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So I worked on that instead of trying to explain where you're going wrong on Kosovo. (That's going to be hard, too -- one reason I haven't done it yet, the other is I want to do it carefully and well.) Telling Yankees why they should oppose The Empire seems a little higher priority.
But briefly, what we're talking about in Kosovo is a movement of nationally-oppressed people. (You were right that I gave it too much of a purely proletarian character.) Of course the "official text" on that is Lenin's The National Question. Obviously you'd do much better to read that than anything I write.
Movements of oppressed nationalities are to be defended unconditionally (without pre-conditions) -- in other words, regardless of the character of their leadership. You are right that there are many pro-capitalist elements in the KLA. I'm also sure that Washington is doing their level best to corrupt and indoctrinate them. (Although I think you make too much of how pro-capitalist the KLA is [for instance most very-low wage immigrants working in the imperialist world manage to send money back to their home countries]; also I'd be more skeptical of the "drug-dealing" charge -- it's a favorite imperialist propaganda weapon. Not to say it's not going on -- drugs would be a key weapon the imperialists would use to corrupt people. But in any case, reports from the field over the last year or so make it clear that the KLA is a popular armed force, in both senses of the word ("well-liked" and "of the people'). We're not talking about a small gang of pro-capitalists here, but a movement of an oppressed nationality (whose leadership may or may not, to one degree or another, be pro-capitalist ... or even hold some reactionary positions).
So what? The key word is "unconditionally."
Now I said "defended," not "supported." Your mention of Farrakhan is appropriate -- yes, he holds many reactionary positions, and is explicitly pro-capitalist. But against U.S. imperialism I unconditionally defend his right to organize without any interference by Washington. I did not call for people to join his "Million Man March."
So even if the KLA is as bad as you think, you still have to defend them unconditionally against the nation and (Serbian) nationality that oppresses them. (Myself I think they are much better than you do -- and I think you also underestimate the genuine popular uprising that took place in Albania, which has now of course receded. Albanian workers and peasants (yes, I mean to impart a proletarian character here) rose against their government, destroyed the repressive apparatus, formed local councils ("soviets" in Russian) to govern affairs while the people armed themselves. Wow. If there had been a Bolshevik party there Berisha would certainly not be in power now!)
The point is that working class unity (either domestically or internationally) can not be achieved by saying "hey, let's all get together." Workers of oppressor nations MUST champion the demands of the most oppressed, otherwise the unity is a sham -- and will never happen anyway. That's why here we demand the cancellation of the Third World debt, total restructuring of the unfair relations between the Third and the imperialist world, and the immediate halt to all military operations against the Third World regardless of the leadership of the country under attack.
Of course you're in a different situation in many respects -- you're a worker in a country oppressed by imperialism. You have to defend your country against imperialist attack -- obviously it wouldn't be in your interest to see Milosevic replaced by NATO.
But in relation to Kosova, you are more-or-less in my shoes: a worker in an oppressor nation who has to unconditionally defend an oppressed nationality.
And if you want to rebuild true trans-Yugoslavian unity you can't do it unless you unconditionally support equality for the oppressed -- up to and including the right of secession.
No unity without equality -- no equality without the right of independence.
I look at it sort of like marriage -- it's not a real marriage is your wife isn't part of it by her free choice. Without equal income --and especially without the right to divorce-- it ain't no free and equal union. The man who keeps his wife chained in the basement can't claim to have a marriage.
Which is why the Soviet Union actually stopped being the Soviet Union long before 1991 -- more like 1930. In fact, the breakup of the "prison-house of nations" that the S.U. had turned into became a pre-condition for re-building a real Soviet Union.
If there is going to be a re-marriage --a new Soviet Union, a new Yugoslavia-- it will only be on the basis of equality with the right to divorce.
Well, I guess this wasn't brief after all.
Finally (at last) about your next dispatch: man, I leave that up to you. Just write us all a letter about what life is like. How was Easter? Did a lot of people go to services? (I assume the church is all tied up with Serbian nationalism, right?) Are people going to work or school? Are there any spring flowers blooming, leaves on the trees? What are peoples' love lives like? Are women being affected by the war differently than men? What about children--what is happening with them? Plus (of course) politics -- what's on the tube, what people of various strata and outlooks (factory workers? one-time oppositionists?) think. What we're trying to do here is get some "fraternizing with the enemy" going on -- treason, man, treason.
Comradely, steve
PS I am not a member of the SWP -- I once was and I still support them. But they take no responsibility for anything I say -- they probably don't even know about it. SeeingRed is politically more than just me anyway.