SHOULD WE & I GIVE UP?

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                   ANDRE GUNDER FRANK
250 Kensington Ave - Apt 608     Tel: 1-514-933 2539    
Westmount/Montreal PQ/QC         Fax: 1-514-933 6445 or 1478
Canada H3Z 2G8              e-mail:agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca 

My Home Page is at:       http://www.whc.neu.edu/gunder.html
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 15:59:06 -0500 (EST)
From: Gunder Frank <agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca>
To: agf <agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca>
Subject: SHOULD I GIVE UP? (fwd)

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Gunder Frank writes:

Since my NATO bombing article was posted, gratifyingly i have received
personal responses from
argentina,austria,brazil,britain,canada,france,russia,spain,usa,
yugoslavia

However some responses, both personal and via nets, have been more
than discouraging, but NOT because they disagree with what I wrote.

The issue in a wider context is that we are all for more or at least
some democracy in Kosovo,Yugoslavia,Balkans, Europe, Nato members, USA
etc. etc. It is also said that knowing how to READ is a vital it not
essential factor in making democracy work both domestically and
with regard to international relations. In the USA at least thre are
constant and repeated strudies and chanrges that "Johnny can't read"
 .
Well how could s/he if John/Jane's teachers and their professors
in turn also cannot or will NOT READ what is in the text before them

For among the aforementioned private and public responses to my text
there were quite a few that disagree with positions that I do NOT 
have and did NOT write, or because the commentator  laments that the
text does NOT say what the text clearly DOES say.

And if my text does not speak for itself, but the writers below 'speak'
for it, there is little point in my or anybody speaking any more text
- so then lets just be satisfied with bombing and ethnic cleansing?

1. MUCH TOO RIGHT WING IN THE BUCHANON/HELMS  US ISOLATIONIST
CAMP I was disappointed that you did not argue from the position of W-S
theory.  As it is you make the same points as the right wingers in the
US such as Patrick Buchanan (a point Mohiaddin makes): dead against
expansion of NATO and messing around in Yugoslavia where US has no
interest. That's Jesse Helm also. Your argument is based almost entirely
on International Law - Russian ambassador to the UN goes regularly over
the same grounds  as the official Russian position, adding to your list
of breaches of IL the UN GA  resolution on non aggression.

----AGF: The Text Of course says exactly the oposite  of
 what the writer attrributes to it and me, that is being like  the
isolatinsist right wingers who reject all intrernatinal law and the UN and all that,
and are America firsters and lasters


 2.  MUCH TOO ANTI-US AND UN SANCTION WOULD BE OK AND ENOUGH
 One suspects that what Frank
finds fault with is the national action involved. Were it the UN that
expressly sanctioned intervention in Yugoslavia one suspects there would
be praise for the action taken, indeed righteous justification would be
forthcoming. But since we are dealing with US intervention under the
umbrella of NATO there is moral scorn heaped upon the participants.

---- AGF text cited chapter and verse of the UN Charter saying
that IS, NATO or anybody except the UN's own "expressly sanctioned" 
military intervention violates the UN charter in several respects 
as the Gulf war did, and i even cited the NARYO charter which refers to
the  UN authority, and is also being violated by NATO.

casnt anybody read, like Johnny and the three r's?

3. UN SANCTION IS NOT ENOUGH AND WE MUST ALSO CONDEMN/OPPOSE 
THE SERBIAN REGIEME


What I meant with my sentence that I did not agree with everything in
your article was the following: I know that what NATO is doing is not in
accordance with the international law; furthermore, it is violation of
the international law. NATO should have obtained the authorization by
the Security Council of the UN. Nevertheless, if I compare the
criminality of NATO and of the ruling Serbian regime there is a need to
stress the difference. What Serbian regime is doing in Kosovo
constitutes a crime of genocide and is usually described as "ethnic
clensing" nowadays. As much as NATO attempts might be arbitrary and
contrary to the international law, they are reactions to the mentioned
policy of the Serbian regime. Genocide should be fought against, 

--- AGF text, ademittedly less than those written in 1990/91,
devoted critical text to criticising the Serbian regieme, and even
referred to AGF's 190/91 warning about Milosevic in particular in a UN
journal and critiques not only the ethnic cleansing but also the failure
to capture and prosecute those who did it {I have seen Arko on TV several
times the past days].

cant anybody read?

 4. NATO POWERS HAVE BEEN [INNOCENT?] BYSTANDERS FOR 10 YEARS AND
NOW ARE THE ONLY ONES ABLE TO DO SOMETHING
 However, something must be
done, and if no one organization has the ability and determination to do
it, then NATO must. For the past 10 odd years we have watched the former
Yugoslavia convulse in a series of bloody civil wars. The region must be
stabilized"                                  

--- AGF text gave a whole [albveit only a page long] 10 year and more
history of precisely the DEstabilization  of Yugoslavia by the NATO
powers themselves and the FAILURE to prepare even for the massive flow of
refugees that NATO action has now generated, whihc teh AGF articel alos
said it wouldas everybody knew, including NATI which brojght in troops and
military equip[ment to neihgboring places, but nothingf to care for the
refugees, as the text also said. 

So in these excerpts ...

- some attribute to me declarations or positions 180 degree OPPOSITE to
what  I wrote in the text , as in excerpts  # 1 and # 2 from commentators
below

- others simply disregard and deny the existence of several pages
of my text on wheat concerns them, as in # 3 and # 4 below.

I ask myself and you all, what is the point of writing anything, if
readers do  not read anything OUT of the text but instead read INTO the
text what they had in their head to begin with and still do?
this sounds like a pomo questioon, but it really is aboutr reality!

In these  four sample texts, i dunno if they and i [my brief
answers ] construct, deconstruct, misconstruct[strue],
destruct, or simply self-destruct. under the circumstances, that last
one is my inclination.    

The question here is not  whether the text or AGF was right, wrong or 
indifferent. The question is

- can't anybody READ
and if not
- what's the point of WRITING

does anybody have any answers?

gunder frank
ps. I dont even want to go into the false accusation of my alledgedly 
'flaming' on this net, on which all things considered i can im/modestly
say that so far i have offfered the most considered, balanced, documented
analysis of this situation so far.
agf

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                   ANDRE GUNDER FRANK
250 Kensington Ave - Apt 608     Tel: 1-514-933 2539    
Westmount/Montreal PQ/QC         Fax: 1-514-933 6445 or 1478
Canada H3Z 2G8              e-mail:agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca 

My Home Page is at:       http://www.whc.neu.edu/gunder.html
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