’s rule, many in Serbia yearned to join the EU and work with NATO. Its economic modernization would strengthen all its neighbors, including NATO members Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary. Its participation as a modern state would help promote political reconciliation and development throughout the Balkans. But all this means giving up the kind of hypernationalism that Milosevic trumpeted and fanned, and for many in Serbia, this has long been a mythology they have come to believe to offset the reality of deprivations, corruption and poverty.
Milosevic’s death will likely bury the truth beneath another layer of charges and countercharges. His trial had been a long-running national TV drama in Serbia. The impact there of the evidence so painstakingly presented was blunted by Milosevic’s star status at home and his grandiloquent and often irrelevant argumentation.
Now there will be no conviction and Serbia’s weak leaders will have to cope with yet another obstacle in re-educating and reorienting their people. His death is as much a tragedy as his life. Both in life and in death, Milosevic has deprived millions of people of justice, hope and a better future.
********
Mr. Clark was supreme allied commander of NATO during the 1999 Kosovo campaign and a Democratic candidate for the U.S. presidency in 2004.
March 13th, 2006 at 9:02 pm
Huffington denied my comment. Well some minion really. Enough said about challenging dogma.
Clark is an appeal to appropriate authority. And correct.
March 13th, 2006 at 9:42 pm
What a depressing post! What is there to argue about?
Bill Clinton, the greatest Democratic president since FDR saved hundreds of thousands of lives by shutting down a crazed genocidal racist madman. Slobbo was in the business of executing people based on their ethnicity and religion.
The EU stood by and did nothing. The UN stood by and did nothing (and by most objective accounts, assisted Slobbo).
The year is 2006. By my mathematical account, 61 years out from the date the US won World War II –and never doubt it– the US won World War II. Do any of you delusional people remember World War II?
Let’s discuss current events. Last time I heard, about 2-3 million people have died in the recent civil wars in the Congo. 400,000 black African Muslims have died in Darfur; about 2 million have been “displaced,” which is the prequal to dying a long, slow and cruel death, especially because most of you America-haters don’t care who lives or dies, when you can’t blame it on America. What do you propose to do about these ongoing genocides?
Can any of you America-haters get it through your thick heads that America is just one nation among many and desrves to be judged according to whatever standards you judge any other nation?
No, you can’t. If you can’t discuss the perfidy and guilt of US policy you can’t discuss US policy, much less world policy.
What do you propose to do about these ongoing genocides?
What do you propose to do about these ongoing genocides?
What do you propose to do about these ongoing genocides?
What do you propose to do about these ongoing genocides?
What do you propose to do about these ongoing genocides?
What do you propose to do about these ongoing genocides?
What do you propose to do about these ongoing genocides?
What do you propose to do about these ongoing genocides?
March 14th, 2006 at 8:45 am
world federalism.
March 14th, 2006 at 10:38 am
Marc Cooper is way off base here. Readers should check out Diana Johnstone’s Fool’s
Crusade which debunk the myth of genocide
in both Bosnia and Kosovo and prove that
Clinton’s barbaric, murderous intervention
was unjustified in every respect. Marc has
been getting his cues here from that lying
scumbag, Christopher Hitchens. Cockburn
at counterpunch.org has made almost a career of debunking Hitch’s lies. The fact
is that the US Govt is the leading terrorist
state in the world and has murdered MILLIONS, many millions of people since
1945 alone. Chomsky is right and one doesn’t
have to agree with his socialism to recognize
this fact. Mao and Stalin killed many more
but the US has third place clinched.
Marc has been wrong on many issues, ranging
from the Mumia farce “trial” to lauding the
warmonger McCain to pimping for Jerry Brown,
a shitty opportunist if one ever existed.
Marc belongs to that pathetic wing of The
Nation crowd, whose main goal is to ensure
their “respectability.” And never be too far
from the power centers. How much longer
do we want to travel down that sorry ass
road with the Altermans and the Coopers
while the dialogue goes ever further to the
statist, fascist Right ? At least ANSWER does
something to oppose Bush’s criminal, fascist
policies in Palestine, Iraq and elsewhere.
What Marc experienced in Chile was a very
small example of US imperialism since 1945
and maybe long before that.
