I tried to explain my thoughts on Kosovo but a friend of mine from Serbia summed it up rather succinctly, from his point of view, after reading what I had to say. I think it is fair to say that most Serbs agree.
'American embassy in Belgrade was demolished. Of course, it is not good. But, how would Americans feels if Osama Bin Laden is prime minister in the state on your own land? It is exacly the same situation with Kosovo and its independence.'
The Serbs fought their own 'War on Terror' against Albanian separatists and the KLA led by Hashim Thaqi for years prior to the NATO bombing of 1999. Kosovo was autonomous in Yugoslavia for decades but that autonomy was largely revoked in 1990 by Milosevic.
The typical KLA attack would be an ambush on a police patrol, or bombing a police station, then the Serb government would respond in kind. Often civilians would get caught in the middle, and the cycle of violence would continue.
After years of this fighting NATO, looking for a reason to exist after the fall of the Soviet Union, seized on this opportunity to prove its relevance, bombed Serbia until it agreed to withdraw troops from Kosovo, with the agreement that Kosovo would remain in Serbia but would be granted autonomy and administered by the UN.
But the Albanians never gave up their desire for 'independence' and it is not entirely clear to me why the US and our allies decided to fully support this movement. Not just support it but really advocate, orchestrate, and demand it.
Probably most disturbing for the Serb people is that Hashim Thaqi, the leader of the disbanded KLA, is Prime Minister of Kosovo.
The KLA and Thaqi are roughly equivalent to Al Quaeda and Bin Laden in the Serb 'War on Terror.'
The key here really is what US interests are involved because if not for the US push for Kosovo independence it is doubtful that there would have been any kind of serious move by Thaqi to declare independence. And without some real US interests being involved there would have been no push by the US for Kosovo independence.
So when the Serbs hold the US responsible for Kosovo 'independence,' there is pretty good reason for that, since it was the US that encouraged the Albanian separatists with the rhetoric in the runup to the 1999 NATO bombing, not to mention the bombing itself, the NATO passivity while 250,000 non-Albanians were driven out of Kosovo, and finally the casting aside of UN 1244 which guaranteed Kosovo would remain part of Serbia by pushing for and recognizing the 'independence' of Kosovo.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Kosovo - What Can I Say?
Kosovo is now independent, as long as your definition of 'independence' is 'not independent.'
Kosovo is almost entirely dependent on its Western masters, who, for their own selfish reasons, have taken up the cause of the Albanians. Kosovo would not have declared its 'independence' without careful planning and coordination with the US and EU.
Kosovo is trading UN protection for an OSCE guard. Kosovo's new government, under the OSCE accords will be submissive to OSCE appointees for trade, banking, etc...
The fact that Kosovo is actually part of Serbia is just an inconvenient detail, since international law only applies when the powerful masters of the planet want it to. Otherwise, it is just pointless.
When a representative of the Serbian government pointed out that recognizing an independent Kosovo was blatantly against international law without UN authorization, our old Secretary of State Holbrooke could only say 'that position will get you nowhere' to Serbia. And it is true, Serbia cannot win in this case.
They protest, it gets them nowhere, and they lose 20% of their country. They acquiesce, they lose 20% of their country. They try to prevent the secession by force, we will bomb them into submission because violence is wrong. And they lose 20% of their country.
90% of Kosovo is indeed Albanian, where 10 years ago it was 80%. But after NATO bombed Serbia to give up Kosovo in 1999, and NATO moved in, a few hundred thousand Serbs were driven from their homes by the Albanians while NATO stood by and watched. Ergo a 20% minority became a 10% minority.
Now the fact that Serbia, with Kosovo included, is 80% Serbian, does not seem to matter in terms of territorial integrity of the country as a whole, because all we hear is that Kosovo is 90% Albanian, therefore Kosovo should be for Albanians. The fact that Serbia is overwhelmingly Serbian does not seem to matter.
