Customer Reviews

The New Military Humanism: Lessons from Kosovo

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I'll begin by disclosing a personal interest: Prof. Chomsky and I have the same publisher, and I had the honor of voicing the book-on-tape version of this book. But facts are facts, verifiable whatever the source, and the information presented here is well-researched, largely unpublicized, and deeply disturbing.

The mass media's consistent parroting of NATO's shifting versions of the causes and purposes of the war, and their Orwellian convenient forgetting of their own earlier reports as need be, are chronicled in detail. The Balkan war is placed in the context of ongoing US, UK, and NATO policies in other parts of the world (Turkey, for example) to devastating effect. And the final chapters, detailing the reasons for the ongoing expansion of military force and flouting of international law -- and how current NATO policies are actually making the world a more dangerous place -- left me chilled while doing the reading.

This is terrific, important work. I was honored to be associated with it, and I recommend it in the strongest terms.

Much has been said about that missunderstood part of the world-Balkan,and since late 19/early 20 century,Balkan has been synonimous with something ugly,crude,barbaric and desperately backward.Such fixed stereotypes had left such an "exotic" impression on everybody involved in policy making in this area that this lead to nothing else,but history of troubles,divisions and hatred-although Balkaners themselves had very highly developed sence for coexistence.With such "predispositions",horrible thing happened that claimed thousends of lives-so it is no wonder that nothing will improve without corect diagnosis of real causes,those who operate behind the scene.Initiative is not to be found amoung Balkaners themselves,since they were at best instruments of foreign strategies.Yes,Balkan is "powder-cage",but sparks are from outside.This is brought to light in this wonderfull and unbiased,objective and truthfull work by dr.Chomsky,that incorporates minimum, but crucial aspects of developments that had such tragedy as results.This is done with distinction that is caracteristic of Chomsky,but most important is approach that is instrumental,rather than narative,for only than word becomes deed- a good one!Hence such interest in social issues by linguist-because language is primary tool of action.Therefore,social issues cannot be viewed separately from mutual interdependence with linguistic.I can hardly imagine anybody left unimpressed by authors elaboration of western interest in keeping western Balkan under their umbrella,how do they invented "KLA"-collection of criminal elements from western narco-mafia circles,and fiasco of N.A.T.O. propaganda that derogated(and still derogates) their domestic public,while Balkan has been thoroughly devastated and fragmentated into dosens of states-protectorates,whose existence is at mercy of western financial circles.This book is triumph of common sence reasoning,over hatred and propaganda,and is a monumental contribution towards perception of things as they are-first step to reconciliation in the Balkan,but also reminder to ancient Balkan proverb:

"HEROISM IS THE POWER TO DEFEND YOURSELF FROM OTHERS,HUMANITY IS VIRTUE TO DEFEND OTHERS FROM YOURSELF"

Unarguable facts are detailed in this work which "wouldn't do to mention" in polite company. The bombing in the FRY "was not undertaken in 'response' to ethnic cleansing and to 'reverse' it, as alleged by leaders." Most importantly, the question of whether the New Humanism is "guided by power interst, or by humanitarian concern" is answered. Those who believe in the doctrine of "intentional ignorance" as the reviewer before me will dismiss the information presented in this book like any commissar. If you want to understand what happened in Kosovo as well as the current ethnic cleansing within and supported by NATO (Turkey), read this book. As all of Chomsky's book, very well written and incredibly informative.

I read this book after a friend who is originally from Montenagro recommended it. I was amazed at this book. Chomsky can be a bit one sided at times, but his analysis of what the US and England were really trying to accomplish in this war are strikingly accurate. This book is probably the best I've ever read on this subject. If you are wanting to more fully understand the situation in Kosovo and are not afraid to be challenged, then you should read this book.

Chomsky's latest is a meticulous dissection of the role played by the Western, primarily American, media during the 1999 Kosovo crisis. Although a bit tedious at times if one has already read his classic critical works on the mass media as propaganda system (e.g. "Manufacturing Consent" and "Necessary Illusions"), "New Military Humanism" is still a crucial work to read if one wants to understand an important aspect of this war. Perhaps my only criticism of the book is that Chomsky is not sufficiently familiar with recent Balkan politics, so that his overriding message at times seems to be that Kosovo did not become a problem until the U.S. government, followed by the American media, came in and made it a problem. Kosovo and its Albanian population were in fact one of the major contributing factors to the breakdown of Yugoslav politics in the late 1980s, eventually leading to the collapse of that country with the consequences that are well known to us all. The problems in Kosovo itself festered for over ten years before taking the form of open hostilities in 1997/1998. Where Chomsky is correct is in pointing out that once the U.S. and (to a lesser extent) its NATO allies decided to take a more active role in Kosovo for whatever reason, the media promptly jumped in to generate public support for any policy moves. What the media did, following cues from the State Department, NATO headquarters and elsewhere, was to turn something that was essentially a regional dilemma (albeit an extremely troubling one) into a matter of major international concern. After all, why should Kosovo be more important to the average American citizen than East Timor-as Chomsky frequently points out? The stage was then set to make even air strikes against Serbia publicly acceptable-much as the war against Iraq was in 1991. Parenthetically, I don't say any of this, and I don't necessarily think it was Chomsky's intent, so much to condemn or defend the local actors in this conflict, i.e. the KLA and Milosevic's regime of thugs and war criminals, but to criticize the way the problem was handled by the "world's only remaining super-power" once it become involved. Just as in Bosnia, the timing of involvement and the political structure set up to maintain "the peace" are all wrong, as the continuing turmoil of Kosovo under international military occupation is now proving.