March 14th, 2006 at 1:51 pm
> How much longer do we want to travel down that sorry ass
> road with the Altermans and the Coopers while the dialogue
> goes ever further to the statist, fascist Right ?
Since you asked: A hell of a lot longer than I’d like to be next to you on a long plane flight.
March 14th, 2006 at 1:57 pm
Michael, the truth hurts. Tough.
March 14th, 2006 at 4:33 pm
How about a seat between Samuel “Do any of you genocide-loving America haters remember World War II” Stott and Peter “at least ANSWER fights fascism” Fong on a transcontinental flight ? Now that’s the ticket.
March 14th, 2006 at 5:01 pm
“Mao and Stalin killed many more
but the US has third place clinched.”
Doesn’t Hitler fit in there somewhere ? Or as Samuel Stott would put it, “Don’t any of you delusional, America-haters remember World War II ? Don’t make me repeat this sentence 8 times!!!!!!!!”
March 14th, 2006 at 5:14 pm
Not with those three, even if the conventional
holocaust story is true, and some of us have
doubts, he’d still be way behind Mao, Stalin
and the US (think black & Indian genocide).
FDR and Churchill killed many more than Hitler,
which is the reason they won the Not So Good
War.
Sorry, old boy libs, to shred your myths.
March 14th, 2006 at 5:27 pm
“even if the conventional holocaust story is true, and some of us have
doubts”
That long plane ride just got a whole lot longer…
March 14th, 2006 at 6:48 pm
“even if the conventional
holocaust story is true, and some of us have
doubts”
My dad didn’t much doubt when he entered Buchenwald with Murrow. And for you ever-present literalists, there were others along called the 4th army combat battalion.
March 14th, 2006 at 6:51 pm
Imagine “Cast Away” and three wash up on the island. That’s a dilemma.
March 14th, 2006 at 7:12 pm
“even if the conventional holocaust story is true, and some of us have doubtsâ€
The mark of a true anti-intellectual anti-semite and arrogant pup. I stood at the gates of Bergen-Belsen and Dachau as a kid. I’ve seen the photographs… Guess what Fong, Photoshop wasn’t invented then.
I’m going to violate my new semi-rule about ad hominems and say Mr. Fong that you sir, are an ass!
March 14th, 2006 at 7:30 pm
No kidding. Mr. Fong won’t be re-joining us. I dont mind his attacks on me– much like a chihuahua sprinkling one’s shoes. But the Holocaust denial thing puts him over the line of what I choose to read.
By the way, the guy’s a dial-up from the Bay Area.
Here’s his IP: 66.81.70.112
March 14th, 2006 at 7:33 pm
Geez, Id rather be on a DC-9 to China stuck between Reg and GM calling each other names for 3 days!
You guys better appreciate what we’ve already got cuz u see it can ALWAYS get worse.
March 14th, 2006 at 7:41 pm
Thanks mark for the IP… He’s banned from my site as well.
Besides, if Reg and I were actually sitting near each other, we’d probably be quaffing beer (well, vodka for me if you please) and telling jokes. You don’t want to miss out on all those jokes do you?
March 14th, 2006 at 7:44 pm
Obviously I don’t know how to read…. sorry
March 14th, 2006 at 7:46 pm
I dont know George. I do know if on the plane they started showing Brokeback Mtn I really would not want to be in the center seat between u fellers.
March 14th, 2006 at 7:59 pm
I much preferred this posting on the Huffington Blog:
Slobodan Milosevic is characterized in the obituaries as the “Butcher of the Balkans.” If that is the story you want to read about, please go to almost any other media outlet and read it again and again. Some are now suggesting that death is Milosevic’s final revenge, that he “ended up cheating history” by dying before judgment was passed.
But the world has already passed judgment on Milosevic and what is being cheated by his death is history itself.
What the corporate media overwhelmingly ignores in Milosevic’s death is what they ignored in his life as well–his intimate knowledge of US war crimes in Yugoslavia. While Milosevic was undoubtedly a war criminal who deserved to be tried for his crimes, he was also the only man in the unique position of being able to expose and detail the full extent of the US role in the bloody disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. In fact, that is precisely what he was fighting to do at his war crimes trial when he died.