Nor does the fact that almost all of the Serbs left in Kosovo are concentrated in Northern Kosovo, where they make up 90% of the local population, matter, when the idea of keeping this part of Kosovo in Serbia was proposed during the final status negotiations that preceeded the declaration of independence.
No, partitioning was not on the table, because it is wrong to divide up territory like this based on ethnic demographics. All of Kosovo for the Albanians was the only acceptable outcome of the negotations as far as the West was concerned, which makes the idea of negotiations seem pretty ridiculous. Some of Kosovo for Serbia was just not conceivable and therefore could not be put on the table.
UN Resolution 1244, which ended the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999 and was the legal framework for the NATO occupation of Kosovo guaranteed the territorial integrity of Serbia, and recognized that Kosovo was in fact Serbia. This detail has been thrown aside, since UN Resolutions are meaningless when they say what we don't want to hear, but are so important when they support our interests.
Take for example the damage to the US Embassy in Belgrade a few days ago. It's a nice embassy. I have been there a few times. Some Serb protestors burned part of the Emabssy to protest the US recognizing Kosovo. The US recognition of Kosovo is again a flagrant violation of international law, resulting in significant damage to Serbia, 'legal violence' as Kostunica calls it. Dismembering the country really. But a bit of the Embassy gets scorched and our officialls are officailly outraged, demanding that Serb authorities deploy forces to adequately protect the US Embassy from harm, because of the sacred sovereignty of embassies under international law.
A few broken windows and some burnt out offices can be easily fixed. What about our 78 day boming of Serbia in 1999 without a UN mandate, a total violation of international law, followed up by a NATO occupation of Kosovo and the ethnic cleasning of 250,000 Serbs from their homes, followed by the recognition of the 'independence' of Kosovo in violation of UN 1244 and the UN Charter itself? Bringing up those details will get one nowhere. We don't care about who is going to fix your country, Serbia. Who is going to fix our Embassy? Have you no respect for international law?
I do wish my friends in Serbia would settle down and stop the rioting- it is a pity that a few hundred people's anger grabs the spotlight and holds it. It only makes Serbia look bad. And I know they are not bad! Serbs are wonderful people.
An article I read today officially declared Kostunica a 'hard-liner.' If you don't know Vojislav Kostunica, he was the reformist candidate for president that ran against Milosevic and won in 2000. Milosevic refused to recognize the elections, and hundreds of thousand of Serbs turned out in force in Belgrade, overthrew the Milosevic regime, and Kostunica took his place as the first democratically elected president of Serbia. Kostunica delivered Milosevic (and a bunch of other fugitives) to the Hague for war crimes charges, risking a civil war in the process. For so long Kostunica was the 'democratic reformer' in our media. But because of his refusal to give up Kosovo, he became a 'nationalist' for a few years, and now, officially, he is a 'hard-liner' because he takes a hard-line against Western desires, and he urges peaceful and legal protest against the destruction of his country. Some nerve, Kostunica.
But Kosovo is independent, meaning not independent, with Camp Bondsteel, the biggest US military base in the world, as I understand, there to protect their independence. The idea that an independent country should be able to protect itself is not an issue. They are independent because they want to depend on the West. This is independence.
They are free because they are occupied by foreign armies.
They are democratic because their laws can be nullified at the whim of viceroys from the OSCE.
They are a country because they are not recognized by the United Nations as a country.
But recognizing Kosovo is so important. Not because people are supposed to govern themselves. Ask the Kurds, Basques, Palestinians, Scots, Chechens, Tamils, Tibetans, or whomever about this. They think independent Kosovo sets a precedent, which it does not, because none of those people are in Europe. Except for the Scots, but that does not count because UK recognized Kosovo, therefore Scotland can never be independent, right?
Oh and the Basques, well, that does not count because Spain refused to recognize Kosovo, therefore the Basques can never be independent.
