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Posted August 11, 2001
Ineffective Elected Representatives
[Regarding Nebojsa Malic's column (August 9), "Murdering Macedonia":]
I don't think that Mr. Malic's article does anything "anti-war." Unfortunately, it does the opposite, increases the chances of a nasty war in Macedonia. The article seems to imply that the Western powers are the primary contributors to Macedonia's problems. While I share the frustration that the West has not been able to produce more positive outcomes in the Balkans, I am not blind to the fact that the inhabitants of the Balkans, indeed their ineffective elected representatives, are the primary cause of misery. Adding to the confusion about where their problems lie, adding to the belief that Macedonia's problems are being inflicted on her by an outsider, delays their progress in addressing their shortcomings. They don't have a lot of time.
~ R. Gottschall
Nebojsa Malic replies:
Arguing against the belief that Macedonian problems are internal, that the West means well and that the only way to solve this is without "violence" through "compromise" would take up too much space. My writings best reflect my position on these matters. By no means do I think local politicians are blameless, but their power and influence pale in comparison to that of the Empire, which has repeatedly shown that anything it touches in the peninsula quickly turns into a twisted, rotten opposite of its intended self.
Finally, a "nasty war" has been going on for six months, and its primary victims have been civilians terrorized and/or ethnically cleansed by the UCK. Claiming that Macedonia should not fight this menace but instead sign away its existence is at the very least a strange "antiwar" argument.
A Feel-Good Measure
NATO ... tells us that the KLA was demilitarized according to UN Resolution 1244, which never happened. Former KLA members continued their campaign against Serb civilians in Kosovo killing hundreds since NATO forces arrived. They further invaded the Presevo Valley under a new name that led to a low-level conflict with Serb security forces.
Now they have invaded northern Macedonia and destabilized that nation to the brink of civil war. We hear many excuses from NATO like the terrain is too rugged for patrols yet NLA forces have no problems smuggling arms through to Macedonia. Are we to believe the most powerful military alliance cannot handle rugged terrain? All that spending on defense and we hear this from them!
NATO’s solution to the crisis is to set up umbrellas along the roadside and hope that NLA members hand in their weapons voluntarily. This is nothing but a feel-good measure, a front put up by NATO to either cover their failures or just proclaim that they tried everything they could.
Co-Prosperity Sphere
[Regarding Justin Raimondo's column (August 8), "Hiroshima Mon Amour":]
I
must take exception, on libertarian and historical grounds, to your
comment that a Japanese military victory in World War II would have
been more desirable than the actual outcome. You wrote in part:
"Instead of listening to the latest loutish lyrics of Eminem, American
teenagers would be contemplating the subtle beauty of the Japanese tea
ceremony. If contemporary Japan is any clue, the crime rate would be
cut by 95 percent, and the literacy rate would skyrocket. Certainly
everyone's manners would improve. All in all, life would be far more
civilized, imbued with a gentility that would make the New York Post
an impossibility."
The real victor in that scenario would not be Japanese culture so much
as the Japanese state, whose conduct in the occupied territories was
extremely brutal. If Southerners rightly scoff at the supposed cultural
benefits of Reconstruction, then Koreans, Chinese, Indonesians, etc.
may take a similarly jaundiced view of life in the great Co-Prosperity
Sphere.
I have not read that civilians there became acquainted with the tea
ceremony, but I have read that they were introduced to forced indoctrination,
labor without pay, and the keen edge of the wakizashi. I have also heard
the testimony of relatives who experienced Japanese rule in the East
Indies – from my grandfather who slaved on the Burma Railway, to my
great aunt who endured strictures of Kempei-tai political correctness
(enforced by the death penalty) undreamed of by our tame American leftists.
None of this implies that I accept uncritically the official, U.S. Government-approved
version of the Pacific War. Nor do I underestimate Japan's ability to
produce a uniquely Japanese variant of libertarianism (e.g., Prime Minister
Koizumi's apparent market-nationalist views). It's just that the idea
of 1940s Imperial Japan civilizing anybody at gunpoint strikes me as
extremely odd, and worthy of friendly rebuttal.
~ R. Kalhorn
A Whopping Subsidy
If
we cannot stop Mideast strife in the next 24 hours, we can at least
stop pouring gasoline on the fire. I refer to press reports that the
Senate is considering a bill giving $3.7 billion in aid to
Israel this year. The amount is in addition to a separate defence budget
appropriations bill – I guess the total amount must be in the vicinity
of $5 billion. That's $5,000,000,000 – a whopping subsidy for the Israeli
war machine.
The aid reminds me of the tax Congress recently abolished on phone bills when it was discovered the tax had been originally raised to fund the Spanish American War over 100 years ago. Has anybody informed our Congress times have changed? Most remarkable, while issues usually have weight on both sides and decisions are taken on balance, I simply cannot think of one good reason for sending aid to Israel.
...I wrote [a letter] to Senator Biden [and] I urge others to write similar letters as their conscience will dictate.
~ S.G. Blendheim