<nettime> ivogram [digest]: Who Killed Bamby?; Bari hearing; Montenegro

["Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net>]

From: 
Date: Wed, 14 Apr 1999 22:33:15 +0000
Subject: Who Killed Bamby?


Winning The War

Raytheon stock's value increased on the Wall street. Raytheon 
manufactures cruise missiles, which are, reportedly, in short supply. 
Since it is likely that Congress will approve $5 billion so Clinton 
can buy more Tomahawks, the market is anticipating the good news. 
But, do the cruise missiles win the war? We are already in fourth 
week of bombing Serbia, and it is clear that in coming November we 
are going to face yet another humanitarian disaster: millions of 
Serbs, innocent of wrongdoings committed by their evil regime, will 
be without food to eat and without fuel to heat their quarters: yet, 
we still fell short of achieving our primary objective - to counter 
the humanitarian disaster of Kosovo Albanians, created by Yugoslav 
Army. More news of mass graves are coming in; of closed borders; of 
people expelled from their homes.

The postulation that Milosevic will somehow back down under incessant 
bombing proved wrong. He won't. He will let his country be returned 
to 17th century by having the entire industrial potential destroyed 
by NATO bombs, but he will not make that call, that Clinton waits 
on. First we have two wars here: the war Milosevic carries on against 
Albanians of Kosovo and the war NATO carries against Milosevic. While 
Milosevic apparently won the war over Kosovo, by reducing Albanians 
there to a minority status, NATO did not yet win the war against 
Milosevic. NATO is defining the victory in that war as Milosevic 
calling and accepting the terms of Rambouillet agreement, pulling his 
army out of Kosovo and surrendering it to NATO troops. Until 
Milosevic makes that call and accepts those terms, NATO achieved no 
victory, regardless of how many $50,000 worth bombs it dropped on 
bankcrupt Serbian factories.

The war that the U.S. won over Japan in 1945, was not won by dropping 
nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki - it was won by Japanese 
emperor signing the surrender of Japan on an American ship. This was 
also, perhaps, the only example in history where the air campaign 
alone achieved the victory. However, nuclear weapons had to be used 
to break the Japanese. I am not sure if the European allies would 
stomach dropping a nuke on let's say Nis or Kragujevac to obtain 
Milosevic's signature. The only alternative to nukes are the ground 
troops. Everybody except for the U.S. administration (European 
allies, press, various think-tanks, American people, etc.) already 
acknowledges that NATO will not win this war if it does not commit 
the ground troops to it. This, of course, means: a) more money ($10 
billions), b) no more Mr. nice guy - so far NATO kept human 
casualties low; this might be a luxury in the ground war and c) there 
will be NATO soldiers casualties as well, since air campaign can 
not destroy kalashnikovs and entrenched soldiers along the routes of 
possible NATO ground troops entry.

International Law

A few days ago SKY News brought news about Turkey committing the 
campaign against Kurds deep in the Iraq territory, just after 
bringing news about Serbs ethnically cleansing Kosovo. Turkish ethnic 
cleansing campaign against Kurds escalation coinceded with Turkey 
becoming the largest single U.S. arms buyer. U.S. fighter jets are 
used to hit Kurdish civilian targets. In Laos kids are still stepping 
on little anti-personnel landmines ("bombies") deployed there decades 
ago during the U.S. bombing campaigns in the war that "never 
existed."

Serbs are just another bully. They behave like any other regional 
power, or super-power: they do whatever they want in the region that 
they believe should be under their control irrespectful of any laws 
or conventions until met by a larger bully - in this case, they 
pissed off the biggest bully in the world, the U.S., and now they are 
getting their ass kicked. This is actually very simple. The U.S. 
makes it more complicated, nevertheless. The U.S. wants to be right 
to do it. It is not enough that they have the power to do it. They 
want to have the right to use it. Since obtaining the authorization 
became a hassle, given that the UN Security Council refuses to always 
act as the US proxy, now they just want endorsements. They convinced 
themselves that they have the right and now they just need to 
convince as many allies as possible to endorse them.

The key element in the American self-righteousness is that they 
perceive themselves as being in defense of humanitarian law - being 
by assumption above international law, treaties of sovereignty and 
other upscalish diplomatic blah-blah. Therefore the U.S. now MUST 
save as many Kosovo Albanians as possible. Otherwise the history 
would never aprove of their current action against Yugoslavia.