Because of the rule of victors’ justice in the ad hoc tribunal system (a poor and unfair substitute for a true international court), Milosevic’s case would have been the only international trial to potentially expose the details of the illegal, US-led NATO bombing of Yugoslavia for 78 days in 1999. While the US-backed court consistently tried to limit Milosevic’s right to speak, stripping him of his right to self-representation, Milosevic battled regularly to raise US war crimes. Sadly, with Milosevic will likely die the last hope the victims of these crimes in Yugoslavia had of getting their day (if it could even be called that) in court–a tragic and unjust reality to begin with–that speaks volumes about the twisted state of international justice.
Milosevic’s cause, regardless of what one thinks of it, was a casualty of 9/11–an event that relegated him and his trial to the annals of history before it was even over. Most people in the world–with the exception of those in the Balkans where the proceedings were broadcast live, daily–probably didn’t even know Milosevic was still on trial in the Hague. It became an obscure sideshow to the blood and gore unfolding constantly on the international stage.
Milosevic’s death means that those who bombed Yugoslavia for 78 days beginning 7 years ago this month, killing thousands, will be, once and for all protected from any public scrutiny for their crimes. However opportunistic Milosevic may have been, he would have been one of the few people to appear at the Hague that could have–and would have–laid out these crimes in great detail. Now, there is almost certain to be no condemnation of the US bombing of Radio Television Serbia, killing 16 media workers, the cluster bombing of the Nis marketplace, shredding human beings into meat, the use of depleted uranium munitions and the targeting of petrochemical plants causing toxic and chemical waste to pour into the Danube River. There will be no condemnation of the bombing of Albanian refugees by the US or the deliberate targeting of a civilian passenger train or the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. Milosevic also would have discussed how the US supports a regime in Kosovo that has systematically expelled Serbs, Romas and other ethnic minorities from their homes and burnt down scores of churches. He would have discussed the role of the US in funding and arming the Kosovo Liberation Army, which operates like a death squad and how the new prime minister of Kosovo, Agim Ceku, is a US-trained war criminal who gained infamy in both the Bosnian war and the 1999 Kosovo conflict. And Milosevic would have talked of the US interference in the Yugoslav elections in 2000 and the ultimate neoliberal takeover that was the aim of Clinton’s sanctions and 78 days of bombing. In reality, it would have fallen on deaf ears, but it would have been stated for the record.
It is ironic that Milosevic’s last legal battle was an attempt to compel his old friend turned nemesis Bill Clinton to testify at his trial. If successful, Milosevic would have grilled the man who was US president through the entire Yugoslav war in what would have been a fiery direct examination. Clinton and Milosevic were once pals who talked collective strategy in the 1990s. Milosevic had many damning stories to tell and, without a doubt, uncomfortable questions to ask Clinton. The judges in Milosevic’s case clearly worked to keep those moments from ever happening and the US government made clear its forceful opposition to such subpoenas of US officials, even considering invading a country that would put a US official on trial. With or without Clinton, Milosevic’s defense would have brought to light some serious documentation of US war crimes and he died, muzzled, before he really got started.
Little attention, therefore, has been paid to Milosevic’s long-term efforts–which predated 9/11, the 1999 NATO bombing and his own trial–to expose the presence of al Qaeda in the Balkans–from Bosnia to Kosovo. With 9/11, Milosevic’s talk of al Qaeda was easily dismissed as laughable, pathetic opportunism. But those who followed Milosevic’s career and more importantly the events of the 1990s in Yugoslavia know it was none of those. Those allegations were based on true events the US does not want discussed in an international court. Following the defeat of the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s, many Mujahadeen eventually turned their sights on Yugoslavia where they went to fight alongside the Bosnian Muslims against the Orthodox Serbs and Catholic Croats. Once again, the US and bin Laden were on the same team. To this day there are reports of training camps in Bosnia, which remains under occupation. It is also a likely training ground for future blowback.
