Dialog: untangling intervention logic

>|<><><><><> Original message from Ken McCarthy  <><><><><>
>|We can get caught up in the fireworks of the moment
>|or we can ask "who is behind the scenes lighting the fuse?"
>|The coincidence of every region that attempts a
>|degree of economic independence from the
>|"free" market "spontaneously" self-combusting
>|- one after another - leads me to reject
>|the premise of the US/NATO invasion* and ask
>|pointed and skeptical questions.
>|
>|* It's illegal for US troops to engage in
>|combat without a formal declaration of
>|law. It would be nice to see that law
>|enforced. But that too is not even a
>|subject of discussion any more.
>
>You're sounding like a convservative (In the best meaning of the word).

I think one of the most successful applications of social
engineering has been to split people along right/left lines
when their interests and sensibilities are in reality
nearly identical.

Who approves of tyrany and violations of the law? Who
doesn't bristle at seeing innocent people being abused?
Who wants his tax dollars wasted or used to inflict
suffering in other parts of the world, or at home? 

I'm sure we agree on many, many  fundamental things,
even if we have different views on the details. I 
guess I can best some up my beliefs this way: I believe
in the basic decency of the average person and the thorough
indecency of the industrial system that's taken control
of this country's government. 

>I haven't researched it but I'm to understand that the NATO charter
>does not permit NATO to engage in offensive operations, only defensive
>ones.  

There was quite a bit of activity on Albright's part 
last year negotiating the "modification" of these rules - 
well in advance, by the way, of the atrocities that supposedly
triggered the invasion.

>It appears that those currently in power have no regard for
>the constitution, the rule of law, or the in this case the NATO charter.
>It is quite sad as it marks our decline from civilization into
>barbarianism.  Even sadder still is the lack of visible vocal opposition
>to our actions in Kosovo. 

And I've received a good dose of hate mail for even *suggesting*
that our motives are less than pure, from my Critical Mass list no
less! 

>Allthough I almost completely disagree with
>your logic and question the veracity of many of your factual assertions
>I find it interesting that we come to largely the same conclusions.
>I greatly apperciate your questioning and the legitamate questions
>that you raise.
>
>|...
>|This action and others like it can be explained by one motivation:
>|The "western democracies" are clearing the ground
>|to make sure that its client states remain sources of cheap
>|raw materials and markets for expensive finished goods.
>
>I don't know the thinking of those in power so I can't test your
>thesis, however, I would not be suprised to find that it is strongly
>held by some, and that they feel that they are protecting the US
>by destroying factories in the developing world that they do not 
>control.  I completely reject such notions.  

I think that any decent person would. 

I do have a little first hand experience with the 
people who populate the cutthroat world of "high" finance.
When you consider the harm Wall Street
intentionally inflicts on US citizens (who do you think
sold the S & Ls all those garbage bonds in the 1980s,
knowing full well they were crap?), imagine how much
more ruthless the game is when the populations of other
countries are concerned. There is not even the faintest
bit of moral restraint - what most normal people feel
as a matter of course - in these circles. Not a shred.
 
>We all lose when
>a factory or other institution is destroyed.  The efforts of
>many are lost by such acts to all our detriment.  I find it interesting
>that the war planners in WWII took pains to avoid historic
>and religious structures in our bombings of Europe.  

And, supposedly, factories that were producing profits
for Chase Manhattan (Standard Oil)-funded ventures were also
spared.  The method for the transfer of these profits, 
through "neutral" Switzerland, is only just *finally* being revealed.
There was quite a bit of trading with the enemy going
on before and even during the war. Some people were caught,
tried, and convicted for this including ex-president George 
Bush's father. 

One of the only US journalists who took an interest
in these stories was George Seldes. After the war,
the issue went away fast and a heck of a lot of ex-Nazis
found jobs with the US government, US industry (like
Ford), and German reconstruction. Seldes was rewarded
for these and similar journalistic efforts with, among other
things, a dictate from the NYT publisher banning even the mention
of his name from the pages of that paper.
http://www.brasscheck.com/seldes

I think careful study of the pre- and post-war support
of German and Italian fascists by "big business" reveals
much about the true allegience of these entities. It's certainly
not to democracy either here or abroad. Crushing the economic
and political aspirations of a small region of the world
in order to guarantee a return on investment is certainly
well within their capabilities and moral comfort zone.
http://www.brasscheck.com/heartfield/rise.html

>Not that we didn't
>destroy a few in any case.  In Yugoslavia we seem to be specifically
>targeting such (cultural and religious) structures.

It makes it easier to put up McDonalds in their place.
Not that I believe this is the conscious plan, but clearly,
if the cultural fabric is shredded sufficiently, it 
does make it that much easier for US commerce to
move in during the "reconstruction" period. 

