U.S. Embassy Stormed in Belgrade

36 Comments

1. 

   Brendan Skwire on February 21, 2008 at 1:43 pm

   “I was proud to help make replacement (reverse engineered) computer chips for our F-15 radars that prevented us from having any casualties during the airwar”

   What exactly did you used to do before you became a full-time blogger.  I honestly know nothing about your background.

   • 

     fabooj on February 21, 2008 at 1:48 pm

     But then he’d have to kill you.

   • 

     ejmw on February 21, 2008 at 1:54 pm

     BooMan’s story begins as a young child who is mentally slow and has braces on his legs. He is a descendant and namesake of Nathan Bedford BooMan, Confederate general and alleged founder of the Ku Klux Klan. His mother knows her child is not particularly intelligent but provides for him the best she can, inviting boarders into their large house, one of whom is a young Elvis Presley who learns his famous hip gyrations from BooMan’s awkward attempts to dance in leg braces.

     On BooMan’s first day of school, he meets Jenny Curran, and immediately falls in love with her. Jenny lives on a farm house near BooMan’s home with her physically and sexually abusive, alcoholic father.One day while walking home from school, a few children start throwing rocks at BooMan, and Jenny tells him, “Run, BooMan, Run!” As the bullies chase him in their bikes, the braces on his legs break and fall off, leaving him able to run very fast. After that, wherever he needs to go, he runs and one day runs through University of Alabama football practice led by Bear Bryant. This event leads to him getting a college scholarship for football. He is named to the 1963 All-American Team and meets President John F. Kennedy at the White House. While there, BooMan drinks 15 bottles of Dr Pepper “since it’s free”. Over a handshake President Kennedy asks him how he feels, to which BooMan replies “I gotta pee.” Throughout college, BooMan continues to try to visit Jenny, who goes to an all-girls’ school.

     After college, he enlists in the army, where he meets two other people who will shape his life: Benjamin Buford “Bubba” Blue, a young shrimper who serves with BooMan in the Vietnam War and knows “everything there is to know about the shrimpin’ business”; and Lieutenant Dan Taylor, BooMan and Bubba’s commanding officer. Bubba and BooMan plan to go into the shrimping business together after they go home, and BooMan listens as Bubba tells him all he knows about shrimping. When their platoon is ambushed by communist forces during a patrol, BooMan rescues Lieutenant Dan and other soldiers. He goes back for Bubba and carries him back to the others, getting shot himself, but Bubba dies when the evacuation choppers arrive.

     While recuperating, BooMan is introduced to ping-pong and becomes very good at it. At the same time, Lieutenant Dan, who lost both of his legs due to his injuries, is having a hard time coping with his Vietnam experience, or more accurately, his survival of them; he has relatives that have died in every American war. In one dramatic scene, Lieutenant Dan asks BooMan if he knows what it is like to not be able to use his legs, which BooMan does because of his earlier leg braces, but in telling him so BooMan only infuriates Lieutenant Dan as he cannot articulate it well. For his heroic actions in saving the members of his platoon, BooMan is awarded the Medal of Honor and meets President Lyndon Johnson.

     BooMan’s skills at ping-pong take him to China, and get him money from an endorsement of a ping-pong paddle. From these endeavors, he meets President Richard Nixon, who asks him where he is staying, and then offers to put BooMan up in a much nicer hotel, which turns out to be the Watergate office and hotel complex. BooMan calls the front desk after he sees flashlights across the courtyard, bringing attention to the Watergate burglars and precipitating Nixon’s downfall. He also meets Dick Cavett and John Lennon on Cavett’s talk show, and his accounts of China inspire Lennon’s song “Imagine”.

     BooMan uses the money from ping-pong to carry out his and Bubba’s plan, going to Alabama and buying a shrimp boat. He has no success at it. Lieutenant Dan had told BooMan if he ever followed through, Dan would become BooMan’s first mate; while he meant it as a joke, Dan still turns up at the dock. Even with Lieutenant Dan aiding him, BooMan’s luck does not improve, so Dan tells him to pray.

