Fwd: MADRE's Talking Points on Yugoslav Crisis

Henry C.K. Liu hliu at mindspring.com
Sat Apr 3 10:30:14 PST 1999


April 3 1999 - London Times

BALKANS WAR: BALANCE OF POWER

Nato's nagging doubts at odds with general mood, Michael Binyon writes.

Public support for land war is on the increase

DESPITE growing concern that the air

campaign is not working, public opinion across

Europe is swinging more firmly behind Nato.

After a week of war, support for the military

action against Yugoslavia is growing, and in

some countries there are now public calls for the

use of ground troops.

Opinion polls show backing for the Nato action

running at about 2:1 in Britain, with almost 60

per cent of Germans in favour and the same

solid backing in France.

The key factor that has hardened support is the

brutal expulsion of the Kosovan Albanians. The

television pictures of columns of women and

children being marched to the border have

inevitably awoken Europe's memory of the

Holocaust.

More than anything, perhaps, the use of trains

to transport expelled Albanians to the border has

evoked chilling comparisons with the Second

World War.

Claims by the German Social Democrats that

concentration camps have been set up for the

Kosovo Albanians have inevitably drawn a

sharp emotional reaction in Germany, and are a

main factor in rallying support for the attacks on

Yugoslavia.

The Germans themselves have been surprised

by the lack of protest and anti-American

demonstrations. Most still cannot believe that

Germany is now involved in a full-scale war,

turning its back on half a century of pacifism.

Newspapers ask: can this be Germany? Where

are the protests? Where is the Left's knee-jerk

anti-Americanism?

Even in Italy, where anti-militarism is strong,

support for the war is running at roughly 50:50.

In Spain, the predicted opposition to the

bombing has been largely neutralised by the

(Javier) Solana factor, and trust in the Nato

Secretary-General, who is a respected former

Spanish Foreign Minister. Throughout Nato's

southern flank, public opinion appears to be

strengthening just as the Governments

themselves appear less sure of the operation.

Other countries which, a generation ago, saw

thousands of students demonstrating against

airstrikes in Vietnam now find that the Left

strongly supports action against the Serbs. In

Norway and Denmark there is strong, but

reluctant, backing for Nato. In The Netherlands

a special factor influences both the Government

and public opinion: the continuing anguish over

Dutch troops' failure to protect the Muslim men

after the fall of Srebrenica has kindled a deep

antipathy to the Serbs.

Across Europe, the main opposition comes from

the far Left and the far Right. The remaining

Communist parties are motivated as much by

anti-Americanism and suspicion of Nato as by

ideological sympathy with President Milosevic,

one of the last former Communist rulers in

Eastern Europe.

The Right is either suspicious that the war does

not serve the national interest of each country or

is being conducted cackhandedly. There are also

strong doubts about the legality of interference

in a sovereign country, with fears that the

precedent could rebound on other nations.

Most countries need not worry about this

political opposition. But the French and Italian

Governments still need the support of the

Communists. The opposition from Vaclav

Klaus, the right-of-centre former Prime Minister

of the Czech Republic, has been a complicating

factor in this new Nato member.

The greatest doubts appear to be in America

itself, where ignorance of the issues, confusion

over the rights and wrongs of the quarrel and a

contempt for the Europeans' failure to settle

their own affairs have combined with resurgent

isolationism and visceral unwillingness to risk

American lives in someone else's quarrel.

Nevertheless, the television images are changing

perceptions. The latest opinion poll by CNN and

Gallup show that most Americans still express

substantial worry over the Kosovo operation,

with approval now standing at 53 per cent, rising

only three points over the past week.

This is still far below the 74 per cent backing for

airstrikes against Iraq.

***************************************

Discouraging! Land war next.

Henry

Doug Henwood wrote:


> Chris Burford wrote:
>
> >I am very glad NATO has abandoned its appeasement role, (which was also
> >imperialist in character - even more so than its war role) but one of the
> >criticisms to be made of NATO is its condescending saviour approach. It
> >should have had a bottom up approach, and it should have insisted in
> >bargaining on fostering not international monitors but the structures of
> >civil society, of the sort that MADRE has worked with.
>
> Chris, your capacity for self-deception is really a marvel. NATO is a
> military organization dominated by the U.S. whose role has historically
> been to destroy the USSR and to bind Western Europe to the U.S. in a
> subordinate role. It is an imperalist organization, to use some
> unfashionable language. MADRE is a feminist human rights organization, and
> an anti-imperalist one at that. Why should an imperialist organization do
> anti-imperialist work?
>
> Doug



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