About big business' control of the US government.
I've yet to find a single federal agency that has not
been totally co-opted by the corporations it was set
up to regulate. And when there is draconian enforcement
of federal regulations, it always falls on an
individual or a small company, never one
of the big boys. 

A local example here in upstate NY: GE,
in direct violation of court orders, permitted
hundreds of gallons of PCPs to contaminate the
Hudson River and has yet to be made to fix the problem.
Yet if a family farm were to bulldoze a quarter
acre wetlands or have a leaky diesel tank, the
EPA or whoever regulates these things would
have a SWAT team on their front porch (an
admitted exageration, but you know what I
mean)

As for big business being in charge of
US foreign policy, which includes the
use of the military, this has been documented
pretty well in many cases. Interestingly,
years after the fact, mainstream papers 
which normally operate as conduits for "free"
market propaganda like the Times and the Washington
Post have little trouble acknowledging
these realities. 

The best documented examples I think 
where big business worked consciously
and hand in hand with the US government
were the coups in Chile (educated population, 
socialist tendencies, major mineral resources)
and Guatemala (agrarian reform in a country owned
by United Fruit.)

In both cases, a particular company or
group of companies oxes were being
gored and they simply used their influence
to engage the CIA to organize a coup.
In both cases, the president at the time (Eisenhower
in Guat., Nixon in Chile) was easily persudaed to 
sign on because they were "sold" on the idea that 
these countries were in danger of going communist.

Edward Bernays, the PR demon who convinced
"modern" women that smoking cigarettes
was a sign of liberation, helped broker the
Guatemala deal using his long standing government
connections. He was a graduate of the
Creel Committe which sold the American public
on our "need" to be involved in World War I
and United Fruit was one of his many post war
clients. (Goebbels read Bernay's texts on
propaganda, written explicitly to attract
big business cliens, and treasured them.)

Bernays conceived the communist scare story
on the one hand and on the other hand
arranged for junkets of American press
people to visit Guatemala and enjoy the
lavish hospitality of the United Fruit
people. Meanwhile, the CIA coordinated
a terror campaign on the ground. 

With the US press blinded to the realities
of the situation and the local military convinced
they would be slaughtered if it didn't
conform to US wishes, the democratically elected
president of Guatemala was sent packing
and our man was put in to preserve
the status quo. The status quo being: independent
subsistence farmers being removed from productive
land at gunpoint and hired to work for poverty wages
on foreign owned export plantations.

This is the same thing the British Empire did to the Irish
100+ years earlier with similar results: the destruction
of independent, self-supporting communities; a steep
decline in nutrition: man-made ecological disaster (potato famine
in Ireland from the failure of a single crop, catatstrophic
landslides from a modest sized storm in Central America.) 

Nowhere is the military-government-banking coordination 
more clear cut than in export agribusiness. It's a
little harder to dope out in places like the Balkans and Iraq

(Few people know that pre-war Iraq was building its own fertilizer
and pharmaceutical industries thereby denying US petrochemical firms
the Iraqi market and challenging their markets in the Third
World. Bush and Quayle family members, and their friends, were
major shareholders of companies that were effected. A
conincidence, I'm sure. As was the fact that the Bush State
Deparment all but gave Hussein a personal invitation to invade Kuwait
by explicitly stating that the Iraq-Kuwait border dispute - 
the Kuwaitis were stealing Iraqi oil with diagonal
drilling technology - was a regional matter of no concern to
the US. Since we put him in power, fed him, armed him and told
him we didn't care about the dispute, delusional Saddam Hussein
probably thought the invasion was no big deal. Thus started
the biggest US military "adventure" since the Vietnam War.
1,000,000+ Iraqi CIVILIANS dead from sanctions and counting.)
 
Note the Sudanese pharmaceutical plant that was
leveled last year - also in violation of US law - 
without some much as an apology. It was the *only* 
indigenously owned plant of its type in the entire 
region. Has anyone explained that one yet? I think
someone in intelligence with ties to the 
pharmaceutical industry figured they could slip
that one in along with the Afgani raid and no one would
notice or care. The sad fact: he was right.)

Some commercial interest(s) - it could simply
be the entities behind the IMF - have decided
that the Balkans must not thrive without
conforming to the "natural" order of things. 
Remember today's conditions are nearly 20
years in the making. The bombing is only
the most recent in a series of stages of this assault. 

All this is theory, of course, which I agree I can't prove
(today at least.)  But can anyone else come up with a better
reason why we are - in direct violation of the rule of law and
common sense -  using our military there? It clearly has nothing
to do with compassion and the mere fact that Clinton & Co. are 
sociopaths is not an adequate explanation.