#11, April 7, 1999
There's a story about a man who comes upon another man
standing exhausted and wet by the side of a flooding river. The dry man asks the
wet man if he needs assistance. Yes, says the wet man, then he dives into the
river, and swims to retrieve a struggling child from the current. This happens
several times. Finally, the dry man tells the wet man that, while he cannot
swim, he will rescue the children. "Impossible!" exclaims the wet
man. "No," replies the dry man,
"I will go upstream, and stop them from falling in."
There is no fable more fitting to the multitude of
afflictions and emergencies that plague our times. Yesterday's cuts in social
services is today's abused child is tomorrow's serial killer. Yesterday's
clearcut forest is today's silt-choked stream is tomorrow's empty salmon
fishing boat.
Yet we are routinely presented, by our government and the
corporate media, with the view of the wet man. Consider our "choices"
with Yugoslavia and Iraq. We either bomb Saddam and Slobodan back to the stone
age, or appease them and permit the next holocaust. Yet if we step back and
look upstream, we see missed opportunities. For example, before Saddam
threatened "our" cheap mideast oil, the US officially supported him
as a counterforce to Iran, and American weapons merchants profited from the
growth of his arsenal. Our wet man was presented only with his brutal invasion
of Kuwait.
The lost opportunities in Yugoslavia are even more dramatic.
Since 1989, when Milosevic revoked Kosovo autonomy, the Kosovars have fought
back with strikes, boycotts, and peaceful demonstrations. It was considered one of the most significant
nonviolent campaigns since Gandhi's liberation of India. Before you dismiss
such tactics as ineffective against Slavic strongmen, remember this was how
Lech Walesa's Solidarity freed Poland from the Soviet grip, eventually toppling
the Soviet empire.
But, unlike Poland, these non-violent efforts were ignored
by the West. Not until the formation of the Contra-like Kosovo Liberation Army
did the NATO governments and the media take notice. By waiting for the
emergence of a guerilla group, the West gave Milosevic the excuse to step up
his repression. This, in turn, allowed the Kosovar movement to be pre-empted by
these armed Albanian ultra-nationalists, people whom the Serbs could not trust
to protect the rights of the Serb minority should Kosovo be granted autonomy.
Thus, we helped set the stage for intractable polarization, and escalated
violence.
Why? Incompetence? To give NATO a post-Cold War purpose? To
get another strategic foothold in this oil-rich region through a KLA proxy
government? If it were just humanitarian concerns, why haven't we fought the
Turkish slaughter of Kurds?
Regardless of motives, the high-level bombing has made
matters worse-- not just through "collateral" damage to civilian
targets. The attack drove out the human rights observers, encouraging Serb
reprisals against the only targets within their range-- the unarmed Albanian
Kosovars.
If our support for killing Yugolavs doesn't upset you,
consider the Russians. They owe the Yugoslavs for stopping Hitler's
southeastern advance. They have seen their old enemy NATO expand right to their
borders, and now launch an offensive against their old ally. Russia, in protest
of the bombing, has pulled out of a nuclear forces Y2K cooperation project with
the US, increasing the prospect that a computer glitch will incinerate some American
cities.
What can we do? Call the President (202) 456-1111, tell him
to stop the bombing. Ask him to activate the UN Security Council and
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and 1) involve the Russians and other Europeans in
negotiations, 2) re-negotiate an immediate cease fire in the Kosovo civil war,
3) deploy a massive multinational, unarmed peace force, 4) support a new multilateral negotiation process
involving community as well as government and military leaders, 5) hold ALL
perpetrators accountable for war crimes under international law, and 6)
implement radio and TV broadcasting into the region of objective, international
reporting.
Let's get upstream, before we all fall victim to the flood.