The NATO's intervention in FR of Yugoslavia was event that represented paradigm for entire opus of Noam Chomsky.Never before all elements of unjust and unmoral war were present in such exergated degree. Victim was proclaimed Guilty.Terrorist were given aura of 'fighters for liberty'.Rules of warfare were broken.Even some s.c.'humanitarian' and 'monitoring' organisations were expositures to NATO,and this is extremely disturbing.Illusion industry produced impression that were intendend to serve as exuse for agression.

One could imagine that paralel with development of warfare technology and methods,there is straightproportional development in propaganda methods.NATO's reign of terror in the Balkans was indeed one episode of history that showed bestiality of entire 'pragmatic approach' called 'benevolent interventionism' and those who think that perhaps policy-makers of NATO pact learned something from their own propaganda mistakes,are witnesses that these days history repeats itself with even lesser atempts to hide real motives.

This book is obligatory for all those who wish to immunise themselves from repertoire of NWO's brainwashing methods,that stream from few secluded power circles who are in desperate need of apolitical public,both home and abroad. Nothing lesser than lucid and thorough, apocaliptical essay is within content of this book.A truly remarkable,brave and unique oposition to absurdity exemplified trough situation that was extremely representative of NATO's first steps into pattern of behavior that does not deserves lesser epithet other than Global Terrorism.

Absolutely superb analysis of real motives behind's NATO's intervention in the Balkans,one that must be read not only by political scholars and studends,but also by laymen,because such display of erudition,combined with thorough causal analysis,simply fascinates reader-that used to digest only 'dosed' type of news coverage.

This books clearly reveals how many ignorance is out there in apolitical public in today's 'consumer societies' that allows space for such 'blietzkriegs',long-distance wars which are for somebody important as 'last winter's snow', but for others are hell on earth.

This is precisely what author said it would be,lesson for the future-introduction into age when 'steel-winged angels' will spread 'democracy' and 'liberty',acompanied by cacophonic chorus singing loudly its rashomoniad.

Why all forms of genuine pacifism are sometimes criticized and labeled with etiquetes whose function is discreditation of the author,when within mr.Chomsky's works one can not find neither "right-wingism" or "left-wingism" but only TRUTH-wingism.Is perhaps lack of social action caused by the disregard for real reasons behind a conflict,which in turn is product of perception that "this is just another "press-buttons-and-win" war.Chomsky outlined what is know by anybody living in the Balcan-because societies there are highly political ones and what is happening in "neighboors yard" is very well known-that West undertook such military adventure that simply instantly reversed everything achivied in building post-cold war relations,simply because they wanted to crush down only country that did not accepted anexation into this allegedly defence alliance.Noam Chomsky is apealing to public concience with his illustrations how democracy evolves into dualistic system-and how antagonisms produced from such trend are turning "citizens" into "observers"-situation where politics is dominated by pragmatism,that always produces only domino-effect,therefore generating various forms of social crisis.In the case of Kosovo,clearly situation present in the middle east is almost duplicated-only the islamic enclaves of western balcan are playing the role of hammer in the hands of NATO-against Russian interest,and for establishing "green belt"-safe coridor for energetic resources. Ethnic Cleansing by Serbia was Fiction... KLA was created to provoke uprising,and not vice versa... Enormous "shocking facts" and "evidence" was fabricated...(do you remember the famous:"dear viewers,what you are going to see contains.." ? What NATO did and said was nothing short of Shakespearian "tale told by idiot"-and Chomsky offers wealth of hard facts,together with exegesis that is inclusive of entire situation...finnaly,after publication of this book,many of those facts,at first proclaimed "Belgrade's propaganda" are confessed by NATO-that everything was fiction-and that all they want are political puppets in Belgrade,like those instaled in neighbouring states.Only those who are brave enough will have power to stand by the truth expressed in this book-and liberate themselves from chains of devastating mind-controling propaganda.

Poor poor Patrick Carroll. I have yet to read anywhere that Chomsky thought Pol Pot himself was some sort of hero. Perhaps you should try to avoid 'skimming' through Chomsky, his writing is rather dense, and skimming will leave you with obviously incorrect notions of what Chomsky has expressed. While Chomsky generally appreciates popular (read: democratic) movements of all sorts, he most certainly despises thugs, that is those who would turn such movements into opportunities to feed megalomania. Pol Pot would be one such thug, and Chomsky expresses his despise for the Pol Pots of the world, contemporary and historic, quite well in this work, as he did even more in World Orders Old and New.

