Here is the truth...
Plato
Clinton's speech on Yugoslavia: piling lie upon lie
By Martin McLaughlin
12 June 1999
The 13-minute speech delivered by President Clinton Thursday night to a
national
television audience was a remarkable exercise in the technique of the
big lie. It is difficult
to recall any presidential address in modern US history which compressed
into such a
brief period so many falsehoods and distortions.
Clinton's address was a particularly cynical example of the propaganda
that has been
used to justify the US-NATO war. In an effort to assist a public which
has been subjected
to a form of ideological and moral blackmail—”Either you support NATO or
you support
‘ethnic cleansing'”—we provide here a summary of the main claims in
Clinton's speech,
comparing each to the historical record and established facts.
Clinton: The demands of an outraged and united international community
have been
met.
The United States chose to wage war against Yugoslavia by means of the
American-dominated NATO alliance, rather going through the United
Nations, because
of expected opposition within the larger organization. The
“international community” was
mainly outraged by the savagery of the NATO bombing of a sovereign
country. This
sentiment was particularly widely expressed in Russia, China, India and
elsewhere in
Asia, Africa and Latin America, countries which comprise the vast
majority of the human
race.
Clinton: When I ordered our armed forces into combat we had three clear
goals: to
enable the Kosovar people, the victims of some of the most vicious
atrocities in
Europe since the Second World War, to return to their homes with safety
and
self-government...
The US bombing was not initiated to enable the Kosovars to return to
their homes, since
the vast majority had not yet left them when the bombs started to fall.
The mass exodus
of refugees began after NATO launched its air war. Nor had the Kosovar
Albanians been
subjected to systematic and widespread atrocities prior to March 24. The
death toll on
both sides in the two-year civil war between the secessionist KLA and
Yugoslav forces
was about 2,000.
Clinton: This victory brings a new hope that when a people are singled
out for
destruction because of their heritage and religious faith and we can do
something
about it, the world will not look the other way.
The US government actively supports governments around the world which
persecute,
oppress and murder ethnic and religious minorities. To name only a few:
Sri Lanka,
India, Pakistan, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Congo, Colombia, Peru,
Guatemala,
Mexico. Several of the NATO allies are engaged in such actions,
including Britain in
Northern Ireland, Spain in the Basque country, and, most notoriously,
Turkey, whose
mass killings and expulsions of Kurds far outstrip anything Milosevic
has been accused
of.
Clinton: [Praising US pilots] Day after day, night after night, they
flew, risking their
lives to attack their targets and to avoid civilian casualties when they
were fired upon
from populated areas.
There were no US combat casualties in the war, and American pilots were
hardly ever in
danger as they dropped thousands of tons of bombs on a virtually
undefended country.
Clinton makes the Serbs responsible for the civilian casualties by
suggesting that they
fired on US planes “from populated areas.” This charge is particularly
stupid, since it
condemns the Serbs for using anti-aircraft weapons to defend their
cities against US
bombers.
Clinton: We should remember that the violence we responded to in Kosovo
was the
culmination of a 10-year campaign by Slobodan Milosevic, the leader of
Serbia, to
exploit ethnic and religious differences in order to impose his will on
the lands of the
former Yugoslavia. That's what he tried to do in Croatia and Bosnia, and
now in
Kosovo.
The demonization of Milosevic covers up the complex history of the
breakup of
Yugoslavia, which was fomented and encouraged by the United States and
by
US-dominated agencies like the International Monetary Fund. It ignores
the fact that
Milosevic and the Serbs were seeking to defend the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia
against secessionist movements whose expressed aim was to “exploit
ethnic and
religious differences” by establishing new Croat, Slovene and
Muslim-based states in
which the Serbs would be reduced to a persecuted minority. Moreover, it
ignores the fact
that in 1995 the Clinton administration accepted Milosevic as a
negotiating partner and
guarantor of the Dayton Accords in Bosnia.
Clinton: When our diplomatic efforts to avert this horror were rebuffed,
and the
violence mounted, we and our allies chose to act.
