<nettime> kosovo, the russian link and a rant

[waz@easynet.co.uk]

net.art, political comment, dodgy journalism, call it what you will -
what i want to know is whether or not the following page is as damn
beautiful if you *do* read Russian...

http://gazeta.ru/daynews/28-03-1999/46clinton.htm

[found in Wired news]

is there nothing but to hope, with Lewis MacKenzie of The Ottawa
Citizen, that the albanians in kosovo all retreat to the south of the
province, that milosevic concentrates his troops there in the north, and
that they partition the bugger and stop the killing. it's completely
unjust, but at least everyone loses, and leads to the killing stopping
relatively soon. i've not come across any other scenario that does that,
as meanwhile nato, the milosevic gang and kosovo seem locked in a
viciously spiralling upward rictus of death without end.

except all kinds of people will stand up and say 'no no, i'd rather keep
on killing than (see kosovo partitioned / pander to the sinister fascist
milosevic forces / pander to the sinister fascist nato forces).' -
delete as applicable, unless socialist, in which case there may be no
choice but to actively support both the appalling appeasers of the
wholly unappeasable *together* with the brutal murderers of the poor and
innocent, whichever way round you end up cutting the cake if you look at
the problem in terms of Serbs and Albanians at *any* point *and* you are
honest with yourself, or to abandon adjectives of all kinds but those of
pure value and attempt solely to oppose the bad things while supporting
the good ones:

("I support NATO as they stop the killings in Kosovo. I oppose NATO
acting without UN consent. I support NATO as they attack Milosevic. I
oppose NATO killing innocent Serbs. Argh. I support Milosevic as he
protects Serbia against terrorism. I oppose Milosevic as he is a
warmongering fool. I support Milosevic as he is beleagured by Great
Powers in contravention of international law and without UN sanction. I
oppose Milosevic, the amoral butcher. Argh. I support the KLA in their
noble quest for human rights and self-determination. I oppose the KLA
for killing innocent civilians. I support the KLA as they battle the
brutal overarmed Serbs. I oppose the KLA for being the deluded stooges
of nasty hardball international realpolitik. Argh. ARGH! I support
EVERYONE in their quest to stay alive, healthy, happy, and unmolested by
anyone at all of whatever nationality. I oppose EVERYONE for being the
deluded stooges of nasty hardball international Realpolitik.")

argh.

all of which is fine but is not really going to help or impress anyone
seriously trying to analyse an already very complex situation made more
complex by the reasonable supposition that we do not only not have all
the facts, but, increasingly clearly, no one single organisation,
institution, group or individual is actually in possession of very many
of the actual facts at all, if any, and they're too busy shooting each
other (guns, cameras, whatever) to be sharing. this applies to all facts
except for the big physical ones you can't easily hide, like the
territory of Serbia - though you can round up the journalists and remove
them, you can't slide the whole country under something else and hope
the NATO bombs land in the sea instead.

it's a situation where almost any view is going to lead to unrefutable
(false or not) allegations of having pandered to something sinister and
fascist anyway, regardless how much you repeat the mantra
'German-American plot to destroy Yugoslavia' at all times. the beauty of
this plot is that were such a thing to exist, anyone can readily see
that all reasonable efforts would be made on the part of those involved
to hide it. for Germany and America to band together and actually *bomb*
Serbia, together with some friends.. um.. anyone got any other *facts*
on that plot?

("No. I will not join your German-American plot to destroy Yugoslavia.
Thanks for asking.")

meanwhile, someone at Wired knows more Russian than I do. follow the
links from the page given above and it gets better and better. send me a
translation if you can and i'll be very grateful.

whatever. oh well.

cheers etc.,

wayne
http://www.waz.easynet.co.uk

---
#  distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime> is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: majordomo@desk.nl and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
#  URL: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/  contact: nettime-owner@desk.nl