KOSOVO: RANGE OF VIEWS WITHIN OPPRESSOR NATION

by MC5

As the war against Yugoslavia continues with the 
occupation, the whole range of political opinion 
comes out in the oppressor nation of the U$A.

Ronald Reagan administration official Elliott 
Abrams has received the job of explaining to the 
reactionary faithful why intervention in Kosovo 
is not really for humanitarian ends -- but for 
U.$. national interests: "Building a stronger 
military is a core national interest. It is easy 
to explain to liberals that we may sometimes 
have a national interest in alleviating 
suffering. It is less easy to explain to them 
that we may sometimes have a national interest 
in taking actions devoid of humanitarian appeal. 
In fact, the conservatives' task is still what 
it was during the Cold War: to persuade as many 
liberals, and other Americans, as will listen 
that the United States is of necessity the 
leader of the democracies; that the cause of 
liberty depends on our success; that our 
influence in the world is the greatest force for 
good in world politics."(1) That is typical 
conservative nationalism, more accurately called 
Amerika-first chauvinism. Real purists of the 
right-wing oppose the war against Yugoslavia, 
because it claims to be humanitarian. Examples 
would be Patrick Buchanan and much of the 
Republican House.

At the "democratic socialist" end of white 
nation domination is the Boston Phoenix. The 
emphasis in that case is on white murder victims 
as opposed to murder victims of other 
backgrounds:

"As Noam Chomsky and other leftist critics never 
tire of pointing out, what's happening in Kosovo 
is no worse than what has happened or is 
happening in Rwanda, Cambodia, Turkey (in its 
civil war against the Kurds), and other trouble 
spots where the US either stood back and did 
nothing or actually sided with the bad guys. 
These critics are not wrong, but they fail to 
acknowledge the psychological power of genocide, 
or something like it, in Europe, just 54 years 
after the end of World War II. The sight of 
white Europeans being rounded up and killed 
conjures up collective memories of appeasement 
and death camps in ways that the horrors of 
Rwanda (where we should have intervened but 
didn't) and Cambodia (where we intervened on the 
wrong side) never could."(2) 

Apparently for the Boston Phoenix, the Holocaust 
of Jews and other death camp victims was 
especially wrong because they were white. Such 
is the lesson that some of the imperialists and 
"democratic socialists" drew from World War II. 
Referring to MIM and any other organization that 
is not wheedling its way into power as it exists 
now in the United $tates, the Phoenix wants to 
avoid "'the twin perils of what passes for the 
American left: Clinton's covert Republicanism 
vs. half-witted impotent sloganeering.'"(2) The 
Phoenix then mentions favorably democratic 
socialists like Barbara Ehrenreich, who to the 
Phoenix seems sufficiently to care about having 
the imperial reins of power.

To the credit of the Boston Phoenix, it has gone 
more into depth and with a wider range of 
opinion than most publications. Yet it seems to 
read Chomsky without comprehension. If Chomsky 
is right about Rwanda and Turkey, then the 
Phoenix should ask "what is the real reason for 
the intervention?" Since the Phoenix admits that 
U.$. action has made the Balkan situation worse, 
it's next question should be why.

The problem with "pragmatists" and others 
focussed on obtaining electoral power is that 
they are unable to analyze the reasons for 
anything. They are so concerned about being 
"effective" that they lack goals and shift about 
aimlessly. For MIM, the only just reason for war 
is to eradicate the causes of war. We should not 
be distracted by other questions.

The Phoenix now admits that "NATO's campaign is 
now more about saving face than it is about 
accomplishing any positive good. That may not be 
a 'war crime,' as Mary Robinson and the Nation 
seem to believe. But it certainly isn't a 
sufficient reason to continue an ineffective 
military campaign whose main casualties are 
innocent by-standers."(2) Hence making a 
situation worse and killing more people is not a 
"war crime" according to the Phoenix.

Apparently Daniel Jonah Goldhagen is now using 
the capital he gained from writing a book on the 
Holocaust of Jews, Hitler's Willing 
Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the 
Holocaust, to call for the occupation of 
Yugoslavia just as in the case of Germany and 
Japan in World War II.(2) The liberals and neo-
liberals (such as the New Republic magazine) and 
pragmatists see a humanitarian problem and seek 
to apply a band-aid without asking whether the 
band-aid is infected. To ask the U.$.-led forces 
to occupy Yugoslavia to bring about justice is 
to miss that the United $tates is the major war 
criminal in the world judged by the number of 
either its direct victims or the victims of 
regimes it props up. It is the United $tates 
that should be occupied for humynitarian 
reasons--by the oppressed nations of the world 
led by their proletariat.

Bringing down U.$. imperialism and the other 
lesser imperialisms would be a chance for a 
system of harmony and peace--socialism and then 
communism.

Notes:
1. John Birch Society and Jerry Falwell tolerant 
National Review 31 May 1999, p. 53.
2. Boston Phoenix 28 May 1999, p. 21