| Ivo Skoric on Thu, 22 Apr 1999 17:57:34 +0200 (CEST) |
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"Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net>
Albanians protest against NATO!
The US Greens oppose NATO Bombing
(Fwd) IWPR'S BALKAN CRISIS REPORT, NO. 22
(Fwd) RALLY FOR PEACE IN THE BALKANS [NYC/WDC]
(Fwd) Missile lobby cranks up
Nijesmo Sugavi
The TV War: (Fwd) Philip Hammons article
(Fwd) More on TV War
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From: "Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net>
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 02:36:15 +0000
Subject: Albanians protest against NATO!
....they want MORE bombing, though.
ivo
------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
National Albanian American Council
1899 L Street, NW Suite 1130 Washington, DC 20036
(202) 955-1428 Fax: (202) 955-1429
Email: NAACDC@aol.com
______________________________________________________________________
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Aferdita Rakipi
April 19, 1999 (202) 955-1428
MEDIA NOTICE:
WASHINGTON RALLY ON KOSOVA
TO COINCIDE WITH NATO SUMMIT
WASHINGTON-- On Friday, April 23, 1999, Albanian Americans and others will
hold rally in to protest NATO's ineffective military campaign in Kosova.
WHERE: LAFAYETTE PARK
WHEN: FRIDAY, APRIL 23, 1999
TIME: 11:00 AM - 2:00 PM
Demonstrators will urge NATO to take the following action: (1) step up
airstrikes; (2) arm the Albanians so that they may defend themselves; (3)
launch a ground troop operation to stop Serb acts of genocide and the ethnic
cleansing in Kosova; (4) and support the territorial integrity of Kosova.
###
__________________________________________________________________________
!! HELP Kosova "Stop the killings in Kosova" Advertisign Campaign!!
http://www.4kosova.org/
__________________________________________________________________________
Opinions expressed on ALBANIAN do NOT necessarily reflect the views of the
owner, co-owners and/or moderators, nor any of their host institutions.
**>>> Technical support: albanian-request@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu <<<<**
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From: "Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net>
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 02:36:25 +0000
Subject: The US Greens oppose NATO Bombing
....but they do want it to stop, and they are awfully disappointed
with their German sell-off peers.
ivo
------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
>>>
>>> Stop the NATO Bombing of Yugoslavia
>>>
>>> Statement by the Coordinating Committee
>>> of The Greens/Green Party USA
>>>
>>>
>>> The Greens/Green Party USA calls for a halt to the US-led NATO bombing
>>> of Yugoslavia and demands a return to negotiations and peace monitors
>>> under the auspices of the UN, the European Union, and the Organization
>>> for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
>>>
>>> NATO bombing only makes it harder for the pro-democracy movements of
>>> both Serbs and Albanian Kosovars in Yugoslavia. NATO bombing has
>>> already worsened the ethnic violence on the ground by providing cover
>>> for stepped up action by both the Serbian army and the Kosovo
>>> Liberation Army. NATO bombing is helping to defeat the internal
>>> democratic opposition inside Serbia by rallying the besieged Serbs to
>>> the militaristic forces of Greater Serbian nationalism. It is also
>>> heightening the danger of new conflict, possibly nuclear conflict,
>>> with an economically desperate Russia by lending credence to the
>>> apocalyptic visions of Russias militaristic ultra-nationalists.
>>>
>>> NATOs war in Yugoslavia is illegal. Its intervention in a sovereign
>>> state has received no sanction from the United Nations. No Declaration
>>> of War by Congress has authorized US military operations in
>>> Yugoslavia, as our Constitution requires. NATO's charter expressly
>>> defines it as a defensive force only.
>>>
>>> NATOs intervention, the biggest military operation in Europe since
>>> World War II, is setting dangerous precedents. NATO is arrogating to
>>> itself the right to conduct aggressive out-of-area military
>>> interventions. Germany is re-establishing itself as a world military
>>> power again by conducting its first air strikes since World War II.
>>> These actions undermine the UN and strengthen the NATO military
>>> alliance as the worlds military enforcer. They shift the balance of
>>> power in the world toward US and German imperialism.
>>>
>>> NATOs intervention is an environmental disaster for the peoples of
>>> Yugoslavia. The depleted uranium shells used by US forces will
>>> jeopardize the health of the people and the land for generations to
>>> come.
>>>
>>> NATO's Humanitarian Pretext Is Hypocrisy
>>>
>>> We do not for one minute believe the humanitarian pretext for the
>>> US-led NATO military intervention. If humanitarian motives guided US
>>> and NATO military actions, then they would have intervened long ago to
>>> stop the atrocities committed by NATO member Turkey against the Kurds.
>>> Why are the US and its NATO junior partners suddenly so concerned
>>> about civilian casualties while their sanctions, according to UN
>>> estimates, kill 5000 Iraqis a month? Why should we trust a US
>>> government whose Orwellian rationale says this war is for peace, that
>>> this bombing is to stop the killing of civilians? Why should we trust
>>> a US government that sponsored state-terror against Guatemalan
>>> civilians for 35 years? Where is US and NATO intervention on behalf of
>>> the Chechnyans in Russia, the Palestinians in the Middle East, or the
>>> civilians now being slaughtered in the civil wars of Algeria, Sudan,
>>> Sierra Leone, East Timor, and many other countries?
