Posted on 01/22/2002 2:52:18 PM PST by enrg
All I am saying to you is that the Jews are as diverse in their opinions as any other group. The fact that so-and-so is Christians does not mean he or she speaks for the entire Christian population on earth.
Now, there are individuals in the American establishment, some of whom happen to be Jewish, who are rabbidly anti-Serb (take, for instance the inner power circle of the Clinton Administration -- what I called Peter, Paul and Mary of New Rome: Cohen, Berger, and Albright). Wc could also single out someone like Sen. Lieberman, but by far many more non-Jews make up the anti-Serb establishment, yet no one ever says they are Protestant, Catholic, and so on.
I know what you were commenting on. I said it was misinterpreted, and I am trying to explain why. I also think that you cannot understand that George Clooney's do not speak on behalf of all white Americans, Catholics or Irish.
Hoplite, your position is an example of "Obfuscate and Deny 101". Michael Ignatieff is the Carr Professor of Human Rights Practice, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. He teaches how our government do things you deny.
I’m going to paraphrase his "The problem with proxies 101" ... and Kids, don't try this at home ...
Principal agents (“west democracies”) rely on proxies (Muslim fundamentalists) to carry out their own plans (control of energy corridor) and hope to control them by means of the Special Forces and "advisors" (MPRI) working on the ground. The balance of involvement is delicate. Too many troops on the ground risks sucking principal agent into the type of ground war that destroyed the Soviet empire. Too few exposes the principal agent to the risk of losing control of the proxy altogether.
The legitimacy of the proxies (KLA) to an unsuspecting observer (general population) depends on their appearing to be independent of the principal agent (NATO) and not a stooge. The legitimacy of the principal agent also depends on not looking like an imperialist. That’s where demonization of a target and false pretext for a war come into a play.
Proxy wars -- and the problems that accompany them -- are hardly new. America fought most of its wars against Communism through proxies. It also funded Jonas Savimbi in Angola, Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia, etc.
Proxies have a nasty way either of disgracing principal agents or turning against them (9-11-2001).
Depending on proxies puts the principal agent's fate in the hands of people who may not define victory as the principal agent does: a Kosovo rebuilt on solid political foundations (“friendly” dictator firmly in charge) and free of terror (got rid of all opposition). For a warlord in American pay, victory might look like secure control of heroin production and distribution, prostitution, tobacco and gasoline smuggling, etc.
The real problems with proxy wars begin, paradoxically, once victory has been achieved. The revenge killings of Christian population by Kosovo Albanians that followed NATO’s “victory” in June 1999 have threaten to reveal the false pretext of the war itself.
A principal agent can win a war with proxies. A durable peace, however, cannot be built by remote control. Peace requires substantial commitment by the principal agents involved: peacekeeping troops, humanitarian assistance, rebuilding of infrastructure. No one in the international community has the stomach to actually disarm the proxies (KLA). But their leaders can be drawn into a political process and, with luck, be turned from terrorists into politicians (Hasim Thaci, Ali Ahmeti).
That is the test of this kind war: whether a criminal culture can be turned into a political one, and whether proxies can gradually become principal agents in their own right, rebuilding a country they once devastated and stole from others.
And you have the temerity to accuse me of obfuscating and denying.
Cute.
This is one of those "put up or shut up" moments - kindly choose the appropriate course of action.
Ever since Vietnam, America has had no stomach for its own causalities, so we pay others to die for us! Why not? We, and especially they, all have a price.
The numbers game is really interesting: it took 50,000+ to make America sick of a war in Vietnam, 250 in Lebanon and 19 in Somalia. It's a precipitious drop in tolerance for causalities. It doesn't take a rockect scientists to figure this out, so we changed our strategy: we buy gladiators and use disproportionate or "overwhelming force."
The other day, fired on by Afghans near the Pakistani boder, prompted a swift retaliatory strike by the US military. On some suspected 80 lightly armed Afghan fighters, the US dropped no less than TWENTY two thousand pound bombs, killing 18 of them. That's like killing a fly with a shotgun.
In support to Col. Hackworth's claim that Washington has been supporting the terrorists in Macedonia, I submit two well-researched papers. In Privatizing War, published in The Nation, July 28, 1997, Ken Silverstein reveals that with little public knowledge or debate, the government has been dispatching private companies -- most of them with tight links to the Pentagon and staffed by retired armed forces personnel -- to provide military and police training to America's foreign allies.
This allows the United States to pursue its geopolitical interests without deploying its own army, this being especially useful in cases where training is provided to regimes with ghastly records on human rights. "It's foreign policy by proxy," says Dan Nelson, formerly a top foreign policy adviser to Representative Richard Gephardt and now a professor at Old Dominion University. "Corporate entities are used to perform tasks that the government, for budgetary reasons or political sensitivities, cannot carry out."
The firms themselves are not eager to discuss their activities. Nor is the State Department. Much information remains hidden behind government claims of secrecy or locked in the companies' accounting books.
Among the big-league players is Military Professional Resources Inc. (M.P.R.I.), which is training several Balkan armies. Dozens of corporate officers are former high-ranking military figures. These include Gen. Carl Vuono, U.S. Army Chief of Staff during the invasion of Panama and the Gulf War; Gen. Ed Soyster, former head of the D.I.A.; and Gen. Frederick Kroesen, former commander of the U.S. Army in Europe.
