During the Kosovo war one major obstacle to the effectiveness of the American antiwar movement was the somewhat kooky – there is no other word for it – nature of some of its more visible elements. The biggest collection of kooks, and those with the most energy and the loudest voices, were the ultra-leftwing nutcakes of the Workers World Party: their front group, somewhat dishonestly dubbed the "International Action Center" (IAC), became a fulcrum of antiwar activity. Now, I have no prejudice against ultra-leftists who oppose US intervention overseas – Antiwar.com has long pushed for a "Left-Right" coalition against our globalist foreign policy, and we were especially vocal about this during the Kosovo war: but I will never forget attending a march and rally in San Francisco's Dolores Park that underscored the big problem presented by the Commies' dominant position in the movement in the starkest terms imaginable.

DISABLED LESBIANS OF COLOR AGAINST THE WAR

With a few thousand people gathered in the park, dog-tired from marching halfway across town, the crowd had settled down to hear why they expended all that physical and emotional effort. Speaker after speaker took to the platform, and, naturally – this being an event organized by the IAC – the speakers list was a long litany of Official Victim Group representatives: Disabled Lesbians of Color Against the War, Transgender Activists Against Our Patriarchal Foreign Policy, Gypsies for Peace – you get the idea. Foreign accents predominated: not only Slavic, but also Spanish – and the jargonistic language of American leftism, which might as well be a foreign language as far as any ordinary person is concerned. A curious aspect of these tirades was that they seemed strangely distanced from the ostensible reason for the protest. One "labor activist" did not even deign to mention the war, and the words "Kosovo" did not pass his lips: to listen to him, one would have thought that the only war worth bothering about is the "class war." From his tone of voice – a hectoring flecked with the hint of an impending violence – it sounded to me as if he was going to start his class war right then and there – a prospect that no doubt the inhabitants of the pricey homes surrounding the park (many of whom were in the crowd) would have found disconcerting, to say the least.

A DAY IN THE PARK

But they did not look in the least alarmed. The crowd dozed, lulled to sleep by the droning monotone of victimological bromides and the warm touch of the afternoon sun. I roamed the crowd, handing out leaflets and making notes for that night's column. It was all very festive, if you ignored the speakers – as most did – and people were chatting, with little clots of Commies hawking their unreadable newspapers and an ice cream vendor roaming the crowd and doing a brisk business. People had spread blankets on the lawn, and were catching rays, while others played frisbee, unpacked picnic baskets, munched on their vegetarian burritos, and shed their Birkenstocks. A few earnest souls pretended to listen to what the speakers were saying, straining to hear above the din of the crowd and the occasional burst of static from the huge speakers mounted near the stage.

GIRL WITH A BULLHORN

But they didn't have to strain to hear Gloria La Riva. Ms. La Riva, a well-known San Francisco activist – who is now the vice-presidential candidate of the Workers World Party – is rarely seen without a bullhorn pressed to her lips. Not that she needs one. The shrillness of her voice cut through the soft patter of the crowd like shrapnel: it seemed to be at a pitch slightly above human ken, so that it tingled the ears – and not pleasantly. People looked up from their tofu sandwiches and stopped gamboling in the sun: the din died down, defeated by this new and oddly inhuman sound, as if a jet had passed overhead creating a sonic boom that drowned out all conversation. In Stentorian tones, Ms. La Riva detailed her recent trip to Belgrade, and gave a bloodcurdling account of the devastation wrought by NATO's bombs, dwelling almost lovingly on descriptions of blood and carnage: apparently, the NATO-crats only hit hospitals filled with children and old folks' homes. The Serb people had been demonized in the American media, she correctly observed, and so had the "heroic" government of Slobodan Milosevic – who was, we were told in no uncertain terms, himself a hero. Here her voice got even shriller, honed sharper than a knife's edge, as she described the evil "designs" and "schemes" of the "Western capitalists" against the "socialist gains" of the Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia. According to her, the people of Yugoslavia are happy under Milosevic's yoke: after all, they have "free health care," "state-owned industry operated in the interests of the people, not the Western capitalists," and anything to the contrary is a lie manufactured by the "corporate media" and the "paid lackeys of imperialism."