>>>
>>> The man they now demonize, Slobadon Milosevic, is the man they built
>>> up as the guarantor of the Dayton peace accords, from which they
>>> excluded the Albanian Kosovars. The Rambouillet peace treaty, which
>>> NATO says it wants to impose on Serbia, will also have to be imposed
>>> on Kosovo as well, because it calls for complete dismantling of the
>>> Kosovo Liberation Army and denies Kosovo the independence the majority
>>> of its people seek. Several Kosavars who participated in the
>>> negotiations refused to sign the treaty. The logic of NATO
>>> intervention leads to a NATO protectorate in Kosovo, with NATO troops
>>> on the ground for years to come facing hostility from both Serbs and
>>> Kosovars. If the US was truly concerned for the Albanian Kosovars, it
>>> would have supported their demand for independence for Kosovo at
>>> Rambouillet.
>>>
>>> No US humanitarian concern was shown for ten years of massive
>>> nonviolent resistance by Albanian Kosovars through strikes, boycotts,
>>> demonstrations, and alternative institutions after Milosevic revoked
>>> Kosovo's autonomy in 1989. Instead, they were excluded from the Dayton
>>> accords. Two years ago the KLA suddenly appeared, with weapons and
>>> mercenaries supplied by western intelligence agencies, and, as the
>>> London Times reported recently, financing from the heroin trade. The
>>> KLA's terrorist tactics have derailed the nonviolent mass movement in
>>> Kosovo and have given Melosevic the pretext he needed for increased
>>> repression. The violent turn in Kosovo follows a pattern that US
>>> geopolitical strategies have instigated in the Balkans in the 1990s.
>>> It was not humanitarian concerns that motivated the provisions the
>>> 1991 US Foreign Operations Appropriations Law concerning Yugoslavia,
>>> which cut off aid, credits, and loans to Yugoslavia when it did not
>>> hold separate elections in each of its six republics within six
>>> months. At the same time, the US was channeling money and arms to
>>> fascistic right-wing parties promoting ethnic chauvinism and
>>> separatism, parties that had not been seen in the forty-five years
>>> since the Nazis were driven out. This US law was adopted in November
>>> 1990. By May 1991, the right-wing nationalists had instigated
>>> secessionist civil wars in the richer republics, Slovenia and Croatia.
>>> In June they declared independence and were promptly recognized by
>>> Germany. In 1992 in Bosnia, the most multi-ethnic of the Yugoslav
>>> republics, the US sabotaged the agreement reached by Bosnia Muslim,
>>> Croatian, and Serb forces by encouraging Alija Izetbegovic, head of a
>>> right-wing Muslim party, to unilaterally declare independence under
>>> his presidency. In the ensuing deadly civil war, retired US generals
>>> planned Izetbegovics offensives against rival Muslim governments in
>>> Bosnia that broke with Izetbegovic and promoted multi-ethnic
>>> cooperation. In August 1995, the US generals planned Operation Storm,
>>> the bloodiest offensive in four years of civil war, where the Croation
>>> army drove over 100,000 Serbs from their ancestral homes in Krajina.
>>> Time and time again, the US undermined European-brokered peace
>>> agreements and encouraged right-wing separatist forces. These US
>>> actions were not humanitarian actions. They were about re-balkanizing
>>> the Balkans in order to dominate them.
>>>
>>> The US and NATO are using the pretext of concern for the rights of
>>> Albanian Kosovars as a cover for advancing their economic and
>>> geopolitical interests. NATOs intervention is the way US-led NATO
>>> imperialism intends to complete the dismemberment of the former
>>> multinational confederation that was Yugoslavia and transform it into
>>> a collection of easily dominated ethnic mini-states that are nothing
>>> more than NATO protectorates. Whatever its flaws, during the Cold War
>>> years Yugoslavia had remarkably carved out for itself a position of
>>> neutrality between the super-powers. It challenged both the Western
>>> capitalist and Soviet bureaucratic economic models with its
>>> experiments in workers self-management and market socialism. It
>>> federated the long balkanized Balkans. It industrialized more
>>> successfully than any other undeveloped East European country. But in
>>> 1990, as the Warsaw Pact countries disintegrated, Yugoslavia was one
>>> of the last European holdouts against the neoliberal global order that
>>> the US and NATO sought to impose. Thus rebalkanization of the Balkans
>>> became the strategic objective of the US, Germany, and their NATO
>>> allies.
>>>
>>> NATOs bombing in Yugoslavia is an escalation of this policy. US-led
>>> NATO imperialism wants to secure pipeline routes and access to Caspian
>>> oil and gas in former Soviet republics. It wants to expand profitable
>>> exploitation of cheap labor by global corporations. It wants to
>>> legitimize NATOs post cold war mission of being the worlds police
>>> force, intervening anywhere unilaterally. It wants to extend US-led
>>> hegemony over the entire Eurasian land mass. It wants to justify the
>>> enormous expenditures made on new weapons like the Stealth B2 bomber
>>> now seeing its first military action in Yugoslavia.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> No Easy Answers
>>>
>>> There are no easy quick answers to the conflict in Kosovo. Just like
>>> Milosevic and the other nationalist regimes in the Balkan states, the
>>> US-led NATO forces are trying to resolve a political problem with
>>> violent force. Bombing will not resolve ethnic conflict in the
>>> Balkans. It will only harden the militarists on all sides and lead to
>>> occupation by NATO forces to enforce an unjust peace, which will meet
>>> with resistance and the loss of more lives, including American troops.
>>> Let us be clear that we oppose Milosevics reactionary nationalist
>>> project of a Greater Serbia and, in particular, condemn the repressive
>>> violence of the Yugoslav army in Kosovo. We also condemn the violence
>>> of the Kosovo Liberation Army against Serb civilians. We support the
>>> right of Albanian Kosavars to resist Milosevics repression and their
>>> right to self-determination and independence. We oppose the
>>> demonization of the entire Serb population, which of all the Balkan
>>> peoples most wanted to maintain a multicultural Yugoslavia. We must
>>> distinguish between Milosevics chauvinistic nationalism and the
>>> democratic movements among the people. We support pro-democracy
>>> movements in all the Balkan states.
