-Caveat Lector- >From Irish Times Monday, May 10, 1999 Those watching NATO are confident of victory ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Chris Stephen NATO's military view on the ground is that Yugoslavia can be defeated in Kosovo, given time, writes Chris Stephen in Tirana, but NATO's politicians know that time may not be on their side. The strike against the Chinese embassy in Belgrade has widened to a chasm the gap between the soul-searching of NATO's political masters and the growing confidence of those on the ground who think victory is in sight. An upbeat feeling is hard to avoid among the diplomats, military observers and NATO officers now pouring into neighbouring Macedonia and Albania. Those watching the action believe the Alliance will win, given enough time and the willingness to use, and perhaps lose, some ground troops. This is based on a number of assumptions. The first is that nearly 50 days of bombing is beginning to have an incremental effect on the Serbian war machine. The Serbs now have little refining capacity, so oil must be impo rted in its expensive, refined, state. And paid for by a country which is technically bankrupt. And stored in canisters because anything larger has been bombed. And transported along roads with blown bridges and constant battering from prowling jets. While NATO can churn out more and more bombs, the Serbs cannot so easily replace lost tanks and men. Furthermore, half the 45,000 Serb troops in Kosovo are police units, sufficient for tussling with lightly armed guerrillas, but neither equipped nor trained for battle with tanks supported by aircraft. Under the grinding law of diminishing returns, NATO's planners here expect eventually to smash Serb forces to the point where a compact ground force can roll into Kosovo from neighbouring Albania. The diplomats here say Serbia's fighting record is poor. Its heroic resistance to Nazi occupation in the second World War has yet to be seen in the wars in Yugoslavia in the past decade. Against Croatia in 1991 the cream of the army, badly led and prone to desertion, took three months to take one town, Vukovar, against a far smaller Croatian force. Five years on the Croats, helped by US advisers, took two days to recapture its Serb-held province of Krajina, puncturing the legend of military prowess of the Krajina Serbs, who once guarded the borders of Christendom against Ottoman invaders. A few months later Bosnian Croat and Muslim forces swept the Serbs from much of northern Bosnia. When one Serb position fell, the entire line fell back, units more frightened of being taken captive than defending their homeland. Serb forces have yet to demonstrate that they can hold their own against forces of comparable strength. KOSOVO could be different. This province is the most sacred part of Serbdom, and Serbs could yet decide to fight sacrificial battles to defend it. But that, say NATO staff here, is the whole point. For a Serb unit to fend off a NATO armoured column, which could call on unlimited air support, would mean a sacrificial holding action. Some Serb units might be willing to do this. NATO is betting that most would rather run away. A ground offensive of sorts is already under way, with the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army having carved out a modest slice of northern Kosovo from bases in Albania. More KLA units are active inside Kosovo, picking off isolated Serb units and further battering morale already strained by air strikes and lack of leave. Quantifying all this is difficult, and Alliance intelligence inconclusive. Nevertheless, some think they see weakness in the Serb withdrawal last week from the key northern Shalja mountain. The KLA says the Serb pullout has nothing to do with its own action, and hopes it is a sign of the Serbs drawing in their lines as they grow weaker. One by one, Serb positions are being found, mapped and then "taken out" by NATO jets. Such strikes are poised to increase massively. Forget about the Apaches, hightech helicopters that will find it hard to find targets in the mountainous border. The weapon that has them excited in the bars of Skopje and Tirana is the Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS). About 15 of these tracked beasts are now in northern Albania, each with the ability to take out, in NATO's user-friendly parlance, everything within an area the size of a football field. Hence, for instance, NATO could "pave the way" along a road by simply destroying every Serb firing position along it. And here, of course, the military and political views collide. The military men here know that, given enough time, NATO can simply "MLRS" its way through Kosovo. NATO's politicians know they may not have that time. "The opinions here, these are from military men," said a French diplomat in Tirana. "In Europe they are thinking, we've been bombing and the atrocities are still happening. People are thinking, 'Are we doing something wrong'?" From http://www.globe.com/dailyglobe2/129/editorials/Fatal_vision P.shtml <Picture: Boston Globe Online: Print it!