klipper noe fra Mother Jones:
http://www.motherjones.com/total_coverage/kosovo/forum/johnstone2.html
Forøvrig henvises til en annen artikkel av samme forfatter:
The War Nato Wanted
http://www.inthesetimes.com/johnstone2312.html
og andre artikler om krigen i In These Times
Knut Rognes
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Second question:
As most of you pointed out in the first round, the U.S. routinely sits by
and does nothing while other nations act nastily toward their own people.
And when the West does get involved -- as in the Balkans in the early and
mid-1990s -- it frequently makes matters worse.
So what should the role of the United States be? Does the U.S. have a duty
to intervene in the affairs of other nations when human rights are at
stake? If so, at what point and how?
To: Kosovo Talk
From: Diana Johnstone
Subject: Answer to second question
It is hard to answer such a question within the framework of reality. It
posits a totally fictional version of the United States, which, like a
soap-opera heroine, wonders from installment to installment, "Oh dear, what
should I do?" Indeed, this fictional character gains its apparent
credibility from the cultural context of U.S. mass entertainment, which
centers around pure and simple good guys and gals blundering spontaneously
to victory over evil bad guys, saving victims along the way.
The intervention of the United States in the Balkans has nothing,
absolutely nothing, to do with moral dilemmas. It is power politics on a
scale we have not seen since World War II. But this time, the dominant
military power, NATO, also possesses a near-monopoly on public perception,
as well as a stranglehold on most international organizations. This
overwhelming dominance of firepower, political clout, and mass
communications is a temptation that is dangerous in itself. As Madeleine
Albright put it, what's the use of having the greatest military power in
the world if you don't use it? (Or words to that effect.) The United States
is using it now, in the Balkans, to reshape the whole world order.
Concern for "human rights" is a cynical pretext. Worse than that, in this
new world order, the "humanitarian imperative" is the battering ram for
breaking down the fragile structure of international law, the only
structure that could theoretically put limits on the global intervention of
U.S. military power. Why should the global Superpower prefer the
"humanitarian imperative" to law? Because it is more subjective, fuzzily
defined, and now overwhelmingly influenced, even shaped, by a mass media
that belongs to the same power structure as the U.S. military-industrial
complex.
For years, official U.S. government statements and the mass media --
influential columnists and editorialists most of all -- have conditioned
public opinion to perceive the Yugoslav situation in terms of "human
rights" and "genocide," and thus to clamor for, or at least approve, U.S.
intervention. This enables the U.S. to flout international law and national
sovereignty in the name of a "higher good." Taking the law into one's own
hands is an old American frontier custom, glorified in popular culture.
This is not the first time the U.S. has violated international law, but it
is the most flagrant and spectacular. And it has succeeded in involving
European NATO allies as partners in crime. This leaves not only the
Balkans, but the remnants of the post-World War II structure of
international law in shambles.
To leave reality for a moment and get back to the hypothetical question:
The only duty of Superpower U.S.A. should be to support genuine, neutral
mediators. Months ago, a few of us who saw what was coming tried to suggest
to anyone who would listen that what Kosovo required was a team of
international mediators, sponsored by neutral governments with no strategic
interest in the Balkans. Admittedly, in today's world, there are few
governments that are not subject to being intimidated or bought off by the
United States -- or by its filthy rich allies in Saudi Arabia and Brunei.
The only name that came quickly and obviously to mind was Nelson Mandela.
But others could probably be found, less prestigious, perhaps, but any of
them better than William Walker, the former instrument of U.S. banana
republic control in Central America who was assigned to scuttle the Kosovo
Verification Mission set up (formally) under the auspices of the
Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). This was the
final U.S. stroke designed to discredit and remove from the scene the OSCE,
long mentioned as the desirable alternative European security organization
to replace NATO. (Grumbling about Walker's role is widespread within the
OSCE itself, and has been voiced publicly by its German Christian
Democratic Vice President Willy Wimmer.)
It should be obvious that the United States is an economic and military
giant and a moral dwarf on the world scene. Its international humanitarian
organizations are easily used as cover for CIA operations; its expenditures
for genuinely humanitarian purposes are minimal; its population is
deliberately kept ignorant and misinformed about other countries; it fails
to pay its U.N. dues; it bullies Europe to abandon the peasants of the
Caribbean to destitution for the sake of Chiquita bananas; it bombs
pharmaceutical plants and strangles the population of Iraq without a qualm.
There are countries in the world much poorer in material terms, but much
richer in the wisdom, empathy, patience, interest in others, reconciliation
skills, and modesty -- so important when meddling in other people's
business -- required to help resolve such a difficult problem as
Serbian-Albanian relations in Kosovo. Along with Mandela, one might suggest
respected figures from such countries as Burkina Faso, Iceland, Sweden,
India, Bangladesh, Finland, Laos ... all more qualified to act as
disinterested mediators than the United States. But that is a dream, and we
are living the nightmare.
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