CHAPTER FIVE: THE NEW IMPERIAL MODEL
PREPARING FOR WAR
I'm not a fan of the KLA. The methods and tactics utilized were too thuggish and indiscriminate for my tastes; more to the point, the ideology was too nationalistic and tribal. It should be no surprise that Johnstone keeps the focus on the KLA as much as possible. Even though, by this point, she has so thoroughly demonized the Albanians and their culture it hardly seems necessary to throw any more dirt their way.
Her description of KLA tactics, however, fail to distinguish that organization from myriad other resistance movements; the brutal logic of guerrilla/revolutionary warfare is not pretty stuff, but Johnstone does not explain why the tactics of the KLA were any different from, say, Tito's Partisans. Rather than acknowledging that the KLA adopted time-tested tactics which were common to far-left revolutionary movements, Johnstone plays dumb and portrays their activities as novel, audacious acts of terror.
It is no secret that the KLA paid for a significant portion of their war with drug smuggling and worse. Nor is it a secret that the CIA has a long and inglorious history of colluding with criminals of all stripes in order to undermine governments the US Government doesn't like and support those which it does.
None of which addresses the issue of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, human rights for ethnic Albanians in Serbia, or the poisoning of relations between Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo by nationalist rhetoric and worse coming from Belgrade. But never you mind--the Albanian cause has been smeared a little more, and we've been reminded for the umpteenth time that the USA is, and always has been, an imperialist force of evil at all places and all times.
2 comments:
Diane Johnstone failed to mention Serbian Chetnik terrorism in the Balkans. She also failed to mention that Serbs were responsible for First, and possibly Second World War, which caused millions of deaths. She failed to mention Serbian primitivism, terrorism, and propaganda machine. Ops... she is also part of the same propaganda machine.
I allow all comments onto my blog with the exception of spam. The only reason I have switched to moderating comments is because of the volume of spam I was forced to delete.
Just because I choose to publish a comment does not mean that I agree with it. The above comment does not reflect my views. The idea that Serbs started either World War is ridiculous. And I find the concept of "Serb primitivism" to be offensive. My blog is not about finger-pointing and setting one group against another. I want no part in demonizing an entire ethnic group.
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