>>>
>>> In particular, we support those democratic movements in the Balkans
>>> working for a voluntary confederation of free and equal states on a
>>> basis political and economic democracy and respect for ethnic
>>> diversity. Only a confederation of democratic republics can have the
>>> scale and strength to establish a democratic alternative to the
>>> NATO-sponsored neoliberal economic model that is exacerbating regional
>>> and ethnic inequalities in the Balkans. It will take many years to
>>> develop such an alternative given the legacy of the civil wars of the
>>> 1990s. NATOs intervention now is only strengthening the reactionary
>>> ultra-nationalist forces in all ethnic groups. The first victim of
>>> NATOs military intervention are the pro-democracy movements that could
>>> begin the process of creating a multicultural democracy in the
>>> Balkans.. The destruction of any such movements is precisely what the
>>> US-led NATO intervention intends, all the talk about humanitarian
>>> concerns to the contrary notwithstanding.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Rebuild the Peace Movement
>>>
>>> We call for an immediate halt to NATO bombing in Yugoslavia.
>>>
>>> We call on the US to re-activate the UN (through the General Assembly,
>>> not the Security Council) and the OSCE (Organization for Security and
>>> Cooperation in Europe) to pursue non-coercive diplomacy and peace
>>> building steps, including:
>>>
>>> Re-negotiating an immediate cease fire
>>> Working closely with Russia and other European countries to facilitate
>>> negotiations
>>> Building a multilaterally-supported political process for new
>>> negotiations between the parties to the conflict within a framework
>>> of international law
>>> Returning civilian observer-peace monitors to Kosovo
>>> Reasserting efforts to hold all actors accountable under international
>>> law for crimes, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
>>>
>>> We have no illusions that the US and NATO will pursue peace in the
>>> Balkans at the expense of their geopolitical ambitions without massive
>>> pressure and fundamental social change spearheaded by a pro-democracy
>>> peace movement in the US and Europe.
>>>
>>> We must work in direct solidarity with the anti-war, pro-democracy
>>> movements in all the Balkan states and support their nonviolent social
>>> struggles to lift oppression and resolve conflicts (for example, by
>>> building the campaign to support Radio B92, the independent Serbian
>>> anti-war, pro-democracy station recently banned by Milosevic).
>>>
>>> We must rebuild a peace movement in the US and Europe committed to
>>> eradicating US and NATO militarism and imperialism and to converting
>>> the vast resources of this now globalized Military-Industrial Complex
>>> to meeting the real human needs of people all around the world.
>>>
>>> We must put the dismantling of NATO high on the peace movements
>>> agenda. NATO was always been about keeping Europe safe for corporate
>>> capital by suppressing radical democratic movements internally as well
>>> as by repelling external threats -- real or imagined -- during the
>>> Cold War. Now NATO is transforming itself into imperialisms global
>>> police force. It is not in the interests of the majority of Americans,
>>> nor is it morally justifiable, for US imperialism, through NATO, to
>>> dictate to countries in the Eurasian land mass that they shall remain
>>> open to exploitation by US-based corporations. We must also put
>>> economic democracy on the peace movements agenda. Peace is not a
>>> single issue. It is a goal that requires fundamental social
>>> transformation. The peace movement must link to all popular movements
>>> resisting neoliberal project of deregulated trade and finance as the
>>> basis for the globalization corporate power and market forces. These
>>> forces certainly contributed to the deterioration of circumstances in
>>> the former Yugoslavia by exacerbating inequality between Yugoslavias
>>> republics, by burdening Yugoslavia with enormous foreign debts in the
>>> 1980s, and then by imposing IMF structural adjustment austerity
>>> instead of the debt relief and aid it gave to Poland and Russia in the
>>> 1990s. These forces encouraged the bureaucratic and militaristic
>>> elites to enrich themselves from the privatization of Yugoslavias
>>> enterprises at the expense of the vast majority of Yugoslavs.
>>>
>>> Americans are victims of the NATO bombing, too. Resources devoted to
>>> US imperial ambitions and the Military/Industrial Complex are
>>> resources siphoned away from education, health care, economic
>>> security, our decaying cities, and our environment in the US.
>>> Rebuilding a peace movement to challenge these priorities is not only
>>> needed to enable people in the Balkans to determine their future, it
>>> is needed so Americans are free to determine their future as well.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Solidarity with European Greens
>>>
>>> We intend to work in solidarity with Greens in Europe to bring an end
>>> to NATO's intervention in Yugoslavia and to support a European-based
>>> negotiation and peace process seeking resolution of European conflicts
>>> by European peoples without coercive interference by the US.. We are
>>> disappointed that the German Greens have not come out with an official
>>> and forthright statement calling for an end to NATO's military
>>> intervention in Yugoslavia, although we know many German Green Party
>>> members oppose the bombing.
>>>
>>> "The European Greens note:
>>>
>>> that there is widespread popular concern about the gross mistreatment
>>> of ethnic Albanian citizens in the Yugoslav region of Kosova by
>>> Yugolav state troops and police, the torching of villages and the
>>> creation of refugees, that the NATO governments' rationale for
>>> commencing bombing is that the Yugoslav government refused to sign the
>>> Rambouillet accords,
>>>
>>> that the Rambouillet talks were based on the assumptions of the Dayton
>>> agreement, when those assumptions do not apply to Kosova, and hence
>>> were fundamentally flawed,
>>>
>>> that the UN has not been asked and has not given its approval for the
>>> NATO military action, indeed that action is an infringement of the
>>> Vienna Convention (Art 52) which states "A treaty, the signature to
>>> which has been obtained through the threat of force...is illegal and
>>> void..."