THE ROBOT LEFT

The clot of IAC activists pressed closest to the stage erupted in a thunderous ovation, but the great bulk of the crowd just sat there is a numbed condition, mesmerized by such a fantastical display of hallucinatory self-delusion. Say what? Milosevic is "heroic" and the Serbian people just looooove him to death? A Serb standing next to me, wearing the old Chetnik hat sported by older veterans of the cause, muttered the Serbian equivalent of "Give me a break" into his beard – but not under his breath. The rad-lib girls and their slacker boyfriends, who were marching with the International Socialist Organization, sat on the lawn looking positively dejected – while Gloria continued to rant and rave, flailing her skinny little arms over her head, her hand balled into a fist and punching the air in some kind of militaristic ritual that looked (to me) like a cross between the straight-arm Nazi "sieg heil" and the arm-bent-at-the-elbow "right on!" salute of the New Left in the 1960s. Here was the perfect parody of the Robot Left, not programmed for any scripts written since the 1930s, a walking talking anachronism that didn't really belong anywhere in America outside a museum – or outside of San Francisco, which is, in more than one sense, a whole city that has become a museum. . . .

VOICE OF THE MOTHERLAND

Thankfully, Gloria's diatribe got zero coverage in the media, and no wonder: who could take it seriously? Slobodan Milosevic could only be considered "heroic" by a museum piece like the Leninist La Riva – as he rounds up the opposition, jails them on trumped-up charges, closes down opposition newspapers and radio stations, and presides over a country where at least one important political figure a week is found murdered or mysteriously "disappeared." Only a sadist or someone who hated all things Serbian and wished to eradicate the nation from the face of the earth could possibly support the dictator Milosevic. Most Serbian nationalists disdain him as not only a Commie, but also as the great betrayer of the Bosnian Serbs, whom Slobo handed over to the tender mercies of the Bosnian Muslims and their NATO overlords. As I watched the reaction to La Riva's rantings, the faces of the Americans registered incomprehension – but the Serbs reacted with shock. They had heard it all before, back in the motherland, where all opposition to the regime of the Serbian Stalin and his wife, Markovic known as the Red Empress, is deemed to be the work of NATO. In an authoritarian dictatorship, whether Communist or fascist, the Leader embodies the Nation: national loyalty and personal loyalty are one and the same. Therefore, all opponents of the Milosevic clan are "traitors" in the pay of America and NATO. They had heard it back in Serbia: but to hear it here was unsettling, to say the least. . . .

A FAMILIAR RUSE

This ruse has been used by governments everywhere at all times to reinforce their rule, tighten their grip on the instruments of public opinion, and crush all dissent. In America, the record of government repression in modern times is long and dishonorable: the mass-round-ups and even lynchings of antiwar activists and German-Americans during World War I; the internment of Japanese, Italian, and German-Americans during World War II and the infamous "sedition" trials; the state-sponsored disruption of the antiwar movement during the Vietnam era, including spying, infiltration, and criminal acts of provocation – and that is just the tip of the iceberg. Serbia is no different. Slobodan Milosevic employs the same methods, somewhat more crudely, and with the same results – at least, up until recently. He has kept his country in a state of almost continuous war ever since the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, and such a policy has served him well. As decrepit state-run industries that are little more than political sinecures churn out products that nobody would want to buy – even if they had the money to buy them – and Serbia falls further behind the rest of Europe, Milosevic poured the resources of the country into a long and losing war to preserve not only the boundaries of the former Yugoslavia, but also the national socialist heritage of former Commie dictator Joseph Broz Tito.