In his opening statement, Milosevic alluded to some of the information he would introduce during his defense. “In 1998 when [Clinton envoy Richard] Holbrooke visited us in Belgrade, we told him the information we had at our disposal, that in Northern Albania the KLA is being aided by Osama bin Laden, that he was arming, training, and preparing the members of this terrorist organisation in Albania. However, they decided to cooperate with the KLA and indirectly, therefore, with bin Laden, although before that he had bombed the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania [and] had already declared war.” Milosevic concluded that “one day all this will have to come to light, these links.”
That, however, is unlikely and more so now that Milosevic is dead.
To be sure, there will never be indictments of these US war criminals at the Hague: Bill Clinton, Madeline Albright, Jamie Rubin, William Cohen, Sandy Berger, Richard Holbrooke and Wesley Clark. For many of Serbia’s victims of US war crimes, Milosevic’s trial was a “Hail Mary” pass, as awful of an historical irony as that is, aimed at someone recognizing their forgotten suffering.
It is a sad testimony to the state of international jurisprudence that after many attempts to find justice, the only hope for US victims in the Yugoslavia wars was the trial defense of a man many of those same victims despised. If there was an independent international court that was recognized and respected by the US, those responsible for bombing Yugoslavia would have been alongside Slobodan Milosevic in the docks these past years instead of having their responsibility being buried with him.
March 14th, 2006 at 10:33 pm
Reg says:
“How about a seat between Samuel “Do any of you genocide-loving America haters remember World War II†Stott and Peter “at least ANSWER fights fascism†Fong on a transcontinental flight ? Now that’s the ticket.”
Your usual drive-by, Reg. When you can’t dodge actual arguments, with at least a dollop of insult, what do you have to say?
Here is what I said: I said that America-haters are uninterested in question of genocide that can’t be blamed on America. I did not say that America-haters advocate genocide.
Go back and read my post. That’s what I said.
Are you mistaken or a deliberate liar?
Darfur? 400,000 dead and two million to go? Genocide? Who cares? You don’t, Reg; and neither do most of your deluded co-religionists.
March 15th, 2006 at 3:33 am
Sam Stott: Proudly, I always blame America first. That is only because I love my native country. I do not love Myanmar or Sudan or Iraq in nearly the same way, and
even if I did, I could not rationally claim the same level of responsibility to
maintain their civic, economic or moral and health.
However, if the conditions
in, say, Iraq, are a result of my country’s actions, then, of course, I take a
share of responsibility for those, and only those, consequences.
This is not complicated. It’s one of the simplest differences between mature and immature people. Mature people focus on their sphere of influence and the
closer something is to the center of that sphere, the more responsibility they
accept for it. There further, the less.
I get a sense that Marc Cooper and his ilk see the battle against evil among men as a kind of cartoon where personal responsibility is beside the point. Their views seem so inert. They seem to be striking the disinterested pose of a movie critic, not a participant and citizen.
Thus their worldview seems to require putting the actions of
people and countries we have no right or responsibility or capability to control in exactly the same moral category as the acts of people we elect, pay and,
in some cases, cheer on.
Before the U.S. can legitimately claim a role that requires the commissin of mayhem outside its borders, it has to be in a position of moral superiority. The U.S. is, at least
potentially, sometimes legitimately in that position, as is any country. But when it
claims to be so, it has to behave in a morally superior manner. That means Americans must hold the U.S. to a higher level of moral accountability, or surrender the right to police other countries in the first place.
Most parents give much scrutiny and concern to the shortcomings of their
children, while caring much less about the imperfections of other youngsters.
Does this mean they “hate” their own children? Of course not.
Parents who fret about and cajole and even punish their children almost always do it out of pure love. The same goes for patriots who take full, active responsibility for the actions of their country.
March 15th, 2006 at 4:06 am
Bunkerbuster, glad to see ur back but it seems your medical supervisors let u out without checking your meds level.
You realize, of course, your arguments dove-tail perfectly with those of paleocons and America Firsters lie Pat Buchahan. How terribly quaint.. you are only going to dirty your daintly little fingers with the mud-pie messes in ur immediate reach. My, how touching.
Some of us, however, live in a world a tad more expansive than yours. Like, you see, when those nice little Twin Towers in homey new york got blown up by some religious nazis, well, some of us thought maybe this one time, you know, we’d reach out beyond our sacred sovereign borders and maybe try to annhilate Al Qaeda and its Taliban enablers before they annhilated us.
