[PEN-L:7312] (Fwd) WHAT THIS WAR IS REALLY ABOUT - By Marcus Gee, The Globe

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The Globe and Mail                      Wednesday, May 26, 1999

WHAT THIS WAR IS REALLY ABOUT

        By Marcus Gee

Belgrade -- Hats off to Lieutenant-General Michael C. Short of the 
United States Air Force. Thanks to Lt.-Gen. Short, NATO's claim 
that the air war in Yugoslavia is not directed at civilians has been 
stripped of its last shreds of credibility.
        When he sat down for an interview with The Washington Post 
last weekend, the general made it plain that the North Atlantic 
Treaty Organization is trying to do much more than just hurt the 
Yugoslav military when it bombs bridges, power plants and water-
pumping stations. It is trying to break the will of the Serbian people 
and foment an uprising against President Slobodan Milosevic.
        Here is what he said about how he hoped Serbs would react to 
the devastation of their country. "If you wake up in the morning 
and you have no power to your house and no gas to your stove and 
the bridge you take to work is down and will be lying in the Danube 
for the next 20 years, I think you begin to ask, 'Hey, Slobo, what's 
this all about? How much more of this do we have to withstand?' 
And at some point, you make the transition from applauding Serb 
machismo against the world to thinking what your country is going 
to look like if this continues."
        There you have it, straight from the man in charge of the air 
campaign. This is no longer a short-term air strike against the 
Yugoslav government, as it began, or even a long-term campaign 
against the Yugoslav military, as it became. It is a war of attrition 
against the whole Serbian nation. The aim is to make ordinary 
people so miserable, so afraid and so discouraged that they will rise 
up in anger against Mr. Milosevic and force him to pull out of 
Kosovo. If NATO's generals can't do the job, the Serbs will do it 
for them.
        You have to be here to understand how absurd that is. People in 
Belgrade are simply amazed at the boneheadedness of the NATO 
strategy, and when I ask people what they think of it, they sputter 
with outrage, frustration and incomprehension.
        A good part of the population already opposes Mr. Milosevic; 
so those people need no incentive to dislike him. The idea that they 
might be bombed into disliking him more is laughable. People here 
are so angry at the bombing, and so involved with the daily struggle 
to survive under a bombardment, that they have little time or 
inclination for politics.
        Even the fiercest critics of the government find the bombing 
repugnant and ridiculous. After fighting Mr. Milosevic for years, 
they feel they are being punished for his crimes. While bombs fall all 
around them, he is safe in a bunker somewhere, more powerful than 
ever. "I am the mother of a son," one bright-eyed young woman 
said yesterday as her three-year-old played on the floor. "We are 
suffering, Milosevic isn't. He has all the cards."
        The bombing does seem to have strengthened Mr. Milosevic, 
not necessarily by making him more popular but by giving him a 
perfect excuse to crush dissent. These days in Yugoslavia, anyone 
who opposes his regime is called a traitor. The editor of a leading 
independent newspaper was murdered last month  -- a reminder, 
everyone here assumes, that in wartime it is best not to criticize. 
The Belgrade headquarters of the opposition Democratic Party has 
been repeatedly stoned and defaced by a rent-a-mob. In such an 
atmosphere, a veteran opposition figure told me in a darkened café 
during a power outage, "to say the opposition should speak up now 
is a call to suicide."
        Yet that is just what the allies appear to be saying. Newsweek 
magazine reported this week that U.S. President Bill Clinton had 
authorized a plan to use the Central Intelligence Agency to 
destabilize Mr. Milosevic. As if the systematic destruction of 
Yugoslavia's infrastructure were not enough, the plan reportedly 
includes a scheme to train Albanian rebels to carry out a campaign 
of sabotage in Serbia. Asked about the plan, Connecticut Senator 
Joseph Lieberman said, "I wouldn't be surprised if we were using it 
here as part of an effort to bring the war in Kosovo home to the 
people, the civilians in Belgrade, so that they pressure Milosevic to 
break and make an agreement with NATO."
        Okay, so here is the plan. We rain bombs on their heads for a 
couple more months. Then we send Albanian terrorists to blow up 
what's left. Then we tell them to rise up en masse against a man 
whose ruthlessness we have compared with Hitler's.
        Thank you, Senator Lieberman. Thank you, General Short. 
Now we know what this war is really about.