Pax Germanica

NATO allies are already wary of the war against Yugoslavia. Greek 
government is against, but gives its facilities to NATO use. Italy is 
de facto against by now, but, all the planes still fly out of Aviano. 
Europeans are not going to actively oppose the U.S. over Serbia, but 
they will plead no-contest to any probable result of the current NATO 
campaign. French are waiting patiently for the U.S. debacle. The UK 
became a colony of its former colony, so it always echo the US. 
Germany, of all states, however now started to act independently 
setting a new tone for its foreign policy. Given that the current 
military tactics did not achieve the objective, prime minister 
Schroeder offered a change, asking NATO to act paradoxically: stop 
the bombing for 24 hours and see if Serbs will pull out. It, of 
course, may not work. Serbs may continue to stay there and continue 
the ethnic cleansing campaign. But since NATO is not really harming 
their ethnic cleansing campaign by bombing their factories, and the 
factories not yet bombed will still be standing there to be 
bombed after the 24 hours pass, and in this 24 hours it is highly 
unlikely that Serbs will be able to substantially re-arm themselves, 
there is simply nothing to loose for NATO to do that. On the other 
hand, it may work, and we won't know the difference if we won't try 
it.

Finger Pointing

It is highly amusing to see an ex-draft dodger saying on national TV 
how reservists are going to be called in. It is pure fun to see a guy 
who built his political career on opposing the U.S. presence in 
Europe, now as a foreign minister of the European NATO member country 
defending the U.S. targets in Yugoslavia. But nothing matches a 
socialist politician, who spent years trying to throw NATO out of his 
country, now heading the alliance and ordering the U.S. generals 
around, bruahahahaha.

So, that's how shit happens. A peaceful column of trucks loaded with 
innocent Albanian refugees slowly making its way accross the 
border just out of the blue gets scorched from the air. Oooops. Those 
are the guys, remember, that NATO's primary objective is to protect. 
Could it be that by mistake some NATO pilot bombed them? Let's 
say trucks are drab-green, like tanks, maybe they looked like a legit 
target, huh? Refugees in the future should choose bright orange 
trucks. Pentagon quickly added that the possibility that the trucks 
were hit by Yugoslav Air Force cannot be ruled out. What? Did I hear 
that right? Wasn't Yugoslav Air Force supposed to be out of 
commission after three weeks of NATO bombing?  Wasn't Yugoslav Air 
Force supposed to consist of some 15 MIG29 fighter jets? Aren't all 
airport runways hit by now? Aren't they supposed to be left without 
fuel by now? How can the Serbs lift any of their possibly remaining 
planes in the air with no runways, with no fuel and with all this 
electronic surveillance planes off the coast and with all the other 
NATO aircraft over Serbia? What was NATO doing for past three weeks 
there and what is NATO doing there right now, if Serbs can still fly 
their air force with impunity and bomb trucks with refugees right in 
front of NATO's nose? For NATO's sake it would be better if they hit 
those trucks by mistake: it'd make them look better to be viewed as 
the baby-killers than as the militarily inept.

1974

In 1974 Yugoslavia (not the ugly one that gets bombed now, but the 
real one that's now called "former") got a Constitution that granted 
to all its constitutive peoples the right to self-determination 
including the right to secession from the union. The "constitutive 
peoples" were roughly matched to the republics which bore their names 
(Slovenes-Slovenia, Croats-Croatia, Bosnian Muslims - Bosnia, 
Serbs-Serbia, Montenegrins-Montenegro, Macedonians-Macedonia). The 
regions in Serbia with high non-Serb population will given broad 
autonomy, but no right to secession from the union. Tito never 
believed that the right to secession would ever been used. The idea 
was to address the desires of the northwest republics for more 
economic independence while still keeping the framework of the union 
in place. The hope was that all republics would eventually find 
economic rationale for keeping it together once the ideology wears 
off. Tito knew that the ideology will wear off with his death. And 
that was what happened. Republics were indeed economically dependent 
on each other - like Slovenia and Croatia used electricity from 
Bosnia, from the plants they financed, and Yugo cars were assembled 
in Serbia (in now destroyed factory in Kragujevac), but they were a 
cooperative effort of all republics. However, at the end of eighties 
there were three events that basically destroyed Yugoslavia:
1) the economic crisis: Yugoslavia hit the bottom with high 
inflation, meager growth and enormous foreign debt - pleas of then 
reasonable federal government fell on deaf IMF's ears however... 
...nortwest increasingly saw the rest as a burden.
2) the army: with no economic interest and with ideology worn off, 
the army was the last remaining pillar of the union - but itself the 
army was a part of the problem, by being too large and too costly to 
maintain for the wrecked economy.
3) the rise of Milosevic: Milosevic was the first in the generation 
of post-titoist politicians to make the fundamental shift in the 
basis of the totalitarian ideology of the ruling party from 
the classhood to the nationhood by openly addressing the masses as 
"the Serbs"
Milosevic, recalcitrant as we see him now, rejected all initiatives 
from Slovenia and Croatia to adapt the federation to work for all, 
and Slovenia first started to seriously think in using its 
constitutional right to secede. Milosevic then made that important 
twist of constitutional idea of the right to self determination of 
the Yugoslav constitutional peoples: it was up until then assumed 
that this right pertains to the republics in their borders, but 
Milosevic made his case that the right pertains to the peoples 
themselves - meaning all Serbs wherever they lived in former 
Yugoslavia would have the right to decide where they wanted to live, 
and of course, they'd expectedly want to live in one big Serbia.
Army was tremendously unhappy with anybody seceding, and it was not 
difficult for Milosevic to foster them as an ally in his program. Of 
course, that resulted in the rise of Croatian nationalism under 
Tudjman, the rise of Bosnian-Muslim nationalism under Izetbegovic, 
which led to wars in Croatia and Bosnia. For all this time Kosovo 
Albanians lived in the repression. And Kosovo was apparently left to 
Milosevic by the international community in exchange for him 
accepting deals in Croatia and Bosnia. The international community 
failed to see the danger of Milosevic's promise of ethnic purity. 
With Serb refugees from Croatia and Bosnia and with Kosovo at his 
disposal, under his ideology it was only too logical for Milosevic to 
procede with ethnic cleansing of Albanians from Kosovo. At this 
point, particularly since Serb's industry was bombed to oblivion, it 
won't be enough to return Albanians to Kosovo and place them under 
NATO protection: Milosevic's regime has to be toppled and genuine 
democracy has to be helped established in Serbia, coupled with a 
thorough economic development plan. Stopping short of removing 
Milosevic would be equivalent of freeing Jews from concentration 
camps but not actually marching into Berlin.