Sorry, old chap, that this offended you but.. as they say.. tough titty.
Your thesis is actually a specious piece of crap which indeed imposes a double standard on policy… not so much as you say that we have to be morally superior in order to act… nah..even uou dont believe that. It’s just that the other guys have to be three times worse before you will as much as consent a moral symmetry.
But dont let me keep you from your crucial work. Please be out there 24/7 making sure America is moral enough to engage in the world. The last think I’d want to learn that after we get sucker punched by maybe getting our biggest city attacked, we wouldnt be morally fit or authorized to respond and instead we would have to spend a week in the corner confessing our sins!
What I would really love to know is how on earth you concoct such muddle-headed twaddle? I mean does it come to you all alone at 3 am? Do u absorb from selected writings of Michael Parenti? Or d u actually have some sort of stahkanovite study group that meets on Friday nites to discuss these heavy matters? Sheesh.
And for the record, bub, you got it right, Because I happened to be born, cast an occasional ballot and pay some taxes in one country hardly exempts from moral judgements by me those who live in and rule in other lans. You are free to surrender to that know-nothing and provincial ignorance in the name of moral righteousness… excuse me… Pat’s calling you on line 2.
March 15th, 2006 at 4:51 am
“Genocide? Who cares? You don’t, Reg”
Oh go fuck yourself, you hyperventilating moron.
March 15th, 2006 at 7:57 am
As Ken Silverstien reported, I think in Mother Jones, America and France, through oil companies (add Canada for Talisman) are partially responsible for Darfur, at the very least, their investments prevent them from doing anything about it. So yes, the world hegemon obviously has a role in every dispute on the planet, usually malign neglect.
March 15th, 2006 at 9:29 am
Marc writes: “Some of us, however, live in a world a tad more expansive than yours. Like, you see, when those nice little Twin Towers in homey new york got blown up by some religious nazis, …and maybe try to annhilate Al Qaeda and its Taliban enablers before they annhilated us. Sorry, old chap, that this offended you but.. as they say.. tough titty.”
Marc’s idea of “expansive,” apparently is cartoonish revenge fantasies and junior high school epithets.
Sorry Marc, but bin Laden’s boys never, ever stood any chance of “annhilating” the U.S. and, unless the U.S. stays on its current path, they never will.
You seem to view this conflict as some kind of superhero comic book. The plot, in your mind, is that 9/11 handed the U.S. some kind of moral blank check.
Of course, your left with the huge mess in Afghanistan to explain because the U.S. revenge attacks there just haven’t panned out. What about rebuilding the country we helped destroy? And if the country isn’t rebuilt, how can the attacks be justified? Is that really a legitimate means of self-defense against a terrorist attack?
The U.S. has quite a history in Afghanistan. Who’s been held responsible for it? Who has had to pay? And if no one has had or will have to pay for it, how can we expect either justice to be served or lessons to be learned?
A simple question, Marc. Did 9/11 erase, for you, U.S. responsibility for its history of fomenting terrorism in Afghanistan? If it didn’t, how can the invasion be squared with that history? If it did, you better introduce me to Lois Lane.
March 15th, 2006 at 9:43 am
“America and France, through oil companies (add Canada for Talisman) are partially responsible for Darfur, at the very least, their investments prevent them from doing anything about it.”
Tee hee. It’s always the oil with thise people. Now apparently we’re driving genocide. Unbelieveable. I believe the Taliban comes from Pakistan. Who would be responsible for them? And Sebastian Junger claims BL is there because he could no longer live in Afgh under the current level of watchfulness. Taliban is back though.
March 15th, 2006 at 4:29 pm
“I believe the Taliban comes from Pakistan. Who would be responsible for them?”
America shares responsibility there. Check the history. The U.S. needed Pakistan’s intelligence agency as a conduit and cover for its funding of jihadists fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. Therefore, not only did it tolerate Pakistan’s tyrant Zia Al Huq and his drive toward radical Islam, it also ignored that Pakistan was developing a nuclear weapon, technology that would eventually show up in Iran, Algeria and who knows where else. This arrangement was the kind of “open secret” that could never gain traction as an issue in the mainsteam media. Where was Marc Cooper?
