Ethnic Thuggery
ALAN, RAY
Euro vista By Ray alan Ethnic Thuggery The Most Cynical catch phrases of the 1990s were probably "ethnic cleansing," "ethnic purging" and "ethnic purification"—terms used to describe the...
...Victor Hugo planned some of his books there...
...His report did not actually mention me, but I don't mind...
...Yet another had a family link with a murderous nationalist group...
...When the 1997 election brought to power New Labor, led by Tony Blair, Riley decided to give his book a second chance...
...I suspect (1) that Uncle Sam has electronic gadgets capable of tracking Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic, his sidekicks and their international bank accounts...
...The Mayor—a brisk, good-humored lady—officiated...
...Jeeping December is an anniversary—of the last time I drove across the Sinai desert between southern Israel and Egypt...
...He sounds solid on international politics...
...In exchange, Riley omitted a few names...
...Other gambles, forced on the government by SIS for several costly years, were the establishment of an "Arab" radio station (Sharq al-Adna) in Cyprus, and an "Arab" news agency (ANA) in Cairo...
...Jeannette disappeared...
...I'm not aiming for royalties or baksheesh...
...Luxembourg had a powerful transmitter and was delighted to churn out pop music (and brief Anglo-French commercials) on Sunday, when thousands of Brits tuned in...
...Fortunately, babies are tough...
...It's a tiny world...
...Something like my scheme is developing, according to a Jerusalem colleague...
...A Few Years ago, Morris Riley, an English accountant who hates financial and political cheats, wrote a book about Kim Philby, the mid-century spy recanted by the "old-boy network" to serve in the UK's Secret Intelligence Service (SIS...
...The good news is that Greeks and Turks are on speaking terms again, despite demonstrations by anti-Turkish Leftists in Athens...
...And what about the wreckage in Serbia...
...Towns are clean and the countryside is rich in surprises...
...Navigating a bend—well, I thought it was a bend—the jeep bounced madly and churned up sand...
...thank himforsavingEurope from itself—again...
...Although the Albanians and other victims of the Serbs are hardly all angels, that's no excuse for the orgy of murder, rape and torching inflicted on them...
...Euro vista By Ray alan Ethnic Thuggery The Most Cynical catch phrases of the 1990s were probably "ethnic cleansing," "ethnic purging" and "ethnic purification"—terms used to describe the massacre or expulsion of racial or religious minorities in Southeastern Europe and elsewhere...
...Another became the editor of an antiWestern journal...
...Sharq and ANA have since been scrapped...
...Well, at school all children study French from the first year, German from the second, and the local language from the third...
...than cheers...
...At the request of royalty, the top brass of the UK radio monopoly (BBC) had decreed that bouncy music likejazz, swing and tango must not be broadcast on Sundays...
...No Western government will want to squander resources in endless mid-Balkan quarrels while Greece (like Israel, one of the founders of our civilization) and Turkey (endangered by Islamic extremists) need help...
...He found another publisher, consulted the Ministry of Defense, and discovered that officialdom was no longer hostile...
...There is, of course, no such freak as a "clean" war...
...The groom, an official of the European Union, was born in Israel, is 50 per cent French, 25 per cent Catalan and 25 per cent southern Irish, and has a United Kingdom passport...
...Near the middle of it stand a statue of General George S. Patton and a museum dedicated to the U.S...
...I never forgot that trip, and some years ago, in defiance of the American proverb about good fences and good neighbors, I mentioned in a New York periodical the need for good highways that would link the Mediterranean coast with Jerusalem and Jordan, and then Tel Aviv with the Suez zone (Ismailia, perhaps: it can be pleasant when the heat drops—an hour or two after midnight...
...Soon after its publication in London, men allegedly connected with SIS drove the publisher to the brink of a nervous breakdown...
...Many Western Europeans say: "Serbs lit the blaze, so Serbs must pay the firemen...
...He chose as his Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, who knew less than Attlee but had to be given an important post for internal party reasons...
...Le Monde has a computer that can count such things...
...Sharq's news and commentaries were written in English, then translated and broadcast by Arabs—but no British staff member understood enough Arabic to check for subtlety of meaning or emphasis...
...One of its members was later involved in a secret imbroglio in Cyprus and accused of helping Gamal Abdel Nasser, the Egyptian military dictator, in the Suez War...
...One idiotic project was to have been the building of a huge military base in the indefensible Gaza region—even though there was already a big base not far away and some British economists were "55 per cent convinced" that "economics" would make it necessary for the UK to withdraw from the Eastern Mediterranean...
...I have been told that, as Hitler's war drew to an end...
...In the early years of radio, Luxembourg was popular in Britain even among people who didn't know where it was...
...In cooperation with President Clinton and a few European leaders, Tony Blair's government has begun equipping Britain with a policy and tools it does not have to be ashamed of...
