Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 15:20:23 -0800
From: Rich Gibson
Subject: Re: Interesting Kosovo Analysis

FWIIW,


This continuing battle in Kosovo/Albania/Yugoslavia/Serbia/Croatia demonstrates the heated up nature of the ongoing war of the rich on the poor and is good evidence of the relentless nature of inter-imperialist rivalry and the willingness of masses of people to feed the bottomless pit of bodies sacrificed for witless nationalism and religious insanity. This area has been part of the great game for two centuries and it plays out now as the sinking US and Russian empires spar with one another, using elements that they created decades ago.

Notably, Frank G. Wisner was used by PBS on February 18 2008 to explain the Kosovo crisis . Wisner is the son of Frank Wisner of the OSS/CIA, leader of Operation Paperclip, among others, which brought wanted Nazi war criminals to the US to serve as anti-Soviet agents. Wisner had recruited Nazi spy chief Reinhold Gehlen to work for the US against Russia--in 1943. Wisner was also involved in the US effort to overthrow the government of Albania in the early 50's. That operation, which involved elements of the Albanian bourgeoisie Nazi collaborator Bali Kombitar and monarchists behind the even more right wing King Zog,  failed when it was blown by Kim Philby. However BK members who were not caught and killed by the Albanian CP were brought to the US and got ongoing support from US intelligence, support that continues today.

The US (often the dog wagged by the British tail)  has been active in the region ever since, under Operation Gladio among others. The KLA is, in part, a US creation, a criminal drug gang, and an armed group of nationalist terrorists. This does not make the Serbs angels and they have similar ties to the Russians, and are manipulated in similar ways. But that Frank G Wisner was used by PBS to serve as a purported neutral observer to explain Albania events is simply appalling.

What can people learn from this? Well, those who would agree with me that we are entering a period when it is likely that fascism will emerge with a mass popular base and stay in power in a variety of ways for some time to come, probably won't be willing to write down what needs to be examined and done, discretion trumping valor. But surely we can learn that the many forms of socialism which was in many cases little more than capitalism with a party claiming future benevolence at its head, did not teach many people much about Marx, about class consciousness, about the central nature of exploitation and its relationship to imperialism and its incessant wars. Class consciousness, I think, is the measure of any movement, and it seems to me that the left, whatever there is of it, needs to wonder not only about what people need to know, but how people need to come to know it.

Up the rebels and best to all

r



At 04:33 PM 2/20/2008, you wrote:
Carrol,

Your formulation here misses two critical aspects of the politics that
the left takes on these issues:

1.  They are a public face of what we are for and against.  At this
stage, if we are to re-build a viable and useful-to-humanity left, we
have to be putting forward ideas that point towards a socialism that
people will want to live with and create.  Just being
anti-US-depredations ignores this entirely.

2.  The anti-imperialist movement and its beliefs and stands are also
critically important in shaping the soul and politics of the US left.
We saw that in the '60s, when the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" logic
mixed with the politics of simly opposing US military activity to
produce a "left" that fragmented into supports of each and every "enemy"
regime's leaders--Ho, Mao, Hoxha, Stalin, etc etc--and thereby losing
all sight of what I would say a left should support.

best
sam

>>>02/20/08 7:07 PM >>>


Stephen wrote:
>
> The last point is an important one [If you want to resist
capitalist-imperial interventions in the former Communist world and the
Third World, you have to be choosy about whom you support in those
worlds.]. My first instinct was to support the Serbs as they had been
known to be relatively progressive during the second world war and just
afterward. But it is easy to note some very peculiar ideas emanating
from Serbian nationalist circles over the past 25 years . . . .

The question has been badly posed. It is the duty of u.s. leftists to
oppose all u.s. military activity _regardless_ of the real or imaginary
ends of that activity. Also, it is rather delusional to imagine that a
solitary individual's decision whether or not to "support" this or that
faction in some enemy of the u.s. will have any effect whatever on
anyone. Collectively we may, at times, be able to exert some drag on
u.s. depredations in the world, but it is something like lunacy  to try
to make an independent 'personal' judgment of any given u.s. activity
abroad.

Carrol