Thursday, February 21, 2008

Embassies, and the Torching Thereof

I'll start off by saying that I don't approve of destruction of property, even if it's government property. Even if that government has just committed what's effectively an act of war, by recognizing the declaration of independence by a terrorist gang occupying the host country's province illegally.

After all, that's just descending to that government's level.

But for that government to actually react with righteous indignation to such an expression of ire? That takes some nerve.

The U.S. government is "furious" over what happened to their fortress in Belgrade. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack says:

We are interested in a political dialogue with the Serbian government. The European Union is interested in a political dialogue with the Serbian government. It is very clear there are differences with respect to the action that we took to recognize Kosovo and the action that others have taken to recognize Kosovo. We can talk about that. But none of that, none of those disagreements are an excuse or justification to incite others to violence.


Hogwash. Neither the U.S. nor the EU are interested in "political dialogue"; they demonstrated that by organizing and recognizing the secession of occupied Kosovo. "Differences"? Is that how we're calling it now? Well, Mr. McCormack, I have a feeling that the angry young men who threw a Molotov cocktail at your embassy thought they were engaging in political dialogue over their differences and disagreements with the U.S. government, in a fashion that very government taught them was the right and proper way of doing things. I mean, when Washington has differences and disagreements with people, there's usually blockade, bombing and occupation in those people's near future.

Washington engages in violence, then protests when the victim engages in some violence of their own? Again, I think attacking that embassy was wrong on principle. But the sheer gall of Foggy Bottom protesting it...?

Have you no sense of decency left, Mr. McCormack? Have you left no sense of decency?

6 comments:

Witch-king of Angmar said...

Знаш како, у рату треба бити окрутан према непријатељу као и он према теби. Понекад чак и окрутнији. А ово јесте рат...

Witch-king of Angmar said...

If you want to win a war, you have to be just as nasty as the enemy. Sometimes even nastier. And this is war...

CubuCoko said...

Hard, yes. Nasty... I don't know. I heed the Patriarch's words in this matter. What good is winning, if we lose our souls? And is that really winning, then?

Flanders Fields said...

This will go with another comment I left a couple of posts down:

http://www.swans.com/library/art7/ga111.html

{Ending repeated: art7/galll.html}

charlie ehlen said...

As an American, it never ceases to amaze me how my country can do as it pleases no matter the consequences. Yet still cry when things of our own making blow up in our collective faces.
This is one more example of that. We bomb a country that never could have harmed us. We destroy it by removing a part of it and declaring it a "new" country. Then the folks we have wronged get pissed and take out their collective frustration against us, we cry foul.
What hypocrites we Americans are.

Cossack said...

Dear Nebojsa,

I both agree and disagree with you on the point of the embassy torching.

On the one hand, yes, it lowers us to the level of the barbarians that encouraged, funded, staged and enabled the 'Kosovars'(sic) to proclaim their independence. However, on the other hand, I'm happy to see the same Serbian inate that the Serbs displayed on March 27, 1941.

It is time, and past time, for the U.S. to be called on their rogue behavior. It is now official U.S. doctrine NOT to allow states to utilize 'lawfare' (the U.S.'s term) to oppose the "single hegemonic hyperpower" while the U.S. is free to ignore international law when they find it to be an impediment while 'righteously' calling on protections of international law when they deem it to be of use to them.

Much like Humpty Dumpty in 'Alice in Wonderland': "When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,' it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.", so too, are laws, treaties and agreements to the U.S.; they mean just what the U.S. chooses them to mean in any particular situation, no more, no less. Just as Condi Rice and the rest of the U.S. State Department Wurlitzer have been yelling at the top of their lungs, "Kosovo is NOT a precedent for ANY other situation in the world.", because they have so stated, so mote it be!