Minority Report
A Triumph For The Reverend Jackson
SATURDAY, MAY 1, 11:13 PM
Word has come in that the Rev. Jesse Jackson, famed civil-rights leader and two-time presidential also-ran, has negotiated the release of three American soldiers that had been in Serbian custody for a month following the beginning of US, er, NATO bombings against Serb targets in and around Kosovo on March 24. At this point, the offensive has generated several billion dollars' drain on our domestic finances, killed a couple busloads of civilians, including those killed when the Serbian TV station was destroyed last week, and deposited a stray missle or two in Turkey and Montenegro.
The object of their affection is a Mr. Milosevic of Belgrade, a fanatical dictator-raconteur who takes to ethnic cleansing with the audacity of a Roman bathhouse. Having won convincingly in the Bosnian conflict earlier this decade, the forces of peace and justice stepped in and forced him to be nice to the families of everyone he killed. Milosevic then turned to quashing the rebellion in Kosovo.
The ethnic Albanians who were the majority group in the region felt, rightly, that life under his rule might be on the short side, and formed the Kosovo Liberation Army.
Milosevic felt, rightly, that the KLA would not be sympathetic to his need for absolute power, and set about destroying his competition in the traditional Eastern European style.
The forces of peace and justice felt, rightly, that mass murder is not very nice, and stepped in to resolve the situation, after granting Milosevic sufficient time to kill everyone he really wanted to.
Now, after 40 days and 40 nights of remote-control warfare aimed, allegedly, at only the most fundamental Serb military targets, the clearest indication of their effect in weakening the enemy is that we're still bombing them. So they're apparently not working, unless Milosevic's claim of adding 60,000 extra troops to the 40,000 already in Kosovo is a sign of desperation.
Jackson had only been in the region for about three days, meeting with the captured troops on Friday. He and Milosevic met on Saturday and forged some sort of agreement in which the Serbs allow the soldiers to return to America with Jackson -- can't wait for that photo-op -- without any concessions from us. Yet. The bombings continue, but Jackson is said to be carrying a letter from Milosevic to President Clinton, requesting a face-to-face meeting. He's implying that releasing the soldiers was an act of good will, and deserves reciprocation. In other words, stop the bombing and give the Serbs the same deal as in Dayton in 1995: they keep the land and turn over a few military personnel for cockfighting at the Hague, and we get to rave about the triumph of American diplomacy.
It's fun to imagine how glorious such moments are for the thousands of innocent people that have died in the region this decade. Or the thousands of refugees that are going to find themselves at Guantanamo Bay, sleeping in the former tents and cots of every dispossessed islander that ever piled thirty friends into the roof of their house and set sail for South Beach, if American Diplomacy doesn't do something quick.
Jackson's feat is all the more startling in light of the Administration's diplomatic failures in l'affaire Kosovo. A man who has never held elected office, who would be hosting his show on CNN if he wasn't off outperforming Albright and Cohen! Prior to the initiation of US, er, NATO bombings, representatives of the opposing factions met in Rambouille, France with US/NATO people in an effort to end the war. Milosevic stepped up the fighting in the midst of negotiations. Clearly he had everyone by the balls and was not adverse to twisting. And now he's taking photo ops with a black Baptist minister! Here you see the power of celebrity: Mr. Jackson would be lying at the bottom of a shallow grave if Milosevic didn't recognize him from Saturday Night Live. Jesse is a master at working the press, and no one's gotten such open capitulation from Serbia since Holbrooke. He might be able to parlay this into a Nobel Peace Prize or a third Presidential run, which would be cool. He's always been a good guy for politics, but it's hard to find a good spot for him.
Shelton Hull (aka Archibald Bobo) has been writing professionally since 1995. He also does the column "Money Jungle" for FolioWeekly (Jacksonville). His work has appeared in places like Section 8 Magazine, Movement, CounterPunch, Lew Rockwell.com and the Florida Times-Union. He was a 2002 Fellow at the Academy of Alternative Journalism, AAN/Northwestern University. He works for himself.