TITO'S NATIONAL SOCIALISM

It was Tito who, with the help of the Allies and particularly Britain, seized power in the region after World War II and established a Communist dictatorship without Russian help. The national part of Tito's socialism led him to break with Stalin and maintain his own independent stance. Yet he did not break with Marxism, but claimed, instead, to be its true proponent, setting up a one-party state and ruthlessly executing and imprisoning his political opponents – especially nationalists and separatists of all stripes, who yearned to break away from Belgrade. With the death of Tito, and then the death of Communism, both the national and socialist components of the Yugoslav state collapsed, leading to the dissolution of the federation and independence for Slovenia, Croatia, and virtually all regions outside of Serbia proper except for the Vojvodina region in the north, Montenegro in the south – and Kosovo. Milosevic, under the general rubric of a revived Serbian nationalism, is an oldtime Commie apparatchik whose Serbian Socialist Party is the direct descendant of the old Yugoslav League of Communists. He sought to become a mini-Tito ruling over a rump Yugoslavia, to recreate in miniature what the old dictator had achieved on a somewhat grander scale.

SLOBO – YOU'RE NO TITO!

But Slobo hasn't lived up to his aspirations. Tito defied both the West and the Russians, playing one off against the other with such stunning facility that he could only excite the admiration of his country's patriots. Milosevic has not fared half so well. He lost Bosnia, and incurred the bitter enmity of the hundreds of thousands of Serb refugees forced to flee to Serbia. In concert with the US, and his buddy Richard Holbrooke, Slobo presided over the NATO-ization of Bosnia and the liquidation of the Republika Srpska. Instead of disdaining the Russians, like Tito, Milosevic was reduced to throwing himself on their mercy, begging them for assistance – and getting only promises and very little action. Now Kosovo is all but independent, a NATO protectorate bristling with American troops and sophisticated military equipment: together with the Kosovars champing at the bit, they are ready to march northward at a moment's notice.

THE RED EMPRESS

Milosevic's claim to the mantle of Serbian nationalism was never all that convincing, and as the biggest loser of Serbian territory and prestige in that nation's history, he has become anathema to Serbian patriots who hate both him and NATO with roughly equal ardor. They also hate his crazed wife, Mirjana Markovic, who apparently model herself after Chiang Ching, Mao's wife – and who, like Madame Mao, is also known as the "Red Empress." Mrs. Milosevic has her own political party, the Communist Left, fancies herself the reincarnation of Rosa Luxemburg and Lenin rolled into one. Serbian patriots hate not only Milosevic but the brutalized society they preside over: They hate their lives, as they stumble amid the ruins of some of the oldest cities in Europe, they hate the humiliation of Serbia, which they see as brought about as much by Milosevic and his self-serving opportunism as by the NATO powers. They want him out – and who can blame them?

FLASHBACK

Well, Jared Israel, for once. His article, "Kostunica and the Yugoslav Election," posted in this edition of Antiwar.com, had a strangely psychedelic effect on me: I had a flashback, and suddenly it seemed as if I was back in Dolores Park, listening to the voice of Gloria La Riva grating like chalk on very dry blackboard, and braying about the glories of socialist Yugoslavia and Slobo the "heroic" loser. In Jared's book, every enemy of the present government, no matter their nationalist and anti-NATO credentials, is an agent of NATO and the omnipresent CIA. He writes:

"The Western press pictures Kostunica as a lone wolf, challenging the establishment. In fact he is the candidate of a coalition that includes most of those who take millions of dollars from the US government. Whatever Kostunica may wish, he is dependent on these people and he can be cast aside in a moment by his 'allies.'"

A CLEVER RUSE?