The important this is to understand why the U.S. was funding jihadis in Afghanistan and why that pertains to today’s circumstances in Pakistan and the Middle East.
There was almost no criticism of U.S. support for terror in Afghanistan because the U.S. had written itself a moral blank check to deal with the Soviets.
It’s worth recalling how the Soviets were demonized in the U.S. media. Their war Afghanistan was called a genocide and the propaganda meme about bombs dressed up as toys so that children would pick them up dripped off the lips of every Reagan Democrat in the country.
Today, Russia is going at Chechnya in pretty much the same way. But this time, apparently, the instructions from the mainstream media are that demonization isn’t required. In the comic book view of history, the plot needs only one uber-villain at a time.
Read George Crile’s “Charlie Wilson’s War” for a detailed history of how the U.S. helped keep Pakistan under the thumb of an Islamic military dictator.
Obviously, Pakistan and Pakistanis are first and foremost responsible for generating the Taliban movement, but there were disastrous consequences for the U.S. policies there and in Afghanistan.
While we can say, broadly, that the American soldiers dying in Afghanistan today and, even, the victims of 9/11, have paid the price for U.S. support for bin Laden’s first jihad. But who, among the people responsible for those policies, has paid any price? Rather, the architects of the policy of supporting jihad in Afghanistan and Pakistan now consider themselves sage, victorious Cold Warriors who saved America from communist takeover. And they are STILL running the country.
March 15th, 2006 at 5:10 pm
Are you saying the US didn’t support Benezir Bhutto? I’m afraid we just don’t have the puppeteering skills you annoint us with. It’s a wild contextless conspiracy. Support for past efforts, and I would argue it wasn’t terror then, but a real soviet occupation if I could be so bold to borrow the pet phrase from you people. The Taliban were a student religious faction. The only way to have prevented the whole thing was to invade Afgh after the soviets left. It’s ridiculous hindsight blindness.
March 15th, 2006 at 5:29 pm
Mark A. York writes: “It’s a wild contextless conspiracy.”
Not a conspiracy. There was no need to hide much of it, as there was no effective opposition to the U.S. backing for bin Laden’s first jihad. The initial support for jihad against the Soviets was “secret” because it was illegal. It violated U.S. and international laws and, thus, the need to direct it through Pakistan and, for much of the money to come from Saudi Arabia.
You “would argue” it wasn’t terror then. Please, do build your assertion into an argument. I’ll respond, be enlightened, or both. Perhaps what you mean is that because the terror was visited upon Afghans who supported the Soviet occupation, it wasn’t terror.
The consequences (the acceleration of global jihad) of that particular view are well known and, as you demonstrate above, its exponents feel no need to accept responsibility for them.
You mention puppets. They are straw, in your case. I made clear that Pakistanis are primarily responsible for the Taliban. But as a citizen, I’m far more interested in what must be done about America’s role there and what our history there means about the present and future.
It’s not that the U.S. created the Taliban so much as it helped it along and, more important, that the very people and ideology that led us into that disaster are again leading us into others. If we fail to acknowledge what happened there, we can’t expect it won’t happen again and again.
You suggest invading Afghanistan, AFTER the Soviets left. You seem to have forgotten that it was our money and intelligence resources that chased them out. We didn’t invade because the occupation was the only pretext–our coveted blank moral check–for supporting bin Laden’s first jihad in the first place.
Domestic U.S. politics drove our intervention in Afghanistan, than much is plain from how it all ended. Once the demonized Soviets had left, the jihad ceased to be useful to “Reagan Democrats” and Cold Warriors and so, could be left to its fate.
March 15th, 2006 at 11:52 pm
Bunkerbuster:
I agree with your broad point in reply to my own. Americans are responsible for American policies. Canadians are responsible for Canadian. etc, etc. It is the highest form of patriotism to hold your own country to the highest standards, and the highest form of patriotism neither to deny nor to gloss over history.
For instance, you rightly say that America bears some responsibility for the rise of the Taliban: both through support of jihadis in Afghanistan and through America’s long, sordid realtionship with Pakistan.
