I got this off of Johnson's Russia List. Moscow Times April 1, 1999 DEFENSE DOSSIER: NATO Joins Balkan Sinners By Pavel Felgenhauer After a week of war in the Balkans, with thousands of people killed, wounded or displaced, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Yugoslav military have reached a bloody military stalemate. NATO bombs Yugoslavia at will, while the Serbs are equally free to hit and molest the Kosovo Albanians in any way they choose. NATO has easily achieved full air supremacy. French Army Chief of Staff Jean-Pierre Kelche nicely summed up the situation: "NATO controls the airspace and the Serbian air force no longer has any coordinated or sophisticated capacity to oppose the alliance." Of course, that was an easy shot. The Yugoslav air force had no more than 10 battle-ready MiG-29s to repulse more than 400 modern NATO warplanes. The Yugoslavs also had an antiquated air defense system made up of obsolete 1970s-vintage Soviet-made SAM missiles. It was obvious from the very beginning that the Serbs did not have the slightest chance of standing up to NATO in the air and would be lucky to down a single enemy warplane. NATO military planners, of course, knew that in advance. Nevertheless, the Western military chiefs deliberately puffed up the Yugoslav military capabilities during the run up to the war so that Kelche and other high brass could issue glorious victory communiques afterward. NATO military spokesmen also say that their bombs have severely maimed the Yugoslav military's lines of communication. But these announcements sound hollow, especially when the same NATO spokesmen say that the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo is "well planned and organized." If that is really so, what "lines of communication" did the NATO bombers really cut, if any? Or perhaps NATO is providing Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic with an easy explanation for the Kosovo cleansing: local commanders went berserk and could not be stopped from Belgrade because NATO bombs cut the lines of command and control? The inconsistency of NATO's communiques is most likely a sign of growing panic. Politically and strategically NATO is losing its first real war. Apparently Western military and political leaders actually believed the Serbs would cave in after several cruise missile volleys. Sources in Washington say that Western prewar intelligence reports from Yugoslavia indicated that Milosevic was losing control, that the Yugoslav military did not like Milosevic because he was spending money to beef up his special police force and not the army and that if Milosevic dragged Serbia into a war with NATO, the Yugoslav military would disobey orders or possibly even rebel. Western diplomats in Moscow also told me that they expected the tiny republic of Montenegro - which, together with Serbia, comprises rump Yugoslavia - would use NATO bombing to rebel and secede. If such a secession took place, Milosevic would simply forget about Kosovo. Of course, nothing of the sort happened. But Western diplomats were so sure Milosevic would either cave in or be overthrown that, during the Rambouillet peace talks, they threatened to use force against the Serbs if they rejected a peace plan that would in effect lead to Kosovo's total independence after a three-year interim autonomy period under NATO military protection. Western arrogance made the Serbs rally behind their president even before the bombings began. Serbia turned out to be not a "failed state," but a nation ready to fight the strongest military alliance in the world to defend its land and its freedom from foreign occupation. NATO's military aggression has triggered an ethnic cleansing in Kosovo that the West does not seem to be able to stop. The only counteraction NATO is now planning is an escalation of bombing. The NATO supreme commander, General Wesley Clark, has sought political authorization to hit "military" targets in downtown Belgrade. A senior U.S. official said Clark's request has "100 percent support" from U.S. President Bill Clinton's administration. The U.S. military has certainly recovered from the post-Vietnam syndrome. There they go again - planning to bomb a sovereign nation back to the Stone Age if it does not accept a U.S.-imposed partition of its territory. There are millions of innocent war victims in the Balkans, but not a single innocent warring party. NATO has now joined the club. The Serbs are committing atrocities in Kosovo, while NATO bombers are committing other atrocities all over Yugoslavia. At any future peace conference, senior U.S. officials and Milosevic will truly be able to shake hands as equals.