As prominent former US officials, including Henry Kissinger and Jimmy
Carter, have
admitted, the prewar talks at Rambouillet were not negotiations, but an
attempt to
impose an ultimatum on the Serbs, to provide a pretext for military
action. The Serbs
were told to sign the Rambouillet agreement or be bombed. An appendix to
Rambouillet,
inserted to insure a Serb rejection, would have sanctioned the
unrestricted occupation of
all of Yugoslavia by NATO troops, not merely Kosovo. And again, the
violence only
mounted after the NATO bombing began.
Clinton: Nineteen democracies came together and stayed together through
the stiffest
military challenge in NATO's 50-year history.
Yugoslavia, a country of 11 million people, hardly provided a serious
military challenge to
an alliance which controls half the world's GDP and half of total world
military spending.
The main “challenge” to NATO unity came not from the Yugoslav Army but
from popular
revulsion within many of the member countries to the spectacle of the
one-sided and
virtually unopposed bombing of a small country. NATO was able to
preserve unity largely
because of the role of the social democratic parties and former “lefts”
like the German
Greens, who supported the war despite its broad unpopularity.
Clinton: Finally, we have averted the wider war this conflict may well
have sparked.
With 50,000 NATO-led troops set to occupy Kosovo, and another 40,000
already in
Bosnia, there are more outside military forces in the Balkans than at
any time since
Hitler's invasion during World War II. New conflicts may be sparked in
Montenegro,
Macedonia, the Vojvodina region of Serbia or within Serbia itself, or in
Bosnia and
Kosovo.
Clinton: [In remarks directed to the Serbian people] You should know
that your
leaders could have kept Kosovo as a part of your country without driving
a single
Kosovar family from its home, without killing a single adult or child,
without inviting a
single NATO bomb to fall on your country.
The Milosevic regime has been engaged in a civil war against an armed
secessionist
group, the KLA, for nearly two years. The KLA systematically
assassinated Yugoslav civil
servants—including postal workers—and Serb civilians. Yet Clinton
suggests that Serb
forces could and should have conducted this fight nonviolently—an
admonition that the
United States government has never followed in the multitude of
counterinsurgency
campaigns which it has carried out in the 20th century.
Clinton: You endured 79 days of bombing, not to keep Kosovo a province
of Serbia,
but simply because Mr. Milosevic was determined to eliminate Kosovar
Albanians
from Kosovo, dead or alive.
Further demonizing Milosevic, the US president suggests that the war was
the product of
the Yugoslav president's hatred of Albanians, and that there was no
reason to believe
that Yugoslav sovereignty over Kosovo was in danger. But the KLA, whose
program
calls for an independent Kosovo or a greater Albania, was sponsored by
the US State
Department at the Rambouillet talks. The agreement which Milosevic
rejected
specifically provided for a three-year transitional regime followed by a
referendum, which
was widely viewed as a formula for eventual Kosovan secession.
Clinton: As long as he remains in power, as long as your nation is ruled
by an indicted
war criminal, we will provide no support for the reconstruction of
Serbia.
The savagery of a government has never been a barrier to official
American support and
aid. Some of the biggest killers of the 20th century—Pol Pot, Suharto in
Indonesia,
Pinochet, the Argentine and Brazilian juntas—have had the diplomatic,
military and
economic backing of Washington. With this statement, Clinton momentarily
dropped the
posture of humanitarianism and threatened the Serbian people with an
Iraq-style regime
of semi-starvation and blockade.
Clinton: Because of our resolve the 20th century is ending not with
helpless
indignation but with a hopeful affirmation of human dignity and human
rights for the
21st century.
Here Clinton's lies approach the level of Joseph Goebbels. The rubble of
Belgrade is a
“hopeful affirmation” of the conditions awaiting mankind in the 21st
century. All humanity
can look forward to the impact of cruise missiles and smart bombs.
“Helpless
indignation” is an apt phrase for the reaction of many millions of
people around the world
to the unrestrained American use of military power to smash up small
countries which
stand in the way of Washington and Wall Street.
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