     Lieutenant Dan is still struggling with his Vietnam experiences, and when Hurricane Carmen hits the Gulf of Mexico in summer 1974, he and BooMan are out in the gulf on their boat with Lieutenant Dan screaming at God as manifested by the storm. The hurricane destroys all of the docked boats, leaving theirs as the only shrimp boat in the area. With no competition, business booms. BooMan insists on paying Bubba’s share of the profits to his family; Lieutenant Dan invests the rest. One of the investments, Apple Computer, (which BooMan calls a “fruit company”), makes them both rich. BooMan leaves the shrimp business when his mother dies, returning home to Philadelphia, and starts his blog, BooManTribune.

     I bet you never knew BooMan was such an interesting fellow!

     • 

       boran2 on February 21, 2008 at 2:59 pm

       I can’t wait for the movie!

2. 

   fabooj on February 21, 2008 at 1:49 pm

   Is all because of the US signing that thing to make Kosovo a country?

   • 

     on February 21, 2008 at 2:20 pm

     never have done the independence declaration.  I have NO idea why we promoted that.  Are we going to support Kurdistan next?  What about Free Basque?  What about Belgium?  How about Quebec?

     • 

       fabooj on February 21, 2008 at 2:47 pm

       Didn’t the UN make any Kosovo state illegal?  Wasn’t that what the 1999 resolution was all about?

3. 

   anarchronarchist on February 21, 2008 at 1:57 pm

   Kosovo’s war for independence and both Russia and our motivates regarding this little speck of land is a fascinating story and linchpin of the Great Game’s latest innings. Before Afghanistan and Iraq there was Kosovo, and there HAD to be Kosovo. It’s the place where all the BS story-lines converge and implode as the corrupt, disillusioning truth exerts itself.

   Then there is Azerbaijan..

   Remember Mega Oil, the 9/11 flight schools and who the backers of the Kosovar Liberation Army were/are. It’s all just like the last 2 of the first 3 star wars movies..

   • 

     BooMan on February 21, 2008 at 2:07 pm

     Who could forget Gary Best and M.E.G.A. oil?

     If we hadn’t pushed those muj into Chechnya, the Russians probably never would have released Zawahiri with orders to make us bleed.  But I digress.

     • 

       Mattes on February 21, 2008 at 2:24 pm

       All this because Russia won’t side with us on Iran?

     • 

       anarchronarchist on February 22, 2008 at 1:19 pm

       Is no digression.. It’s the evidence that there is a longer term plan at work, one that pre-dates 9/11 by several years.

4. 

   on February 21, 2008 at 2:19 pm

   against Milosevich, but not the independence.

   Independence of Kosovo will have terrible consequences throughout Europe and the Mideast.  Kosovo has no historical, ethnic, or national claims.  It’s just a made-up state.  Now the Serbs will be cleansed.  Great.

   This idiotic administration has bungled this like all foreign policy issues.  They should never have supported independence.  The previous status quo was fine.

   • 

     eodell on February 21, 2008 at 3:00 pm

     The United States was a “made-up state” with “no historical, ethnic, or national claims” when it declared independence, too. And it did it on the theory that people have an inalienable right to secession from any state that has ceased to be responsive to their will and well-being.

     And while the ethnic cleansing is certainly undesirable, as long as it is limited to dispossession and not mass killing, it’s hard to see how it could be avoided given the total lack of goodwill between the whackjob ethnic factions of the Balkans.

     • 

       on February 21, 2008 at 3:03 pm

       movements do you support?

       Republica Serbska?

       Free Northern Ireland?

       Tamilland?

       • 

         on February 21, 2008 at 3:08 pm

         How about Independent Wales?

         While I agree that some should be supported, there are probably hundreds.  And for each of those there are dissenters within the state.  Now that we have free Kosovo, should the Northern Serbian end be another state.  After all, the Serb portion of Kosovo deserves self-determination too, right?

         • 

           eodell on February 22, 2008 at 12:58 pm

           I see no reason to oppose any independence movement that:

           a) Has the support of a reasonable supermajority of the population of the proposed state,

           b) Guarantees equal rights under the law to its population, and

           c) can actually function economically as an independent state.

           Kosovo is iffy on the second requirement, but arguably no iffier than Kosovo under Serbian control. Wales doesn’t seem to meet the first requirement currently, though Scotland seems to be coming close. Israel failed the first requirement and still fails the second.