>>>
>>> that the action is outside of NATO's mandate which is to protect its
>>> member states in the case of attack, and is thus a dangerous
>>> precendent for military interference in the internal affairs of any
>>> state offending a NATO member in the future,
>>>
>>> that much expert opinion, including several senior military officers
>>> and ex-EU Special Representative Karl Bildt, have declared that air
>>> strikes are useless without follow-up ground troops to reinforce their
>>> effect, yet the NATO governments have repeatedly declared that they
>>> will not commit their ground troops,
>>>
>>> "The European Greens therefore draw the conclusion that
>>>
>>> as NATO has no strategy for following up this action, that its purpose
>>> is to
>>>
>>> (a) challenge internal questioning of the current purpose (and
>>> cost) of NATO itself,
>>>
>>> (b) reinforce the impotence of the UN,
>>>
>>> (c) remind the world community of the global military
>>> superiority of NATO member states, in particular the USA,
>>>
>>> "The European Greens demand that,
>>>
>>> a ceasefire be implemented immediately, by NATO, the KLA and Yugoslav
>>> forces,
>>> the UN agree to oversee it for a determined amount of time, during
>>> which the UN Assembly (not the Security Council) be convened to agree
>>> conditions for a new set of negotiations, using the OSCE mechanisms,
>>> following which Round Table talks commence chaired by the EU and
>>> including both regionally involved and neutral authorities."
>>>
>>> Submitted by: Marc Loveless, Starlene Rankin, and Lionel P. Trepanier,
>>> Coordinating Committee of the Greens/Green Party USA
>>>
>>> G/GPUSA Clearinghouse Contact information: P.O. Box 1134 Lawrence, MA
>>> 01842 978-682-4353 gpusa@igc.org
>>>
>>> [This service is brought to you by the Babilonia Wilner Foundation (BWF)]
>>> [ World Wide Web: <http://www.bwf.org> ]
>>>
>> [-----------------------------------------------------------------------]
>>
>>
>>
>Tools for Transition
>Atjehstraat 20
>NL-2585 VK Den Haag
>tel. & fax + 31 70 3520 289
>email echsvb@euronet.nl
>
>**
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From: "Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net>
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 02:36:36 +0000
Subject: (Fwd) IWPR'S BALKAN CRISIS REPORT, NO. 22
Favorite pass-time in Belgrade: betting on what targets NATO
bombs would hit that night. Oh, and btw what happened to those two
YU pilots that NATO captured in Bosnia, why we never saw them?
ivo
------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
FROM IWPR'S BALKAN CRISIS REPORT, NO. 22, 20 April 1999
http://www.iwpr.net
CATCHING PILOTS, LOSING YOUR MIND
Belgrade's bunker mentality is contagious, and you can catch it above as
well as below ground. Ask the local spy.
By Gordana Igric
There are two ways to lose your mind in Belgrade. One is to seek refuge in
an air raid shelter. At least half of Belgrade now spends the hours of
bombing in bunkers. The other is to watch television.
[95 lines deleted--this article was on nettime a few days ago.--tb]
IWPR'S BALKAN CRISIS REPORT, NO. 22
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From: "Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net>
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 02:37:01 +0000
Subject: (Fwd) RALLY FOR PEACE IN THE BALKANS
So, that's fun: there will be two rallies at the same day, and both
oppose NATO strikes - only the Albanian one in DC wants more bombs
and the leftist one in NYC wants the bombs to stop.
ivo
------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
RALLY FOR PEACE IN THE BALKANS
Friday, April 23, 1999, 4.30 p.m.
Washington Square park
West 4th Street
New York City
RETURN KOSOVARS TO THEIR HOMES
NATO OUT OF YUGOSLAVIA
STOP THE BOMBING
Sponsor: Catholic Worker; Fellowship of Reconciliation; Greenwich Village
Coalition for Peaceful priorities; International Freedom Socialist Party;
New York Committees of Correspondence; Nicaragua Solidarity Network;
NYCP/USA; Pax Christi, Metro New York; Pax Christi USA; Peace Action;
Shorefront Peace Action; Socialist Party, USA; Radical Women; War Resisters
League; Westside Peace Action; Women in Black
For further information call War Resisters league at 212 228-0450
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From: "Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net>
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 02:37:19 +0000
Subject: (Fwd) Missile lobby cranks up
Companies (like Boeing) who lost bids for defense contracts for
development of new cruise-missiles now lobby in DC for re-opening of
the old cruise-missiles assembly lines, given the shortage of
cruise-missiles created by Clinton's inclination to use the for all
purposes and despite Pentagon's preferrence to make more
cruise-missiles available by converting them from nuclear warhead
carrying to the conventional warhead carrying. Well, if Boeing is
able to offer new missiles cheaper than the conversion woulod be,
then this might work. Otherwise, the public should be cautious about
Boeing's Republican lobby selling this idea to Congress.
ivo
------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
A New Missile Offensive: Manufacturers Lobby for Sales
By John Mintz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 17, 1999; Page A16
War may be hell, but in Washington, it's also a lobbying opportunity.
Boeing Co., joined by two Utah weapons makers, has seized on the conflict in
Kosovo to lobby Congress and the Pentagon to restart mothballed assembly
lines that once manufactured cruise missiles.
