Forwarding this compilation from Kim Scipes on Labor-L. Cheers, Hugh ________________________________ April 29, 1999 Dear Folks-- I certainly do not intend to "publish" something every night, but there's been a ton of stuff lately that I wanted to get out to as large an audience as possible. And damned if there's not more tonight. First of all, some of you got my posting last night about the vote in Congress, and the subject line read "249-289"--I don't know whether you simply didn't read the subject line, or that the math held up in the body of the message, or that you each were too gracious to let me know I couldn't subtract worth a damn, but the header should have read "249-280": it makes it easier to total 69 this way! Got some big doings tonight. First of all, Stephen Chapman wrote a quite strong op-ed piece in the Chicago Tribune this morning (top half of the page) that was against the war. (Chapman is a free market freak that I have a lot of trouble with, but at least his libertarianism is fairly consistent across the board.) The interesting thing about this is that Chapman is on the Editorial Board of the Tribune, so his opinion carries much more weight than just a "normal" op-ed piece. I've included it below. Second, some papers have been "released" by German activists that show that while German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer claims that the Serbs had been conducting "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing," internal documents from the Foreign Ministry itself and various regional Administrative Courts around Germany have shown that the internationally accepted criteria for these two charges HAVE NOT BEEN MET. I include exerpts below. Third, for those of you who think that a military ground campaign against the Serbs would be a cakewalk, I have things from a couple of articles: the LA Times reports on Yugoslavian military capabilities that remain today, and a piece from US News & World Report magazine has a piece on US planes used to identify ground targets aren't as good as US/NATO claims. We also have vivid evidence of this today: a US missile launched against a ground target in Yugoslavia ended up hitting a suburb of Sophia--that's the capital of BULGARIA, as in THE WRONG COUNTRY. So, remember when you hear all this stuff about "smart bombs," etc., that this missile was so smart that it couldn't even hit the right COUNTRY. Fortunately, no one seems to have been hurt. NATO, of course, apologizes--just like they do for "collateral damage" (i.e., civilian deaths). Fourth, I just got a message that Greek protestors were able to stop and then force a train carrying tanks back into its station. The tanks were headed toward Yugoslavia, off-loaded from a British ship. Also, a number of Greek sailors have refused to go to sea on a destroyer that was operating with NATO in the Aegean Sea. Fifth, there's fear that US/NATO have targeted a Yugoslav research center in which sits enriched nuclear (radioactive) fuel. And sixth, MSNBC reports that "A convoy of multiple-launch rocket systems escorted by armored Bradley Fighting Vehicles has started moving toward the Albanian border with Kosovo" according to eyewitnesses. Also, want to draw your attention to two other documents that I've found that are worth checking out, but which I have not excerpted here: Stephen R. Shalom's "Reflections on NATO and Kosovo" is quite good <<http://www.znet.org/shalomnp.htm>www.znet.org/shalomnp.htm>, and Tony Blair's recent speech to the Economic Club here in Chicago was posted by the Chicago Tribune <<http://www.chicagotribune.com/>www.chicagotribune.com>. For some reason, I was not invited to hear the good Mr. Blair. A highlight from Blair for all you who believe in NATO's humanitarianism in Kosovo: "One of the reasons why it is now so important to win the conflict is to ensure that others [he had been discussing Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic, although never admitting they both previously had been US/NATO allies, before they had decided to no longer obey their "masters"--Kim] do not make the same mistake in the future. That in itself will be a major step to ensuring that the next decade and the next century will not be as difficult as in the past. If NATO fails in Kosovo, the next dictator to be threatened with military force may well not believe our resolve to carry the threat through." In solidarity, Kim Scipes US Marine Corps, 1969-1973 (1) A WAR AGAINST ALL OF THE SERBS Steve Chapman Chicago Tribune, April 29, 1999 War is to morality what the desert is to fish: a uniformly inhospitable clime. That's true even if the war is small and limited. The air campaign in Yugoslavia was conceived as a brief, surgical strike on Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic and his murderous military and paramilitary forces. But in five short weeks, it has expanded into a war on one group