Ethnic Divisions, Unified Empires -10
An extremely significant feature of the humanitarian intervention policy is its
emphasis on collective in contrast to individual rights.
"In the aftermath of the breakup of the Soviet empire," runs the summary
of Self-Determination in the New World Order, "new nations are emerging rapidly, and
more and more ethnic groups are pushing for independence or autonomy." So the
question is "how the United States should respond". The authors "propose
criteria for decision makers who are weighing whether to support groups seeking
self-determination, to offer political recognition, or to intervene with force."
This approach has practically nothing to do with democracy,
and everything to do with empire construction. Although the words "democracy"
and "democratic" are still used, they tend increasingly to be without meaning
other than to designate favoured client leaders or groups in countries of interest to the
United States. Certainly, Hashim Thaqi, the UÇK leader
who counts Madeleine Albright's spokesman James Rubin (husband of
CNN's Christiane Amanpour) among his fans, is scarcely more "democratic"
than Milan Milutinovic, elected President of Serbia, indicted with Milosevic by Albright's
"International War Crimes Tribunal". In fact, the
selection of particular groups, ethnic or social, as clients, is the traditional way in
which a conquering empire can reshape social structures and replace former elites with its
own.
The imperial project is becoming increasingly open. Protectorates are being
established in Bosnia and Kosovo, President Clinton is vigorously calling for the illegal
overthrow of the legally elected Yugoslav president.
Totally disregarding the feelings and wishes of the real, live people who live
there, Robert Kaplan announced that "there are two choices in
the Balkans -- imperialism or anarchy. To stop the violence, we essentially have to
act in the way the great powers in the region have always acted: as pacifying
conquerors." Like the Romans and the Austrian Habsburgs, "motivated by
territorial aggrandizement for their own economic enrichment, strategic positions and
glory."
Merely to suggest that the United States might "intervene with force" on
behalf of an ethnic group seeking self-determination is to cause trouble. There are
potentially hundreds of such groups not only in the former Soviet Republics but throughout
Africa and Asia. The prospect of U.S. military intervention will, on
the one hand, encourage potential secessionist leaders to push their claims to the point
of "humanitarian crisis", in order to bring in the Superpower on their side.
By the same token, it will encourage existing states to suppress such movements brutally
and decisively in order to prevent precisely that intervention. A vicious cycle will be
created, enabling the single Superpower to fish selectively in troubled waters.
The concept of "ethnic group" rests on the notion of
"identity". If individual identity is problematic, group identity is even more
so. That is, just as individuals may have multiple or changing "identities",
groups may have changing compositions as people come and go from one "identity"
group to another. Especially in the modern mobile world, ethnic identity is therefore a
highly questionable basis for claim to political recognition in the form of an independent
State. The forceful affirmation of "ethnic identity" tends to strengthen
traditional patriarchal structures in places such as Kosovo, at the expense of individual
liberation. Stress on ethnic identity enforces stereotypes, mafioso structures and
leadership by "godfathers".
Foreign policy based on ethnic identity has notorious antecedents: it was
precisely the policy employed by Adolf Hitler to justify his conquest of the same Eastern
European territories that Brzezinski now watches so attentively. Both the takeover of
Czechoslovakia and the invasion of Poland were officially justified by the need to protect
allegedly oppressed German minorities from the cruel Czechs and Poles. The British
government's understanding for Herr Hitler's concern about Germans in Czechoslovakia is
the real "Munich". Before invading Poland, Hitler had the SS manufacture an
"incident" in which wicked Poles stormed an innocent German-language radio
station in order to desecrate it with their barbarous Slav language. The dead body left on
the scene to authenticate the incident was in fact a prison convict in costume.
In Yugoslavia, Hitler "liberated" not only Germans but also and
especially Croats and (in conjunction with fascist Italy) Albanians, long selected as the
proper Randvölker to receive German protection, the better to crush
the main historic adversary, the Serbs, the people who more
than any other had fought for independence from Empires. (The
Serbs themselves as they became "Yugoslavs" were less and less unified around
Serbian identity, even if they have continued to pay for it.)
Making policy by distinguishing between "friend"
and "enemy" peoples is pure Hitlerism, and this is what the Anglo-American NATO
leaders are now doing, while ironically pretending to reject "Munich".
[ Clinton Doctrine ] [ Importance of War Crimes ] [ Humanitarian Realpolitik ] [ Cultural Divides ] [ Scenarios Reach the TV Screen ] [ Abramowitz-Albright Policy For Yugoslavia ] [ How to sabotage the OSCE ] [ How to obtain "Justice" ] [ Unified Empires ] [ History as Melodrama ]