...Riley had supported the Conservatives for years, but they didn't want to know him...
...Another problem: Funds that might have rebuilt some Kosovo villages have gone to help Turks and Greeks cope with earthquake damage...
...President Bill Clinton was in Europe a few weeks ago, trying to civilize us and hoping that the British press would stop snarling about other countries' efforts to keep out mad cow disease...
...Philby had supported the pro-Fascist General Franco in Spain, and might have been a casting agent's stereotype of an English gentleman...
...Third Army...
...To avoid another clash with SIS that he couldn't win, Riley let more than a year pass before resuming his research...
...Really...
...We went there to attend a wedding...
...Yes, it's Luxembourg...
...He arrived on schedule a few months later, quite undamaged...
...Bombing is nasty, but it is arguable that Milosevic's fans had to be taught a lesson...
...Besides Kosovo, consider the recent horrors in Chechnya, Indonesia, Pakistan, and some African states...
...But I may be biased in his and Hillary's favor...
...One might have to join the Navy to learn the answer to that question...
...A senior Navy officer wrote from the Ministry allowing Riley to reinsert passages the Conservative government's censors had cut...
...It can be said, though, that Britain's Naval Intelligence Division is not a nitpicking outfit...
...There seemed to be no limit to the irresponsibility and waste of public funds thatthe Foreign Office and SIS would tolerate...
...Radio Lux was taken over briefly by a British team...
...Landscape was pretending to be sandscape and the road just a track, with some of its rifts and zigzags hidden by smooth sand...
...Riley deserved credit for trying to map the Philby labyrinth, but his book attracted more threats (English threats...
...One decent policeman apologized to him...
...Its population is about 406,000, and more than 110 banks have offices there...
...No other famous couple ever sent me a photo of their cat...
...Philby, Ine...
...Luxembliss Today's Geography Test: Name a European country that is smaller than Belgium but bigger than Andorra, and has a per capita national income one third larger than that of France and Germany, and twice that of Britain...
...The book, with its revelations of "secret service" antics in London and the Near East, is now on sale in paperback for £ 10 (about $15) under the title: Philby, the Hidden Years (www.januspublishing.co.uk...
...Burying the dead may be cheap, but who will rebuild the houses and schools destroyed by Serbs in Kosovo...
...Britain's first postwar Labor government was headed by Clement Attlee, a decent man who knew little about international affairs...
...He was then jailed for a minor offense connected with his car—and the police took the opportunity to search his house...
...Even the sober Paris daily Le Monde has used these "ethnic" clichés about 1,600 times in the past seven years...
...Over the years it has produced some excellent books and reports on geographic and other aspects of countries it considers interesting, even if they do not have a significant Navy...
...But prostitution was allowed to flourish, perhaps because it rhymed with institution...
...One Arab employee of Sharq contributed to a Beirut Communist paper...
...and (2) that Sam could bomb them off the map within a few hours...
...On a hillside overlooking a river, my son and I came to a well-preserved wooden seat surrounded by trees...
...She was unharmed, but we were a bit worried because we had ordered a baby...
...The region needs a positive Greek-Turkish relationship that might spill over to Cyprus, the Greekislandpartly occupied by Turks...
...And they add that the same principle must apply in East Timor...
...and now they want their revenge...
...Why was a Navy officer involved...
...The marital mix was richly international...
...And nobody's likely to offer me a jeep...
...Unfortunately...
...And that was that...
...Unfortunately, he reserved his true love for Joe Stalin's Russia...
...I was in a jeep with my wife alongside me, and the regular driver and a few bags in the back...
...Most Luxembourgers are nominally Catholics, but legally—as in France—it is the civil marriage in the local Town Hall that counts (a religious ceremony, if desired, takes place later...
...Most copies of that hardback edition were, I am told, destroyed...
...Their government teetered on the brink of bankruptcy while British representatives in the Middle East (mostly hostile to Labor) squandered the UK taxpayer's money on outdated military projects, primitive propaganda, wasted subsidies, and political baksheesh (a form of bribery) to a few Arab politicians...
...Serb officials say the West must pick up the bill...
...Schoolboys said it helped their French...
...There is nearly always a breeze in the Sinai, but this time it wanted to be a wind...
...More clues...
...The next time you see that lanky uncle of yours (the one who wears carnival gear and oozes dollars: Sam, isn't it...
...He is now a Eurocrat, which might be translated: "One who spends a lot of time looking for Europe...
...The bride has practiced medicine in France, Holland and Luxembourg...
...I found her sitting beside a cactus, both of them looking gloomy...
...For good measure, the Sharq setup and Anglo-French preparations to attack Suez were betrayed to the Egyptians by a senior English off icial who had been gushily selected by SIS...
...The aim would be to encourage trade and tourism, and combat tight-frontier claustrophobia...
Vol. 82 • November 1999 • No. 14