of his victims: the Serbian people. After bombing and re-bombing all the strictly military sites it could find, without inducing Milosevic to surrender, NATO expanded its list to include facilities whose destruction will do the most harm to civilians. NATO Allied Supreme Commander Gen. Wesley Clark, an advocate of what is known as "bringing the war home to Belgrade," finally got permission to take out mainstays of the Serbian economy, including the nation's electric power grid. Purely economic facilities were originally off-limits, but The Wall Street Journal reports that this "restriction is slipping almost daily." NATO is also planning a naval blockade to cut off Serbia's oil supplies. Even many of the attacks on "military" targets have had far less effect on Milosevic's campaign of terror than on the daily life of his long-suffering populace. Rail lines have been severed, industrial plants flattened and bridges demolished. Often, bystanders have found themselves classified, posthumously, as "collateral damage." Travel is hazardous, and just getting to work can be nearly impossible. Last week, at least 10 employees were killed when allied warplanes blasted a most unmilitary target--the official state television station in Belgrade. Why? Because "it has filled the airwaves with . . . lies over the years," said a NATO spokesman. Well, so has Bill Clinton, but NATO hasn't fired any cruise missiles at the White House. The alliance deserves some credit for clearly going out of its way to minimize direct civilian casualties. It also can be excused if some strikes unavoidably kill non-combatants. But it's hard to justify a policy whose chief achievement--and possibly its main purpose--is to make life miserable, frightening and dangerous for people who have no control over what is going on in Kosovo. The apparent goal is to inflict so much pain as to force Milosevic to change his policies or to force his people to change rulers. "We're holding civilians hostage," says DePaul University political scientist Patrick Callahan, an expert on just-war theory. He may not get an argument from German Gen. Klaus Naumann, chairman of NATO's military committee, who says Yugoslavia has been set back economically by 10 years and figures that the air campaign could eventually turn the clock back half a century. Naumann warns that if Milosevic doesn't retreat, "he may end up being the ruler of rubble." NATO, in short, plans to reduce a country that is home to 10 million people to a huge pile of worthless debris. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, the most fervent supporter of the air war, endorses that approach, telling the Serbs, "Every week you ravage Kosovo is another decade we will set your country back by pulverizing you. You want 1950? We can do 1950. You want 1398? We can do 1398, too." Why stop at 1398? Why not revive the idea, proposed but never adopted in Vietnam, of bombing the enemy all the way back to the Stone Age? If the aerial onslaught continues month after month, as threatened, some civilians will be blown up, but many more will be endangered by the secondary effects--food shortages, lack of fuel, loss of medicines, destruction of water, sewage and sanitation systems, poorly functioning hospitals, and the like. In Iraq, the international economic embargo already has had these consequences, causing some 90,000 deaths a year, by United Nations estimates. In Yugoslavia, as in Iraq, it's unlikely that punishing the villain's subjects will advance our larger purpose. Disrupting transportation hasn't stopped or even slowed the Serb offensive in Kosovo: Milosevic has more soldiers there today than he did when the bombing began. Interrupting state TV didn't weaken his grip. Curtailing oil supplies will cause no more than modest inconvenience to Serbian military forces: They'll get whatever fuel is available, while civilians will do without. All we are doing is uniting the Serbs in justified hatred of the West. Torturing or killing innocents in order to further a political goal is normally regarded as terrorism. But deliberately and needlessly inflicting pain on the people of Serbia, while creating conditions that promise to spawn disease and death, is seen by NATO as a perfectly legitimate strategy. Americans are highly attuned to the risks of losing soldiers and pilots in combat, but we need to beware of the bigger danger of this and every war: coming to resemble the enemy. (2) Documentation from Germany. This is material from Z Net, my favorite source. It is titled "Important Internal Documents from Germany's Foreign Office Regarding Pre-Bombardment Genocide in Kosovo" and can be found at <<http://www.znet.org/germandocs.htm>www.znet.org/germandocs.htm>. I only quote excerpts from this document, not the whole thing--please check out the source. >From the introduction by Eric Canepa, of the Brecht Forum in New York: "These