><Picture> THIS STORY HAS BEEN FORMATTED FOR EASY PRINTING ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------ Fatal vision By 0, 05/09/99 <Picture>riday night's intensive bombing of Serbia seemed to symbolize NATO's entire campaign: ill conceived, badly executed, and counterproductive. NATO has admitted hitting a hospital, a market, and the embassy of China, a country holding veto powers in the Security Council and already at odds with NATO over the war. Furthermore, NATO has admitted hitting the hospital and the market with cluster bombs, those deadly anti-personnel weapons that shower death from bomblets. In the same night, NATO hit Bulgaria for the fifth time, a friendly country that must be growing tired of all this accidental ordnance. Of course they were all mistakes. NATO didn't mean to hit a hospital, a market, and the embassy of a very touchy great power, just as earlier on NATO did not mean to bomb a passenger train, or a refugee convoy, or a civilian bus. NATO spokesmen mouth the usual platitudes about collateral damage, and mistakes being an unfortunate by-product of war, but the problem runs deeper. NATO didn't mean to enhance Slobodan Milosevic's control over his countrymen, destroy any democratic opposition, and rally the Serbian Army to the dictator's cause. NATO didn't mean to make worse the refugee problem in Kosovo, give patriotic cover to Milosevic's thugs or destabilize neighboring countries either. We now learn from American reporters in Kosovo that the bombing, too, caused Albanian refugees to flee, not just the evil of ethnic cleansing. NATO did not even mean to have a bombing campaign that lasted 45 days. In the hubris and miscalculation that encompassed Rambouillet, NATO expected Milosevic to fold with the first whiff of cordite. Probably there have been some soldiers killed in this war, but it does seem as if the only victims on either side are civilians. The Serbian forces may have captured or killed some members of the Kosovo Liberation Army, but the vast majority of victims in Kosovo are civilians, harassed, beaten, murdered and driven across border in numbers not seen in Europe since the Czechs and the Poles took their revenge on German civilians after World War II. As for the Serbs, NATO keeps telling us that their ability to make war is being degraded, but that the troops themselves are ''hunkered down.'' Not so the civilians who happen to be in the way of NATO mistakes. They are being degraded in a far more personal way. This story ran on page E06 of the Boston Globe on 05/09/99. © Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company. >From http://www.counterpunch.org/greenappeal.html An Appeal from American Jews to the Green Party of Germany We are Jewish Americans who are deeply concerned that the memory and tragedy of the Holocaust is being invoked in order to justify an unjust bombing campaign against the civilian population of Yugoslavia. Many of us have friends who lost family members in the Holocaust, or have lost relatives ourselves. We are deeply aware of our own history and the need for the world community to intervene in situations where there is a threat of genocide, in order to prevent it. However, this is clearly not what is happening in Yugoslavia today. We do not believe that our government's war against Yugoslavia is motivated by humanitarian concerns. This is evidenced by their refusal to airlift food and water to desperate refugees within Kosovo, as well as the paltry sums allocated for refugee relief as compared to the billions of dollars spent on the bombing. The Clinton Administration's great reluctance to pursue a negotiated solution to the conflict also indicates that this intervention is mainly about power: showing the world that the United States (and NATO, which it largely controls) is the self- appointed international policeman, and stands above international law and the United Nations. They are waging their war against civilians, destroying the Yugoslav economy and killing hundreds of innocent people, in order to demonstrate and consolidate their power. Many supporters of the bombing have drawn analogies to the Holocaust, arguing that the world cannot simply stand by in the face of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. But the bombing has greatly worsened the situation of the Kosovar Albanians, as is now universally recognized. It has also destroyed the pro-democracy movement within Yugoslavia, and is destabilizing neighboring countries. We urge you to reject these false and exaggerated analogies to the Holocaust and World War II, which are being used to garner support for a bombing campaign that is intensifying the suffering of all nationalities in Yugoslavia. We appeal to the Green Party of Germany to oppose this war, and to support a negotiated solution of the conflict. (Organizations listed for identification