LRNA Statement on US-Nato Invasion of Balkans Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit ............................................................... source - speakers@noc.org ************************************************** The following is a statement by the League of Revolutionaries for a New America (LRNA) on the US-NATO invasion of the Balkans. Speakers are available on this issue through People's Tribune Speakers Bureau. Call 1-800-691-6888 or e-mail speakers@noc.org for more information. ************************************************** Statement by the League of Revolutionaries for a New America on the US-NATO Invasion of the Balkans >From the beginning of the war against Yugoslavia, we have said that the war had nothing to do with defending human rights and everything to do with carrying out the broad strategic aims of the U.S. and major European capitalist states. This has become more and more clear. Economic and political developments in the world over the past 30 years have resulted in stunning changes. The fundamental, underlying change which is driving all others is the tremendous advances in electronic technology and the growing application of that technology (computers and robotiiis) to the process of production. This technology is steadily replacing labor in the workplace, creating a new global class of permanently unemployed and underemployed, and driving down the wages of those workers who remain employed. The advent of this new technology has produced a global economic crisis which is shattering and transforming all the existing social and political institutions and relationships. It is this new technology and the resulting social and political changes that yielded, among other things, the break-up of the former Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. The new technology, the rise of a global economy, the end of the Cold War and the virtual collapse of the Soviet Union as an economic power, and the growing economic importance of China have combined to cut the ground from under all the previously existing international relationships. The new situation has opened up all sorts of new necessities and opportunities, for the US capitalists in particular. The ultimate aim of the US ruling class is permanent global domination. The US at this point is the most economically and militarily powerful nation on earth. Its sophisticated military technology, combined with the sheer size and reach of its military, as well as its economic power, puts the US in a position to seemingly dictate terms to the world. The war against Yugoslavia is the culmination of a more than 10-year process of breaking up the country which was fomented, aided and abetted by the US, Germany and other European powers. The occupation and the political and economic control of the Balkans is part of a larger strategy which involves destroying all remaining vestiges of socialism, encircling and containing Russia and securing control of the wealth of Central Asia. The control of oil has always been a key aspect of US strategy; controlling oil is key to controlling the world, and to this end the US seeks to control the Middle East and the oil and gas reserves of Central Asia's Caspian Basin. Toward this end, the US seeks to create an arc of predominantly Muslim states under Turkish-US leadership and control. Among others, Edward Djerejian, former US ambassador to Syria and Israel, has described the basis for such a strategy, which actually has its roots in the Bush administration. In a 1995 article, he wrote that, "A coherent policy framework toward Islam has become a compelling need as foreign policy challenges erupt involving an 'arc of crisis' extending from the Balkans, the Caucasus, North Africa, the Middle East, and Central and South Asia....[T]he United States must recognize that the disturbing proliferation of local and regional conflicts in the arc threaten major, even vital, US interests. Underscoring the importance of the interests of the United States and the industrialized democracies is the critical geographical factor that in the arc of crisis are located vast oil and natural gas reserves and points of pipeline delivery. The arc is home to approximately three- quarters of the world's oil and gas reserves. We must take into consideration the impact conflicts in this region have on energy supply, energy security, and pricing. Indeed, we recently fought a war in the Persian Gulf to reverse aggression and protect precisely such interests. As we look ahead into the twenty-first century, energy needs will increase, especially as countries such as China and India proceed with their economic development." Dr. Sean Gervasi has also written of this strategy. In a 1996 paper, Gervasi said that, "The United States is now seeking to consolidate a new European-Middle Eastern bloc of nations. It is presenting itself as the leader of an informal grouping of Muslim countries stretching from the Persian Gulf into the Balkans. This grouping includes Turkey, which is of pivotal importance in the emerging new bloc. Turkey is not just a part of the southern Balkans and an Aegean power. It also borders on Iraq, Iran and Syria. It thus connects southern Europe to the Middle East, where the US considers that it has vital interests. The US hopes to expand this informal alliance with Muslim states in the Middle East and southern Europe to include some of the new nations on the southern rim of the former Soviet Union. The reasons are not far to seek. The US now conceives of itself as being engaged in a new race for world resources. Oil is especially important in this race. With the war against Iraq, the US established itself in the Middle East more securely than ever. The almost simultaneous disintegration of the Soviet Union opened the possibility of Western exploitation of the oil resources of the Caspian Sea region." We are seeing the US strategy played out through the enlargement of NATO, bringing it right up to the borders of the