           But in general, yes, I think more and smaller states are a good idea.

     • 

       Quentin on February 21, 2008 at 5:10 pm

       Isn’t it legally impossible to secede from the Union (unconstitutional?). So how could the U.S. credibly support Kosovo’s secession from Serbia?

       • 

         Cabaret Voltaire on February 21, 2008 at 5:14 pm

         We’re an empire now. We create our own reality.

       • 

         eodell on February 22, 2008 at 12:48 pm

         There is no constitutional provision prohibiting secession. There is a prohibition on “rebellion”, which is why the official, formal name of the 1861-1865 civil war is “The War of the Rebellion”, reflecting the underlying legal theory.

         • 

           Quentin on February 22, 2008 at 6:09 pm

           Can a state then vote to secede? Or is secession the equivalent of rebellion (or the reverse)?

         • 

           eodell on February 23, 2008 at 10:50 am

           I think since the War, it’s generally accepted that unilateral secession is de facto prohibited. Before the War, the subject was a lot murkier. All of the original 13 states actually had to vote to join the US by ratifying the Constitution, and a number of them declared the right to secede in their articles of ratification. By accepting those conditional ratifications, it could be argued that the federal government accepted their terms.

           There hasn’t been much legal reasoning on the subject in the postbellum era, partly because there has been no significant secession movement, and partly because one of the major motives for the last secession movement was so ugly (i.e., slavery) that it undermined any legitimacy it might otherwise have had. Had slavery not existed, and had the other major issue at the time — import tariffs and the gross imbalances in taxation and federal spending — been the sole cause of secession, would Lincoln have been able to make the case for war? Probably not.

5. 

   Cabaret Voltaire on February 21, 2008 at 2:52 pm

   Here’s a link to a history professor’s quite detailed explanation of Kosovo debacle.

   http://www.counterpunch.org/leupp02192008.html

   and, while we’re at it, here’s some background information revealing some rather familiar names.

   http://www.bulgaria-italia.com/fry/docs/bworks.htm

   • 

     Mattes on February 21, 2008 at 4:06 pm

     Why do I remember reports of genocide in the late 1980’s by Serbs?

     • 

       Cabaret Voltaire on February 21, 2008 at 4:39 pm

       excerpt from Leupp’s report:

       But the Clinton administration used the same tactic as it prepared to bomb Yugoslavia. There were horror stories about “ethnic cleansing,” and Yugoslav government forces’ attacks on innocent Kosovar Albanians. Defense Secretary William Cohen, echoed Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), and former Sen. Bob Dole accused Belgrade of “genocide.” “We’ve now seen about 100,000 military-aged men missing… They may have been murdered,” warned Cohen. “There are indications genocide is unfolding in Kosovo,” declared State Department spokesman Jamie Rubin.
       But German reports told a different story. Four German court opinions from October 1998 to March 1999; two Foreign Office intelligence reports in January 1999; and one report from the Foreign Office to the Administrative Court in Mainz in March 1999 all challenged such accusations. According to the Opinion of the Upper Administrative Court at Munster (March 11, 1999), “Ethnic Albanians in Kosovo have neither been nor are now exposed to regional or countrywide group persecution in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.”
       After the glorious victory of NATO over Yugoslavia, it was discovered that as few as 2,108 people were actually killed in the province during 1998-9 before the bombardment began. Quite likely more Serbs have been killed by Albanians than vice versa since 1998.

       As you remember, there were tons of reports about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, as well.

       • 

         Mattes on February 22, 2008 at 12:15 pm

         But Clinton was not the president in the eighties. Does anyone else remember stories of death and rape?

         • 

           anarchronarchist on February 22, 2008 at 1:20 pm

           You are thinking of Bosnia

         • 

           Mattes on February 22, 2008 at 6:21 pm

           Yes….I believe that was it.

6. 

   The Voice In The Wilderness on February 21, 2008 at 6:34 pm

   Violating an embassy is a prima facie casus belli.

   Bomb those fuckers back to the Stone Age.

   • 

     Gaianne on February 22, 2008 at 5:50 am

     the French–informed the world (UN treaties to the contrary) that Vermont is now, indeed, and independent country, and supplied God’s own bank and arsenal of money and weaponry to back it up.  If you were American, how would that compare as an act of war versus storming the French embassy?  