It doesn't make sense, and is not supposed to make sense using ojective reasoning. It makes perfect sense in the subjective sense of imperialism. The rule of law is not absolute, it is a mere tactic employed in the use of force. Kosovo was recognized the day after it declared independence because it was coordinated with the big power brokers in the West. Kurdistan has been trying to get their independence for decades. They can wait. In fact, they can get bombed because of their separatism because of the threat it poses, especially to the territorial integrity of our NATO ally Turkey. Kosovo can't wait, regardless of the threat to Serbia.
Funny that Kosovo's neighbors are all basically opposed to Kosovo independence (except Albania- go figure) including NATO ally Greece. But what do these people know? They are just closest to the action. They all mostly opposed the NATO bombing in 1999 too, so that just shows they are too close to the action to have the proper perspective. Just like Turkey opposing the US invasion of Iraq. Things look so much different an ocean away. If only they could be so rational.
NATO (meaning US) bombed Serbia in 1999, killing thousands of innocent civilians, precipitating a crisis in Kosovo by removing any incentive for the Serbs to cooperate, instigating the worst atrocities of the war in Kosovo and thus creating the huge refugee crisis that was used after the fact as justification for the bombing that preceded it. But the bombing came first! Doesn't matter. The fact that the Serbs began reprisals against the KLA in Kosovo for years of KLA attacks on Serb police who were enforcing the laws of their own country on their own territory only proved that the Serbs deserved to be bombed, even if their worst crimes were committed after the bombs began to fall.
Stop defending yourselves Serbia! Your willingness to defend your country only invites attack. Be more like America. We rarely get attacked, because we mind our own business anywhere we want.
And once the bombs stopped falling, and NATO came into Kosovo, and the KLA started reprisal attacks against Serbs, driving 250,000 people (including Roma, who really had nothing to do with anything) from their homes... well this was just the Albanians letting off some steam for all of the bad things that the Serbs had done. Same excuse when they burned Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries across Kosovo where they had stood for hundreds of years before the founding of the United States of America. But the Albanians were not to blame, and certainly not to be bombed. They are to be protected and then given their own country. Independent Kosovo will guarantee ethnic minority rights, not because they have a history of doing so in fact, but because they have expressed a desire to do so in theory. Good enough for us!
Now let me say that I believe that the vast majority of Albanians, just as the vast majority of Serbs, only want to live lives of peace and comfort and care little for making violence against anyone. This is not sensational but it is true. I am sure most Albanians have never done anything against anyone just as most Serbs have never done anything against anyone.
And the vast majority of Albanians will want to believe that the US and EU are there for selfless reasons, having nothing to do with force projection, tapping Caspian oil resources, or whatever the hell else is going on there. Why dispel the self delusion of independence, freedom, and democracy?
Does any of this sound doubleplusungood?
Kosovo is almost entirely dependent on its Western masters, who, for their own selfish reasons, have taken up the cause of the Albanians. Kosovo would not have declared its 'independence' without careful planning and coordination with the US and EU.
Kosovo is trading UN protection for an OSCE guard. Kosovo's new government, under the OSCE accords will be submissive to OSCE appointees for trade, banking, etc...
The fact that Kosovo is actually part of Serbia is just an inconvenient detail, since international law only applies when the powerful masters of the planet want it to. Otherwise, it is just pointless.
When a representative of the Serbian government pointed out that recognizing an independent Kosovo was blatantly against international law without UN authorization, our old Secretary of State Holbrooke could only say 'that position will get you nowhere' to Serbia. And it is true, Serbia cannot win in this case.
They protest, it gets them nowhere, and they lose 20% of their country. They acquiesce, they lose 20% of their country. They try to prevent the secession by force, we will bomb them into submission because violence is wrong. And they lose 20% of their country.
90% of Kosovo is indeed Albanian, where 10 years ago it was 80%. But after NATO bombed Serbia to give up Kosovo in 1999, and NATO moved in, a few hundred thousand Serbs were driven from their homes by the Albanians while NATO stood by and watched. Ergo a 20% minority became a 10% minority.
