Tui reche Tony:***Po-dobre da se vgledame v tova, koeto velikite sili, deistvaiki kato EDIN
OTBOR, praviat s Balkanite, v chastnost s Bulgaria.***
Ot "chervenya Times" otgovoriha:
Op-Ed page, the Times, London,
August 2 1999 OPINION
Mick Hume
'What better way could there be for Germany to clean up its history than
by waging war against those branded the new Nazis?'
Two months on, who really won the war over Kosovo? On Friday, at a
three-hour photo shoot masquerading as the Sarajevo summit, no fewer
than 40 smiling heads of state tried to climb on to the Balkan victory
rostrum at the same time. But, as in every beauty contest, while they
all looked lovely, sadly they cannot all be winners.
In keeping with tradition, here are the results in reverse order. In
third place, Prime Minister Tony Blair's new Britain. While the war
against the Serbs was largely fought with American hardware, Mr Blair
managed the software (politics and propaganda) department. New Labour
stamped Nato's war with the politics of emotionalism, where feelings
conquer all. The high point came in early May, with a highly charged
visit to the refugee camps during which a barefoot "Tonee, Tonee, Tonee"
Blair, accompanied by the weeping Cherie, was crowned Crusader King of
Kosovo, prompting one US commentator to announce: "This is not just an
air war, it's a Blair war."
Mr Blair's success in replacing outdated empire militarism with the new
empire of the emotions has enabled him to inflate Britain's
international status, further isolate his critics at home, and fire
Britain's first cruise missiles from the moral high ground.
In second place, President Clinton's new America. Despite the dithering
over invasion that left the general impression of a moral crusade led by
moral cowards, the war has proved a good result for America's rulers.
Kosovo has enabled the entire Clinton generation finally to shake off
the Vietnam syndrome, and to emerge looking robust and rosy-cheeked in a
new mood of "national healing". As the 1960s pacifists proclaim
themselves red-blooded all-American males after all, the old Cold
Warriors have gone into retirement.
A symbolic (and ironic) moment of triumph came last week when the
President effectively sacked General Wesley Clark, after the Vietnam
veteran was accused of letting down Clinton, the draft-dodging
Commander-in-Chief, over Kosovo.
And in first place, Chancellor Schroder's new Germany. Whisper it in
Whitehall and Westminster, but it is obvious now that the Germans were
the biggest winners in this war. Even more than the Americans, they have
used Kosovo as a welcome pretext to rewrite the past. What better way
could there be for Germany to clean up its Holocaust-stained history
than by waging war once more in Eastern Europe, only this time against
those branded "the new Nazis"? Little wonder that Herr Schroder and
Joschka Fischer, his gung-ho Green Foreign Minister, have taken every
opportunity to draw parallels between President Milosevic's regime and
the mighty Third Reich.
By putting itself on the side of the angels over Kosovo, the new Germany
has legitimised its role at the heart of Europe. While Herr Schroder
pushed through the Sarajevo summit in the face of Anglo-French
grumbling, German engineers make plans to rebuild the bombed bridges of
Serbia - bridges that were first erected by German PoWs after their
defeat in 1945.
So much for the winners. What of the losers, those left standing in the
background at the Sarajevo beauty contest with false fixed smiles?
Russia has been exposed as an emperor with few clothes and no empire.
The Balkan states who signed up to the war against Serbia have been
rewarded with the status of Euro-beggars. Even as Kfor troops advanced
into Kosovo, Nato governments were already retreating from their big
promises on Balkan reconstruction. Whatever aid Romania, Bulgaria and
the rest do get now will come with such stringent conditions attached
that they would probably be better off without it.
The ethnic Albanians of Kosovo look like the local winners from the war,
yet it remains to be seen how much even they will gain. The only central
power in the chaos of Kosovo now lies with Bernard Kouchner, the UN High
Representative. He is set to rule by diktat for the foreseeable future,
backed by 30,000 Kfor troops and no fewer than 50 outside agencies now
running things in the tiny province.
Dr David Chandler, author of Bosnia: Faking Democracy after Dayton, even
suggests that "autonomy for Kosovo under the UN and Nato is increasingly
looking no more democratic than life under the old Yugoslav regime".
That leaves Serbia, the ugly sister not invited to the Sarajevo ball.
Nato leaders might still insist that their argument is only with Mr
Milosevic, but in reality the entire Serb nation has now been branded as
pariahs. It seems that the division in Europe is no longer between the
East and the West, but between the Serbs and all the rest.
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