(DC: The conflict is fueled by a lack of business activity, caused by left-wing manipulation of Yugoslavian society and economics, which led to the severe lack of jobs in the region. Unemployed, desperate people make great mercenaries, as the Cubans have been well aware of for some time.)Well, I don't think it matters if its leftists or rightists who are to blame, but for now, that teh economy has collapsed, and you are right economic ruin makes people cling to nationalism, and hatred, and blame, and fueld tensions and possibilities of war. However, it also increases tensions between power elites, and it is noticeable that them in power in FRY have used nationalism to considerable economic advantage in some cases.
: Yeah. Force. Ever see a communist (ohh, sorry
EX-communist?) respond to anything else?
Roumania? Poland?
(DC: Must'a been a "co-inkidink"
)
A what?
(DC: AFTER Croatia showed itself able to carve out a piece of Yugoslavia. Now, the idea would have to be to make the break as painless as possible, as in Czechoslovakia. Germany, having an old influence with the Croatians, did what they could.)
Hmm, Germany jumped in, when the rest of the world wanted to wait, and have a slow negotiation, we have to ask if germany had a self-interest here, re-carving that old-mittel europa empire once more?
(DC: I agree. The fat cat Communist bureaucrats didn't like losing their dominant positions, and fought over ownership of the herd. "Class warfare", doncha know.)
Whatever, they were an economic power elite, and wanted to stay in charge.
(DC: Being that the JNA was mostly controlled by the Serbian cronies of Milosevic, this was something of a fait accompli in any case)
Indeed, but the atlanticist pairing (UK & USA0 did their best to help that fairly thorny issue pass...
(DC: Due to "agitators", the policy of the U.S. is to interfere as little as possible, except in the most extreme circumstances. Really, one ought not to complain when the West intervenes, and in the same breath admonish them for doing too little.)
I'm not complaining, merely analysing and trying to find their motivations: the US has not shown any sign of encouraging such groups, as it has done in many other countries, I think its clear that the US prefers to keep the Iron fist in charge (as their prefer berisha in Albania) to maintain regional coherence.
: Whatever. The idea was to stop the fighting, not to "favor" one side or the other. Unlike the old Soviet Union, we try not to use ethnic politics to manipulate other nations. As it was, accepting the lines that the respective sides had reached seemed to be acceptable by most of the parties. The negotiators saw a shot at a quick peace, and took it - to their considerable credit, and with the relieved gratitude of the locals, I might add.
Yes, the locals were sick of war, I am, again, merely pointing out teh dominant agenda, which was to maintain regional coherence, and maintain Serbia as the preferred dominant 'polcie-man' state (in the same manner as Persia & Isreal were used to police the Middle East). However, one side was favoured, the Serbs.
Again, possibilities of a stitch up in Kosova are sneaking out, that the Serbs clear the rich north and west, and *then* accept a protectorate in the south, we'll have to see.
: (
) Might you think that the civilians might have profited a bit from not being raped and killed? Or am I too naοve to see the real reason for stopping a slaughter?
My problem with that suggestion is that the US does not follow that policxy normally, and in turkey, Indonesia, nicaragua, El Salvador, they have actively encouraged slaughter, I have no reason to suppose that their policy agenda has changed in FRY.
: I don't believe this. The Khmer Rouge were communist zealots. They have been embraced by their Vietnamese "brothers". Gee, and all this time I thought we had supported Sihanouk
No, the Evidence is quite Conclusive, the US armed and backed the Khmer Rouge, pretty much anything by John Pilger covers this story, I think its alluded to on one of those luinks. The vietnamese overthrew the Khmer Rouge government. America's 'Anti-Communism' usually managed to shift in the wind of foriegn policy needs.
: South Vietnam: Invaded by North Vietnam, after they had signed an international agreement.
South vietnam- a puppet state set up by the US to justify entering the war.
: Haiti: In the midst of a civil war, we sent troops to quell rampant anarchy, and instill a democratically elected president, by all accounts the rightful leader.
Erm, actually the US had installed the dictator, and had overturned tehr adical democratic forces, the president was returned, but with a more US frinedly government in place. but that is someone elses civil war...
: Columbia: We arrested a drug dealer, who happened to be the leader of a country(?)
No, they are right-wing gorrilla groups and Death squads.
: The Contras (also Afghanistan): We defended the people of a region against the machinations of murderous socialist "activists", masquerading as merely a faction in a civil war. We will always fight against international criminal activity, whether it be the piracy and lawlessness of the Barbary pirates or the more modern version advocated by the Left.
right, so you don't interfere, unless you reckon that the other guys are interefering, the world communist conspriacy strikes again.
(DC: Why did we deal with the Russians and the Chinese, even as they imprisoned their people in the name of the "people's revolution"? Why do we feed the starving North Koreans, even as they repress their people? Ain't realpolitik a bitch?)
So human rights come after RealPolitik, and while China and Russia were nuclear powers, turkey is less powerful than teh US, so we can only conclude thats its economic self interest that forms the real politik in this case.
(DC: Why have the U.S. negotiated with the Palestinians, even with their avowed murderous hostility towards the Israelis, their record of pogroms against them before the formation of Israel, and their active and enthusiastic support of terrorism? Maybe
the pursuit of peace? Ya think?)
because the Israeli-palestinian issue was harming US relations with the Arabs, as the US time and again used the veto to prevent UN condemnation of Israel.
: All our budgets are BIG. We're capitalists, you see, and our system is quite superior. Thank you for noticing.
Britain is capitalist as well, but $28billion on teh CIA says something to me...
: The Vietnamese army of Hun Sen is STILL dropping bombs in Cambodia (as we speak), the Khmer Rouge and Vietnamese are now on the same team, U.S. policy in Indochina should have been and should be a HELL of a lot more aggressive, people are still dying in the killing fields of Cambodia and Laos for the "revolution", and so on, and so forth
God knows what's happening in Vietnam.
The US bombing of Cambodia led to the Khmer Rouge Regime coming to power.
: You, then, agree with me that we ought not to have left Indochina until the communists were fully purged from the region, and the devil take the Chinese communists if they didn't approve? Never too late to finish the job
and we'd find more than a few friends to help, too, if we move soon enough. Whadda ya think?
I think America's policy had less to do with stopping teh Communists, than with preventing nations falling out of its shere of influecne, and particulalry its markets, thats why, more than technically, teh US won in Vietnam.
: You missed it. I did blame the power structure - the paradigm of revolutionary socialism (and its bastard cousin, Nazism), and the intellectual justification for theft and mass murder that it proposes. Sorry I wasn't more clear; I'll try to be more so in the future.
Noticeably side steps the substantive point of the paragraph- why aren't the US pushing to remove the fascist Milosovich?
None.