     You had better believe:  Storming an embassy is nothing.

     The US is not playing with fire in the Balkans.  The US is playing with nitro-glycerin.  I am sure it will be fun to watch.  

     For those at a safe distance.  

     • 

       The Voice In The Wilderness on February 22, 2008 at 9:16 am

       If we were to violate a French embassy, it would be an act of war.

       If Vermont seceded from the Union and France recognized Vermont, that would be France’s right.

       It is not the USA that declared Kosovo independent, it was the Kosovars.

       A better analogy would be the Irish Easter uprising against British genocide. Would recognition of Ireland then have warranted sacking the American embassy in London? Or do you just like to see the American flag burned?

       • 

         Gaianne on February 22, 2008 at 11:12 am

         remember to shake really well.  

         In case I am being overly subtle, recognizing Kosovo WAs an act of war–by the US against Serbia.  

         Interesting times continue.  

         Or do you just like to see the American flag burned?  

         There is a stupid troll comment.  You really haven’t a clue.  

         • 

           eodell on February 22, 2008 at 12:54 pm

           Hardly. Bombing Serbia in the 90’s was an act of war. If a regional war erupts and we supply one side or the other with arms, that would be an act of war.

           Saying a few words expressing our official stance on the Kosovo question, on the other hand, is not an act of war.  It’s not without certain potentially weighty consequences, but an act of war? No.

       • 

         Gaianne on February 22, 2008 at 11:15 am

         Bomb those fuckers back to the Stone Age.  

         Or perhaps we can just agree you have nothing to contribute to human discourse.  

   • 

     Mattes on February 22, 2008 at 12:17 pm
7. 

   Oui on February 22, 2008 at 7:20 am

   .

   War on terrorism skipped the KLA

   The KLA was renamed the Kosovo Protection Force and been given the task of maintaining peace and security in Kosovo. How well it has been able to carry out this task is summed up in a report dated Feb. 26, 2001, to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, which accuses the protection corps of widespread acts of murder, torture and extortion.

   That condemnation should not have come as a surprise. As early as 1998, the U.S. State Department listed the KLA as a terrorist organization financing its operations with money from the international heroin trade and funds supplied from Islamic countries and individuals, including Osama bin Laden. This did not stop the United States from arming and training KLA members in Albania and in the summer of 1998 sending them back into Kosovo to assassinate Serbian mayors, ambush Serbian policemen and intimidate hesitant Kosovo Albanians. The aim was to destabilize Kosovo and overthrow Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic.

   Bin Laden and radical Muslim groups have been deeply involved in the Balkans since the civil wars in Bosnia from 1992 to 1995. Despite a UN arms embargo and with the knowledge and support of the United States, arms, ammunition and thousands of Mujahideen fighters were smuggled into Bosnia to help the Muslims. Many remain in Bosnia today and are recognized as a serious threat to Western forces there. The Bosnian government is said to have presented bin Laden with a Bosnian passport in recognition of his contribution to their cause. He and his al-Qaeda network were also active in Kosovo, and KLA members trained in his camps in Afghanistan and Albania.

   
   Ethnic 'cleansing' threat to Serbs in Kosovo  

   Albania and CIA Rendition of Islamists

   "But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

   • 

     anarchronarchist on February 22, 2008 at 1:33 pm

     The idea that the current East/West conflict is because of anything but our own doings is absurd and the #1 enemy of reality right now.

     Get a map of the whole world, put pins in the locations of all our (humanity’s) recent conflicts, occupations, US base-expansions and foreign-influence domestic violence. Now superimpose a map of heroin trade routes, planned energy pipeline routes, energy production fields and current shipping routes. From the heroin coming through Kosovo into Europe from the fields of Afghanistan to the ‘proposed’ pipeline routes through ‘enemy’ territory to the destabilization of production and shipping routes, the whole shebang is simply to justify controlling world resource access, increase profit by destabilizing markets and redistribute wealth from the demos to the elite.

     I get frustrated that a lot of current policy debate is about how best to drive the last nails in Liberal Democracy and spawn a better American fascism.