| Number 28 | May 7, 1999 |
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This Week: |
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Greetings, Lord knows I try to keep these Notes short and manageable, but there is a lot to say, and people keep asking me to comment on things I wasn’t planning to comment on. So, what the heck. One of these weeks I really will get around, as I’ve promised, to talking about our Governor’s address to the recent CATO Institute gathering here in the Twin Cities, and my little tete-a-tete with the editor of the Star Tribune (Newspaper of the Twin Cities!), but for now the U.S. is at war with a couple of countries (directly and publicly at war, that is, in addition to the numerous indirect and secret wars that are always going on) so that takes precedence for this week. I hope this Kosovo stuff is helpful to those who asked for it. I’m sure I will have more to say if the war drags on, as it likely will. After all, we’ve been at war with Iraq for over 8 years, with over 1 million dead, so we don’t really know the current limits of the U.S. killing machine, if indeed there are any. ‘Til next week, Nygaard |
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Beyond advising people to guard against getting their information from the mass media (a.k.a. “corporate media,” “dependent media,” “mainstream media,” “for-profit media,” etc) I have, for the most part, refrained from commenting on Kosovo. The reason is that I don’t know much about it. However, it is possible to know something about it if you are willing to take a bit of time to read even a few short pieces. I list a few of them below. But first, in response to reader request, I here jot down my personal three-paragraph summary of some main points. 300 Words about the NATO War Are readers familiar with the Monroe Doctrine? That’s the one where President Monroe, in the 1820s, told Europe to forget about any imperial designs it may have had in Latin America, since the U.S. planned to dominate the hemisphere totally by itself. This has been enforced a thousand times over the past 170 years, using military, economic, diplomatic, propaganda, and every other means. It’s still being enforced. Think of this NATO war as a statement of what may come to be called the Clinton Doctrine: The U.S. now plans to dominate the entire world totally by itself, and will tolerate no competition, nor even the hint of a challenge, to its plans. (Iraq is another statement of this doctrine, with many more people dead at the hands of the U.S.) Economically, diplomatically, and morally, the dominance of the U.S. is lately being challenged, but militarily no one is even close to the U.S. Therefore, in any conflict for the foreseeable future the U.S. can unfortunately be expected to lead with military force, and the more extreme the better. It’s actually U.S. policy to appear “irrational and vindictive” when it’s interests are perceived to be threatened, so that any country will think twice about offending the Boss, regardless of the desires or needs of its own people. Although there are many places in the world where we can find extreme humanitarian crises - for example, the constitution of NATO member Turkey essentially mandates “ethnic cleansing”- there are only a few places in the world where one can imagine serious challenges to U.S. hegemony. The Middle East and post-U.S.S.R. Europe seem to be the places that scare our government the most at the moment. There are currently more serious wars involving greater suffering than in pre-NATO-war Yugoslavia going on in Africa and Latin America, but since the U.S. does not perceive that there is any serious threat to U.S. interests on those continents, don’t expect to see many headlines about Colombia, Angola, or Sudan in the next week. In fact, as is usually the case, U.S. allies are committing some of the worst human rights abuses, which gives the lie to the “humanitarian intervention” argument. |
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There is a lot more that could be said about Kosovo, but I’m not your best source. As I have for the past several weeks, I refer you to ZNet at http://www.zmag.org/ZNETTOPnoanimation.html for by far the best collection of articles and information on Kosovo to be found anywhere. RECOMMENDED AUTHORS: Your reading of any articles on the NATO war by people named Stephen Shalom, Noam Chomsky, Edward Said, Michael Chossudovsky, Robert Hayden, or Diana Johnstone (some of whom are listed below) will be richly rewarded. For those who want a SHORTER, MORE SPECIFIC MENU, here are some tips:
For local people, the current (May 5th) issue of the free weekly “The Pulse” has a good short article by Diana Johnstone on p. 6. If readers have other ideas for good information to pass on, please let me know and I’ll include it in a future NN. |
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The Coalition Against the U.S./NATO War in Yugoslavia is hosting another public forum on the war on Saturday, May 15, at 2 pm. I went to the last one, and it was excellent. Good information presented in a clear and informative manner, followed by questions and answers. If oral presentations suit you better than all these written things I’m always recommending, I urge you to go to this one if you want to understand this war better. It will be held at the Carlson School of Management on the West Bank in Minneapolis. Room 1-147. FFI, call WAMM at 612-827-5364 or Mayday Books at 612-333-4719 |
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There will be a national demonstration in Washington D.C., including a march on the Pentagon, held on June 5th. Lots of Minneapolitans will be going, and I plan to be among them. I’ll give further details as the date approaches, but you can call the numbers above in the meantime if you want more info. |
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‘Most every day, the Star Tribune (Newspaper of the Twin Cities!) publishes a photo on the inside front page (P. A2) that illustrates a story that appears deeper in the paper. On Saturday, May 1st, there appeared a photo of a policeman with a dog in front of some high-school-type hallway lockers. The dog is jumping up on one of the lockers. There is a poster visible on the wall that reads “Knowledge is POWER.” The title of the Associated Press photo says “Sniffing out trouble.” The full caption reads:
I did turn to A7, and there was no reference to Cheektowaga, N.Y. in the article about school violence. For those who may not know, “narcotics dogs” are dogs that are trained to detect the presence of drugs (not weapons). Unless drugs are considered to be inherently violent, this photo would seem to illustrate the police engaging in an intrusive search for something that has nothing to do with the perceived threat. |