Now the fact that Serbia, with Kosovo included, is 80% Serbian, does not seem to matter in terms of territorial integrity of the country as a whole, because all we hear is that Kosovo is 90% Albanian, therefore Kosovo should be for Albanians. The fact that Serbia is overwhelmingly Serbian does not seem to matter.
Nor does the fact that almost all of the Serbs left in Kosovo are concentrated in Northern Kosovo, where they make up 90% of the local population, matter, when the idea of keeping this part of Kosovo in Serbia was proposed during the final status negotiations that preceeded the declaration of independence.
No, partitioning was not on the table, because it is wrong to divide up territory like this based on ethnic demographics. All of Kosovo for the Albanians was the only acceptable outcome of the negotations as far as the West was concerned, which makes the idea of negotiations seem pretty ridiculous. Some of Kosovo for Serbia was just not conceivable and therefore could not be put on the table.
UN Resolution 1244, which ended the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999 and was the legal framework for the NATO occupation of Kosovo guaranteed the territorial integrity of Serbia, and recognized that Kosovo was in fact Serbia. This detail has been thrown aside, since UN Resolutions are meaningless when they say what we don't want to hear, but are so important when they support our interests.
Take for example the damage to the US Embassy in Belgrade a few days ago. It's a nice embassy. I have been there a few times. Some Serb protestors burned part of the Emabssy to protest the US recognizing Kosovo. The US recognition of Kosovo is again a flagrant violation of international law, resulting in significant damage to Serbia, 'legal violence' as Kostunica calls it. Dismembering the country really. But a bit of the Embassy gets scorched and our officialls are officailly outraged, demanding that Serb authorities deploy forces to adequately protect the US Embassy from harm, because of the sacred sovereignty of embassies under international law.
A few broken windows and some burnt out offices can be easily fixed. What about our 78 day boming of Serbia in 1999 without a UN mandate, a total violation of international law, followed up by a NATO occupation of Kosovo and the ethnic cleasning of 250,000 Serbs from their homes, followed by the recognition of the 'independence' of Kosovo in violation of UN 1244 and the UN Charter itself? Bringing up those details will get one nowhere. We don't care about who is going to fix your country, Serbia. Who is going to fix our Embassy? Have you no respect for international law?
I do wish my friends in Serbia would settle down and stop the rioting- it is a pity that a few hundred people's anger grabs the spotlight and holds it. It only makes Serbia look bad. And I know they are not bad! Serbs are wonderful people.
An article I read today officially declared Kostunica a 'hard-liner.' If you don't know Vojislav Kostunica, he was the reformist candidate for president that ran against Milosevic and won in 2000. Milosevic refused to recognize the elections, and hundreds of thousand of Serbs turned out in force in Belgrade, overthrew the Milosevic regime, and Kostunica took his place as the first democratically elected president of Serbia. Kostunica delivered Milosevic (and a bunch of other fugitives) to the Hague for war crimes charges, risking a civil war in the process. For so long Kostunica was the 'democratic reformer' in our media. But because of his refusal to give up Kosovo, he became a 'nationalist' for a few years, and now, officially, he is a 'hard-liner' because he takes a hard-line against Western desires, and he urges peaceful and legal protest against the destruction of his country. Some nerve, Kostunica.
But Kosovo is independent, meaning not independent, with Camp Bondsteel, the biggest US military base in the world, as I understand, there to protect their independence. The idea that an independent country should be able to protect itself is not an issue. They are independent because they want to depend on the West. This is independence.
They are free because they are occupied by foreign armies.
They are democratic because their laws can be nullified at the whim of viceroys from the OSCE.
They are a country because they are not recognized by the United Nations as a country.
But recognizing Kosovo is so important. Not because people are supposed to govern themselves. Ask the Kurds, Basques, Palestinians, Scots, Chechens, Tamils, Tibetans, or whomever about this. They think independent Kosovo sets a precedent, which it does not, because none of those people are in Europe. Except for the Scots, but that does not count because UK recognized Kosovo, therefore Scotland can never be independent, right?