You speak of such matters in term of “maturity” but we definately part company in terms of our “mature” judgement. You apparently think America overreacted to the Soviet threat. I think America did a pretty good job, all things considered.
History is sordid and tragic. It always will be. You probably disagree, especially because, if I am reading you right, you are a Commie symp.
Best Regards!
March 16th, 2006 at 12:14 am
“Genocide? Who cares? You don’t, Regâ€
In reply to which Reg says:
Oh go fuck yourself, you hyperventilating moron.
ANOTHER STERLING PERFORMANCE THERE REG.
YOU SHOULD MEMORIALIZE THESE BRILLIANT ARGUMENTS ON 80 POUND BOND AND MAIL THEM OFF SO THAT YOU CAN CLAIM YOUR CHAIR AT HARVARD OR OXFORD.
BUT MAYBE I AM BEING RUDE. YOU POST ON THIS BLOG ABOUT EVERY TEN SECONDS, SO IF YOU HAVE EVER POSTED ON HOW YOU CARE ABOUT 400,000 DEAD AND MILLIONS TO GO IN DARFUR, FEEL FREE TO QUOTE YOURSELF.
IN THE MEANWHILE, I WILL CONTINUE TO ASSUME THAT YOU ARE THE KIND OF LEFTIST ELECTION-LOSING DEAD-ENDER WHO CAN’T GET EXCITED ABOUT ANYTHING BUT THE PERFIDY OF AMERICANS WHO DON’T REFLEXIVELY VOTE DEMOCRAT.
REG, JESUS LOVES YOU!
March 16th, 2006 at 12:55 am
Sammy writes:
“ You apparently think America overreacted to the Soviet threat. I think America did a pretty good job, all things considered.”
Indeed, we seem to agree on what happened and why, we just have different standards for what is “pretty good.”
Unfortunately, there is no intellectually honest way to eliminate one’s personal stake from the moral calculus of the Cold War or any other, really.
I am sure you will agree that the U.S. did not do a “pretty good job” for the civilians at My Lai and the many other atrocities on the way to the death of Cold War mythology as a popular religion.
Those atrocities had consequences and if you think the Americans most responsible for them paid the price for what happened, please tell me who and how. If they did not pay for the consequences, what happens to their moral authority? What happens to the moral standing of their supporters?
On the other hand, I can agree that things do look “pretty good” if you’re sitting in a high-backed leather chair in, say, Dayton, Ohio, munching potato chips and watching MTV.
March 16th, 2006 at 1:49 am
Bunky,
I have already stipulated that many historical actors have blood on their hands. What do you want, egg in your beer? Would it make you feel better if you could dig up the bones of Genghis Khan, Saladeen, Torquemada and George Custer and take a crap thereon?
If I follow your point I certainly do agree: My Lai was cold-blooded murder and really bad. Murder is bad. America commited many atrocities. Atrocities are bad. Gotcha.
Where are you trying to go with this? Are you saying that the Cold War wasn’t worth fighting and that the world would be a better place if the Soviet Union still existed as a counterpoise to American power and Imperial dominion? If you are, I’m sure you have alot of company on this blog.
If you aren’t, you must be making the commonplace observation that many guilty people escape punishment.
March 16th, 2006 at 3:21 am
What most Leftists say, basically, is that My Lai is bad.
And, since America has a “higher standard”, the Viet Cong murders don’t count as any provocation, so ALL the bad is on America.
Because of My Lai type murders, in the hundreds, it was better for the US to leave SE Asia.
When we left, and the N. Viet commies murdered 600 000 (after unconditional surrender), and the Khmer Rouge murdered some 1.5 million — thanks to the US leaving (after breaking those countries). As the Dem Party Congress decided when cutting off funds in 1974.
And most Leftists, like Reg here, usually blame the US for these murders — not the murderers.
While I blame the US for not staying; yes, up to another 15 years to fund S. Vietnam, even if they would be like Pinochet or the S. Korean General who was dictator at the time.
“Our bastard” would likely have been better than theirs.
Yet the goal is to go beyond dictators, to democracy (first), and then to human rights (second?). Like Bush is doing — but most Leftists hate the slow progress.
