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Pastimes : Kosovo -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: The Philosopher who wrote (10288)	5/28/1999 2:40:00 PM
From: greenspirit	Respond to of 17770

Christopher, Article...9,000 PURPLE HEARTS - THAT'S AN ORDER... nypost.com 9,000 PURPLE HEARTS - THAT'S AN ORDER By STEVE DUNLEAVY LEE GRAVES this week got some good news for his business, but not very good news for soldiers. "On Wednesday, we got the official order to make 9,000 Purple Hearts," he told me from Tomball, Texas. Purple Hearts are awarded to servicemen and women who are wounded in the zone of hostility during war. But we are not fighting a war, according to Bill Clinton, we are just "degrading" Slobbo's war machine. OK. Then why in good God's name are we making Purple Hearts if we are not in a war and we don't expect casualties? "I was a little surprised to get that big an order from the Defense Logistics Agency," said Graves, boss of medal-making Graco Industries. "I have been producing medals and campaign ribbons for 20 years and never have I been asked by the Defense Department to come up with a Purple Heart. "But 9,000 Purple Hearts. Yes, well I am surprised." The order is stone-dead cold, according to Lee, a Good Ol' Boy who has done his time in the trenches of foreign wars. "I think I am right - they [Washington] want 1,400 Purple Hearts for November, 1,400 for December, 1,600 for January, 1,600 for February, 1,600 for March and 1,400 for April." Unless we have a war, why would the Defense Department be asking for Purple Hearts? "Off the top of my head, I am guessing that 9,000 would be about 10 percent casualties of our being there. Wounded, I pray. That sounds right. I sure hope nobody gets killed." So, even though Clinton has always told us that ground troops would never be an option and he announced it to Slobodan Milosevic, guess what. Well, the Pentagon must think otherwise. I called Christina Di Memmo, the public-affairs officer at the Defense Logistics Agency in Philadelphia, which is the groundhog for Pentagon buying. "I am not the person to give an official response," she said politely. If I can't get a comment from an official spokesperson, then who can I get to talk? Dutifully, she called back later and said, "We are simply maintaining the quantity of supply." Nobody wanted 9,000 Purple Hearts last year. Bill Clinton isn't taking my calls today. Silly Billy. Now, if Silly Billy for once in his life is playing good poker with Slobbo, and not tipping his mitt, I will, for once in my life, applaud him. But if the Pentagon is saying, "Screw this draft-dodging mook, we are going in, ground troops and all," then it tells us the measure of Clinton's intelligence. William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, told a packed New York Post breakfast forum on Tuesday: "There will be U.S. troops in Kosovo by November." Whether his "Kristol Ball" is better than mine or whether he knew about 9,000 Purple Hearts being ordered, I don't know. But I do know what Lee Graves says honestly: "For 20 years, we have been making medals and ribbons for the armed services. "We have never been requested to make Purple Hearts for the armed forces. Never. Truthfully, I hope they are not needed." Yep, I think we are going in. Better to kill the killers than bomb the living daylights out of innocent civilians who are the descendants, as Henry Kissinger said, of people who stood by us in two world wars and spat in Hitler's face.

To: The Philosopher who wrote (10288)	5/28/1999 2:47:00 PM
From: greenspirit	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17770

Christopher, Article...Nato commander warns of more civilian deaths... telegraph.co.uk Friday 28 May 1999 Nato commander warns of more civilian deaths By Ben Fenton in Washington A scene of barbaric beauty yesterday as more bombs explode near Belgrade NATO'S air campaign has not reached its peak yet and the alliance should be prepared for more civilian casualties, the commander of Operation Allied Force has told ambassadors of the 19 countries involved in the action against the Yugoslav regime. Gen Wesley Clark, Nato's supreme commander in Europe, said he would be seeking to increase the number of air strikes in Kosovo and expand the range of targets. His remarks, to a closed meeting of ambassadors on Wednesday, came before Nato launched its most powerful series of strikes to date. The alliance's air force flew 308 strike sorties in the 24 hours up to yesterday morning, with an additional 74 sorties aimed at suppressing Yugoslav air defences. Nato claimed to have destroyed five tanks, six armoured personnel carriers and 10 artillery pieces. But its heavier air activity was met with increased resistance. The Serbs fired 33 missiles, mostly heavy SA-3s and SA-6s at Nato jets, the most in any one day so far during a campaign in which Slobodan Milosevic's forces hav been targeted relentlessly. A Nato spokesman said one American F-16 pilot had been shaken when two missiles fired at his plane passed close by and exploded. But he added that all the missiles were fired without radar guidance, mainly because Nato had already destroyed the systems that helped them track approaching planes. Gen Clark was reported by Nato officials to have explained at length to Nato ambassadors the complex procedure by which his planners chose targets and double-checked them in an effort to ensure the minimum number of civilian casualties. An official said: "But he also told them that no air war could be perfect and that he would be asking soon for permission to go after targets that in the past have been rejected because attacking them had higher risks of collateral damage." Future targets are likely to include Serbia's telephone network. Attacking this would inconvenience civilians but would also cut vital communication links with front-line commanders in Kosovo. Nato is keen to force the Serbs to rely more on cellular telephony, which is more easily intercepted by allied surveillance. But Gen Clark said he had ruled out attacking Yugoslavia's natural-gas supply because he did not want the civilian population to freeze next winter. He also told the ambassadors that although he had ruled out sending aid flights into Kosovo to help those who were stranded there, he would be prepared to stop Nato operations to ensure that planned Russian aid flights were safe.