only). Noam Chomsky Institute Professor of Linguistics Massachusetts Institute of Technology Edward S. Herman Professor Emeritus, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania Mark Weisbrot Research Director, Preamble Center Dean Baker Senior Research Fellow, Preamble Center Robert Naiman Research Associate, Preamble Center Note: The above letter could make a difference in helping to stop the bombing of Yugoslavia. We have just 6 days to gather signatures and deliver it to the Green Party of Germany, which is meeting on Thursday, May 13. Many Green Party members are very angry about their party's support of bombing, and if the conference votes to oppose the bombing, the ruling Social Democratic-Green Party alliance will be under tremendous pressure to change its policies or risk the collapse of its coalition government. We are circulating this letter from American Jews because in Germany (as in the US), many liberal and progressive people are being told that those who oppose the bombing of Yugoslavia are committing the same mistake as those who failed to intervene in the events leading up to the Holocaust. We disagree strongly, as explained below. Please circulate this letter as widely and rapidly as you can, especially through e-mail and web sites. To sign on, simply return your name, and any title or organizational affiliation (it will be made clear that this is for identification only) to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >From wardiary.org K. is 21 years old, Serbian, and lives with her family in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. A year spent in the United States as a foreign exchange student has given her special insight into the current conflict existing between her country and ours. She is a soon to be film and TV editor and is trying to be "As objective as I possibly can." <<Other diary entries can be read at the site, beginning with 15th April, 1999>> May 9, 1999 Awfully still here with couple of rain drops which refresh us all along with the air. Today is quiet time and almost nothing new in here. That is the time which I hate the most because soon after the storm begins. I had water only 2 hours today. I need water. Last night they left Belgrade alone in dreams, but Valjevo, Novi Sad, and Goc had the attacks above them. They are not willing to stop and I do not think that we will negotiate with them. Last week G8 had a meeting and they were nearly (as they say "peace was in the air") to the end of all this, but with whom did they negotiate? I haven't seen any Yugoslav there. Again they think that ultimatums can solve everything. Why is peace and stopping of NATO attacks so hard to achieve? Is it possible that no one can stand against them? What do they offer instead I wonder. What did they offer the neighbouring countries so that they allowed the NATO planes and troops to get into their land? Do they think that Americans will love them better because of it. It is better for them to read a little more history and remember when Hitler signed a treaty with Stalin and later on attacked Russia! Some missiles fall in Bulgaria, some in Rumania, and they stand still. Errors I suppose. What about Macedonia? I think it is a matter of days when they will be more involved in all of that. NATO all over the country, in Albania also. I just wait to see if someone will help build up Albania? The schools declared the end of a school year, elementary and high schools. This year there will not be any tests in enrolling to universities, just the high school grades. Students are too stressed to study, to learn, to do anything. There are some who are going to exams which are held mostly when students can make it, occasionally one day in every week. Is that life? Is someone testing us to see how much can we take it? Are we going to be cloned in near future because we passed the radiation, shock resistant test so far? What about the human spirit? What about the newborn babies born under the agregators in dark hospitals, and what about the pregnant women who are giving birth these days more earlier that it is supposed to happen? How will anyone repair our souls after this all is gone? I must admit I think that one day it WILL be over. Sirens are not on today. Probably around 9pm they will go on and then in about 11 pm the attacks will start. Maybe maybe not. K. A<>E<>R ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled one is truly vanquished. -Johann Christoph Schiller, German Writer (1759-1805) + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Forwarded as information only; no endorsement to be presumed + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. A<>E<>R ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled one is truly vanquished. -Johann Christoph Schiller, German Writer (1759-1805) + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Forwarded as information only; no endorsement to be presumed + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