March 16th, 2006 at 8:58 am
“Perhaps what you mean is that because the terror was visited upon Afghans who supported the Soviet occupation, it wasn’t terror.”
No I’m saying was an effort to eject the Soviets BY Afghans. The sinister campaign by bin Laden is a far offshoot of that effort. Since ad populum is all you have this twisting of goals is disingenuous, but I see the general drift: any effort by native guerilla forces against a foreign invader supported by the US will always be seen by the far fringe left as against the local population. It isn’t and wasn’t then. This may as a surprise to you but we don’t pull the strings on every screwed up country in the world. We’re far too incompetent for that. Your argument is reductionist and fallacious on its face.
March 16th, 2006 at 9:04 am
Tom G. — Why do you care what “most leftists” say? I happen to think you’re just making that up, you don’t really know what most leftists say.
Nevertheless, even if “most” leftists said what you say they did, why would that matter to you. The My Lai view you attribute to “most leftists” is clearly not a view I have taken here, so it’s completely disingenous for you to attempt to respond to my comment as if it represents what you claim is the view of “most leftists.”
How about responding to what I said?
March 16th, 2006 at 9:09 am
Tom G. — And as for your point: “Our bastard would have been better than theirs.”
It’s telling that you hinge your view on a hypothetical, rather than historical fact.
U.S. aggression in Vietnam had consequences. The bombing of Cambodia had consequences. Agent Orange causes deformed babies today. No one directly responsible for this has ever been held accountable in the U.S. There is nothing hypothetical about this, so perhaps it makes a better basis for assessing what the meaning of those events is.
March 16th, 2006 at 6:55 pm
“REG, JESUS LOVES YOU!”
THANKS, SAMUEL
The CAPS are a nice touch. I feel so…small.
March 16th, 2006 at 7:03 pm
Samuel Stott says:
YOU POST ON THIS BLOG ABOUT EVERY TEN SECONDS, SO IF YOU HAVE EVER POSTED ON HOW YOU CARE ABOUT 400,000 DEAD AND MILLIONS TO GO IN DARFUR, FEEL FREE TO QUOTE YOURSELF
I’m sure this won’t count, since you demand INCENDIARY STATEMENTS OF OUTRAGE THAT TARGET AMERICA-HATERS AS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL, but I thought you would like to know that I commented on the way this Darfur tragedy is being played dishonestly as a liberal-bashing talking point by right-wing nutcases this morning on another thread.
reg Says:
March 16th, 2006 at 9:40 am
Tom Grey: “…the Dem liberal bias press. (The one that does NOT talk about Darfur every week, every night — even though it’s a slo-mo genocide.)â€
Far be it from me to defend the press on their coverage of horrors in relatively remote countries, but if you search the New York Times site for ‘Darfur†you get 71 hits from the past 90 days and 255 hits from the past year. Nicholas Kristof, one of those biased liberals the Times tend to feature on their op-ed page has posted videos from Darfur on the Times website and challanged Bill O’Reilly to travel with him to Darfur - even raising money from readers to finance a trip by Bill - so he can report on it extensively for the FOX folks. But searching the flagship right-wing Washington Times for Darfur over the past year yielded jsut 81 articles.
Unless you’ve got some evidence better than unhinged bullshit, please cut out the “liberal MSM†as the prime suspects responsible for inaction as regards Darfur. (And to paraphrase Stalin, “How many regiments does the ‘MSM’ have ?â€)
March 16th, 2006 at 7:05 pm
Followed by this addendum -
# reg Says:
March 16th, 2006 at 9:42 am
“challenged Bill O’Reilly to travel with him to Darfur - even raising money from readers to finance a trip by Bill - so he can report on it extensively for the FOX folksâ€
Oh…Wild Bill responded that he didn’t have time.
March 16th, 2006 at 7:16 pm
“the Khmer Rouge murdered some 1.5 million”
I seem to remember Reagan’s UN representative defending the Khmer Rouge regime as the legitimate government of Cambodia long after it was apparent how crazed they were and the North Vietnamese stepping in and overthrowing Pol Pot. How does that fit into your prefab version of who the bad guys are ?
July 12th, 2006 at 7:02 pm
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July 25th, 2006 at 11:25 am
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