"Fools' Crusade" Chapter Five [13]

CHAPTER FIVE: THE NEW IMPERIAL MODEL

THE RAMBOUILLET FARCE [continued]

The premise of Johnstone's argument is unspoken and apparantly unquestioned--Kosovo was, by all rights, a part of Serbia regardless of demographics, political realities, or even history (unless history is focused solely on early-medieval Serbia). Her objections (which, as always, mirror those of hard-line Serbian nationalists) to the terms of the Rambouillet agreement boil down to this--Kosovo would be free to mostly manage its own affairs even while nominally remaining a part of Serbia, which would have allowed Kosovo to have a vote in Republic (Serbia) and Federation (the "rump Yugoslavia" still existed then) affairs. That this situation was a reaction to the situation on the ground, and recent events, is something she cannot acknowledge, so the reader is left chewing over her resentment at this unfair state without any elaboration on how the international community justified the situation, even to themselves. But then, you don't have to explain all that when you're convinced it's all part of a vast anti-Serb conspiracy.

Her assertion that Serbia would have signed the agreement were it not for the stipulations giving NATO military forces free rein across the republic also hopes to tap into the same vein of credulous outrage.

All this twisting to fit the facts to the master narrative really pays off for Johnstone now--she can easily find quotes to support her assertion that Rambouillet was all about getting NATO into Kosovo because--for very different reasons than she claims--it was. The West had no faith in Milosevic anymore, and if Bosnia had taught the Clinton Administration anything it was that the UN was not the right tool for dealing with him.

You might think that Johnstone would be satisfied with this--for a brief moment, her fantastic storyline has dovetailed with reality; naturally she takes it further. Not merely content to score a point by dryly noting that KLA agreement to the Rambouillet agreement was a necessary precondition for NATO intervention if the highly probable Serbian rejection came about, Johnstone must pretend that this war was the desired outcome. All evidence to the contrary--the US delayed involvement in Bosnia for over three years, even as public outcry grew--means nothing. In her mind, this isn't merely a telling example of the sometimes ugly reality of international diplomacy, but rather is an important clue in unearthing a conspriacy.

And now she takes it even further; at the end of this section, we enter the realm of societal psycho-babble as she proclaims that NATO unleashed "an unprecedented wave of bitter hatred." Stay tuned...