Oh no, Kosovo Redux (was Re: lbo-talk-digest V1 #4718)

Brad Mayer bradley.mayer at ebay.sun.com
Wed Aug 8 19:38:41 PDT 2001


At 07:02 PM 8/8/01 -0400, you wrote:
>As far as cheap shots go, there are few cheaper than to say that
>opponents of the U.S./NATO fly-by in Yugoslavia lack your exquisite
>sensitivity to the plight of the Muslims of the region.
>
>Doug

Cheap shot all the more so, as NATO intervened to thwart the right of self-determination of Albanian Kosovars, to either an independent state or to union with Albania - as the NATO folks made loud and clear for all and sundry to hear, even above the bomb blasts. Not to mention the restabilization of Albania, which had just a couple years earlier slid into a state of extreme chaos and civil war in the wake of the collapse of the 'Ponzi scheme' financial racket of the (US-backed, to the hilt) Berisha government, posing the spector of a catastrophic 'post-communist' disillusionment with America, capitalism and everything good in the world. (On this aspect I recommend the film "L'America" - a review here at http://www.stanford.edu/~cschmid/film.html from the Italian immigration angle - what struck me was the extreme state of social decay portrayed in Albania).

But it would be better to focus, as an unfolding test case for the "pro-NATO" side, on an entity known as The Artist Formerly Known as Macedonia, aka, FYROM, or simply "Macedonia". Although the recent abrupt dismissal in Kosovo of several key ex-KLA police tops by their American Shogun - who didn't bother to confer with the UN KFOR "authorities" in this - is worthy of note, see "U.S. Attempt to Quiet Fighting in Macedonia May Backfire", 08/06, NYT:

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/06/international/europe/06KOSO.html?searchpv=day02

Let's stop ripping Kosovo out of context.

-Brad Mayer



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