While making vague allusions to other parties and politicians who may have taken US funding, nowhere does he offer a scintilla of evidence that links Vojislav Kostunica, or his Serbian Democratic Party, to a single dime of US funding. We have run at least one story this website detailing the demand of Kostunica and the Serbian opposition for the US to stay out of the upcoming elections. No doubt this is a clever ruse on Kostunica's part, from my good friend Jared's perspective, but, again, where is the evidence? The best he can do is construct a case made up entirely of implied guilt-by-association, in which he claims that someone else who is a CIA agent endorses Kostunica – a method which is not particularly impressive, especially to those familiar with the unusually fractious world of Serbian politics, with its endlessly splintering and disunited parties, energized by endless feuds, outsized egos, and plenty of slivovitz. To claim that this assembly of perpetually warring tribes and cliques is any kind of monolithic conspiracy has got to be some kind of joke.

THE MONTENEGRO FACTOR

Even more absurdly, Jared interprets Kostunica's meeting with President Djukanovic of Montenegro as some kind of cabal or political alliance, when in reality the opposition delegation pleaded with the Montenegrin chief executive to allow his people to participate in the election process at the federal level. This was not just to add to their vote totals, but to give the election process legitimacy – and thus stopping Montenegro's forced march to secession and a formal declaration of independence from the Yugoslav federation. What Serbian nationalist doesn't agree with that? As it is, the Djukanovic regime is censoring all news of the election from the media, and is hoping for a maximum turnout of 25% – so they can turn around and secede, an action that could spark part two of the Great Balkan War. Montenegro will go if Milosevic tries to pull off the biggest election fraud in modern times, but if Kostunica is ahead in the first round the breakup of Serbia can be prevented.

A SERIOUS MATTER

Jared Israel, a former member of the Progressive Labor Party who carries on the tradition of the crude polemics published in Challenge, the PLP's propaganda sheet, libels Kostunica as an agent of the West, a veritable traitor, with less convincing evidence than that presented by Vyshinsky at the Moscow Trials. He does the same thing with the young and very brave activists of Otpor, whom he similarly convicts without one shred of real evidence – or even the inclination to present any – validating from the safety of the West the lies Milosevic uses to rationalize his reign of terror. In doing so, Israel is setting up these young people for official repression – a contemptible act, if deliberate, and no less awful if done unthinkingly and unintentionally. This is a serious matter, and one that seems to be taken far to lightly by its author.

KOSTUNICA – A SERBIAN PATRIOT

Kostunica is a well-known intellectual and vocal nationalist, and I need only cite his campaign speeches and his long record over the years as a Serbian patriot and a democrat to separate him from the unrecognizable caricature out of Jared Israel's hallucinations. In an extraordinarily eloquent speech, in which he lays out the double danger to Serbian independence as being internal as well as external, Kostunica abhorred the violence done to the nation's spirit by Milosevic's moribund brand of national socialism, and then tore with equal fervor into the NATO-crats:

"There is another sort of violence that befell our misfortunate people – external violence spearheaded by power-wielders in Washington and Brussels. The forms of the external violence are the long-standing sanctions, last year's bombs and support to Albanian terrorists in Kosovo. Whatever the source, violence is always violence, despite occasional attempts at presenting it as humane. It is hard to believe that people are killed, exhausted and starved by sanctions, and that their environment poisoned for their own benefit. First and foremost, we have to trample the domestic violence underfoot. In order to survive as a people, we have to normalize our relations with the world, but we must neither disregard nor forget the foreign violence conceived by the United States and NATO. More importantly, we must never elevate it in our esteem or present it as anything else but violence. Otherwise we will forget who and what we are."

