Date: Sun, 4 Apr 1999 10:48:21 +0200
From: Erik <erikb-AT-agoranet.be>
Subject: Re: Why Tony Needed A War


At 22:07 -0500 03-04-1999, danceswithcarp wrote:
...
>
>Naw, damn near every european I've seen email from is convinced the U$ is
>the bad guy and europeans do no worng.
>

I'm afraid this seems how you saw things even before this whole debate
started (ain't we all a titsy bitsy nationalist ?). For myself it's very
clear. The U$ has one of the strongest voices in the NATO and it uses the
NATO for its own politics. BUT, the european allies know this and are
really happy to play this game too. It serves THEIR purposes also perfectly
well.
But it's not only that, it's a bit more complicated. The strongest axis in
all this is the UK-U$ bond. We had Reagan and Tatcher as bedfellows, now
it's Tony and Bill kissing each others ass.
The German government need to reassert itself as a european superpower. It
even got an ex-green-pacifist as war-minister now to give the order to drop
bombs.
The smaller countries do as always their hypocritical rethoric.
The French government is keeping a bit low profile, making sure they'll be
the first to jump at arms-selling opportunities after the crisis is over
(although the u$ ofcourse beat them already with their promises to the
Kosovar Liberation Army).
Speaking of this "army". How come this smaal bunch could get so quickly
armed in such a short time. Two years ago they didn' exist. What
geopolitical power was behind this.
Why was the peaceful resistance in the region not given any chance (we
can't intervene in domestic politics was the excuse).
Why was it not good there was internal resistance to Milosevic (the NATO
actions up till today got two clear results : a speedup of the ethnic
cleansing in Kosovo and a reinforcement of Milosevics position).

I have so many questions which our regular news ofcourse won't address.

But the biggest question is : how come nationalism seems so deeply rooted
that convicted anti-authoritarians feel the need to defend politics that
never were theirs ? Why do we, as an international group of people fall so
easily in the lines of nationalism ?

Why ?

Erik (who just dropped all reference to his sproutness and will from now on
go through life known as a loose collection of quarks, protons or whatever)