In 1996 the Bosnian government picked M.P.R.I. to train its armed forces. The $400 million program was paid for largely by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Brunei and Malaysia. The stated aim of the training effort, supplemented with large-scale shipments of U.S. weapons to the Bosnian Army, was to deter Serbia's better-armed military. But with Serbia's army in disarray, many observers of the region increasingly worry that a newly trained and equipped Bosnian Army will be emboldened to attack Serbian forces after international forces withdraw.
M.P.R.I. also offered advice and training to the Croatian military, a relationship that began in April 1995 at one of the most intense periods of fighting in the Balkan war. Just months after M.P.R.I. went into Croatia, that nation's army -- until then bumbling and inept -- launched a series of bloody offensives against Serbian forces.
Most important was Operation Lightning Storm, the assault on the Krajina region during which Serbian villages were sacked and burned, hundreds of civilians were killed and some 170,000 people were driven from their homes.
In another well researched paper Washington Behind Terrorist Assaults In Macedonia, Michel Chossudovsky, Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa claims that it is now documented beyond doubt that Washington is behind the terrorist assaults in Macedonia.
The initial report was eventually published by Dutch Radio, which also interviewed several individuals who had been involved in Macedonia. The investigation centered on the battle of Aracinovo (26 June 2001). Even before this new report, American involvement had long been suspected at the three-day battle in Aracinovo, a heavily Albanian town northeast of Skopje. As the battle progressed, the Macedonians claimed to be on the verge of eliminating NLA forces. Yet suddenly they were given the order to pull back, and NATO buses rolled in to escort the heavily armed Albanians out. At the time, NATO claimed that this intervention was vital, because the Albanians were coming dangerously close to victory, and mediation was needed.
The story heard from many witnesses, however, was very different. German newspaper Hamburger Abendblatt reported that 17 American military advisors from MPRI were also evacuated with the Albanians. Apparently the Macedonians had captured one of the MPRI men. He panicked, and waving his US passport, shouted “diplomatic immunity!” Through heavy US intercession, the man was freed and evacuated together with his comrades and the NLA fighters. European sources identified this particular individual as having been active in training Bosnian fighters in the 1990’s.
Macedonian citizens have been fully aware that Washington is supporting the terrorists. To diffuse public resentment, several Western "foundations" and "human rights organizations" --including the International Crisis Group (ICG) and Human Rights Watch (HRW) were working closely with local citizens groups in Macedonia.
While their formal mandate was in the areas of "confidence building", "governance", "peace-making" and "inter-ethnic reconciliation", in practice, they worked hand in glove with NATO. They were an integral part of the military-intelligence ploy. The role of these front organizations was to ensure that public resentment was directed against the Macedonian government and Military rather than against Washington, NATO or the IMF.
The Open Society Institute (OSI) in Skopje, controlled by Wall Street financier George Soros was also playing a central role in manipulating and ultimately weakening the civilian protest movement. The OSI in Macedonia has launched an "Appeal for Peace" while carefully omitting to mention the causes of terrorism. George Soros is a part of the Wall Street financial establishment, which has colonized the Balkans.
Add to all of the above an article by Michael Ignatieff that I used in my previous post to you, and one has to admit that our foreign and military policy abounds with deception and scandal, with shadowy actors, moneyed interests and efforts to keep the public out of what are properly public decisions.
And let's not forget, Col. Hackworth cuts through today's political doublespeak with a chainsaw and better than ever.
If that was the case, than use of 2,000lb bombs to seal cave entrances is standard practice, as there aren't many weapons out there that can accomplish said task, and sending in guys with flashlights isn't an attractive alternative.
If you have something useful to add by way of actual evidence of MPRI presence in Aracinovo, please do so here.
If all you have is more of the same, being a retelling of Nationalist Macedonian misinformation through Hamburger Abendblatt or whoever, please don't bother.
On the serious note, a dictionary definition of patriotism is "devoted love, support and defense of one's country." My impression is that you are an American patriot.
But being patriotic, to me also means supporting good things inside this country -- volunteering, mentoring, doing charity work -- not just armchair quarterbacking a war or providing it's cover-up. Patriotism has never been a synonym for "loud" or "obnoxious" or "dismissive." And telling a countryman to shut up if you don't like the honest news he's bringing does not honor the spirit of Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln. It insults it.
George Bernard Shaw used three concepts to describe the positions of individuals in Nazi Germany: intelligence, decency and Nazism. He argued that if a person was intelligent and a Nazi, he was not decent. If he was decent and a Nazi, he was not intelligent. And if he was decent and intelligent, he was not a Nazi.
An updated version of Shaw's three concepts, based on our Balkans experience would be:
1. If a person is decent and a pro-government, flag-waving, American patriot, he or she is not intelligent.
2. If a person is intelligent and a pro-government, flag-waving, American patriot, he or she is not decent.
3. And if a person is decent and intelligent, he or she is not a pro-government, flag-waving, American patriot.
The public ignorance certainly is the case within America, and statements 1 and 2 above explain the reason for it. A very high percentage of Americans are simply kept in the dark. Even if they lead relatively decent lives they are total fools for the professionally crafted propaganda that saturates the corporate mass media. And those American patriots of the second variety create that propaganda: they may be intelligent, but they surely are not decent.
I wish you well.
All you can do now is protest that denial equals guilt.
Sorry, upland - positive assertions require proof, and requiring the defence to prove a negative when you fail in your obligation is not a valid tactic - as a prosecutor you are failing in your duty, and this case would never have made it past the discovery phase as presented.
We are expending munitions rather than lives - it makes perfect sense.
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