ivo

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From: "Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net>
Date: Wed, 14 Apr 1999 22:33:27 +0000
Subject: (Fwd) FYI - Hearing in Bari Case 9am 4/15

In the times when the U.S. tries to act as the supreme moral 
consciousness of the world it is more than important to remind 
ourselves of the imperfections in that consciousness....

ivo

------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
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From:	Earth First! Media Center [SMTP:efmc@asis.com]
<mailto:[SMTP:efmc@asis.com]> 
Sent:	Monday, April 12, 1999 11:07 PM
To:	Recipient List Suppressed
Subject:	FWD: Hearing in Bari Case 9am 4/15

PLEASE COME AND SHOW YOUR SUPPORT! FILL THE COURTROOM!
The qualified immunity appeal of the Bari / Cherney civil rights lawsuit
against the FBI and the Oakland Police Department willl be heard by 9th
Circuit this Thursday.  Lend your support to our efforts to secure justice.
Thursday, April 15, 1999, 9 AM
9th Circuit Court of Appeals
7th and Mission Streets, Courtroom 1
San Francisco, California

The court will hear oral arguments regarding the Oakland Police's appeal of
an earlier trial court decision that they do not have immunity from being
sued. We've been waiting over a year for this hearing!
Using endless appeals and procedural tactics to delay trial in this case as
long as possible is the defendants' main tactic. The evidence of police
wrongdoing in this case is so strong that it will be a slam dunk if it ever
comes to trial. The defendants' only hope is that we'll run out of energy
and funds and just go away. WE WON'T!
Before she died on March 2, 1997 of breast cancer, Judi Bari put her last
energy into making sure this case will get to trial so as to expose police
crimes against her, to clear Judi's, Darryl's and Earth First!'s names ofthe
false charges made, and to secure the rights of all political activists to
be free from unconstitutional harassment and repression by America's secret
police, the FBI, and their accomplices, the Oakland Police.
Thousands of pages of FBI and police documents, evidence, photographs, and
the sworn testimony of FBI and police agents indicate that Judi Bari and
Darryl Cherney were targeted because of their organizing of Earth First!
Redwood Summer, and that there were police dirty tricks involved.
Indications abound of an FBI COINTELPRO-style, covert operation against the
activists.
PLEASE COME AND SHOW YOUR SUPPORT! FILL THE COURTROOM!
REDWOOD SUMMER JUSTICE PROJECT
P.O. Box 14720, Santa Rosa, CA 95402
Phone (707) 887-0262 or FAX (707) 887-0865
Judi Bari Home Page  http://www.monitor.net/~bari
<http://www.monitor.net/~bari> 

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Thanks!

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From: "Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net>
Date: Wed, 14 Apr 1999 22:33:43 +0000
Subject: Montenegro

There are rumors that a coup against Montenegrin president Milo 
Djukanovic is under way....

ivo

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