The Karr Report on American Politics

Number 9
April 1, 1999

These periodic ramblings are written, produced and directed by Ronald Dale Karr, University of Massachusetts Lowell. Obviously, the opinions expressed here are my own, not those of the University.

MAD BOMBER STRIKES AGAIN

The American reign of terror continues as Yugoslavia joins Iraq, Afghanistan, and Sudan as targets of Clintonian rage. Why Yugoslavia? Why not? Now we can justify more defense spending to replace the weapons expended. And most important of all, those depraved nations who resist the NEW WORLD ORDER of global capitalism are being shown that resistance is futile. We control the vertical. We control the horizontal.

TOUGH LOVE

The nauseating admiration Democratic pols show toward the HUMANITARIAN BOMBING of Yugoslavia is only one more example of how corrupted by power we've become. As in Vietnam and Iraq bombing will kill far more people than the "ethnic cleansing" of Milosevic. Hundreds, if not thousands of Yugoslavians have died already and more will perish each day the bombing continues. But they're the bad guys, so their lives matter not.

THE MEDIA

continues its sycophantic support of American policy. Unsubstatiated accounts of Serbian attrocities fill the airwaves and papers. For more than a century the accusation of enemy atrocities has been used to justify wars. See the film WAG THE DOG for more details on how to do this. Remember the Maine? One easy way to whip up war hysteria is to rely on refugees, who will ALWAYS provide colorful stories on demand. The reality is that in wartime ALL sides commit atrocities. War itself is the ultimate atrocity.

CONSIDER THIS

Is there anything that the monster Milosevic has done to Kosovo (which is part of his own country) that we didn't do to VIETNAM (which was somebody else's)? Burning villages, attacking civilians, executing political leaders (remember MONGOOSE and PHOENIX?), "free fire zones," etc., etc., all part of the way that we've waged war since the 1620s. Recall that as late as the 1930s the bombing of civilians was considered a war crime (Guernica, Nanking).

ONE EXAMPLE

of the media's attempt to paint our foes in the darkest colors one of the most outrageous is the accusation that anti-aircraft defenses are located in civilian neighborhoods so that the inhabitants can be used as human shields that enlightened nations like us would resist bombing. How dastardly of them! Did it ever occur to the media gurus that back in the 1950s Nike anti-aircraft missile batteries were located throughout American suburbia (one was not far from where I grew up). You place the missiles near sites you want to protect. DUH!!

THE AVERAGE AMERICAN

is blissfully ignorant of the world and its ways. The media tells Joe Sixpack that the world is pretty much like a Hollywood film, full of good guys and bad. God has ordained that Americans must fight the bad guys, since the world can't get along without us. To quote the late great Phil Oakes, we're the cops of the world, boys. Milosovic is a Bad Guy, hence anyone fighting him must be a Good Guy. The reality of Yugoslavia, like so much of the world, is that while the Bad Guys, like Sadaam Hussien and Milosevic, indeed are bad, their opponents are often little better. Is Milosevic another Hitler? Hitler was dangerous to the world because he attacked other nations; until we decided otherwise, Kosovo was part of Yugoslavia.

WHY KOSOVO?

The inhabitants of Kosovo may indeed deserve autonomy, but so do lots of other embattled minorities such as the Kurds, the Northern Irish Catholics, Palestinians, Central American and Mexican Indians, etc., etc. Why aren't we bombing Britain, Turkey, Mexico, or Israel? Now we've plunged deeply into a civil war among people about whom we know little.

WHERE IS THE PEACE MOVEMENT?

Amid polls showing that Americans overwhelmingly favor bombing just about anybody, the American peace movement has collapsed. As of this writing there have been virtually no anti-war protests in the U.S. Everyone's too busy making money on the NASDAQ. Who cares? Maybe when the troops are sent and the draft restored we'll see some interest in resisting the current ruling insanity. Yugoslavia is a particularly unpleasant place to die, as thousands of German troops learned during World War II. Getting into Yugoslavia will be easy; getting out may prove much harder.

Send all comments on the Karr Report to Ronald Dale Karr
Ronald_Karr@uml.edu

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