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Posted August 24, 2002
Offensive in the Balkans
Regarding Kevin W.'s view of expressing doubt as to what happened in Srebrenica, it should be noted that this estimate of 7,000 came from the Bosnian Muslim government of Alija Izetbegovic, who mortared his own people at the Markale marketplace massacre in 1995, according to Yossef Bodansky, in his book Offensive in the Balkans, (pages 61-62). This trumped up massacre was the excuse Clinton used to bomb the Bosnian Serbs. If a president of a nation can inflict such horror on his own people in order to gain sympathy from the West, why should anyone believe what he says about Srebrenica rather than the accounts of an honorable man, the former Canadian Ambassador to Yugoslavia, James Bissett who reported that when the Serbs entered Srebrenica, most of the Muslim men and boys had already fled.
Nebojsa Malic is correct when he stated: "Of course any death in Srebrenica is a death too many. But no one seems to care about the truth."
Based on the one-sided, anti-Serb reporting, we dismembered a sovereign nation. I invite Kevin W. to visit my article titled, "'Srebrenica' -- Code Word to Silence Critics of US Policy in the Balkans," at: http://www.antiwar.com/orig/jatras3.html....
Impact
Secretary Rumsfeld seems to think critics of our policy will have no impact on the final policy and its implementation. Thus, by denying critics voices will have an impact, he has inadvertently affirmed that critics voices are having a tremendous impact on the formation of policy.
Ironic twist wouldn't you say?
~ Eric E. Johansson, Internet and Electronic Communications Coordinator, Veterans for Peace, Chapter 69, San Francisco, California
Language
Reply to Ilias Polatidis:
...Isnt it ironic that a people that once despised Macedonia and Macedonians, a people who considered Macedonians to be barbarians and non-Hellenes, therefore not allowing them to participate in the Olympic games, isn't it ironic that now these same people seek to glorify Macedonia as "4000 years of Greek Civilization"?
It's only natural that the Macedonian aristocracy adopted the Greek language just as most business men today need to know English to get by.
Are we to consider Italy as part of Greece? I mean after all they both share similar mythologies and customs.
Just because we speak Slavic that doesn't mean we aren't Macedonian, Egyptians speak Arabic which is not the same as ancient Egyptian; I daunt see anyone questioning them.
Public Goods
[Regarding the letters of August 19 from Dan Mahoney and Michael Hardesty:]
...It is, in fact, true that not paying taxes will provoke a violent response. That's because any breach of contract mandates such a response. Even if you reduced all our laws to "don't randomly shoot people on the street just because you can," you'd have to use force when anyone breaches that.
The laws of the United States are the terms of the contract. You don't need to physically sign anything; every first-year law student knows that there is such a thing as an implicit contract.
It's not true that the government functions as the only enforcing agency -- you can work to change the laws, or vote for whoever wants to change them your way.
Nor is it true that the social contract is the only one in which the modifications are "unilateral." First, it's multilateral because you have a say in it, and second, I can think of any number of contracts that are subject to modification without negotiation in advance. Why, just the other day my landlord raised my rent without discussing it with me beforehand.
If you're saying public goods have no value, you're saying that everything you make is the product of only your own labours. In our economy, where the free market is supported by public goods, and in which all the money you use and get for said labours is printed by the government, and in which you drive on public roads to work, this is completely false. Perhaps you are right, and those goods do need to be privatized -- but regardless of that, currently they are being made by the government, currently you are benefiting from them, and currently they need to be paid for, in part by you. If you don't like that, well -- I personally don't like the policies of many a corporation, but they make goods which I need, and so I pay for them, and that's the way it should be. Yes, 'tis true that I can voluntarily contract any plumber I wish, but then again you can voluntarily vote for any politician you wish -- one well-read in Spooner, no doubt.
Scapegoats
[Regarding Justin Raimondo's column, "What's Up With the Saudis?":]
...The guys in Saudi jails have been very good friends of mine for several years whilst I worked and lived in Riyadh. Mitchell, Cottle, Lee and Walker would not have the faintest idea how to make bombs and are clearly scapegoats for drinking in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Mike Sedlak was a Walter Mitty kind of character who had obvious connections to the US embassy crowd by virtue of getting the odd bottle of whiskey for other ex-pats. There may have been more to it but I am strongly inclined to think of him as a victim type of person rather than James Bond reincarnated.
Shortly after Rodway was killed I received a call from an old friend in Riyadh who told me that Sedlak had actively campaigned to get a Saudi sacked from his job for incompetence. This is never done by anyone with sense. He later sold his car to Rodway who unwittingly got into the car after the aggrieved Saudi had planted a small device on the dashboard. He was taken to two hospitals before they eventually had him admitted into a third by which time the loss of blood killed him. Schyven made the cardinal mistake of stopping to help someone. Ex-pats of the old school always held the belief that if you tried to help someone in a car accident and they died and it would cause you to be jailed as the last person in the vicinity who caused the problem. Saudi logic, not mine.
The one characteristic ex-pats recognise in Saudis is an extreme reluctance to take criticism and if a Saudi has committed an offence the police will register it as a Yemeni or Iraqi or anybody but a Saudi national. They twist the logic of Islam to say that a true Muslim could not have done this and it must be mistaken identity. This trait is probably more at the root of all this as Abdullah and and Nayef would never criticise Saudis to a foreigner let alone publicly.
What Happened?
What the hell happened to America? We were a people who always prided ourselves on our sense of right and wrong (albeit sometimes in an overbearing and self righteous manner). Now we have this unbelievable push for a preemptive invasion of Iraq -- why? We have a president who has no respect for international law (or domestic for that matter), Americans citizens being held indefinitely without being charged with a crime or given access to counsel -- and no one seems to care.
What the hell happened to us?
~ Patrick B., U.S. Navy (retired)
Appetizer
Thank you for your continuing to bring to light the deranged machinations of the war party. Speaking of which, obviously there are efforts under way to provoke political crises with several Arab states, including most recently Saudi Arabia, so as to provide justification for possible future aggression in the area.
One would think that, if the US government saw fit to nix the lawsuit brought by Ecuadorian peasants against DynCorp and that against Exxon by those concerned about that corporation's alleged involvement in human rights abuses in Aceh on the grounds that these lawsuits somehow harmed our country's efforts in the 'war on terrorism', the Justice Department would be in court right now acting to derail the 9-11 victims families' trillion dollar suit against prominent Saudis. But the suit proceeds.
Meanwhile, Pentagon staff receive briefings advocating the ouster of the Saudi royal family and the seizure of the Arabian peninsula's oil fields. It is transparent that there are some people in high places (or close to be people in high places) for whom Iraq is just an appetizer. These people are courting disaster. To paraphrase Condoleeza Rice, "history is littered" with mediocre personalities who thought they could conquer the world, only to bring ruin upon themselves and their people. Our idiot president and his handlers appear to have Napoleon-sized egos, as well as having a blindness to risks to rival the Corsican's.
~ Lloyd G.