Here is a post that appeared in the greek newsgroup, interesting reading...
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We learned, via e-mail from Belgrade, that the water plant in Novi Sad, a
city of 400,000, was hit by NATO bombs leaving the entire city without
water. Also, our source informed us that five e-mails from Yugoslavia
reported the destruction of the Petrovaradin Bridge over the Danube.
In the escalating war, the Associated Press reported that NATO forces
blasted targets near a major Kosovo city and also vowed there would be "no
sanctuary" for Yugoslav forces trying to rid Kosovo of ethnic Albanians.
President Clinton announed that "key military installations would be
destroyed" and Yugoslavia's "claim to Kosovo was jeopardized." His statement
confirmed for the Serbs their fears that Clinton's "peace" agreement, which
called for three years of "autonomy" was simply a plan to help the
Albanians, most of whom were not born in the area, seize control of Kosovo.
With the air campaign against Milosevic's forces entering its second week,
Western officials acknowledged that NATO's missiles and bombs had so far
failed to stop Belgrade's offensive in the province.
Russia backed its disapproval of the NATO campaign with a show of force
Wednesday, saying it was dispatching a frigate to the Mediterranean and
putting other warships on standby. NATO warships firing cruise missiles at
Yugoslavia are deployed in the Adriatic Sea, off the Mediterranean. With
hints from Western diplomats that NATO bombs and missiles could soon be
raining down on the Yugoslav capital of Belgrade, NATO spokesman Jamie Shea
on Wednesday reiterated the alliance's insistence that Yugoslav security
forces are bent on purging Kosovo of both ethnic Albanians and their
culture.
Associated Press reported that the purpose of the German government's
inflammatory language is "trying to quell doubts within its own ranks about
the bombing of Serbia and demonstrate that there is an overwhelming moral
case for taking part by arguing that Bonn must stop Milosevic doing to the
Kosovo Albanians what the Nazis did to the Jews."
Early Thursday Shea announced that the three American soldiers captured by
the Yugoslav Army near the border of Macedonia were on "a peacekeeping
mission" and were "no threat to Yugoslavia." Shea said that the Army
soldiers captured by the Yugoslav Army "must be treated in according to
international norms." A spokesman for a Serb organization in America noted
that the government would ask the international Red Cross to inspect the
soldiers and designate them "prisoners of war."
Meanwhile Yugoslavia's government has declared that the nation is in "a
state of war." The Kosovo Liberation Army, headed by Hashim Thaqi, 29, two
weeks ago was named to head a provisional government with the blessings of
the Clinton administration. The administration then brought Thaqi to
Washington, supposedly to "win backing of a Western plan to end the year-old
ethnic war in Kosovo." U.S. officials also said they hoped to "persuade
Thaqi, to embrace nonviolent politics." Lots of luck!
Today the KLA is nearing collapse, according to the Washington Post.
Yugoslav army troops and Serbian special police units have cut off the
guerrillas' supply lines from Albania since NATO began its bombing campaign
against Yugoslav military targets on March 24. Azen Syla , a founder of the
KLA, said the rebels were retreating across broad areas of Kosovo. The Serb
Army thought they could get rid of the KLA terrorist in about a week's
time - and perhaps they can.
Oddly, in the emotional stories showing Albanians fleeing Kosovo, no
connection seems to ever be made by the reporters between the KLA and the
fleeing Albanians. While the refugees are clearly not having a good day,
they are almost to a person well dressed and clearly well fed. So far, the
Albanians going across the border appear, from what they are saying, to be
strong supporters of the KLA, a declared enemy of the government. Of the
1,800,000 Albanians, more than 1,200,000 have come to the area in the last
40 years. Many, according to Serb sources, are illegal aliens. To date fewer
than 4.5% of the Albanian population population in Kosovo have fled the
province. Yesterday, some Albanians demonstrated in Belgrade to show the
world they SUPPORTED the government of the Country they lived in -
Yugoslavia. Not all Albanians really want to be led by a 29 year old
terrorist.
There have been numerous stories of Serb atrocities told to cooperative
members of the Western media at the border areas. One such story was that
THOUSANDS of Albanians had been rounded up and placed in a soccer stadium in
Pristina, in concentration camp style accommodations. The story claimed that
they were all scheduled for execution. A reporter found his way to the
stadium in question and found that no one was there and the grass clearly
showed no signs of any one having BEEN there. It was merely one of many
propaganda stories designed to manipulate America into a ground war with the
Serbs.
I rather suspect the journalist who went to the stadium will be a target for
a lot of hate and threatening mail. Those of us who seek out facts are
finding themselves increasingly the target of vicious, extreme and often
pornographic hate mail written by people who identify themselves as friends
of Bill Clinton. One of them is George Tsapanos, a hoodlum who writes hate
posts against Macedonia in the Internet. The facts simply do not support
the rising wave of hysteria that is sweeping the world, it seems, in an
effort to convince the average citizen in the United States and Great
Britain that every sovereign right should be denied the nation of
Yugoslavia.
The other fear that is developing is what I might call the Kansas-Nebraska
solution. A civil war almost broke out over the Kansas Nebraska Act, which
would allow the citizens of the states the "right" to decide whether or not
the territory should be slave or free. What is feared is that Milosevic
plans to re-establish the Serb population of Kosovo, using the area to
re-settle the area with some of the approximately 700,000 Serbs who were
driven from their homes in Croatia by the last NATO bombing raids a couple
of years ago.
And, that may very well be part of the plan. The largest ethnic group in
Yugoslavia, of course, is the Serbs and they also constitute the largest
percentage of the homeless refugees. Everything that Milosevic is being
accused of, was also done because of Stephen A. Douglas' Kansas-Nebraska Act
which allowed the territory to "decide for itself" whether or not it would
be a slave state or a free state. Both sides figured out ways to drive their
opposition OUT of the territory and bring in supporters:
Thankfully, even the three soldiers who were captured, are alive. Clearly,
they look like they have been in a fight or beaten - but there are no broken
bones and, except for the humiliation of being interviewed on nationwide TV,
appear so far to be in good condition. Most of the refugees look like they
buy their clothes at K-Mart. They are undoubtedly worried and unhappy. That
is not, however, genocide. That's war.
Clinton belongs to a generation that, to this day, believes they were DOING
something about problems by carrying a picket sign whining about a problem.
Clinton has been using the extremist language, the threats of destroying
Yugoslavia, common during the 1960s, to solve a tricky, sensitive and
extremely dangerous foreign policy problem in Kosovo. Of course, it didn't
work. Of course we are now as a nation humiliated.
Hopefully, enough Americans will catch on to the Liberal Laments with which
we are being deluged and get on with making some intelligent decisions
designed to get us out of the Balkans. Nation building, like making sausage,
can be really awful to watch. But, a hundred years later, both Nebraska and
Kansas have become fine states.
The "solution" Clinton is proposing is worse than the problem. We've lost
this one - and it was one we deserved to lose. We were wrong to start
bombing another country to try to force it to do things they way we think in
1999 things ought to be done.
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