To: The Philosopher who wrote (10288)	5/28/1999 2:54:00 PM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 17770

Advice on constructing "paste posts": 1.) Open your word- processing program, and start a document; 2.) Minimize the whole thing to taskbar; 3.) Copy the text you want by right clicking with your mouse (after selecting with the left click, click right on the text, choose copy, and left click); 4.) Maximize the document and paste by right clicking, then minimize; 5.) Make sure nothing is selected in the document, right click, select "properties", click, find the URL, select, copy with right click, close "properties"; 6.) Maximize the document, paste the URL under the text; 7.) Copy the whole thing off of the document, then minimize; 8.) Go to "respond", paste in whole document...

To: The Philosopher who wrote (10288)	5/28/1999 2:56:00 PM
From: greenspirit	Respond to of 17770

Christopher, Article... presidential prose sacbee.com By George Will Published May 27, 1999 WASHINGTON--Bill Clinton, a better president than columnist, traduces the truth the way a shark feeds--relentlessly, voraciously, as a metabolic necessity. As in his column in Sunday's New York Times, which began with these words: "We are in Kosovo with our allies to stand for ..." He could not go three words without involving the truth in a fender-bender. We are not "in" Kosovo any more than we were "in" Germany in 1943. You may ask, what is a preposition among friends? Well, as Mark Twain said, "the difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter--'tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning." But sticking to the truth--"We are over Kosovo with our allies ..."--would have sacrificed style to facts. The Times, careless about the semantic niceties involved in what is called "coercive diplomacy," titled Clinton's column, "A Just and Necessary War," thereby using, as Clinton did not, the "W" word. Columnist Clinton spoke only of "our military campaign." The president, who has not stopped campaigning since he was in his 20s, confuses war, which is about the destruction of the enemy's forces, with modern politics, which is about inducing mood swings in mass audiences. Still, all wars end. This one will. When and how? Opinions differ. The lead story in Monday's Washington Post reported the commander of NATO's air war, U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael Short, saying of the Yugoslav army in Kosovo, "I don't have a good feel for knowing how close they are to breaking" but he has a feeling that two more months of the campaign as it now is being conducted will either "kill" it or "send it on the run." He said if you are being pounded so relentlessly that you "know that every time you move you're liable to be hit, at some point your spirit will break, particularly if you're not getting any help from Belgrade." The lead story in Monday's New York Times reported that Belgrade is sending fresh troops into Kosovo. NATO's military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Walter Jertz: "We have no sign of withdrawal. The contrary is correct." Paddy Ashdown, a former Royal Marine commando, now leader of Britain's Liberal Democrats, says he has never heard of anyone "surrendering to an aircraft." However, NATO is being methodical, which can be a military virtue. But time may be on the side of Slobodan Milosevic, who may be able to hunker down longer than NATO can continue papering over its differences, which will widen as NATO's target list expands and civilian casualties multiply. Italy wants a bombing halt. Greece says Turkey's planes participating in the air war cannot cross Greek air space. Hungary says it will not be a staging ground for a ground attack. National Journal's James Kitfield reports on "passive resistance" within NATO at war. He says that early in the air war some governments of NATO members showed displeasure with certain target selections by flying their missions but refusing to release their ordnance, claiming mechanical or weather problems. And Germany vows to veto any NATO use of ground forces except in a "permissive" environment, meaning with Milosevic's permission. Perhaps, there is something to be said for ending the 20th century worrying about German military reluctance. Columnist Clinton says "I do not rule out" such options as ground forces. A spokesman for Clinton's National Security Council says the administration is "steadfast" against ground troops. Open- minded about what it steadfastly opposes, the administration plans to make the Balkans whole again with ... perhaps something analogous to the Tennessee Valley Authority. While satellites in their quiet orbits photograph mass graves, NATO planners in quiet conference rooms anticipate the return of the survivors of the buried to live under the sovereignty of the buriers. And Clinton plans reconciliation: "There needs to be a magnet, a stronger force pulling people together than the forces pulling people apart. That means there needs to be an economic revitalization program that embraces the region." The "military campaign" may not be going exactly as planned, but postwar recovery will be a piece of cake. We will write a check. It is beyond parody; it is impervious to satire. In the midst of a war demonstrating, emphatically and redundantly, the fierce salience of religious and ethnic fevers, and the centuries-spanning durability of historical memories, Clinton, who evidently has not noticed the 20th century, stands as the last economic determinist. His shallowness amazes.