Date: 18 Apr 1999 02:12:00 +0200
From: I-AFD_2-AT-anarch.free.de (Nico MYOWNA)
Subject: Chomsky replies re Kosovo


## News 16.04.99
## by kessi-AT-bitex.com

Hi all,

Some Chomsky comments which show a few of my arguments about this Kosova  
war. I think, Carp should not call my argumentation "shrill" and "hyper-  
bole", but Bart's reaction on "A few states on the Balkan", because, if we  
beliefe Chomsky, the T. Snow Columne *was* right.

Nico

>*Noam Chomsky Replies re Kosovo*

>Chomsky was asked first about support among progressives for the
>position that "military intervention is needed to stop Milosevic from
>committing genocide, regardless of whether NATO's motivations are pure,"
>with comparisons about "WWII being necessary to stop Hitler, even if the
>U.S. did not have truly humanitarian objectives." As well as, "Is the
>Yugoslavian government genocidal" and "Will the NATO intervention have
>the effect of stopping Milosevic and/or saving the people of Kosovo from
>extermination?"

>I don't want to say anything about the people you are referring to,
>because I don't know, but it seems to me reasonably clear that if we
>think the matter through, the arguments you report are untenable, so
>untenable as to raise some rather serious questions.

>First, let's consider Milosovec's "genocide" in the period preceding the
>NATO bombings. According to NATO, 2000 people had been killed, mostly by
>Serb military, which by summer 1998 began to react (with retaliation
>against civilians) to guerrilla (KLA) attacks on police stations and
>civilians, based from and funded from abroad. And several hundred
>thousands of refugees were generated. (We might ask, incidentally, how
>the US would respond to attacks on police stations and civilians in New
>York by armed guerrillas supported from and based in Libya). That's a
>humanitarian crisis, but one of a scale that is matched or exceeded
>substantially all over the world right now, quite commonly with decisive
>support from Clinton. The numbers happen to be almost exactly what the
>State Department has just reported for Colombia in the same year, with
>roughly the same distribution of atrocities (and a far greater refugee
>population, since the 300,000 resulting from last year's atrocities are
>added to over a million from before). And it's a fraction of the
>atrocities that Clinton dedicated substantial efforts to escalating in
>Turkey in the same years, in the ethnic cleansing of Kurds. And on, and
>on. So if Milosovic is "genocidal," so are a lot of others -- pretty
>close to home. That doesn't say he's a nice guy: he's a monstrous thug.
>But the term "genocidal" is being waved as a propaganda device to
>mobilize the public for Clinton's wars.

>Second, the US ("NATO") intervention, as predicted, radically escalated
>the atrocities, maybe even approaching the level of Turkey, or of
>Palestine in 1948, to take another example. I wouldn't use the term
>"genocide" for such operations -- that's a kind of ultra-right
>"revisionism," an insult to the memory of the victims of the Holocaust,
>in my opinion. But it's very bad, and it suffices to undermine the claim
>that "military intervention is needed to stop Milosevic from committing
>genocide," on elementary logical grounds.

>About "WWII being necessary to stop Hitler," that's not what happened at
>all. The US/UK were rather sympathetic to Hitler (and absolutely adored
>Mussolini). That went on to the late '30s, with varying defections in
>the latter stages (much the same was true of Japanese fascism). When
>Hitler invaded Poland, Britain and France went to war -- called "a phony
>war," because they didn't do much. When Hitler attacked them, it became
>a real war. When Germany declared war on the US, after Japan had
>attacked mainly US military facilities in US colonies that had been
>conquered (in one case, with extraordinary violence) half a century
>before, the US went to war. No one went to war "to stop Hitler."

>There's always more to say: history is too complex to summarize in a few
>lines. But the basic assumptions you describe are so far off the mark
>that discussion is hardly even possible.

>Chomsky was also asked: "To what extent could US resort to military
>force in the Balkans be related to Caspian Sea oil and concerns over
>declining reserves, uncertainty about Russia and its former empire, the
>threat to Western interests of increasing conflict in the Balkans, the
>desire to increase the Pentagon budget, or maybe other factors, since
>the professed humanitarian concerns seem `dubious.'"