A GOOD DOSE OF THE TRUTH

Ah, the "power wielders in Washington and Brussels" – Kostunica's even good on the EU question! Some "agent of Western imperialism"! The elaborate fantasy built up by Jared Israel – that Kostunica is a respected and serious intellectual and patriot, manipulated by mysterious forces beyond his knowledge or control – reads (and smells) like something cooked up in the cellars of Milosevic's secret police. What is sinister about it is that it depends on the ignorance of Western readers concerning a relatively obscure subject, the internal politics of Serbia. One can only counterpose to Israel's tissue of lies the plain and simple truth: that Vojislav Kostunica is not only an impeccable patriot, and a declared enemy of the NATO-crats, but a thoughtful and even visionary man who has the leadership qualities required to bring his country out of its crisis. As he told a May 27 opposition rally:

"We must see to it that Milosevic's regime goes by means of elections, but without leaving behind a void that will readily be filled by someone from the outside, turning us into a protectorate. There are already two protectorates in regions where our people live. In Republika Srpska and in Kosovo. Serbs are being expelled from the latter. A third protectorate is something we do not need."

MILOSEVIC'S SELLOUT

Far from being a deracinated product of Westernization, one of those Zoran Djindic-types with the blow-dried hair and the American-style pragmatism, Kostunica has always been a principled nationalist who has relentlessly criticized Milosevic from the right. In 1996, when Milosevic invited Bosnian vice-president Ejup Ganic to visit Belgrade as head of a delegation, Kostunica thundered:

"Milosevic by this has amnestied a man who is responsible for the slaughter of the ex-JNA conscripts in Dobrovoljacka Street in Sarajevo in 1992, and once again showed endless servility and full submission towards [the] international community's men-in-power. Milosevic humbly accepts every demand from Holbrooke regardless whether it is harmful for Serbs in Bosnia or for the honor of Serbia and FRY. It is unacceptable that Belgrade invites a highest representative of a regime which these days tolerates, even provokes numerous killings, battering and threatening of entire Serb families who still live on the territory of the Muslim-Croat Federation."

NOBODY'S PAWN

After Milosevic cut off relations with Serbian nationalists in Pale, and left them to contend with the Bosnian central government by themselves, not only Kostunica, but also Djindic as well as the Serbian Radical Party chieftain Vojislav Seselj visited the beleaguered Bosnian outpost of Serbian nationalism and gave support to Radovan Karadizic and General Mladic – now both sought by NATO as alleged "war criminals." If Kostunica, known for his critique of what he regards as the sellout of the Bosnian Serbs, is a pawn of the West, then so is every Serbian nationalist, every patriot on Serbian soil and in the Diaspora.

SLOBO IN TROUBLE

Numerous polls from independent sources and even Milosevic's own internal polls show that Kostunica is well ahead, and there is much speculation that Milosevic's Serbian Socialist Party is prepared to steal the election, if necessary, to prevent an opposition victory on the first ballot. With Vuk Draskovic largely out of the picture, and the Serbian Radical Party polling in the low single digits, the anti-Communist opposition has done what everyone thought was impossible. For months Antiwar.com had been running variations of the "Serb Opposition Fractures" headline, only attached to different stories: now, at last, the opposition has truly united, not around some US shill, but around a genuine independent – a real Third Force in Serbian politics that can renew the nation and has the moral authority and democratic legitimacy to mount a real fight back against the NATO-crats.

STALINIST ECONOMICS

Poor Jared, the unreconstructed Stalinist, quails in horror that the program of the Serbian Democratic Party allows for only a short transition period before introducing the "pure free market." He complains that this would wipe out the Serbian economy, and turn it over to the nameless multinational companies just waiting to gobble it up. He asks:

"How would the auto workers in the bombed Kraujavac factory compete with automated factories in Detroit and Stuttgart after Kostunica's team imposes the G17 program of 'integration into all regional political and economic activity, with an emphasis on free trade'? "

FREE MARKET DEMOCRACY OR BANANA REPUBLIC?

