Gerald Toal wrote:
>"To charge that NATO's actions are 'imperialism' is to participate in a
discourse which assumes 'state sovereignty' to be >unquestioned, in
practical effect giving a free hand to the serial killing being engaged in
by the Yugoslav state dominated by >Serb fascistic nationalism. Charges of
'imperialism' ignore the consensual nature of NATO decision-making. "
>
>[Milosevic] "...has organized and sponsored murder on a large scale for 8
years in Cratia,
>Bosnia and Kosovo (and yes, the Croats did it too in the Krajina). "
>
>"Fighting ground troops should have been introduced year ago into Bosnia;
>they should have een sent in at the outset of this war; they should be
>introduced at once to liberate all of Yugoslavia from fascism."
>
>"For the victory of NATO and the ongoing struggle to create a Europe free
>from fascism."
You mention 'consensual' NATO decision making, when the opinion of the
people in NATO countries is ignored and when the public opinion in these
countries is being manipulated by the media. It is noteworthy that despite
the media brainwashing of the people in these countries there is still
strong public opposition to the bombing in Europe and in Italy, from which
most of the attacks are launched, the parliament would probably vote against
the NATO intervention if it had a chance. Also, it is omitted that one of
the NATO countries which participate in the attack to Yugoslavia, Turkey,
has been oppressing and murdering the Kurdish minority for the last 15 years
with NATO weaponry. Journalists in Turkey are abused and murdered
systematically by paramilitary forces because they dare to say what is
happening. Several members of the Kurdish minority party in Turkey (HADEP)
have been given long-term jail sentences because they dared to speak their
mother-tongue language in the parliament and because of their criticism of
state policy in the predominantly Kurdish southeastern provinces (see the
endless list of human rights violations in Turkey in the Amnesty Internation
al web-page on Turkey at
http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/countries/indx444.htm ).
Despite all that, Turkey is a NATO country and it is being supplied with the
very same deadly weapons and helicopters which today perform 'humanitarian'
missions in Kosovo. If NATO has such members and doesn't try to fight
fascism, establish democracy and protect human rights in them, how are we to
believe that it is fighting a 'just' war against fascism in Europe?
You also admit that the Croats did the same in Crajna but you advocate the
use of ground troops to 'liberate' Yugoslavia from fascism. I simply don't
understand this argument. Is there a good fascism (Croat fascism, Turkish
fascism) and a bad fascism (Serb fascism), and if not, why don't you
advocate ground troops in Croatia to fight Croat fascism?
NATO is not 'liberating' Europe from fascism. In contrast, it violates human
rights and the international law and it damages the environment beyond
redress with the use of depleted uranium bombs.
As Paul Waley appositely remarks, the motives of the prime actors on the
NATO side are varied and they are definetely not of a humanitarian or
anti-fascist nature.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Dimitris Ballas
School of Geography
University of Leeds
Leeds LS2 9JT
UK
tel: (+44) (113) 233-3328
fax: (+44) (113) 233-3308
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
----- Original Message -----
From: Gerard Toal <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, May 16, 1999 10:03 PM
Subject: Send ground troops
> I'd like to make a few points about the recent debate on 'Serb fascism."
>
> 1. Neil Smith is absolutely right to critique the contextless reflex of
> many who declare 'Stop the Bombing' without appreciating the historical
> and geographical context of the wars of the dissolution of Yugoslavia.
> At the core of those wars have been two dynamics: (i) the efforts of
> former Yugoslav communists to stay in power by riding the tiger of
> ethnic nationalism and (ii) the destruction of an anti-democratic 'civic
> Yugoslav nationalism' by various supposedly 'democratic' ethnic
> nationalisms. The result has been, amongst other things, the triumph of
> a right-wing authoritarian ethnic nationalism in Croatia and a fusion of
> communism, fascistic nationalism and gangster capitalism in Serbia. The
> West made enormous mistakes in responding to the breakup of Yugoslavia.
> Dimitris Ballas suggest "It can be argued that the common denominator in
> the Yugoslav tragedy (from 1991 to the Kosovo) crisis was NATO and the
> 'Western powers'." This can, with unsustainable assumptions, be argued.
> However, it is simply a bad argument. In the current context, of course,
> this reasoning projects the blame for the violent breakup of Yugoslavia
> outwards and away from the crucial dynamic: the manipulation of Serb and
> Croat nationalism to serve elitist, anti-democratic and authoritiarian
> ends. The argument is a local version of a more general tendency, namely
> Serb nationalist resistance, resistance in the same way evoked by Jane
> Jacobs in her essay 'Resisting Reconciliation' in GEOGRAPHIES OF
> RESISTANCE, namely "a form of defense against the anxiety which might be
> produced by recognizing some repressed 'truth' or confronting the
> repressed emotional traces of a past trauma" (p. 208 for those
> interested). A different version of this is the target image Serb
> 'resisters' use to mark their (heroic) status as victims. Norman Cigar
> in his book GENOCIDE IN BOSNIA simply terms this "the denial syndrome."
