In message <3.0.2.32.19990409000016.0147c630 at pop.gn.apc.org>, Chris Burford <cburford at gn.apc.org> writes at me
>Your hands are not clean to the extent that you promoted appeasement of the
>Serb attacks in Bosnia.
Which, in placing himself outside of civil discussion, saves me the dreary task of demonstrating to him why Dimitrov's definition of fascism is 1) wrong and 2) inapplicable to the Yugoslav republic.
(Suffice to say that the essential characteristic of fascism is the mobilisation of a petit bourgeois mass movement to destroy the working class)
(And if anyone thinks that refusing to characterise the Yugoslav regime as fascist is support, can I quickly add that I do not believe that Nato is fascist either.)
In message <00db01be81d5$ed652ac0$84e33ecb at rcollins>, rc-am
<rcollins at netlink.com.au> writes
>Jim,
>
>long time we haven't danced. but I think you might want to take another
>look at your dance card, 'cause my name's not on it.
Yes, I was being unfair. I apologise.
>what you will have to address however, and on this we will perhaps manage
>at least one twirl of your skirts, is that a critique of the
>instrumentalisation of the refugees by NATO (which I have posted on) should
>not be accompanied by a refusal of the reality of the refugees.
No indeed. I condemn the dispossession of ethnic Albanians in Kosovar. But I insist that their condition can only be worsened by bombing. Most pointedly, the Times newspaper reports yesterday, 9 ethnic Albanians in Pristina were killed by a Nato missile, that struck a block of flats. (If I were a cynical person I might add 'that's one way of liberating them').
>you
>implicitly try and downgrade the reality of the refugees in order to
>displace the Belgrade government's responsibility;
On the contrary. The fact that I will not call dispossession genocide, or Serbs Nazis does not imply any minimisation of the truth. Only that I think you should call things what they are.
In message <007001be81ff$6dcc4620$41517e86 at rosserjb-b000.jmu.edu>, J. Barkley Rosser, Jr. <rosserjb at jmu.edu> writes
> 4) KLA. Most reports suggest that the KLA is nearly finished
>on the ground in K-M for now. But, the sudden increase in
>humongous refugee camps just over the borders, especially in
>Albania itself, offers the greatest possible breeding ground for
>the growth of an intensely radicalized KLA that will be undestroyable.
>After all, where did the PLO come from?
I think that this analogy is if anything even more fanciful that Milosovic as Ho Chi Minh. The KLA took such a battering because it was not much of an army in the first place, but more like the small military wing of a US based Public Relations firm. Since its actions were undertaken principally for propaganda purposes, it is not surprising that it was pretty quickly defeated. Doubtless it will be reconstituted with US training, but such forces are generally riven with intrigues and divisions - witness Laurent Kabila's about face on his US trained Tutsi allies.
In message <028d01be81a4$2852fea0$8ed38ad1 at newmicronpc>, D. L.
<boddhisatva at mindspring.com> writes
>
>
> C. Heartfield,
>
> You write "NATO is the definitive cause of the recent events, the
>Milosevic regime merely reacting" and this is really reaching too far and is
>untrue.
I think it is true. I do not condone the actions of the Yugoslav army against ethnic Albanians. However, the disintegration of Yugoslavia along ethnic lines is a process that has spun out of control because of the West's political sponsorship of secessionist movements. As is patently clear, neither the Bosnian muslims, nor the Kosovars would have pushed things as far as national independence without the promise of Western sponsorship. It is natural enough that minorities should prefer the support of the West to that of an impoverished and increasingly brutal Yugoslav rump republic, but the West was, nonetheless irresponsible in engendering the political fragmentation of Yugoslavia. I said that Yugoslavia was merely reacting. I meant it. This process was set in train in Washington, Bonn, Paris and London, but its consequences are felt in the Balkans.
> The first problem is that the people of the Balkans are
>uncivilized and cannot resist the temptation to use ethnicity as an excuse
>for violence. This, I believe, is no insult but a clear representation of
>the facts. After weeks and months of hearing claims and counter-claims of
>atrocious behavior by Serbs, Croats, Albanians and all the rest, I have
>simply added up the instances of atrocious behavior and come to the
>conclusion that these people, all of them, are essentially hooligans.
Sadly DL's racial stereotype of the people of the Balkans is not unique, but underlies a lot of liberal distaste for this region.
-- Jim heartfield