Without endorsing in any way the bombing of that factory, if it is privately-owned and turning out consumer goods instead of vehicles useful to the military, it will be of some real benefit to the Serbian people. The country's heavily subsidized and inherently unprofitable state industries are a political sinecure for Milosevic's loyalists, and a drain on the national treasury and the economy. Don't worry, Jared, nobody will buy those factories – because, right now, they aren't worth anything. In a free market, new companies and ventures started by Serbians will spring up, if Kostunica keeps his promise to introduce the "pure free market," and in no time. And if Westerners choose to invest in these native enterprises, then how is that threatening Serbian national sovereignty? Either goods cross border, or else armies will – that is an axiom well-known to economists, even leftists. Karl Marx was no protectionist. Free trade can only benefit the Serbian people, by bringing them the best products at a price they can afford. If Serbia had a free market economy now, of course, it would be far too rich to make a plausible target, and the threat to its sovereignty would be nil. It is also an insult to the Serbian people for Israel to project that the Serbs will be dragged down to the level of Central America, or even Russia, by the sudden abolition of the socialist economic oligarchy. Belgrade is not Bogota, although the gangsterism of Milosevic and his Yugoslav Left allies is beginning to conjure the atmosphere of a banana republic.

NO TARGET, NO PROBLEM, NO SANCTIONS

A liberated Serbia with Kostunica at its head would become more like its neighbors, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, than Nicaragua or some other Third World country. The vital point is that with Milosevic out office, the continued assault on Serbian sovereignty would be called into question – a new leader, democratically elected, committed to free markets and a free media, would offer no justifiable target The US and especially the Brits and Germans would be under enormous pressure to relent, to end the economic and political sanctions and call off their war on the Serbian people. NATO and Milosevic have a curiously symbiotic relationship: indeed, in his previous role as the mediator between Serbian nationalists in Bosnia and the NATO-crats, Milosevic has depended on them in one way or another for years. Without NATO, old Slobo and his American apologists would have no smears to throw at Kostunica. Old Slobo's clique needs a state of war, or near-war, to maintain their increasingly authoritarian rule.

MILOSEVIC AT THE END OF HIS TETHER

Milosevic is in some real trouble, so much so that he and his idiosyncratic American fan club are even trolling for votes in the US, it seems. Kostunica's stunning lead in the polls has thrown the Left-SPS governing coalition into a panic. The Serbian Radical Party has already defected from the pro-Milosevic forces, and taken to opportunistically attacking the widely-hated Yugoslav Left (JUL) "reds." This is a strategic ploy to take votes away from the SPS on account of tension between the JUL and the SPS. The JUL, with reported backing from Milosevic as well as his wife, has taken far more than its share of seats in the joint SPS-JUL election lists, and there has been open bickering between JUL activists and the SPS leaders. Morale is at an all-time low in Milosevic's camp, and the opposition is in the ascendant. The big question is now: will Slobo give up power peacefully? September 24 is not that far away, and the tension is already building. Whether or not Milosevic is stupid enough to give NATO the perfect pretext for intervention is an open question. . . .

ANOTHER CONSPIRACY THEORY

Meanwhile, let's look at the other side of the spectrum, where a conspiracy theory even more bizarre than Israel's has been incubated by those who seek Kostunica as an agent of Milosevic. As the perfect mirror image of Israel's tall tales of Kostunica as some kind of Manchurian candidate, let's take a look at what the influential International Crisis Group (ICG) has to say about the candidate of the united democratic opposition:

"A Kostunica-backed government is quite possibly the formula that the ruling couple, Slobodan Milosevic and Mirjana Markovic, will rely on to maintain their grip on political power even after he formally leaves the presidency, an event due to take place in 2001."

Wow! According to the scenario painted by the George Soros-funded ICG, Kostunica is just a stalking horse for the wily old Slobo, who will then seek a position as the President of the Serbian sub-republic – and enjoy the protection of the federal Yugoslav government, which will be loath to hand him over to the UN's International War Crimes Tribunal. Like Jared Israel, the minions of George Soros – whose policy papers recommending the seizure of the Trepca mines served as a virtual policy blueprint for UN overseer Bernard Kouchner – revile Kostunica, but at least they hate him for views he actually holds. The ICG characterizes him as an ardent nationalist, unalterably opposed to the NATO-crats' designs on his country:

