BosNet Article:On Pavlovian Anti-Imperialism
albert
B o s N e t -May 5, 1999
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Libération
Thursday April 22,1999
On Pavlovian Anti-Imperialism
The Opponents of Air Strikes Favor the Acceptance 'Facts on The
Ground'
An Essay on the Choices that They Can't Stand
Have They Forgotten Sarajevo and Srebrenica?
A strange coalition of nationalist republicans and revolutionaries has
come to together in a pavlovian campaign to oppose the
'imperialist' intervention against Milosevic. What holds this motley
crew together? We believe that they are reacting to two things that they
simply can't stand.
1. This first is the sea -change in western attitude which has moved
from a policy of appeasing Milsoevic to one of confronting him. This
has forced them renounce their position of sleepy compassion for the
victims of the deadly work of the 'cleansers,. The urbicide of
Sarajevo, ,the collective rapes of Bosnian women, the Srebrenica
massacre, the continuing scandal of of Karadzic and Milosevic's campaign
of ethnic cleansing in the name the historic grievance of a greater
Serbia,none of these events could evoke the outrage that they felt when
the first NATO bombs fell on Serbia.
What bothers these vicars of the Republican virtue and Revolutionary
Integrity is the fact that NATO's long overdue action forced them to
choose. They are now forced to renounce the comfort of a general
condemnation of all of the wrongs in the world. They have been reacted
to this disruption of their nihilistic exercise of compassion by
asking why the West taken up the case of the persecuted Kosovars when
so many other victims like the Palestinians, the Timorese , and the
Kurds don't have right to such active concern
The act as if oppression elsewhere is an excuse for their cold
indifference to the horrid events in Kosova. They would rather not risk
their support for other human rights causes by supporting one specific
cause. They believe that not ignoring the fact that the great powers
might have had their own reasons stand up to Milosevic's extermination
machine can excuse these own refusal to do anything more than vaguely
condemn the reinstitution of genocidal practices in Europe.
2. The advocates of the Niether \Nor position( neither Nato nor
Milosevic) are bothered when they contemplate the way in which the
present crisis has destroyed their ideological model for perceiving the
world.
One group of opponents of intervention tries to keep the sinking ship
of 'national sovereignty 'afloat , even if in the the case which
concerns us, it means giving a neototalitarian the right to plunder,
decimate, terrorize and the last instance to deport and exterminate a
population who is only crime is not fitting into his dream of ethnic
hegemony.
Then there are the spoiled children of 'Great Nation of the Oppressed"
who don't understand oppression and political persecution unless ,it is
a product of the 'class struggle'. They do not wish to know anything
about a people who have had their language, their religion ,and their
culture identity violated. These 'internationalists' are blind to
injustice when they are able to see all the protagonists of a conflict
as nationalists. It matters little to them if the the people involved
are victims or executioners ,as they long as the believe that both sides
are involved in an "ancient ethnic conflict"
Another group of ,anti-imperialists' hold on to their cold war
schemas as if it was their last cent in the bank. They see intervention
to stop a crime that has the support of part of the international
community ( China Russia and India) as part of a repeat performance of
big power manipulation ,whose only goal is to promote 'new world
disorder' sponsored by an America that wants to act as the world's
policeman.
We ask these pacifists why they have not decried the peace of the
graveyard that Milosevic has created in the Balkans .Do they have
anything to propose to end the slaughter other than the grotesque
charade of on another Inter-Balkan conference bringing together
impotent governments or the tacit accomplices of the Milosevic's
policy. Is it too much to ask of them that they remember the the lessons
of the past?
How were Mladic and Karadzic 's Einstazengurps kept from carrying out
their final solution in Bosnia? Was it with good intentions and
immaculate principles? What forces acted to stop the horror? How where
they different from the present anti-Milosevic coalition ? Given that
politics is the art of the possible , can these people please tell us
who else is capable of stopping Miosevic's campaign of extermination
which has awakened the ghosts of Europe's totalitarian past?
To today's radicals who invoke international law to oppose NATO's action
we ask:
What should have be done about the Srebrenica massacre?
Should we have scrupulously respected the UN mandate like the Dutch
peacekeepers who negotiated with mass murders,.?
Or should they should have stopped the premeditated murder of 10,000
Bosnians even if they didn't have a mandate to do so?
What's behind the demand for an unconditional stop to the military
intervention against Serbia, or sticking to the conditions that the
strongman of Belgrade has already rejected, if it isn't a hidden desire
to accept as a fait accompli the triumph of most destructive persecutor
of the innocent that Europe has seen since Hitler and Stalin and their
procouncils? The intransigence of the opponents of NATO action masks the
subtlest of surrenders.
Does asking these questions about the alternatives to present policy,
other than the cynical formulas we have heard to date, mean that we have
succombed to the call to rally around the flag, or that we have handed a
blank check to the Great European powers gathered under the umbrella of
NATO .Have we forgotten that they are imperialist powers?
What we ask of these states without any illusions about their
motivations, is to rid the Kosovars, the Serbs and Europe of this
neototalitarian potentate who is terrorising and poisoning European
life. If they do so we will rejoice, just as ,with countless others
,we rejoiced when Vietnamese intervention rid Cambodia of the genocidal
rule of the Khmer Rouge. If the allies fail to rid us of Milosevic
we'll look down on them, and despise their small minded geopolitical
strategies. The Allies claim that they are defending human rights and
morality. Let them prove it by recognizing the recently formed
Government of Kosova ,giving military support to the KLA and refusing to
negotiate the partition of that country.
When judging what to do in this situation we take as our motto the
ancient Chinese proverb:
It isn't important if the stick that strikes the serpent is dirty or
clean, as long as the serpent is dead. Not at any price, of course but
we are very far from that outcome......
© Libération
Translated by Steve Albert
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