Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1999 15:30:17 -0400 (EDT)
From: Orpheus <cw_duff-AT-alcor.concordia.ca>
Subject: Emily Bronte/Edward Said


		169.

	Why ask to know what date what clime
	There dwelt our own humanity
	Power-worshippers from earliest time
	Foot-kissers of triumphant time
	Crushers of helpless misery
	Crushing down Justice honoring Wrong
	If that be feeble this be strong

	Shedders of blood shedders of tears
	Self-cursers avid of kisses
	Yet Mocking heaven with senseless prayers
	For mercy on the merciless

	It was the autumn of the year
	When grain grows yellow in the ear
	Day  after day from noon to noon,
	That August's sun blazed bright as June
	
	But me with unregarding eyes
	Saw panting earth and glowing skies
	No hand the  reaper's sickle held
	Nor bound the ripe sheaves in the field

	Our corn was garnered months before,
	Threshed out and kneaded-up with gore
	Ground out when the ears were milky sweet
	With furious toild of hoofs and feet
	I doubly cursed on foreign sod
	Fought neither for my home nor God 

	______________________ Emily Bronte 1846.

                                      
   03 April 1999 Saturday 15 Zilhaj 1419 
   
                                      
                          Protecting the Kosovars
                                      
                               By Edward Said
                                      
   ONCE again, and led by the United States as usual, a war is being
   conducted - this time in Europe - against an unprincipled and racist
   dictator who will almost certainly survive the onslaught even though
   thousands of innocents will pay the actual price. The pretext this
   time is of course the persecution, ethnic cleansing and continued
   oppression of Albanians in the province of Kosovo by the Serbian
   forces of Slobodan Milosevic.
   No one at all doubts that horrible things have been done to the
   Albanians under Serbian domination, but the question is whether
   US/NATO policy will alleviate things or whether they will in fact be
   made worse by a bombing campaign whose supposed goal is to make
   Milosevic give up his policies.
   Since, as in most cases, the bombing campaign is not all that it seems
   to be, a look behind the headlines is worth the effort, especially
   given the new ferocity and willingness to intervene militarily on the
   part of US foreign policy decision makers (Clinton, Cohen, Albright,
   Berger).
   One needs to remember that since the US is a world, and not merely a
   regional, power one calculation that enters each of its foreign policy
   decisions is how the deployment of its military might will affect the
   US's image in the eyes of other, especially other competitive
   countries. Henry Kissinger made that point a central concern of his
   Indochinese policy when he undertook the secret bombing of Laos: your
   enemies will learn that there are no limits to what you are prepared
   to do, even to the point of appearing totally irrational.
   Thus the exercise of massive destructiveness wholly disproportionate
   to the goal, say, of stopping an enemy from advancing further, is a
   principal aim of this policy, as it has been of Israel's policy in
   southern Lebanon, where massive raids on civilian encampments do
   absolutely nothing to affect Israel's main enemies, the Hizballah
   guerillas. Punishment is its own goal, bombing as a display of NATO
   authority its own satisfaction, especially when there is little chance
   of retaliation from the enemy.
   That is one consideration behind the current bombing of Yugoslavia.
   Another is the misguided and totally hopeless goal of humbling, and
   perhaps even destroying Milosevic's regime. This, as has been the case
   in Iraq, is illusory. No nation, no matter how badly attacked from the
   air is going to rally to the attackers.
   If anything, Milosevic's regime is now strengthened. All Serbs feel
   that their country is attacked unjustly, and that the cowardly war
   from the air has made them feel persecuted. Besides, not even the
   Kosovo Albanians believe that the air campaign is about independence
   for Kosovo or about saving Albanian lives: that is a total illusion.
   What transpired before the bombing was that the US seems to have
   persuaded the Kosovars that if they went along with the "peace plan"
   Kosovo would get its independence; this was never said, but only
   implied, leading the Kosovars to expect NATO help. But, as usual, the
   US has never stated unequivocally that it is for full
   self-determination for all the peoples of former Yugoslavia.
   There should have been a straight-out and clearly stated willingness
   to accept self-determination for Kosovo as well as a safeguarding of
   rights for the Serbian minority there. None of this was done. And
   neither were the consequences thought through, i.e., the certainty
   that the Serb forces would respond to NATO bombardment by intensifying
   their attacks against Albanian civilians, more ethnic cleansing, more
   refugees, more trouble for the future.
   There is now talk of 200,000 ground troops (mostly American) to enter
   the battle and expand the war, with the attendant problems of
   prolonged occupation, guerilla warfare, greater devastation, more
   refugees, and so on. A lot of this comes from the delusion that the US
   is the world's policeman. In the meantime, its genocidal policy
   against Iraq continues, and its sanctions policy against other Islamic
   or Arab countries also continues.
   Nothing of what the US or NATO does now has anything really to do with
   protecting the Kosovars or bringing them independence: it is rather a
   display of military might whose long-range effect is disastrous, just
   as is a similar policy in the Middle East. In 1994 when a US
   intervention might have averted genocide in Rwanda, there was no
   action. The stakes were not high enough, and black people not worth
   the effort.
   Therefore it seems to me imperative that the NATO bombing should stop,
   and a multi-party conference of all the peoples of former Yugoslavia
   be called to settle differences between them on the basis of
   self-determination for all, not just for some, nor for some at the
   expense of others. This is the same principle that has been violated
   by US-sponsored peace processes elsewhere, notably in the Middle East.
   There is nothing about the current policy of bombing Serbian forces
   that will either guarantee democracy for Serbia or protect the
   Albanians who are still being treated horribly by Milosevic's forces.
   In its arrogance and ill-considered military deployment the US has
   forced NATO to go along with it, whereas it is quite clear that there
   is increasing disunity within the NATO ranks, not just Greece and
   Italy and Turkey, but also France and Germany.
   The greatest danger of all is that more people will be displaced, more
   lives lost, and more fragmentation will occur in places like Macedonia
   and Bosnia-Herzegovina. All this for the US to assert its will and to
   show the world who is boss. The humanitarian concerns expressed are
   the merest hypocrisy since what really counts is the expression of US
   power.
   What I find most distressing is that destruction is being wrought from
   the air along with a fastidiousness articulated about the loss of
   American life that is positively revolting. Clinton knows well that
   Americans will not tolerate the loss of life for Americans. Yet he can
   destroy Yugoslavian lives with impunity from the safety of the
   ultimate in modern technology and airpower, with American pilots and
   bombers sanitizing their horror with the illusion of safety and
   distance. When will the smaller, lesser, weaker peoples realize that
   this America is to be resisted at all costs, not pandered or given in
   to naively?-Copyright Edward W. Said, 1999.
   
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