"Even less flamboyant politicians, such as Vojislav Kostunica, leader of the nationalist Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS), held steadfast to his ultra-nationalist, defiant posturing. For many years, Kostunica cultivated the image of a moderate standing in contrast to the extremist policies cluttering the political landscape. In truth, Kostunica's long-held views about the possibility of co-operating with ultra-nationalists and including them in governing coalitions betrayed his underlying extremism, although his dirth of charisma actually masks the excesses of his ideology, lulling some observers into the belief that he may be a genuine democratic alternative. While his phrases were far less antagonistic than Arkan's and even a shade more subdued than Seselj's, Kostunica made it clear on the eve of the peace breakthrough that his sympathies lay with the regime. According to the DSS, it was Washington that was aiming to destabilise the peace process, and it was 'America that was against peace.' He claimed that the indictment of members of the FRY and Serbia's top leadership was an effort to derail a negotiated settlement to the Kosovo crisis and that 'The Hague tribunal is a political, and not legal instrument.'"

GET THAT MONEY BACK!

Describing the opening shots of Kostunica's presidential campaign, the ICG avers that "he is pressing home his message that Belgrade's ability to assert jurisdiction over Kosovo will be lost "if we allow ourselves to be led by those who maintain that the politics of our government must be pro-American." This is an agent in the pay of the CIA? If Jared Israel is right, then they had better demand a refund.

KOOKS, 1 – WACKOS, 0

Forced to choose between these two rather outlandish conspiracy theories – I know George Soros wants to legalize drugs, but he'd better tell his employees to knock off the strong stuff! – I would choose the ICG's over Jared Israel's in a minute. While offered up with the typical amateur's lack of any solid evidence, the ICG theory is at least internally consistent and makes a certain amount of sense (albeit somewhat twisted). Israel's conspiracy theory, on the other hand, is completely incredible, and is worth mentioning only as a sterling example of what I call the Gloria La Riva Syndrome. . . .

FOR SHAME

As detailed above, the antics of La Riva and her cult-like followers in the IAC, did much to discredit and marginalize antiwar protests during the Kosovo conflict. As yet another crisis builds up to a crescendo in the Balkans, and the NATO-crats start to beat the war drums, the absurd and self-serving accusations of the Milosevic franchise in the US can only make antiwar activists look ridiculous. Not only that, but such broadsides split the antiwar movement and create all kinds of bad feelings among Serbians in the Diaspora. Anyone who is contributing to this slanderous campaign is objectively aiding the War Party – and ought to be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

NO CONDESCENDING SAVIORS

I must state for the record that when Jared's article was first brought to my attention, I could not agree to post it without a rebuttal – and this is it. Hopefully this is the last we will have to hear from this or any quarter on a subject that is properly of concern only to citizens of Serbia and the former Yugoslavia. The antiwar movement does not need to take a position on the merits of the various Serbian candidates and parties except insofar as they impact on the likelihood of foreign (i.e. NATO) intervention. The last thing the Serbian people need is for Americans to act like condescending saviors: they can and will determine their own destiny, without any lectures from Jared Israel, the ICG, or anybody else.

THE MAIN ENEMY IS AT HOME

If Jared is interested in elections, then he might try focusing on the US elections – which are his proper concern. Perhaps he'll focus long enough to examine the positions of the various candidates for the most powerful office in the Western world, and announce that he is casting his vote for the only candidate to make opposition to foreign intervention the linchpin of his campaign, with special emphasis on the absolute necessity of pulling all of our troops out of the Balkans: I am referring, of course, to none other than Patrick J. Buchanan. . . . Now that should take his mind off matters that don't really concern him, and focus it right here at home. Come on, Jared, let's see a little of this "Left-Right" coalition we hear so much about on your website, Emperors-clothes.com. Ever since Lenora Fulani packed up her tent and left, there's been a job opening for head honcho of "Commies for Buchanan." How about it?