> It is one of the key characteristics of contemporary Serbian nationalist
> discourse. Another, of course, is to simply evoke 'the Serb people'
> and/or 'the Serb nation' as if this was a self-evident category; this
> move effectively renders the multi-cultural nature of YUGOSLAVIA
> invisible and silences the 'otherness' and 'hybridity' nationalists wish
> to deny.
>
> 2. I disagree with those who claim that NATO's actions are
> imperialistic. While NATO strategy is flawed by Clinton's unwillingness
> to accept casualties, NATO is, contra Neil Smith's original claim,
> attacking the genocidal machinery in Kosovo; the number of 'sorties'
> against tanks and troops in Kosovo is huge. The motivation for NATO's
> actions are not, of course, humanitarian. This is a war about:
> (i) the future of NATO as THE organization of security in Europe
> (ii) the future of American leadership in Europe
> (iii) Clinton and redeeming his legacy ("this is the presidency" he
> reportedly declared at the outset of bombing; the derided president
> becomes Mr Resolute International StatesMAN).
> (iv) the ability of the EU and NATO to set the terms for the future
> development of the continent of Europe.
> Its a war about geopolitics, first, and geoeconomics, 'political
> economy' or 'the new world order' a distant second.
>
> 3. The argument that this is an 'imperialist war' seems to assume that
> the American leadership position in
> NATO is an example of imperialism. America, however, helped defeat
> fascism in Europe during World War II and, while its role has not been
> positive there in many ways, its dominance within NATO has been accepted
> by the major European powers. Its geopolitical empire, if one must use
> this term, was an 'empire of invitation.' To charge that NATO's actions
> are 'imperialism' is to participate in a discourse which assumes 'state
> sovereignty' to be unquestioned, in practical effect giving a free hand
> to the serial killing being engaged in by the Yugoslav state dominated
> by Serb fascistic nationalism. Charges of 'imperialism' ignore the
> consensual nature of NATO decision-making. It also waters down the
> concept so that anything supposedly "American" -- hamburgers and Coke --
> can be cited as instances of 'imperialism" (and this, of course, assumed
> a genuine authority that can decide between 'the authentic' and the
> 'imperialistic').
>
> 4. There are strong reasons why leftists should fear NATOs monopoly over
> the future of European security, principally because:
> (i) the future of European security should not be dependent upon the
> vaguaries of American political life;
> (ii) the major European powers need to get their act together to develop
> a truly European security system (there is evidence this is happening)
> which will check a longstanding European fascist tendency.
> (iii) NATO has nukes at the core of its arsenal and a 'first use'
> policy; NATO could end up killing us all if these policies are not
> changed; this is a matter for political struggle and a 'de-nuke NATO'
> campaign is under way.
>
> 5. However, there are strong reasons why leftists should support NATO in
> the Balkans, principally because it is fighting a fusion of fascism,
> authoritarian communism and gangster capitalism.The Milosevic regime has
> destroyed the lives of millions in the former Yugoslavia. It has
> organized and sponsored murder on a large scale for 8 years in Croatia,
> Bosnia and Kosovo (and yes, the Croats did it too in the Krajina). It
> has been a distaster for the Serbs as well as for Bosnians, Albanians
> and the many others that wanted to recognize their de facto hybridity.
> Fighting ground troops should have been introduced year ago into Bosnia;
> they should have een sent in at the outset of this war; they should be
> introduced at once to liberate all of Yugoslavia from fascism.
>
> 6. It may interest those who charge 'American hegemony' to know that
> some of those historically associated with right-wing American
> unilateralism -- military muscle boys from Patrick Buchanan to Kissinger
> to Tom Clancy -- were/are opposed to US involvement in the war because
> there were "no vital US interests involved." Scenes of ethnic cleansing
> don't move these hard men; only oil, markets and corporations do:
> "Kuwait was strategic; Kosovo ain't" is their line. This right wing
> argument is very powerful in the US because Kosovo is seen as a 'left
> wing' war; i.e. for once the US is actually on the side of justice.
>
> The 'accident' that NATO is actually on the right side in its fight
> against fascism can be an opportunity for the left to push for further
> reforms within the organization (principally the German Green arguments
> about de-nuking it). NATO should not be defeated; it should be reformed
> and made into an effective security organization for a democratic and
> unified Europe.
>
> For the victory of NATO and the ongoing struggle to create a Europe free
> from fascism.
>
> Gerard Toal (Gearoid O Tuathail),
> Department of Geography, Virginia Tech.
> Email: [log in to unmask]
> Web Page: www.majbill.vt.edu/Geog/faculty/toal/gt.html
> Until May 31 1999: 127 Major Williams Hall. Phone: (703) 231 5806. Fax:
> (540) 231 2089.
> June-July 1999: 622 University Park, Rochester, NY 14620. Phone (540)
> 951 2169.
> August-October 1999: Copenhagen Peace Research Institute (COPRI),
> Fredericiagade 18, DK-1310
> Copenhagen K, Denmark. Phone: +45 3345 5050. Fax: +45 3345 5060.
> November-December 1999: 622 University Park, Rochester, NY 14620. Phone
> (540) 951 2169.
> January 2000: Washington-Alexandria Center, Virginia Tech, 1001 Prince
> St., Alexandria VA 22314.
> Phone: (703) 548 0099. Fax (703) 548 0532.
>
>
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