Oh and the Basques, well, that does not count because Spain refused to recognize Kosovo, therefore the Basques can never be independent.
It doesn't make sense, and is not supposed to make sense using ojective reasoning. It makes perfect sense in the subjective sense of imperialism. The rule of law is not absolute, it is a mere tactic employed in the use of force. Kosovo was recognized the day after it declared independence because it was coordinated with the big power brokers in the West. Kurdistan has been trying to get their independence for decades. They can wait. In fact, they can get bombed because of their separatism because of the threat it poses, especially to the territorial integrity of our NATO ally Turkey. Kosovo can't wait, regardless of the threat to Serbia.
Funny that Kosovo's neighbors are all basically opposed to Kosovo independence (except Albania- go figure) including NATO ally Greece. But what do these people know? They are just closest to the action. They all mostly opposed the NATO bombing in 1999 too, so that just shows they are too close to the action to have the proper perspective. Just like Turkey opposing the US invasion of Iraq. Things look so much different an ocean away. If only they could be so rational.
NATO (meaning US) bombed Serbia in 1999, killing thousands of innocent civilians, precipitating a crisis in Kosovo by removing any incentive for the Serbs to cooperate, instigating the worst atrocities of the war in Kosovo and thus creating the huge refugee crisis that was used after the fact as justification for the bombing that preceded it. But the bombing came first! Doesn't matter. The fact that the Serbs began reprisals against the KLA in Kosovo for years of KLA attacks on Serb police who were enforcing the laws of their own country on their own territory only proved that the Serbs deserved to be bombed, even if their worst crimes were committed after the bombs began to fall.
Stop defending yourselves Serbia! Your willingness to defend your country only invites attack. Be more like America. We rarely get attacked, because we mind our own business anywhere we want.
And once the bombs stopped falling, and NATO came into Kosovo, and the KLA started reprisal attacks against Serbs, driving 250,000 people (including Roma, who really had nothing to do with anything) from their homes... well this was just the Albanians letting off some steam for all of the bad things that the Serbs had done. Same excuse when they burned Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries across Kosovo where they had stood for hundreds of years before the founding of the United States of America. But the Albanians were not to blame, and certainly not to be bombed. They are to be protected and then given their own country. Independent Kosovo will guarantee ethnic minority rights, not because they have a history of doing so in fact, but because they have expressed a desire to do so in theory. Good enough for us!
Now let me say that I believe that the vast majority of Albanians, just as the vast majority of Serbs, only want to live lives of peace and comfort and care little for making violence against anyone. This is not sensational but it is true. I am sure most Albanians have never done anything against anyone just as most Serbs have never done anything against anyone.
And the vast majority of Albanians will want to believe that the US and EU are there for selfless reasons, having nothing to do with force projection, tapping Caspian oil resources, or whatever the hell else is going on there. Why dispel the self delusion of independence, freedom, and democracy?
Does any of this sound doubleplusungood?
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
The Flip Side of Marxism – Freedomism?
I agree with Karl Marx’s basic idea that there are inherent flaws to Capitalism that will eventually cause its demise. I try to think of demise as transformation, rebirth, or at least- not the end.
The inherent flaws are basically the war between classes. Eventually there are so many more poor people they just destroy the rich and it’s like Oceania. This terrifies the rich and so they set upon the good poor people to control them. That’s not the Marx I agree with. That is Marxism- i.e. tyranny.
I agree with Ferris Bueller’s aversion to most isms, as I think most isms lead to tyranny, not because of the ism itself but because of the isms utility in massing power towards a particular end, which seems to always centralize and thus lead to tyranny. Oversimplification, perhaps, but not oversimplificationism, which is another topic, but brief I presume.
Luckily freedom, the opposite of tyranny, is not an ism. Ever heard of freedomism?
I don’t think that greedy rich people are the whole problem. Rapacious, unhinged, off-the-hook consumerism gone mad is the greatest threat, as it degrades the planet and humankind, thrusting the hopes for human progress into disposability and programmed uselessness.