The military brass prefers a different solution to the looming cruise
missile shortage, but Boeing, which used to make the missiles for the Navy
and Air Force, has jumped on the chance to get back in the game.
The aggressive approach by Boeing and its lobbying comrades is unusual
during wartime, when arms makers are generally sensitive to appearances and
tend to wait until a conflict ends to engage in self-promotion.
Boeing and its corporate allies -- Williams International Corp., builder of
the missile's engine, and Litton Industries Inc., which designs its guidance
system -- have a friend in Rep. Jim Hansen (R) of Utah, where Williams and
Litton have their factories.
Hansen this week enlisted 18 fellow House Republicans to sign onto a letter
pressing Defense Secretary William S. Cohen to reopen the assembly lines.
"Every day that passes where we are not taking action to immediately restart
[cruise missile] production extends the time where our war fighters could be
put at unnecessary risk," they said.
Although the letter doesn't mention the companies, they played a critical
behind-the-scenes role.
The letter was circulated to House staff members last week, accompanied by a
cover memo from Boeing's chief lobbyist here. "Please review and encourage
your member to support Rep. Hansen's letter," wrote the lobbyist, Michael
Matton. "This is an extremely important issue to the Air Force, Navy and
Boeing in light of the current world events and the limited number of
missiles remaining in inventory."
Some military critics find that approach distasteful. "There's a certain
unseemliness in using a war as an opportunity to start up an assembly line,"
said former Sen. Dale Bumpers (D-Ark.), director of the Center for Defense
Information, a group critical of military spending. "A war is a time when we
have to particularly defer to the Pentagon on where to spend its money."
Boeing entered the fray at Williams's behest, before the Kosovo conflict
erupted. Spokesman Dick Dalton said that the company is not pursuing a
narrow commercial agenda but rather is working in the national interest to
address a serious missile shortage, and that some military officials also
support the idea of restarting the assembly lines.
Independent military analysts agree with the companies that the Pentagon
must increase its dwindling cruise missile supplies. The satellite-guided
missile is the American weapon of choice because it is accurate, can be used
in bad weather and doesn't endanger pilots' lives. In the last year alone,
President Clinton has deployed the missiles in Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq and
now Serbia, where they pounded the security ministry's headquarters in
Belgrade into fiery rubble.
Pentagon planners concede that they misjudged Clinton's quick reflex to use
the missiles and that they were surprised to run short. The Air Force has
only 90 remaining after its B-52 bomber pilots fired 250 in battle over the
past five years. The Navy, meanwhile, has 2,000 left, after shooting 600
since 1994.
Signers of the Hansen letter assert that mid-level Navy and Air Force
officials in the field privately express desperation about the missile
shortage and criticize Pentagon superiors for not moving aggressively to
guarantee availability.
But U.S. military officials reject as too costly the firms' plan to
jump-start dormant missile assembly lines, which they say would require tens
of millions of dollars and several years.
Instead, the Pentagon wants to upgrade existing missiles -- a plan that
yields scant profits to contractors -- and wait for a new generation of more
capable missiles. The Air Force is spending $51 million in emergency funds
to refurbish 92 of its decades-old cruise missiles and is searching for an
an additional $140 million to convert 230 more old ones. Air Force officials
have selected Lockheed Martin Corp. to build a 21st-century cruise missile
for $3 billion.
The Navy, meanwhile, plans to spend $420 million in emergency funds to make
shipshape 624 of its old cruise missiles. It has chosen Raytheon Co. to
build its new version of the missile, a contract worth $800 million.
All this undermines some companies that for years profited from the cruise
missile. Although Boeing is one of the world's leading aerospace firms, its
weak missile division has lost several key U.S. contracts and is starved for
missile work. Last year, the firm's political action committee was one of
the biggest donors to Hansen's reelection campaign, giving $4,500.
Williams is alarmed because the relatively high cost of its missile engines
priced it out of the running for the big-money Navy program to build a new
missile. Company Chairman Sam Williams has repeatedly dispatched Hansen to
protest its loss in the upcoming Navy missile project.
Williams, who gave $2,000 to Hansen's campaign last year, said his sole
interest is the nation's defense.
"I want to help get these weapons in the hands of war fighters, who feel
they need them," he said. "My interest is supporting the Navy and the Air
Force. I'm not trying to influence what they do."
______________________________________________
Bruce Hall
Peace Action Field Organizer
<bhall@peace-action.org>
202.862.9740 x 3038
Fax: 202.862.9762
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From: "Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net>
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 02:37:47 +0000
Subject: Nijesmo Sugavi
Bombardujte i nas - nijesmo sugavi.
This graffiti appeared on a wall in Niksic, Montenegro. Niksic was not
bombed as of yet. The graffiti says: "Bomb us, too - we ain't mangy."
There will be more Montenegrins thinking that way now since the
Yugoslav Army took over Montenegrin TV.
In Belgrade, favorite pastime became betting on where the missiles and
bombs would hit that night. Bridges lately were the safest bet.
It is time to reveal certain myths:
Myth 1: the UN opposes NATO campaign against Yugoslavia
The US bypassed UN on Kosovo issue, which was illegal. But the
majority of UN members endorsed US lead NATO air strikes against
Yugoslavia, leaving wanna-be-superpowers Russia and China holding the
bag. This basically shows that the UN is a working and breathing
organization. It is just that the Security Council with its cold war
era architecture, heavily dependent on the will of five veto-power
holding permanent members, is conceptually outdated in today's world.
