The second strain is represented by the military imperialists:rnthe two Roosevelts, neoconservative hawks like Jeane Kirkpatrick,rnand our hormonally challenged secretary of state. Onernhundred years ago, they put their trust in the Navy and graduallyrnswitched to advocating reliance on airpower: The commonrnthread is a concern with long-range power and a desire to minimizernrisks to our troops. They want the United States to be therninternational cop or, increasingly, mercenary rent-a-cop hiringrnout to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Turkey.rnSome day soon, we shall see NATO troops putting down thernrebellious Kurds in Turkey—just a few months ago, the Turkishrnarmy was bombing the “rebel strongholds” and pursuing thernKurds into Iraq. Of course, it will take a few months to switchrngears, to go from talking about the democratic right to secede tornreaffirming our historical commitment to preserving sovereignt)’,rnbut considering how quickly the American and British mediarnswitched principles on secession in the Balkans—yes tornCroatia and Bosnia, no to the Bosnian and Krajina Serbs, yes tornthe Kosovo Albanians — it should not be much of a stretch eitherrnfor the journalists or their readers, whose brains have beenrnso pithed by TV that they are almost as stupid as Peter Jenningsrnand Jim Lehrer.rnThe third strain is represented by sentimental imperialists,rnexemplified by Woodrow Wilson and Jimmy Carter, who sugarcoatedrnAmerica’s global mission with the language of democracy,rnprogress, human rights —an approach that justifies evenrnmore dangerous adventurism than the rent-a-cop militarism ofrnGeorge Bush.rnEven the most tough-minded Americans are suckers for arnmessianic appeal; it must have something to do with the Puritanrnlegacy. Even bluff old Bill McKinley, in declaring war onrnthe people of the Philippines, a war that would cost the lives ofrnmore than 200,000 civilians, proclaimed the aim of our militaryrnadministration was “to win the confidence, respect, and affectionrnof the inhabitants… by assuring them . . . that full measurernof individual rights and liberties which is the heritage of a freernpeople, and by proving to them that the mission of the UnitedrnStates is one of benevolent assimilation.”rnIn even more unctuous tones. Bill Clinton insists that he isrnnot making war on the Serbian people, only on Slobodan Milosevic.rnMilosevic, however, is still alive — so, for that matter, isrnSaddam Hussein —but thousands of Serbian and Albanianrncivilians are dead and many more thousands injured. Whenrnour missiles hit the homes of peasants and kill a dozen civilians,rnwe say it is an unfortunate accident or that the Serbs blew uprntheir own houses.rnWhen Bill Clinton tells the world that “this is about our values,”rnI wonder what values he means: The slaughter of the innocent?rnAn addiction to lying? Adultery? Rape (a word forbiddenrnin Washington out of consideration for the President’srnpersonal difficulties)?rnThere is, of course, a convergence of interests in these threernstrains: Bringing human rights to China means exporting poprncommercial culture, which degrades the peasanby to the levelrnof ours and forces them into the global marketplace of jeans andrnCokes and McDonald’s, while the militarists get to sell the mostrnsensitive technology—or give it away in return for b r i b e s -rnwhich thus alarms the right-wing paranoids in Middle Americarnand gets them ready for all-out war, if necessar)’, with China.rnT he new American globalism has a logic of its own, onernbased on universal free trade, which destroys localrneconomies; open immigration for non-Europeans and non-rnChristians, who can be used to undermine a civilization that isrnboth Christian and European; and universal human rights,rnwhich are the pretext for world government.rnApplied to Kosovo, this approach means giving unqualifiedrnsupport to the Muslim immigrants who were brought in byrnTurks for the express purpose of driving out and subjugating thernChristian Serbs —a policy continued by German Nazis andrnTito’s communists. Now that these tactics have enabled themrnto constitute a majority, they are to be rewarded for over 100rnyears of terrorism. The object is to force any historic religiousrncommunit}’ to give way to the multicultural jurisdiction of thernNATO empire, which is revolted by the Serbs’ attachment tornKosovo as a sacred place, hallowed by ancient churches and byrnthe blood of heroes and Christian mart}TS.rnAmerican imperialism did not begin overnight, and itsrnprogress is not the result of a cynical conspiracy. It was inevitablernthat European settlers would conquer the continentrnand perhaps tragically fated that they would then apply thernlessons they had learned to the rest of the world. The three formativernexperiences were the Civil War, the Indian Wars, andrnabove all the Spanish-American War, and the techniques ofrnmanipulation and propaganda used in those conflicts are beingrnapplied —to the nth degree —in the NATO attack on Yugoslavia.rnIn the Spanish-American War, the propagandists first set uprnthe contrast between the evil Spaniards and the virtuous natives,rnbut when the Filipino natives wanted to liberate themselves andrnestablish their own government, another metaphor was adopted,rnthis one from the Indian Wars: hostiles and friendlies. Inrnthe Philippines, the press worked overtime railing against thernprimitive culture and savage behavior of the natives, which justifiedrna thorough treatment. General Howling Jake Smith orderedrnhis men to kill anyone who resisted — including womenrnand children—along with all combatants, whom he defined asrnany male often years or more. He received his nickname whenrnhe told his officers to turn an entire island into a howling wilderness.rnTo persuade small-town American boys to risk their lives forrna chance to butcher Filipinos or Serbs, you need a symbolic incident.rnThe conflict with Mexico gave us a real massacre at thernAlamo, but ever since we have found a series of phony events:rnthe firing on Ft. Sumter, which Lincoln confessed was a set-up;rnthe Gulf of Tonkin incident, which never took place. The sinkingrnof the battleship Maine, which the Spaniards did not blowrnup in Havana Harbor, is the perfect parallel to the media-createdrnmassacres in Sarajevo. Ever)’ night on NATO TV, we arernshown hour after hour of footage of weary Albanian refugeesrnand a few minutes—if that—of the people killed by the bombing.rnIn the world of Disney-CNN, real atrocities are buried underrnlayers of faked incidents and commercial sentimentalism.rnThe media are obviously the key. As William RandolphrnHearst cabled his reporter in Cuba (who had said he could findrnno war going on): “You furnish the pictures; I’ll furnish thernwar.” Every petty conflict becomes a mobilization of the pressrnand the intellectual classes in a progressive struggle against fascismrnand inhumanity and the unending series of Hitlers andrnholocausts.rnAnyone who has studied the examples of the Roman andrnBritish Empires will find the rhetoric familiar. Julius Caesarrnplundered his way across Gaul, always on the pretext that hernwas defending Rome’s Gallic allies, first from the Germans andrnAUGUST 1999/nrnrnrn