Chomsky with his usual massive documentation shows that the same elite institutions and motivations which, in this country, butchered or helped butcher millions of Indians, hundreds of thousands of Fillipinos, millions, of Vietnames, Laoations and Cambodians, tens of thousands of East Timorese, tens of thousands of Nicaraguans, Salvadorans and Guatemalans, and so on, were behind the "humanitarian intervention" in Kosovo.

Chomsky shows that the claim that while the U.S. and its allies may have done some very horrible things to third world in the past, that era is in past (part of the Cold War,etc.)and a new epoch has dawned where states are free to exercise their power to zealously promote human rights and fight dictators, is not tenable with the slightest effort toward serious analyses (as opposed to ,say, believing every pronouncment of our leaders and their dupes in the media). After all, what are we to make of the fact that the Clinton administration refused to contribute to efforts for a peacekeeping force to mitigate horrendous atrocities in Sierra Leone and, shortly before the Kosovo bombings began, refused to provide a paltry sum for a UN peacekeeping force in the Republic of Congo for the same purpose. Why is it that the Clinton administration was providing massive military and economic assistance to a fascist regime in Turkey, which as documented for years by the major human rights organizations, Turkish dissidents, and even the Turkish government, has slaughtred tens of thousands of Kurds, created millions of internal Kurdish refugees, burned thousands of Kurdish villages using U.S. weapons. Why is it that the Clinton administration was (and is) providing massive weapons and assistance to a death squad/military run "democracy" in Colombia, which according to the State departments own human rights report, conducted about the same murders, created around the same number of refugees, burned around the same number of villages, etc. as during the period of serious violence before the bombings in Kosovo began (February 98' to March 99')? Why is it that the Clinton adminstration, continuing U.S. policies since December 1975, continued to have normal military, economic and diplomatic relations with the military generals in Indonesia, even as they were stepping atrocities against the people of East Timor in order to deter the people from voting to remove themselves from Indonesia's fascist rule in the September 1999 U.N. sponsored referendum, and then sat on its hands for a few weeks after the referndum before making any remotely serious gestures, compelled mostly by Australian public opinion, toward stopping the terror and murder that the Indonesians were paying back the people for daring to exercise their right of self-determination?

The answer is simply that the Clinton administration is no different that past administrations. Alot of the leftists who supported the war admit that this is the case but claim that in the instance alot of good was done by the great powers in stopping genocidal tactics perpetrated by a genocidal madman. Chomsky devotes considerable space to documenting (what should quite obvious) that misery and death vastly increased after verification monitors left Kosovo on March 19th and the Nato began bombing five days later. It was only natural for the Serbs to react with such violence and murder. After all, as Chomsky shows but which the mainstream media has obscured, Nato told them at the Ramouillet talks that they must accept a Nato occupation of Kosovo and grant them unhindered access to the rest of Yugoslavia or be bombed. A Serb parliament proposal of March 23 accepting all Nato demands except for the Nato occupation force and allowing for negotiations on an international security presence in Kosovo was reported by the major wire services but quickly died in the rest of the media and was ignored by the U.S. government. Under these conditions, with Nato about to unleash its massive war machine to destroy Serb and Kosovar infrastructure (hitting very few military targets) and drive much of the Serb population out of Kosovo, killing thousands of Serbs (and many Albanians too) and with that force that was about to rein massive destruction upon it, not too discretely heavily funding a terrorist group claiming to represent its most volatile minority, it is horrible but strategically understandable that a nation would undertake to cleanse itself of that minority. That atrocities would vastly escalate once the bombing started and there would be an explosion of refugees has been noted by many journalists, was "absolutely predictable" in the words commanding general Wesely Clark a few days after the bombings began. When the peace treaty was signed, Chomsky noted that Nato agreed on paper to the proposals of the Serb parliament of March 23rd and subsequent proposals by Milosevic. But only on paper that is. Nato proceeded to impose its version of the treaty, with media acceptance and ignoring of the truth, commanding and dominating the security force that occupied Kosovo whereas the treaty actually only called for an "international securtiy presence" under "UN auspicies" with "substantial Nato participation" and nothing more.

Chomsky also deals with some other effects of the war. The democratic opposition to Milosevic was severely damaged, especially in the fervently anti-milosevic province of Vojvodina. Other nations in the third world as well as the first expressed great dismay at the war, as a survey of their media demonstrates, and will be further enriching world arms manufacturers as they load up on lethal weapons in order to try to defend themselves against the United States should they cross its path.

In the past, the United States used Russian imperialism as a fraudulent pretext to destroy third world nations or indiginous liberation movements who dared to attempt to develop their economies and political structure outside of American domination. With the cold war gone, policy has been modified but it is essentially the same. For seeing the main reason for the Kosovo war, Chomsky refers to the recently declassified 1995 document of our nuclear arsenal command entitled "Essentials of Post Cold War Detterernce" which argues that the United States should portray itself as very irrational and vindictive toward the rest of the world so that they will be scared into submission and ruthelessly crush any nation, no matter how weak, if it should dare threaten its "interests." i.e. resist its economic and political hegemony.