Remarks in response to Jim Heartfield and Doug Henwood:
1) Jim H.---
You claim that the KLA was just a US PR operation. This lacks credibility. There is much to criticize about the UCK/KLA and it has been criticized on these lists, in the words of Alexander Haig on today's WSJ Op-Ed page as a "bunch of drug-running, fundamentalist, Maoists."
It is worthwhile keeping in mind that the CIA officially viewed the UCK/KLA as a "terrorist organization" until just over a year ago, although it does not surprise me to hear that there may have been some aid given to it by the CIA. But "some aid" hardly makes it a creation of that agency.
There certainly has been a lot of funding from the US for the UCK./KLA. But overwhelmingly it has come from ethnic Albanians living in the US, doing so with no prompting and possibly even some opposition from the US government.
The hard fact is that His Excellency (and his supporters) must bear most of the blame for the recent rise and success of the UCK/KLA. As recently as two years ago it was clearly supported by a minority of Albanian Kosovars. The moderate Rugova had the majority support. His Excellency (and company) could have cut an autonomy deal at any point with him as he was asking. But no, Rugova was put off thus giving credibility to the UCK/KLA's demand for independence. Then the Yugoslav government attacked villages containing UCK/KLA elements. I understand that there is controversy about the details of those attacks, but I seriously doubt the stuff handed out by people like our dear Yoshie suggesting that the Yugoslav authorities were completely innocent in all of that. In any case, support from the the Albanian diaspora and internally for the UCK/KLA began to accelerate after that. His Excellency has only his own stupidity and viciousness to blame for this outcome.
And now we have the greatest irony. I was one of the first on this list to predict that the bombing of Yugoslavia would only bring about both massive ethnic cleansing of Kosovo-Metohija and an enormous surge of support in Serbia (but not Montenegro) for His Excellency. That has now happened. Now, I am appear to be the first one on any of these lists (or in the media too) to forecast that just as the bombing brought about the opposite of its desired result, so His Excellency's assault upon the Albanian Kosovars designed to crush the UCK/KLA will bring about exactly its opposite. Support will surge like never before. NATO countries are now openly supporting the UCK/KLA and will continue to do so. His Excellency has created the massive refugee camps in Albania that will be the indestructible bases for recruitment and fighting for the UCK/KLA. The evidence that His Excellency may now even realize this is in this morning's report of Yugoslav troops firing across the Albanian border to get at the UCK/KLA. Sorry, Your Excellency. Won't work.
BTW, I continue to oppose the bombing. It should be stopped NOW. And yet another reason is that the US/NATO has not only fallen into His Excellency's plot to allow him to ethnically cleanse, but US/NATO has also fallen into supporting and aiding this "bunch of drug-running, fundamentalist Maoists."
2) Doug Henwood---
Hmm. You don't seem to like my referring to the duly elected President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic, as "His Excellency." Well, for your information, that is his correct title. I began to do so after our dear Yoshie charged me with being a white male imperialist for calling him "Milo" once. So, I'll stick with his correct title.
You may, of course, have detected just the slightest wee note of sarcasm. It is true that as Faculty Adviser to the JMU Amnesty International chapter I have written many letters to leaders of nations accused of holding and torturing political prisoners with those letters ever so respectfully addressed to, "Your Excellency." Frankly, I consider both the presidents of Croatia and Yugoslavia to be war criminals who should be thrown into a cell with Bill Clinton with somebody throwing away the key.
Last I heard, His Excellency's main base of electoral support was the rural Serbian peasantry. He was long opposed by both the radical nationalists of Seselj and the liberal urban groups following Draskovic. Both of those groups have now been coopted and neutralized and brought into his government. The bombings by US/NATO now make his support nearly universal among the Serbian population, at least for now.
BTW, the only student on my campus to express opposition in print to the bombing has been the campus leader of the Libertarian Party. I think he is mostly motivated by visceral anti-Clintonism, but his arguments were intelligent. He took my Comparative Economic Systems course when I last taught it several years ago, in which we discussed Yugoslavia, but I can't claim much credit, I'm afraid...
And finally, I was a bit mystified as to what you thought you were trying to prove with this report from Pristina? I don't think anybody knows who dropped bombs on Pristina. The remark that it is "obscene" to accuse the Serbs of "bombing their own cities" is patently ridiculous on the face of it. As long as those cities were full of hated Albanians that they wished to scare and make leave (despite their absurd denials of this) it is far from unthinkable, although the act might have been obscene. But they have been accused of far worse. Frankly, I don't think we know who dropped the bombs on Pristina.
Let's stick to protesting the bombing that we do know NATO is doing, like on Belgrade and Novi Sad. There is quite enough to protest about in those environs without becoming suckers for half-baked Serbian propaganda. Barkley Rosser