Greedy folks can't help but want more, rich or poor, just one has more than the other. I am afraid it is biology. Good argument for massive manmade genetic reprogramming of the species, but not good enough I hope.
I wonder if the ability to withstand the onslaught of media-managed consumer appetite exists. I wonder if the desire to resist overwhelming temporary temptations and the daily manufacture of our own consent exists. I feel so weak at times.
But I am sure that, considering all of the time and effort being spent to make sure the human race is as marginalized and manipulated as possible, that were these Herculean efforts at controlling mass thought and behavior shut down for anything longer than a 24-hour news cycle something interesting might well happen.
Perhaps the 'class war' would then be seen as the ghastly embrace between lust for power and the placid satiety of powerlessness, with progress squished and suffocating between the two. I wish it could draw a deep breath and push away from the global codependency maintained through the sorcery of societry and the steel reality of statecraft.
I hope the flip side of Marxism may prove to be the notion that along with the inherent flaws in our system is an inherent perfection that will guarantee the transformation of society into something better.
I wonder if the constant barrage that reinforces the descent of man to the lowest point of beastial existence might be somehow silenced so that the eyes of progress might open, recognize it's terrible condition, draw a mighty breath, and push away from the promise of profitable armageddon.
I know it can be done one at a time, regardless of the reach of our wireless connections. But if is could be done all at once for everyone- like a timeout so the human race can clear its head.
I am sure it would be simultaneously noble and terrifying. But then so is freedomism, I presume.
I think I need a vacation.
The inherent flaws are basically the war between classes. Eventually there are so many more poor people they just destroy the rich and it’s like Oceania. This terrifies the rich and so they set upon the good poor people to control them. That’s not the Marx I agree with. That is Marxism- i.e. tyranny.
I agree with Ferris Bueller’s aversion to most isms, as I think most isms lead to tyranny, not because of the ism itself but because of the isms utility in massing power towards a particular end, which seems to always centralize and thus lead to tyranny. Oversimplification, perhaps, but not oversimplificationism, which is another topic, but brief I presume.
Luckily freedom, the opposite of tyranny, is not an ism. Ever heard of freedomism?
I don’t think that greedy rich people are the whole problem. Rapacious, unhinged, off-the-hook consumerism gone mad is the greatest threat, as it degrades the planet and humankind, thrusting the hopes for human progress into disposability and programmed uselessness.
Greedy folks can't help but want more, rich or poor, just one has more than the other. I am afraid it is biology. Good argument for massive manmade genetic reprogramming of the species, but not good enough I hope.
I wonder if the ability to withstand the onslaught of media-managed consumer appetite exists. I wonder if the desire to resist overwhelming temporary temptations and the daily manufacture of our own consent exists. I feel so weak at times.
But I am sure that, considering all of the time and effort being spent to make sure the human race is as marginalized and manipulated as possible, that were these Herculean efforts at controlling mass thought and behavior shut down for anything longer than a 24-hour news cycle something interesting might well happen.
Perhaps the 'class war' would then be seen as the ghastly embrace between lust for power and the placid satiety of powerlessness, with progress squished and suffocating between the two. I wish it could draw a deep breath and push away from the global codependency maintained through the sorcery of societry and the steel reality of statecraft.
I hope the flip side of Marxism may prove to be the notion that along with the inherent flaws in our system is an inherent perfection that will guarantee the transformation of society into something better.
I wonder if the constant barrage that reinforces the descent of man to the lowest point of beastial existence might be somehow silenced so that the eyes of progress might open, recognize it's terrible condition, draw a mighty breath, and push away from the promise of profitable armageddon.
I know it can be done one at a time, regardless of the reach of our wireless connections. But if is could be done all at once for everyone- like a timeout so the human race can clear its head.
I am sure it would be simultaneously noble and terrifying. But then so is freedomism, I presume.
I think I need a vacation.
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