The surprising support of the UN for NATO is mainly due to the support
of the so-called non-aligned bloc - a bloc, ironically, once headed by
Yugoslavia - which consists of a large number of Muslim nations that
are pleased with this rare occasion in which the US helps Muslims.
Myth 2: all Serbs are against NATO bombing
There are many Serbs, particularly in urban areas, particularly those
affiliated with independent media, human rights work or other
alternative existence, who privately have no objections to NATO
bombing Milosevic's apparatus of repression. However, they are very
careful to publicly oppose NATO. Particularly since Slavko Curuvija,
the late editor of Dnevni Telegraf, who dared to publicly speak in
favor of NATO, ended up with dozen plus bullets in his body shortly
after.
Myth 3: KLA will win independence for Kosova
Myth 4: there was no alternative to NATO air strikes
Those two myths require lengthier repudiation:
Currently the NATO bombs Serbia every day. This will not stop until
the NATO may show the outcome as its victory, since NATO cannot
politically afford to loose this war. The concentration of air strikes
is presently on fuel production, fuel depots and fuel transportation
routes (rivers, roads and railroads). The American mainstream media
doubles as a cheer-leader for the home team, to the point where the
difference between them and the Serbian regime media, seems blurry.
For example, Serbian media daily announces how many NATO aircraft were
shot down by Serbian anti-air defenses, so people go trying to find
and capture pilots, but they never find any, since there is none. On
the other hand, Pentagon never produced those two Yugoslav pilots,
they said they had captured in Bosnia, and we haven't really see that
Serbian officer held by the US in Albania.
With no fuel, the U.S. hopes that Serbs will not be able to move their
tanks, heavy artillery and troops - which will then become easy
targets for American smart bombs, cruise missiles, Apache helicopters
and ATACM missiles. Once Serbs are deprived of their military
superiority over KLA, the KLA is going to start winning the war. The
U.S. basically follows the pattern of Serbian conquest in Bosnia:
first they soften the enemy by heavy shelling from positions where
they are invulnerable (as general Mladic used to say: "pound them all
night long, heavy, so they can't sleep, so they go crazy..."), then
they let paramilitary units in to finish the enemy off, then they walk
in to establish "peace". So, KLA to NATO is what Arkan's Tigers are to
Yugoslav Army. NATO does not back KLA in the same way the Yugoslav
Army does not back the Tigers. Tigers went in before the regular
troops, to absorb the potential casualties and to perform the dirty
work that the regular army did not want to be directly associated
with. The same will befall the KLA.
Because, nobody in the Balkans give up territory without the fight,
regardless of how much the enemy is superior. So, as Croats, Bosnians
and Albanians did not want to retreat in face of Serbian threats, the
Serbs will not retreat in face of NATO threat. Even when NATO will
have cut all the re-supply routes and destroy all the fuel in Serbia,
there will still be Serbian troops in Kosovo. Those troops would
likely entrench around areas inhabited with Serb civilians. The
remaining Albanian civilians would be marched into those enclaves and
perhaps kept as slave labor to build trenches and stuff. The Serb
civilians would not be allowed to leave, likewise, since the Serb army
would count on them as useful hostages against NATO attacks. It is
also likely that Serb army would put its heavy artillery pieces and
ammo into old monasteries protected by the UNESCO charter, hoping that
the pilots from "civilized and democratic countries" who drop bombs
"in good faith" would refrain from hitting those targets. Ground
troops attack on those dispersed unconnected Serbian strongholds will
result in heavy casualties. That's why this is going to be a job for
the KLA.
KLA is, however, not bound by NATO's decision to avoid civilian
casualties and to avoid destruction of objects of cultural heritage.
Once NATO air strikes destroy Serbian military infrastructure, it is
highly probable the KLA will gain an upper hand in Kosovo. Serb
military will offer resistance. KLA will crush it and in places this
will result in ugly pictures that Serb Television will be able to use
to prove the reverse genocide story (Albanians over Serbs) with
NATO/American help. A burned monastery, a string of dead civilians -
Serb and Albanian along: what more can one expect from terrorists like
KLA? As the western TV is reduced (by smart Milosevic's propaganda
decision) to the pictures from Yugoslavia provided by the Serb TV, an
event in which KLA kills Serb civilians will soon become a headline in
the West.
NATO will let that go on, until a) the KLA become sufficiently in
power on Kosovo so that NATO troops do not have to fear Serbs, b) the
public opinion in the West gets fed up with KLA and starts requesting
NATO to discipline them. Then NATO will go in as SFOR went to Bosnia.
In the matter of fact, NATO may delegate this duty in Kosovo to
friendly non-NATO countries to placate Serbia. The NATO or whoever is
subcontracted by NATO, will go in to establish cease- fire between the
KLA and the Serb Army. The NATO will demand disarmament of both sides,
which shall never work. Finally a settlement will be reached, like in
Bosnia, in which Serbs will get to keep certain smaller portion of
Kosovo, and the rest would be given to KLA (KLA will have the status
in Serbia that Republika Srpska has in Bosnia); refugees will be
forced back in their burned and demolished homes and KLA will be asked
to declare general elections (in which KLA will win, of course). The
partition idea was suggested earlier in an op-ed piece in New York
Times by that young dude from Brookings Institute, but for some reason
it never found its way to the Rambouillet negotiating table, as if it
shouldn't have been any alternative to the NATO bombing.