former Soviet Union with the addition of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. We are seeing it in the use of NATO forces outside NATO's traditional area of operations, as an offensive force. We are seeing it in the conquest of the Balkans, thus securing the southern flank of Russia and the southern anchor of the arc of Muslim states that leads into Central Asia. We are seeing it in the fact that the US has already conducted joint military exercises with nations in Central Asia that are former Soviet republics, bringing them into the "Partnership for Peace," a prelude to full NATO membership. We are seeing it in the fact that US (and European) oil companies have already negotiated deals with the governments of the Central Asian republics. It should also be clear that the US strategy is no less directed at Western Europe than the rest of the world. The US wants a Western Europe that is dependent on and takes direction from the US. The war has set several precedents. U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg spelled one of them out explicitly in a recent interview, when he said in essence that "if you violate human rights, even in your own country, we can and will intervene." This clearly is going to be the rationale for future interventions, and sets the stage for US intervention virtually anywhere. The US is increasingly being postured as the world policeman for "human rights, democracy and prosperity (read: capitalism)." Another precedent is the use of NATO as an offensive alliance, and to give cover to US aggression. A third precedent is a war- fighting strategy that involves the destruction of the target country's economic infrastructure, rendering it militarily weak and economically dependent on its enemy. Finally, the US action in circumventing and manipulating the United Nations has essentially rendered the UN impotent as an international organization. The repeated military interventions by the US in recent years have had the effect of getting the population used to war, and of putting the country and the economy increasingly on a war footing. If we assume the aim of the US is global domination, then it follows that the US must either bribe, intimidate or destroy any potential rivals. Thus we see the US using its control of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund as part of the process of asserting economic control of target countries. In this same vein, we see the US on a course toward war with China. China resists becoming economically dependent on the US, and over the next 15 to 20 years will surpass the US economically and militarily. We are already seeing a military and propaganda campaign designed to bully, isolate and provoke China. This has included the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, the allegations of Chinese involvement in financing US political campaigns, the espionage allegations, "human rights" issues, Taiwan, Tibet, etc. It is not far-fetched to speculate that at least a section of US capital might favor a pre-emptive attack on China some time in the future to cripple its military and industrial base. And surely Russia must at some point be forced to respond to US provocations, although it may be many years before it has the economic and military wherewithal to do so. Speculation aside, there is no doubt that the US offensive directly contradicts the interests of the great mass of humanity (including the vast majority of Americans) and thus poses a threat to world peace. There is no question but that, one way or the other, the capitalists have once again set humanity on the path to world war. The risk of nuclear war is rising. In the space of 79 days, twenty-three million pounds of explosives were dropped on Yugoslavia. This figure is equivalent to almost two-thirds the power of the Hiroshima bomb. What was done to Yugoslavia should make clear to any thinking person how ruthless and without scruples this ruling class is, and what they have in store for anyone who gets in their way, including Americans. Nonetheless, it is already clear the US-NATO invasion of the Balkans is yielding unforeseen consequences. There will likely be ongoing war as the Yugoslavs resist the occupiers. And the invasion is exacerbating the class polarities and the developing class struggle worldwide. Great forces have been unleashed, both by objective economic developments, which are undermining all the old relations, and by the subjective, political and military acts of the US and others. The whole of humanity is facing dark and difficult times. Yet what we are really seeing is the death throes of a dying capitalist system. It is imperative for revolutionaries to act, to play their role of educating people and raising consciousness. The program of the bourgeoisie is increasingly clear: war abroad, and fascism at home. The revolutionaries have the moral high ground. We can show that the capitalists' wars of destruction are part of the process of capitalism destroying itself. We can show where this system is headed, and why it has to be replaced with a cooperative system before it destroys us all. We can offer a vision of the world that the new technology has made possible - a vision of humanity organized in peaceful, prosperous, cooperative societies, in a world without poverty, repression or war. Revolutionaries in the US have a particular responsibility to humanity which can only be fulfilled by doing what is necessary to rally the American people to this vision of a new world. *********************************************************** Speakers are available through People's Tribune Speakers Bureau. Call 1-800-691-6888, email speakers@noc.org, or visit our web site at www.mcs.net/~speakers. Visit LRNA's web site at http:www.lrna.org for more information about the League and its newspaper, the People's Tribune/Tribuno del Pueblo. ********************************************************* ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nyteeu-06.23.99-11:47:36-25880