G21 - DON'T READ ME FIRST!

MAIN EVENT. A Good Place to Get Started --- a.k.a "Table of Contents"

(Continued from the Cover) Don't Read Me First

G21 INSIDER

The Kosovo Triangle

Publisher's Note

New York - 6 April, 1999: You can't achieve peace and justice by killing. Amen

I delayed and queued some of the regular features because I felt that this magazine needed to speak about the war in the Balkans in a forceful way. Otherwise, calling ourselves "The World Magazine" would be a sham. That is what we are doing with this Special Edition.

I need to sleep, and I can't sleep until we do our part to take some ACTION.

I fully expected, when I sent out the call to my international contacts and the writers who regularly appear here, that we would be focusing on the need for the inevitable ground war against the Serbs which the LOUD REPETITION of the Mouthpiece Media insists is necessary.

So I was surprised --- and excited! --- about this provocative dirge we play here this week.

I know already that many of you will find the contents of this Edition, and the opinions expressed by the contributors, disturbing, perhaps even maddening.

But that's good. That is what a magazine like the GENERATOR 21 should be about. I welcome your comments, brickbats, whatever. I believe that some of you may even support the perspectives we express here --- even though they are not "mainstream."

You see, the problem I have with the steady drumbeat for ANOTHER war starting in the Balkans is that I'm a student of history. It drives me crazy that we don't learn from history. (Thanks and a tip of the hat to David Bowie.)

I look at the TOTALLY BUNGLED NATO air operation which began on March 24 (my birthday!) and ask myself why someone in the Pentagon hasn't gotten a pink slip for incompetence? I ask myself who in the NATO high command and the EU didn't have a clue that that bastard Milosevic would step up his cleanskreig once the bombs started falling from the skies?

Another site made on a Macintosh That's when I start to believe, along with RASTISLAV DURMAN, our special contributor from Novi Sad this week [See DAY ONE,] that this was all a set-up.

But Rastislav is just joking, of course.

Back to History: Since we all agree that a ground war is inevitable, why don't we also agree that like other wars begun in the Balkans this can spread?

This can immediately spread to Albania, and Macedonia. That's a given.

When I see members of the Russian parliament having fist-fights in the New York Times, I'm given pause. Russia is "stable?"

"HEY, ROD! IT'S ONLY MILOSEVIC. ONCE HE'S GONE: PROBLEM SOLVED."

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

History tells me that they said it was "only Hitler" and he was tinpot dictator nobody should worry about.

Then one day the world woke up and the war had spread and it wasn't just Hitler, but Hitler-Mussolini-and-Tojo. Who knew?

And I understand Milosevic and Saddam have become asshole buddies.... And I wonder what would happen if Yeltsin dropped dead in a drunken stupor and a hardline nationalist took over in Russia, and I say to myself, "Oh boy! Oh boy! We're going to war again. America gets another chance to prove the theorem that you can fight your way to peace."

Maybe it's just me. Maybe I've been a dyed-in-the-wool pacifist and radical,too long. History shouldn't stand in the way of a good fight, should it?

I'll stop talking about "ancient" history now, and remind you of some recent history.

Almost ten years after the United States "drew a line in the sand" Saddam Hussein is still in power, despite repeated bombings and economic sanctions, and the Kurds are still fucked.

Now tell me how you'd like to be an ethnic-Albanian from Kosovo living in a refugee camp in Germany or Guantanomo Bay?

Thanks for coming back this week.

We're glad you're here. We have a lot to offer this (and EVERY) week. Stick around. More importantly: TELL EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOUR FRIENDS. We want you here EVERY DAY.

WHY?

Because we like you...

Work like you don't need the money,
Love like you've never been hurt,
Dance like no one is watching,
Rod

ROD AMIS has published this magazine since 1990. It first appeared as a hardcopy 'Zine. In March, 1996, he launched it here on the Internet. Rod was a Contributing Editor at Suite101.com, where he wrote the " 'Net Publishing" feature. His work has been featured in the San Francisco Bay Guardian Online,NRV8, and at WebLab's Reality Check site. Rod was also a contributing writer on technology for Faulkner Information Services.

Rod is a columnist for the Andover News Network, where he writes on web design and development issues every Thursday. He is principal writer and Editor for IT Manager's Journal, where he reviews technology issues five days a week. His opinions on the Info Age begin appearing on MethodFive's HYPER technology newsletter this month.

When not busy with his publishing chores at this site, and answering sixty -to- one hundred e-mails a day, he likes to throw darts; seek female companionship; and listen to Tupac, Beethoven, Philip Glass, Joni Mitchell, James Carter, Eric Clapton, Snoop Dogg, Etta James, Miles Davis, Handel, Portishead, Toots & the Maytals, Bob Marley, Sinead O'Connor, techno, house, jazz....

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