Once the inter-entity line is established, there will still be
Albanians living in Serbian captivity. NATO will be faced with
choices: either to move Serbs out, or to move Albanians to the
Albanian part of Kosovo - or to suggest that they should live in
peaceful co-existence. It is likely that firstly they would opt for
the third, which of course would not yield any results. Then, they'd
do the easier of the two previous options: move Albanians - again as
in Bosnia, the international community will end up aiding Serbia in
ethnic cleansing... As Kosovo was left to Milosevic for his compliance
over Bosnia, Montenegro is going to be sacrificed for his compliance
over Kosovo. In the end Serbia, Vojvodina, Montenegro, Republika
Srpska and however the Serbian entity in Kosovo would be called, will
establish the Serbian commonwealth.
At that point the military alliance with Russia and other former
Soviet countries is likely (Russia won't go in that alliance unless
the peace is reached), which will prevent further NATO action against
Yugoslavia (meaning Montenegro is screwed for good, as well as are the
opposition, independent media and alternative organizations in
Serbia). Russia will reach to the Mediterranean, but the U.S. will
already keep Albania, closing the Straits of Otran with the NATO
member Italy. So, the entire war does have certain strategic interests
involved (in keeping American presence in Europe and in keeping Russia
at bay). And if the Kosovo Albanians and Serbs could reach (like, if
they were offered such an option in Rambouillet) such an agreement
without the war, bombing and NATO, then Serbia could still form a
military alliance with Russia, but the U.S. would not be in Albania.
Tragicomically, Clinton, an anti-militarist democrat became a U.S.
president that would renew the cold war, that his republican
predecessors claimed to have won. This cold war, of course, will have
no ideological pretext, but simply interest in control over markets.
Kosovo will be fully dependent on foreign economic support to survive
and on NATO or NATO subcontracted peace- keepers to stay in peace.
Milosevic will stay in power. NATO will declare a victory: refugees
returned to Kosovo, Serbian military troops repelled from the KLA
controlled Kosovo. Eventually, the KLA may take the entire Kosovo,
like Croatia took Krajina once, but that would not happen immediately.
Ivo
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From: "Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net>
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 02:36:02 +0000
Subject: The TV War: (Fwd) Philip Hammons article
------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
>>
>> The Independent 6th April 1999
>>
>> A war of words and pictures
>>
>> Nato casts doubt on the veracity of Yugoslav war reporting, but is our
>> own media any less guilty of propaganda?
>>
>> By Philip Hammond
>>
>> It takes two sides to fight a propaganda war, yet critical commentary on
>> the "war of words" has so far concentrated on the "tightly controlled"
>> Yugoslav media. We have been shown clips from "Serb TV" and invited to
>> scoff at their patriotic military montages, while British journalists
>> cast doubt on every Yugoslav "claim".
>>
>> But whatever one thinks of the Yugoslav media they pale into
>> insignificance alongside the propaganda offensive from Washington,
>> Brussels and London.
>>
>> "They tell lies about us, we will go on telling the truth about them,"
>> says Defence Secretary George Robertson. Really? Nato told us the three
>> captured US servicemen were United Nations peacekeepers. Not true. They
>> told us they would show us two captured Yugoslav pilots who have never
>> appeared. Then we had the story of the "executed" Albanian leaders -
>> including Rambouillet negotiator Fehmi Agani - whose deaths are now
>> unconfirmed.
>>
>> When the Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova, who was said to be in hiding,
>> turned up on Yugoslav television condemning Nato bombing, the BBC
>> contrived to insinuate that the pictures were faked, while others
>> suggested Rugova must have been coerced, blackmailed, drugged, or at
>> least misquoted.
>>
>> They told us the paramilitary leader Arkan was in Kosovo, when he was
>> appearing almost daily in Belgrade - and being interviewed by John
>> Simpson there. They told us Pristina stadium had been turned into a
>> concentration camp for 100,000 ethnic Albanians, when it was empty.
>> Robertson posing for photographers in the cockpit of a Harrier can't
>> have been propaganda. Only the enemy goes in for that sort of thing.
>>
>> Nato's undeclared propaganda war is two-pronged. First, Nato has
>> shamelessly sought to use the plight of Albanian refugees for its own
>> purposes, cynically inflating the number of displaced people to more than
>> twice the UN estimate.
>>
>> Correspondents in the region are given star billing on BBC news, and are
>> required not just to report but to share their feelings with us. As Peter
>> Sissons asked Ben Brown in Macedonia: "Ben, what thoughts go through a
>> reporter's mind seeing these sights in the dying moments of the 20th
>> century?"
>>
>> Reports from the refugee centres are used as justifications for Nato
>> strategy. The most striking example was the video footage smuggled out of
>> Kosovo said to show "mass murder". The BBC presented this as the "first
>> evidence of alleged atrocities," unwittingly acknowledging that the
>> allies had been bombing for 10 days without any evidence.
>>
>> Indeed, for days, the BBC had been inviting us to "imagine what may be
>> happening to those left in Kosovo". After watching the footage, Robin
>> Cook apparently knew who had been killed, how they had died, and why. Above
>> all, he knew that the video "underlines the need for military action".
>>
>> The second line of attack is to demonise Milosevic and the Serbs, in
>> order to deflect worries that the tide of refugees has been at least partly
>> caused, by Nato's "humanitarian" bombing. Parts of Pristina have been
>> flattened after being bombed every day for more than aweek. Wouldn't you
>> leave? And what about of thousands of Serbian refugees from Kosovo -
>> arethey being "ethnically cleansed", too? Sympathy does not extend to
>> them, just as the 200,000Serbian refugees from Krajina were ignored in
>> 1995. Instead, the tabloids gloat "Serbs youright" as the missiles rain
>> down.
