September 4, 2000


Features

Never Mind the Bollocks
BY BILL BOISVERT

Here's the new Republican Party

The Battle of Philadelphia
BY DAVE LINDORFF

Working It
BY DAVID MOBERG
Will unions go all out for Gore?

Black Radicals Regroup
BY SALIM MUWAKKIL
Detroit hosts the Black Radical Congress.

Mad Sheep Scare
BY TERRY J. ALLEN
Farmers, scientists and the USDA square off in Vermont.


News

Cleaning Up
BY HANS JOHNSON
Missouri, Oregon consider campaign finance initiatives.

Star Strike
BY BEN WINTERS
Actors demand a better deal.

Renegade or Redeemer?
BY STEVE ELLNER

Hugo Chavez leads Venezuela into a new era.

The New Front
BY KARI LYDERSEN

American anti-abortion groups crusade in Ireland.

Profile
BY TED KLEINE

Johnny Lira is in their corner.


Views

Editorial
BY DAVID MOBERG
Big money problems.

Appall-O-Meter
BY DAVID FUTRELLE

A Terry Laban Cartoon

Dialogue: The Balkans
More Conspiracy Theories?
BY EDWARD S. HERMAN

A Humanitarian Crusade
BY DIANA JOHNSTONE


Culture

A Man for All Seasons
BY HOWARD ZINN
Francis Wheen's Marx: A Life.

Interstate Rambler
BY PHILIP CONNORS
On the road with Larry McMurty.

England's Dreaming
BY JOHN GHAZVINIAN
History falls off the back of a lorry.

Under the Influence
BY JASON SHOLL
Sadie Plant writes on drugs.

Vanishing Act
BY
JOSHUA ROTHKOPF
Paul Verhoeven's Hollow Man.

Presidential Dance Parties
BY GREG SMITHSIMON

 

More Conspiracy Theories?
By Edward S. Herman

Few issues have provoked as much debate among progressive Americans in recent years as the war in the Balkans. In the following article, Edward S. Herman responds to Paul Hockenos' essay "Human Wrongs: How the Great Powers Failed the Balkans," which appeared in the August 7 issue of the magazine.

The mainstream framing of the issues in the Balkans has had demonization at its core. This framing has been effective, causing many liberals and leftists to support NATO policy, and to look upon any harsh attacks on NATO as "pro-Serb" or "pro-Milosevic." But while the several dozen critics I know whose anti-NATO stance I share agree that Milosevic is a thug and that Serbs have done terrible things, none of us regard these as the heart of the issues at stake here.

What is at stake is the real purposes and effects of NATO policy (which has nothing to do with humanitarianism), the NATO powers' long-standing interventions that have exacerbated conflict in the Balkans, their failure to explore - let alone exhaust - possibilities of a peaceful resolution of conflict, and their final resort to extreme violence in violation of U.N. prerogatives and international law. These are matters on which Paul Hockenos follows a pro-NATO line and deals cavalierly with evidence.

A notable feature of Hockenos' review of books on the Balkans is the close correlation between his positive appraisal and an author's support for NATO intervention. His highest accolade is for the "astute" and "outspoken proponent of NATO air strikes" Michael Ignatieff, a New York Times favorite.

 

 


In These Times © 2000
Vol. 24, No. 20