Foreign Office Documents were responses to courts' needs in deciding the status of Kosovo-Albanian refugees in Germany. Although one might in these cases suppose a bias in favor of downplaying a humanitarian catastrophe in order to limit refugees, it nevertheless remains highly significant that the Foriegn Office, in contrast to its public assertion of ethnic cleansing and genocide in justifying NATO intervention, private continued to deny their existence as Yugoslav policy in this crucial period. AND THIS CONTINUED TO BE THEIR ASSESSMENT EVEN IN MARCH OF THIS YEAR" (emphasis added by Kim). Canepa continues: "Excerpts from these official documents were obtained by IALANA (International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms) which sent them to various media. The texts used here were published in the German daily Junge Welt on April 24, 1999." The translation is by Canepa. I. Intelligence report from the Foreign Office January 6, 1999 to the Bavarian Administrative Court, Ansbach: "At this time, an increasing tendency is observable inside the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia of refugees returning to their dwelings. Regardless of the desolate economic situation in the Federal Republic (according to official information of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, 700,000 refugees from Broatia, Bosnia and Herzogovina have found lodging since 1991), no cases of chronic malnutrition or insufficient medical treatment among the refugees are known and significant homelessness has not been observed. II. Intelligence report from the Foreign Office, January 12, 1999 to the Administrative Court of Trier. "Even in Kosovo, an explicit political persecution linked to Albanian ethnicity is not yet verifiable. The East of Kosovo is still not involved in armed conflict. Public life in cities like Pristina, Urosevac, Grjilan, etc. has, in the entire conflict period, continued on a relatively normal basis." The "actions of the security forces (were) not directed against the Kosovo-Albanians as an ethnically defined group, but against the military opponent and its actual or alledged supporters." III. [Skipped by Kim] IV. Opinion of the Bavarian Administrative Court, October 29, 1998 "The Foreign Office's status reports of May 6, June 8 and July 13, 1998, given to the plaintiffs ... do not allow the conclusion that there is group persecution of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. Not even regional group persecution, applied to all ethnic Albanians from a specific part of Kosovo, can be observed with sufficient certainty. The violent actions of the Yugoslav military and police since February 1998 were aimed at separatist activities and are no proof of a persecution of the whole Albanian ethnic group in Kosovo or a part of it. *** "A state program or persecution aimed at the whole ethnic group of Albanians exists neither now or earlier." V. Opinion of the Administrative Court of Baden-Wurtemberg, February 4, 1999 "The various reports presented to the senate all agree that the often feared humanitarian catastrophe threatening the Albanian civil population has been averted. Since that time [an agreement with the Serbian leadership at the end of 1998], both the security situation and the conditions of life of the Albanian-derived population have notably improved." VI. Opinion of the Upper Administrative Court at Munster, February 24, 1999 "There is no sufficient actual proof of a secret program, or an unspoken consensus on the Serbian side, to liquidate the Albanian people, to drive it out or otherwise to persecute it in the extreme manner presently described. *** "Events since February and March 1998 do not evidence a persecution program based on Albanian identity. The measures taken by the armed Serbian forces are in the first instance directed toward combatting the KLA and its supposed adherents and supporters." VII. Opinion of the Upper Administrative Court at Munster, March 11, 1999 "Ethnic Albanians in Kosovo have neither been nor are now exposed to regional or countrywide group persecution in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia." (3) Military-related matters. (a) These are excerpts from "Milosevic War Machine Has a Lot of Fight Left" by Paul Richter, LA Times, April 29, 1999. Located at <<http://www.latimes.com/HOME/NEWS/REPORTS/YUGO/lat_damage990429.htm>www.latimes .com/HOME/NEWS/REPORTS/YUGO/lat_damage990429.htm>. "Washington--Data released piecemeal by US and European military authorities are finally painting a well-rounded portrait of NATO's bombardment of Yugoslavia--and showing how limited its effects have been. "The figures indicate hat while more than five weeks of pounding have badly damaged important parts of the nation's military infrastructure, Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic retains many of his field forces and air defenses, and much of his fuel and ammunition. His forces generally can communicate with each other maneuver and arrange for resupply. "The Yugoslav army still has 90% to 90% of its tanks, 75% of its most sophisticated surface-to-air missiles, and 60% of its MIG fighter planes. *** "Despite NATO's ability to strike big, immobile targets with precision weapons, its warplanes have failed to attack 80% of the Yugoslav army's barracks. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces have also left untouched, or only lightly damaged, 80% of Yugoslavia's ammunition depots...." *** "Despite the damage to many of its best planes, the MIG fighters, the Yugolav air force still has 380 of its 450 aircraft. Eight of the country's 17 airfields have not been struct, and six more have sustained only moderate or light damage. "Although [NATO's General] Clark declared that the Serbs' integrated air defense system is not 'ineffective' overall, it remains a powerful defensive weapon. It has kept NATO planes generally at altitudes above 15,000 feet, too high to most effectively hit Milosevic's field forces. *** "By official estimates, the Serbs still have three-quarters of their most sophisticated surface-to-air missiles, the mobile SA-6, and 60% of their less sophisticated SA-2s and SA-3s. "Many outside analysts acknowledge that they have been surprised by the relative lack of damage so far by the air campaign." (b) "Look, up in the sky ... Scoping Serbian targets from an Air Force surveillance jet" by Richard J. Newman, US News & World Report, May 3, 1999. Located at <<http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/990503/3jsta.htm>www.usnews.com/usnews/issu e/990503/3jsta.htm>. Newman talks about how the E-8C JSTARS aircraft provided targeting data that led allied jets and tanks destroy hundreds of Iraqi vehicles in the Persian Gulf war. He continues "The JSTAR's cloud-penetrating radar is more powerful than it was back in 1991, but unconventional Serbian tactics and the rugged Balkan terrain pose problems that make targeting tanks in the open desert like a turkey shoot. The Serbs' strategy of mixing military vehicles with civilian ones makes it hard to tell them apart. Vehicles tracked by NATO radars disappear in the shaddows of mountains and buildings. High terrain even disrupts communications between airplanes and NATO troops on the ground in the region. These difficulties are reflected in NATO's limited success so far against Serbian ground troops: in a month of bombing, NATO claims to have taken out barely one-tenth of the tanks in Kosovo." Most of the rest is the "rah-rah" bullshit that many American journalists have taken in support US/NATO war aims. (c) NATO Accidentally Hits Bulgarian Capital from the Associated Press and reported in the LA Times. <<http://www.latimes.com/HOME/NEWS/REPORTS/YUGO/ap_bulgaria990429.htm>www.latime s.com/HOME/NEWS/REPORTS/YUGO/ap_bulgaria990429.htm> "Sofia, Bulgaria--NATO acknowledged today that a missile fired by one of its warplanes over Yugoslavia unintentionally struct Bulgaria, apparently causing no injuries." (4) (a) Subject: Greek workers block NATO train Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 11:56:43 --------------------- A-INFOS NEWS SERVICE <http://www.ainfos.ca/>http://www.ainfos.ca/ --------------------- SALONIKA, Greece, April 28 (AFP) - Greek railway workers overnight blocked a train carrying a cargo of 31 British military vehicles for the NATO force in Macedonia, a Greek military spokesman said Wednesday. The protesters prevented the train from leaving the Greek port of Salonika, which serves as a the main transport center through which alliance materiel and troops pass en route to Macedonia. The vehicles were part of a consignment of 200 troop carriers unloaded Tuesday from the British cargo ship Sea Centurion while their 320 military escorts arrived on a military plane, a British military source said. The troops left during the day Tuesday on the road to Skopje, the Greek spokesman said. Some 200 additional troops and the ship Crusader, loaded with military vehicles including 14 Challenger assault tanks, are awaited by the weekend in Salonika, the British military source said. The troops are part of an additional 1,800-strong contingent London has pledged to send to Macedonia to reinforce the 4,500 soldiers already stationed there. Some 13,000 NATO troops are currently based in Macedonia -- a number that should grow to 16,000 in the coming weeks, according to alliance estimates. The troops are officially tasked with preparing for an eventual peacekeeping force, but critics -- including the Greek protesters -- suspect this could also constitute a ground force. (b) From: Labor Video Project <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive Subject: NATO: Greek army won't fight for US interests ***** <<http://www.serbia-info.com/news/military/index.html>http://www.serbia-info.com /news/military/index.html> Greek army won't fight for US interests April 19, 1999 Thesalonika against NATO aggression Athens, April 19, 1999 (Beta - abridged) - More than 80 soldiers of the Greek armed forces condemned the aggression of the NATO forces on Yugoslavia and refused carrying out their duties relating to the attack on Yugoslavia. Sailor of the Greek Navy Nikos Gardikis from the destroyer Themistocles which should have set off to the Adriatic, announced his written statement in which he says he should not be involved in this war because it is beyond his oath he had given to defend his own country. The destroyer Themistocles was to replace the destroyer Kimon, taking part in annual Nato exercises in the region. Another officer and one non-commissioned officer of the destroyer Themistocles also expressed their refusal to participate in the NATO attack. The statement also came from George Papaioannou, a sailor, who said in a statement on behalf of the eight sailors who joined him: "We would rather face imprisonment, but stay with our head up high and our principles intact, rather than serve under the Nato flag and participate even indirectly in the crime being committed against Yugoslavia." His letter was backed by 26 Greek artists and novelists. (5) Subject: [PNEWS] Uranium in Vincha Institute May Become Target From: Julia Aires <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Dear comrades, I hope that this will not be happen. I had read a few days ago in my Danish newspaper, that there are 2 kg hot uran, 52 kg uranium 235 and over 10 kg nuclear fuel inside the Vincha Institute. Greetings, Nico I-AFD Hamburg-Barmbek ************************************************************************** News 26.04.99 by [EMAIL PROTECTED] [I just recieved this e-mail. Vincha Institute is only 15 kms eastern from the Belgrade's very center. --sloba] ========================================================================= Dear friends, Something which we feared that might happen, seems very likely. I can confirm now we expect that NATO planes will bomb VINCA Institute. In the passed several days we received this warning, but today we got this information as serious threat from the highest authorities. Our reactor is not working for more than 15 years, but the significant amount of 235-U enriched and unused fuel is still in its interior. Highly radioactive material for everyday activities is also located in several research laboratories. I fear that a big disaster may occur. In the worst case, no Balkan and even European country would be safe. Not to mention ecological catastrophe. I still hope that this disaster could be avoided, unless we are already late. I would appreciate if you succeed in informing as many people as possible on the eventual tragedy. God bless you. P.R. Adzic ----------------------------------------------------------------------- P.R. Adzic Tel:(381 11) 444-7965/455-041 VINCA Institute of Nuclear Sciences Fax:(381 11) 455-041 Laboratory of Physics (010) P.O. Box 522, 11001 Belgrade E-mail:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Yugoslavia [EMAIL PROTECTED] (6) Report by MSNBC "Rockets deployed toward Kosovo: signs indicate that an escalation of NATO attacks is imminent" by Jonathan Miller, MSNBC, reporting from Northern Albania. April 29, 1999 <<http://www.msnbc.com/msn/263957.asp>www.msnbc.com/msn/263957.asp> "A convoy of multiple-launch rocket systems escorted by armored Bradley Fighting Vehicles has started moving toward the Albanian border with Kosovo, eyewitnesses told MSNBC. The witnesses told MSNBC that they observed the convoy of rocket launchers moving slowly up the main road to the north, accompanied by heavily armored troops. "Although official military sources are refusing to discuss weapons deployments, the eyewitness description of the vehicles left little doubt that the forward deployment of the rockets is now underway.... With the weather now dramatically improving over the theater of operations, all indicators point to an imminent escalation of the campaign against Serbian forces in Kosovo, spearheaded by the rockets and Apache attack helicopters. *** "The situation at the Rinas airfield [where the Apaches are based--Kim] presents a striking ocntrast to the one I found here three weeks agao, when the airport was occupied only by an advance guard of American and French troops, who insisted their mission was restricted to humanitarian support. "Humanitarian operations at Rinas have been scaled up with the arrival of a wing of Puma helicopters from the United Arab Emirates air force. But all pretense that this is a purely humanitarian operation has been abandoned. One sign of this is the much tighter security that prevails on what is quickly becoming kow as the 'war fighting' side of Rinas where the media are denied access." --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