>>
>> The accusations levelled against the Serbs have escalated from "brutal
>> repression" to "genocide", "atrocities" and "crimes against humanity", as
>> Nato has sought to justify the bombing. Pointed parallels have been drawn
>> with the Holocaust, yet no one seems to noticethat putting people on a
>> train to the border is not the same as putting them on a train to
>> Auschwitz.
>>
>> The media have taken their cue from politicians and left no cliche
>> unturned in the drive to demonise Milosevic. The Yugoslav president has
>> been described by the press as a"Warlord", the "Butcher of Belgrade",
>> "the most evil dictator to emerge in Europe since Adolph Hitler", a "Serb
>> tyrant" a "psychopathic tyrant" and a "former Communist hard-liner".
>>
>> The Mirror also noted significantly that he smokes the same cigars as
>> Fidel Castro. Just as they did with Saddam Hussein in the Gulf war,
>> Panorama devoted a programme to "The Mind of Milosevic".
>>
>> Several commentators have voiced their unease about the Nato action from
>> the beginning. But press and TV have generally been careful to keep the
>> debate within parameters of acceptable discussion, while politicians have
>> stepped up the demonisation of theSerbs to try to drown out dissenting
>> voices. The result is a confusingly schizophrenic style of reporting.
>>
>> The rules appear to be that one can criticise Nato for not intervening
>> early enough, not hitting hard enough, or not sending ground troops.
>> Pointing out that the Nato intervention has precipitated a far worse
>> crisis than the one it was supposedly designed to solve or that dropping
>> bombs kills people are borderline cases, best accompanied by stout
>> support for "our boys". What one must not do is question the motives for
>> Nato going to war. Indeed, one is not even supposed to say that Nato is at
>> war. Under image-conscious New Labour, actually going to war is fine, but
>> using the term is not politically correct.
>>
>> The limits of acceptable debate were revealed by the reaction to the
>> broadcast by SNP leader Alex Salmond. Many of his criticisms of Nato
>> strategy were little different from those already raised by others, but
>> what provoked the Government's outrage was that he dared to compare the
>> Serbs under Nato bombardment to the British in the Blitz. Tony Blair
>> denounced the broadcast as "totally unprincipled", while Robin Cook
>> called it "appalling", "irresponsible" and "deeply offensive".
>>
>> The way Labour politicians have tried to sideline critics such as Salmond
>> is similar to the way they have sought to bludgeon public opinion. The
>> fact that Blair has felt it necessary to stage national broadcasts
>> indicates the underlying insecurity of a government worried about losing
>> public support and unsure of either the justification for or the
>> consequences of its actions.
>>
>> Audience figures for BBC news have reportedly risen since the air war
>> began. Yet viewers have been ill-served by their public service
>> broadcaster. The BBC's monitoring service suggested that the "Serb media
>> dances to a patriotic tune". Whose tune does the BBC dance to that it
>> reproduces every new Nato claim without asking for evidence?
>>
>> Just as New Labour has sought to marginalise its critics, so TV news has
>> barely mentioned the protests across the world - not just in Macedonia,
>> Russia, Italy and Greece - but also in Tel Aviv, Lisbon, San Francisco,
>> Chicago, Los Angeles, Toronto, Sydney and elsewhere. Are we to suppose
>> that these demonstrators are all Serbs, or that they have been fooled by
>> the "tightly controlled" Yugoslav media?
>>
>> Philip Hammond is a senior lecturer in Media Studies at South Bank
>> University, London. Email: hammonph@sbu.ac.uk
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From: "Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net>
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 02:36:47 +0000
Subject: (Fwd) More on TV War
------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
FAIR-L
Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting
Media analysis, critiques and news reports
ACTION ALERT
CIVILIAN CASUALTIES: MEDIA BEAR PART OF THE BLAME
April 18, 1999
A shattered apartment block, a gutted passenger train, a devastated
refugee convoy--scenes of destruction caused by U.S. bombing are
becoming more and more common as the war with Yugoslavia drags on.
Whether you hold Slobodan Milosevic or Bill Clinton more to blame for
the consequences of NATO bombing, one group of people has so far
escaped much criticism for its responsibility for the growing number
of civilian casualties: the U.S. media.
Since the start of NATO air strikes on Yugoslavia, some prominent
media commentators have actually criticized the U.S. and NATO for
taking steps to prevent civilian deaths. Some have seemed to be
calling for intentional attacks on civilians.
New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman wrote on
April 6 that "people tend to change their minds and adjust their goals
as they see the price they are paying mount. Twelve days of surgical
bombing was never going to turn Serbia around. Let's see what 12 weeks
of less than surgical bombing does. Give war a chance."
Likewise, Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer on April 8
criticized the "excruciating selectivity" of NATO's bombing raids and
applauded the fact that "finally they are hitting targets--power
plants, fuel depots, bridges, airports, television transmitters--that
may indeed kill the enemy and civilians nearby."
In the April 5 Time magazine, reporter Bruce Nelan took issue with
NATO's use of lighter bombs in the Yugoslav war, noting that "smaller
bombs means there's less certainty about destroying the target in one
attack. And if the pilot has to come back, that increases the risk to
him in order to lessen the risk of civilians on the ground--a kind of
Disneyland idea of customer service that rankles many war fighters at
the Pentagon."
Faced with such criticism, NATO has indeed relaxed the rules of
engagement for the bombing campaign, quite predictably increasing the
number of innocents killed by U.S. bombs. Given that this war is
ostensibly being fought because Yugoslav forces killed too many
civilians in their war with separatist guerrillas, the media
cheerleading for killing non-combatants seems hypocritical, to say the
least.
"I uke, therefore I am."
--Cool Hand Uke
http://www.oro.net/~dscanlan
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