Bruce Sterling on Wed, 7 Apr 1999 18:22:11 -0700 (PDT) |
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Syndicate: Open Letter to Slobodan Markovi |
Open Letter to Slobodan Markovic *Dear Slobodan: *On 7 April, 01999, you quoted my earlier remarks in my "Open Letter to Insomnia": >For heaven's sake, do not walk out on the surviving bridges of Novi Sad. >I don't care how pretty the bridges are, how much they mean to you >sentimentally and culturally, or how long they have been there. You are >not going to have any bridges. Also, no trains, no fuel, no running >water, no electricity, and probably, sooner or later, no food. Unless >NATO decides to drop some food on you. *And then you commented: To rejoice on someone's ill-fate is equally savage as every massacre on Kosovo and any NATO air-raid. Pray to God not to ever experience a missile attack on you own city! *I believe you misunderstand my intention here. I was not "rejoicing" in this grim situation. I was trying to describe the military situation factually. Is there anything in that assessment of mine that you can *disagree* with? It's cruel and savage truth, but it's the truth, isn't it? *I'm not simply pulling these frightening assertions out of my hat, in order to cause you emotional pain. I am a journalist, and I have interviewed members of the American military (see my article in WIRED magazine issue #1, "War is Virtual Hell"). American military leaders believe they can disarm and cripple nations like yours with modern strategic bombing. They can target and destroy anti-aircraft, aircraft, traffic systems, communications systems, electricity, telephones, radar, fuel depots. And, yes, cigarette factories and pretty bridges. And more. They may be misled by their own theories, but they do have the military power to carry out a lot of this destruction. They are doing it now. They are perfectly capable of bombing you for weeks on end. They could do it for months. Possibly years. *NATO is now engaged in a grand military experiment to see what happens to a living European nation as its infrastructure is methodically blown to pieces. They have satellites watching you, and manned and unmanned surveillance vehicles, and thousands of trained intelligence analysts who interpret this satellite data. As you rebuild things, they can tear them apart again. Arming yourself with foreign weapons against the NATO planes will not help much, either. They don't enjoy killing civilians, but they *do* enjoy destroying Russia's pitifully outdated, 20th-century weapons systems. *What does this mean realistically? It probably means that Serbians, though victors on the ground, will be living in a wrecked, pre-industrial country, taking ferries, in the dark. And yes, you probably will run out of food. And yes, NATO will probably feed you by dropping charity packages from the air. Feeding people you are bombing has never been done in European warfare before. It is certainly nothing that Serbia would have done in the local Wars of the Yugoslav Secession. But this is 1999, and it is a very novel military situation. *You are trying to fight a 20th century lebensraum war against 21st century powers. NATO is a rattletrap alliance. It does not have the grim 1940s-style resolve that a Balkan state has. But NATO leaders have a lot to lose from political failure, and a great deal of money. Worst of all, NATO can blow you up. The best you can do in military response is dispossess your neighbors, dance in the streets, and write sarcastic propaganda. Speaking realistically, how long can this go on? *Please don't avoid reality by accusing me of being a savage. I respect your distress, and it is certainly a grim, horrific situation that I would never like to share. I know that our situations differ. You are the one bearing the consequence, not me. The savage truth I speak of may make you angry, but if you ignore the truth, it will likely get you killed. Whereas if I ignore the truth, I will merely be living in the serene, untroubled indifference of most other Americans. *It is probably only a matter of time until small nations can acquire cruise missiles and the means to deliver and target them. Then, perhaps, my city of Austin will be in grave danger. But that is the future. At the moment, your military is like a man with a pistol, surrounded by nineteen men with rifles. *I think, and I must repeat to you, that the likeliest outcome here is that the man with the pistol will kill the people he can reach. There may be a Serbian military adventure into a neighboring country -- but those neighbors, whomever they may be, will have the world's best Air Force. As the frustration builds, there will be an outburst of genocidal rage within Serbia. In other words, a Serbian Great Terror, a domestic purge. It will probably be on a scale much larger than the various gruesome eruptions we have seen in your region in the past 12 years. The Albanians are mostly gone now. Hungarians remain, but then you are left only with "dissidents" and "traitors," i.e., Serbians at large. The "human shields." The martyrs. The Serbian Cambodia. Do you think this prediction is unlikely? Tell me why. >Stop making melodramatic gestures that are obvious rehearsals of >martyrdom and your own death. When these careless words come from Bruce Sterling himself, it's even more sad... :-( *It's not particularly sad if I say something careless. But I am not careless in this warning to you. I will repeat it and amplify it. The "rehearsal of martyrdom" is something I know well, because I live 90 miles away from the armed compound of the Branch Davidian religious cult. You should have seen those zealots singing and dancing as the American tanks surrounded them. As their isolation intensified, they grew ever more righteous, unified and exultant. They never betrayed or defied their crazed leader. It was the cult's apotheosis. And then, at last, the all-devouring flames broke out. *Today, many paranoid cranks believe that these delusionary wretches were heroic, holy fighters, martyrs against the New World Order. But the Branch Davidians themselves are mostly dead. Men, women, and children. *I don't tell you all this because I expect to change your convictions. Nor do I want to merely scare you, gloat at your misfortunes, or hurt your feelings. Having read the work of people on the ground in Serbia, like yourself (and the now-sadly-silent Insomnia), I feel obliged to do this from a sense of moral duty. *I know that a great people are heroic under duress. I respect this. Even we distant Texans have a military tradition we cherish, that we call "the Alamo." Basically, the Alamo was an incident in a local war of lebensraum, an ethnic conflict. When the national government invaded Texas to restore colonial order, the breakaway Anglo ethnics all fled toward the border in an almighty panic. Does this sound at all familiar? You may possibly have heard about this famous Texan battle, "the Alamo." Everyone on our side died. *Martyrdom is glorious, it is the only great accomplishment that requires no talent. But in the War of 1836, we Texans had time, the numbers, and the guns, on our side. You don't. Sincerely, Bruce Sterling (bruces@well.com) ------Syndicate mailinglist-------------------- information: http://www.v2.nl/east/ mail archive: http://www.v2.nl/mail/v2east/current/ to unsubscribe send a message to <syndicate-request@aec.at> with the message in the body: unsubscribe your@email.adress