Rebels for
NATO
Former anti-war activists are supporting a liberal imperialist adventure, says Tariq Ali
Many despairing liberals and kindhearted social democrats, understandably upset by the images of fleeing Kosovar refugees on television, have become keen warmongers. And so have many former anti-war activists. In a simplistic political culture dominated by life-politics, the shedding of tears for one set of victims is coupled with dropping bombs on their oppressors, and if the process means creating new victims, that's fine as long as we don't have to watch on our screens.
The Balkan conflict has divided left and right. Tony Benn is opposed to the bombing, Ken
Livingstone and Vanessa ago—poses two basic pla questions: why? and wa what next? Ko
The answer to the the first seems obvious. The wa American President, his English factotum and bei various European politi- det cians, not to mention the US overwhelming majority to of the liberal media, provide us with the We reason every day. Milo- ne sevic is Hitler. In order to lea crush such a leader it is Ge necessary to wage war. de
That Milosevic is a brutal leader has authorities is exactly the same as that ba never been in doubt. But is he alone? employed by the Serb leadership. In ma Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu is an torturing, maiming, killing and denying to equally brutish politician, who defies UN autonomy to the Kurds they are simply fur resolutions and regularly bombs targets defending the unity of the Turkish state in Lebanon. How many TV viewers are aware of
And what of Milosevic's counterpart the fact that this is still taking place or Sei in Croatia, Franjo Tudjman? He has that Turkey is an important member of for authorised the ethnic cleansing of Serbs NATO? The blatant double standard and and, on occasion, Bosnians. He presides compels any critical observer to look for alli over a regime which has rehabilitated the deeper reasons to this conflict. res wartime fascists who collaborated with Are Milosevic and his policies the im the Nazi occupiers during the Second main reason rather than a pretext for ma World War. But Netanyahu and Tudjman NATO's war? During his recent visit to ho are on "our side" and that's all that Britain, Mikhail Gorbachev repeatedly is counts. pointed out that agreement could have fai
"Our side" has practised atrocities on been reached if the West had been a bit Se a large scale in the second half of the more patient, as they had been in N NA century. In the name of freedom and Ireland. He implied that the United States democracy the Anglo-Saxon powers have wanted a war. Is this pure fantasy? Sta backed dictators much worse than Milo- The NATO assault on Serbia marks a SUC sevic (who, we should remember, is an watershed in European politics. It reflects the elected politician) and helped them to a decision by the United States to agr power on every continent. sabotage all notions of a norm-based aft
The Indonesian dictator, Suharto, was system of collective security in Europe. cuS being armed by Britain and America This is something that the Russians the right till the day he was toppled by a have been demanding since Gorbachev popular uprising which received no sup- came to power and it is a demand echoed reg port from either Washington or London. by a number of EU states, including NA Indonesia, admittedly, is a far-away Helmut Kohl's Germany, ever since the hai country, but what about Turkey? It can end of the Cold War in 1989. The single, cas certainly be seen by any New Labour MP central reason why the NATO operation CO1 sunbathing on a Greek holiday island. took place is Russian weakness. pro
What successive governments in With the exception of the British, all "e Ankara have inflicted on their Kurdish European governments have hitherto the citizens is as bad as, if not worse than, refused to sanction any act of unilateral the treatment meted out to the Kosovars. aggression, whatever the provocation, ag The argument used by the Turkish unless it had prior UN sanction. ac
This was Germany's SOl policy throughout the the Nineties. At the beginREVOLUTION YOUTH ning of the NATO offen- se
THATCHEROU
Redgrave support the NATO offensive.
A few months hence some of the new militarists might have cause to regret
The their impatience.
American decision to violate the sovereignty of a European state by ordering
NATO air strikes against
Serbia—the first time a violation of this sort has hap-
Brezhnev pened since launched the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia more than three decades
14 International Viewpoint #311 May 1999
Bo sive, Volker Ruhe, the lie former German defence wh
BRITAIN OUT minister, insisted that soldiers in
German
SOUTH ATLAN
Macedonia had been sent as "peacekeepers"
SOCIALIST CHALLEN and "not to make war"
and therefore should be immediately withdrawn.
It has also now emerged that a major reason for the dramatic resignation of Oskar
Lafontaine was his total opposition to the NATO