February 24, 2008
Paul Craig Roberts
Will American Empire End Before It Ends the World?
The hypocrisy of US government officials is boundless. On February 18, the
US government inflamed Serbians by recognizing Muslim separatists in Kosovo,
a historic province of Serbia, as an independent country. Two hundred
thousand Serbs marched in protest and the US embassy in Belgrade was
damaged. Is this surprising? No, not unless you are an official in the
American Empire. The notorious Empire Neocon Counsel, Azlmay Khalilzad,
Bush's
representative to the UN, declared: "I'm outraged by the mob attack."
What's an embassy building compared to a province of Serbia, a province that
stirs nationalist sentiments associated with the Serbs' long military
struggles with the Turks? Had it not been for the Serbs, Europeans would
probably be Turks.
To neocon Khalilzad a province of Serbia is nothing. It is merely real
estate to be given away by US recognition bestowed on a break-away movement
led by what some consider to be a gang of Muslim drug runners.
Secretary of State Condi Rice also found the Serbian response to the US
giving away part of their country to be "intolerable. "
Former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke also sees no reason
for the Serbs to be upset that America gave away part of their country. He
explained away the Serbian protests by declaring: "The Russians are behind
this."
We can understand why US diplomacy is a failure when we see our diplomats
explaining that, had it not been for the Russians stirring them up, Serbians
wouldn't have noticed the loss of a historic part of their country.
Perhaps Kosovo should have its independence. However, the US government
could not have handled the issue in a more provocative way.
Washington has been interfering in Serbian internal affairs since the
Clinton administration. Told that Americans had to prevent genocide, few
paid enough attention to Washington's facilitation of the breakup of the
Yugoslav state during the 1990s and to the Clinton administration' s bombing
and murder of Serbian civilians in order to support Muslim separatists in
Kosovo in 1999. Clinton used NATO as cover, but the bombing campaign was not
backed by the UN Security Council. Bombs fell on Serbia for 78 days, taking
out public infrastructure, bridges, factories, power stations, petrochemical
plants, telecommunications facilities, markets, refugees, the Chinese
Embassy and a passenger train. "Sorry honey, tell the kids I won't be home
tonight. President Clinton decided to bomb my train." Cluster bombs and
depleted uranium were used. Clearly, the US government and its NATO puppets
were guilty of war crimes under the Nuremberg standard.
Americans were told by an obedient media that the bombings were necessary in
order to prevent Yugoslav leader, Slobodan Milosevic, from committing war
crimes against the separatists who were stealing part of his country. After
Clinton's bombings intimidated the Serbian political establishment,
Milosevic was turned out of office and handed over to the Americans for a
payment of several hundred million dollars and delivered to the Hague for
trial as a war criminal.
Milosevic represented himself at his trial and was more than a match for the
trumped up charges. Unfortunately, he died in prison. Many believe he was
helped on his way by an embarrassed American Empire unable to convict him.
What is the US government's secret agenda in the Balkans? Why is the US
government on the side of Muslims intent on severing Kosovo from Serbia?
What is being served by creating a new Muslim state closer to Europe?
Whose interests are being served by Washington? Clearly, not our own. Or
Europe's.
And, please, none of that BS about "building freedom and democracy." As one
of England's most famous conservatives, Peregrine Worsthorne, wrote on
February 20, America's reputation as "the West's conscience is fatally
weakened."
Supposedly our time is the era of globalism and one worldism. Ancient
European nationalities are dissolving into the European Union, a new super
state. US corporations now have transnational interests devoid of any
national loyalties. Yet, the US is hard at work dissolving a small Balkan
state into even smaller constituent parts. Why is this happening? Why did
Bush order US puppets in Britain, France and Germany to instantly recognize
the historic Serbian province as a new Muslim state?
Is the new state of Kosovo, as rumors would have it, Richard Perle's payoff
to the Turks, or is the explanation that Serbia, like Palestine, Iraq, and
Iran, lacking any international media reach, was easy for Empire Neocons to
demonize in order to establish the precedent that Washington decides what
territory belongs to who and who rules it. Clinton's bombing of Serbia was a
precedent for Bush's bombing of Afghanistan and Iraq and now Africa and
tomorrow Iran and Syria.
The day the Empire Crazies bomb Russia or China, we are all fried.
Be a macho super patriot, believe your government, help to fry the world.
It's
the American way.
Paul Craig Roberts [ email him ] was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan's first term. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal . He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He was awarded the Legion of Honor by French President Francois Mitterrand. He is the author of Supply-Side Revolution : An Insider's Account of Policymaking in Washington ; Alienation and the Soviet Economy and Meltdown: Inside the Soviet Economy , and is the co-author with Lawrence M. Stratton of The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice .
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