-Caveat Lector- WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a prelude to war! Passing along two items you might want to know about, friends: Notice # 1 Time's Person of the Century Let's get behind this and bombard TIME with letters, emails, Faxes and leaflets. Any other choice would be an outrage. No one has made more of a difference for good in this or any other Century since the death of Christ than the American Soldier, Sailor, Airman, and Marine: the GI. Nor has anyone paid a higher price or made more sacrifices. As Patton would say: ATTACK, ATTACK, ATTACK. HACK I thought you might be interested in, and willing to support, the following effort... Vote for the American GI, Time Person of the Century - A recent news article said that a group called the Riverside Republican Women Federated has spearheaded an initiative along with the following groups to vote for the American GI as Time Magazine's Person of the Century. The Citizen Patriots Group, The Congressional Medal of Honor Society, the VFW, American Legion, Vietnam Veterans of America, and even Rush Limbaugh are pushing the issue for people to vote. To date, 10 million people have voted. In this Century, 600,000 GIs have died, millions more wounded. All of us have had a dad, mom, sister, brother, friend, relative or self that has served in the military. We are voting for all of us. Forward this to all your friends and relatives. Make a difference and help to influence Time magazine to name the real person of the century. Time is of the essence as Dec. 20 is the deadline. You can click the link at the bottom or fax your cast to 212-522-8949. http://www.pathfinder.com/time/time100/poc/century.html Type in “American GI” and then submit. When I cast my vote, I checked to see who was in first place and discovered that Elvis Presley was in the lead with about 15% of the vote, and Adolph Hitler was in third place. ================================ Notice #2 Altho’ Hack is personally against U.S. military involvement in Yugoslav affairs, he wants to share this differing, unedited letter with all of you. The author is a Burlington, Vermont police officer who is in Bosnia for a year, working for the International Police Task Force. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In our jaded age of cynicism, I am amazed and humbled by the incredible and earnest gratitude of the people here in Gorazde. As you may recall, Gorazde was under siege for over four years, under artillery and tank fire as well as suffering attacks by snipers and even fully automatic cannons originally designed to shoot down aircraft. The geography here is similar to Montpelier, the next time you are there try to imagine a hostile army encamped on all of the hills surrounding the City and firing down into it. I have talked with many who survived here in basements during the siege, or actually fought to hold back the Bosnian Serbs. I have also read several accounts of the fighting here written by Internationals and military observers, so I know that the atrocities reported are not merely Moslem propaganda or exaggerations. The politics and the hatreds here are appalling, but no ideology can excuse acts such as the one reported by a British SAS soldier who was here in 1995. He witnessed a Bosnian Serb machine gunner open fire on the pedestrian bridge as it was full of people. He remembers particularly seeing a little boy shot to pieces and several women and men (civilians all) massacred as they tried to shelter behind carts. The bullets went right through. Others jumped off the bridge into the Drina River, a fifty foot drop into shallow water (less than two feet in most areas). The British Observers were part of UNPROFOR, the UN Protective Force and were here to report on the siege. Gorazde was declared a UN "Safe Area" and supposedly attacks against it were prevented. In reality, Gorazde was the only safe area that was not wiped out. To the North in Srebenica, The Bosnian Serbs massacred 8,000 Bosnian Moslems after the Dutch Army unit that was supposed to protect that safe area surrendered its weapons to the Serbs and was taken prisoner by them. UNPROFOR could not fight a war, or even take decisive actions. The decision making chain snaked all the way to New York. As a result the peacekeepers often stood by while the safe areas were shelled and over run. At various times British, Dutch, Canadian and French soldiers were captured by the Bosnian Serbs and used as hostages. Sometimes the Bosnian Moslems fired on the Peacekeepers too, enraged by their failure to protect them. In Gorazde, the SAS team lost two men killed to a Serb machine gun while they were driving in a white UN Land Rover. The UN approved an airstike, two British Harrier jets flew in, at the last moment the civilians in the UN chain ordered them to make several dry runs, without dropping bombs. They wanted to send a message to the Serbs that this time they really, really meant business. The Serbs meant business too: they shot down one of the Harriers as it circled low over their positions. The other jet was called off, all strikes were canceled and the SAS team was evacuated. The British Pilot was rescued by the Moslems and evacuated with the SAS. The UN abandoned Gorazde. Official British sources said that the Harrier was shot down by a surface to air missile, a SAM. I have spoken to two witnesses here who were soldiers on the ground, they spoke to me independent of each other and they both say that the Harrier was hit by ground fire, simple machine guns. "It was too low and slow" according to one witness," we didn't understand what the pilot was doing, you could have hit him with a rock." The other told me that the jet made three or four orbits in the same track before an auto cannon stitched it and sent it into the ground. The British would later claim, as part of their justification for withdrawal, that SAM defenses made it impossible to attack Serb positions around Gorazde. Now, I'm no fan of Bill Clinton, but at this time he was pushing for decisive airstrikes against the Bosnian Serbs to stop the Genocide. The US position was that massive force would stop the war. The European (UN) position was that force wouldn't work: angry Serbs would retaliate, taking more UN hostages and using them as human shields. The US prevailed and UNPROFOR ceded to NATO the responsibility for military actions. The first shots fired by NATO in a war took place in Gorazde, or rather in the hills above it as two US F-18's made a bombing run on Bosnian Serb positions. They destroyed a tank and a command post with several Serb commanders inside it. This was followed up by a sustained, no-nonsense campaign of airstrikes that broke the Serb's backs and brought them to the Peace talks in Dayton that ended the war. If I ask an American to name the happiest day or moment of their life, usually the answer is their wedding day or birth of a child. In Gorazde the answer is the day they heard the American jets fly in. By that time, Gorazde had been reduced to rubble, the men were expecting to be slaughtered to the last, the women, killed or taken to Serb "Rape Camps" (There was one in Foca, 10 kilometers from Gorazde). The children would be killed. Everyone was waiting for the end after the UN pulled out. When they heard the jets, Adijata (she was a teenager at the time) told me that they came out of the basement and jumped and shouted in amazement and joy. Damir, a Bosnian soldier, told me that from his post on a mountain he watched the jets fly up the valleys and unload on their targets. It was a transcendent moment, in which they were given their lives (and their families lives) back. As an American here, wearing the flag on my shoulder, I am humbled by the gratitude that people spontaneously erupt in. "America, Dobro (good)! F-16 super dobro (super good)! Bill Clinton!" This is no Vietnam. Whenever I see Moslems on TV it seems they are burning the flag and shouting death to America. Here in Bosnia they love us. When I go into Serb towns the reaction is different, some shout, some spit on the ground, but I can tell, I can feel that they're ashamed. Again it is the flag, they can't face it, they turn away. It is the symbol of a free society that had the courage, and the strength to stop them. When I return to Burlington, when I see the F-16's fly over it will never be the same for me, I will imagine that moment, what it must have been like in Gorazde when they flew over, and I will be proud. ============================================= **COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for nonprofit research and educational purposes only.[Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ] DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soapboxing! 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