>On the last, "dubious" is too kind. If a Mafia don who runs the local
>branch of Murder Inc. shows some kindness to children, the humanitarian
>concerns don't rise to the level of "dubious" -- and that's even more so
>if he shows his humanitarian concerns by kicking the kid in the face. We
>can put that aside, as sheer hypocrisy.

>More plausible, in my view, is just what Clinton, Blair, etc., have been
>saying from the start. It's necessary to ensure the "credibility of
>NATO." But that phrase has to be translated from Newspeak.

>The US is not concerned with the "credibility" of Italy or Holland:
>rather, with the US (and its British attack dog). And what does
>"credibility" mean?

>Here we can return to the Mafia don. If someone doesn't pay protection
>money, the don has to establish "credibility," to make sure others don't
>get funny ideas about disobeying orders. So what Clinton, et al., are
>saying is that it's necessary to ensure that everyone has proper fear of
>the global enforcer. I think it is also useful to bear in mind the
>Clinton strategic document called "Essentials of Post-Cold War
>Deterrence" that's quoted in an article of mine in Z a year ago on
>"Rogue States," the same one Steve Shalom reviewed in more detail in a
>recent post. It advocates that the US portray itself as "irrational and
>vindictive if its vital interests are attacked," "part of the national
>persona we project to all adversaries": "It hurts to portray ourselves
>as too fully rational and cool-headed," and surely not subordinate to
>treaty obligations or conditions of world order. "The fact that some
>elements" of the US government "may appear to be potentially `out of
>control' can be beneficial to creating and reinforcing fears and doubts
>within the minds of an adversary's decision makers."

>That makes sense for a rogue superpower, with a near monopoly on means
>of violence. The "humanitarian cover" has been used by violent states
>throughout history: we'd probably find it was true of Genghis Khan, if
>we had records. It was surely true of the Crusaders who left a hideous
>trail of death and destruction. In fact, about the only clear exceptions
>I know are in the Biblical tales, which call for outright genocide --
>the Carthaginian solution -- with no credible motive.

>In the background is the dedicated US assault against any institution of
>international order: the UN, the World Court, even the WTO when it gets
>out of hand. That's been going on for almost 40 years, for reasons that
>are explained very clearly and would be taught in every school in the
>country and headlined in every newspaper and journal, under conditions
>of authentic freedom: they don't follow our orders, so they can get
>lost. That's why the US, in this case, compelled its more reluctant NATO
>allies to reject even "authorization" from the UN.

>A very important observation leaked through the NY Times on April 8, in
>one of the last paragraphs of a story on an inside page by Steven
>Erlanger, their Belgrade correspondent, who has a record of reliability.
>Possibly the most important bit of information about what has been
>happening. He writes that "just before the bombing, when [the Serbian
>Parliament] rejected NATO troops in Kosovo, it also supported the idea
>of a United Nations force to monitor a political settlement there." If
>Erlanger's report is true, then it provides very dramatic evidence of US
>intentions: like the bombing of Iraq in December, it is another brazen
>attack against the institutions of world order, since the Serbian
>Parliament would be right, and Washington wrong, on the alternatives of
>a UN vs. a NATO force. If the report is true, then the last shreds of
>legitimacy for the US/NATO operation disappear. I hadn't seen this
>reported before; maybe others have. It surely merited a front-page
>headline, the day before the bombings began, not a hidden phrase two
>weeks later -- though that's better than nothing.

>I'd be intrigued to know if others have come across similar reports.

>The other factors you mention could be real, but I think they are
>secondary. The US (NATO) operation is likely to exacerbate most of the
>problems. And expanding the Pentagon budget is not a value in itself.
>The kind of expansion that will follow this episode is largely a waste,
>from the point of view of the Pentagon and the large sectors of the
>"private" economy that rely on it for R&D.

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