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

To: Yaacov who wrote (10310)	5/28/1999 5:33:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 17770

US military aid to Georgia United States defence officials have signed an agreement with the former Soviet republic of Georgia under which Washington will provide a grant of three-million dollars for the training of helicopter pilots and technicians. The United States has agreed to supply Goergia with with ten helicopter gunships. Russia has previously expressed concern about United States' military ties in the region. From the newsroom of the BBC World Service

To: Yaacov who wrote (10310)	5/28/1999 5:36:00 PM
From: truedog	Respond to of 17770

to: Yaacov from:truedog Re: Koster Thank you for your post and a special thanks for the book title. I will,most certainly, read it. I am very interested in such topics. I,also, apologize for any personal insult.As already said, in heated exchanges we don't always maintain civil decorum. Yes, we are different but, people who are different from each other should make an effort to get to know and understand the differences. If this could be done globally, in a calm manner, perhaps the small fuses that ignite a conflagration could be stamped out. Peace, truedog

To: Yaacov who wrote (10310)	5/28/1999 6:06:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Respond to of 17770

Yaacov, looks like soon we are going to have the following..Serbs and NATO in the interest of "humanitarian concern" would agree to the "temporary enclave" for the Kosovars untill "permanent" ""solution" can be found, both would declare that the other side blinked...Lebanisation of Kosovo would be the result with NATO acting as Israel in the South...All Clinton has to do is wait for elections so he can go work for Dream Works/Spielberg and let George W Bush to struggle with the Balkans nightmare... Cohen Argues for Air-Only War Friday, 28 May 1999 W A S H I N G T O N (AP) DEFENSE SECRETARY William Cohen argued strongly Friday for sticking with NATO's air-only military strategy in Yugoslavia. To push the allies into adding ground combat forces would risk fracturing NATO and undercutting support for the bombing, he said. In an interview, Cohen described himself as increasingly confident that NATO will prevail using air power alone and predicted that Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic eventually will be brought to justice to face the war crimes charges issued this week by a U.N. court. "There is no consensus for a ground force," Cohen said, adding that it would be unwise to start pressing for such a dramatic shift in strategy if there is no assurance that all the allies would go along. For the Clinton administration to press for a NATO consensus on using ground combat troops would mean "you really diffuse or in any way diminish the commitment to the air campaign," Cohen said. Evidence of that, he said, was the German reaction when Britain proposed recently that ground forces might forcibly enter Kosovo once the Serb army is worn down by more bombing. Britain was not arguing for an all-out ground war, but the suggestion prompted German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to declare a ground campaign "unthinkable." "It's clear to me that there would need to be a consensus" in order to consider a ground option, Cohen said. "There is no consensus for a major ground effort" so it would be best to stick to the air campaign, which he asserted was now taking a heavy toll on Serb forces. "I am increasingly confident, given the amount of damage we are doing day by day," Cohen said. He cited "signals" from Yugoslavia of declining morale and discipline in the ranks of the Serb army and increasing discontent with Belgrade among the civilian population. Cohen said the Clinton administration strongly rejects the urgings of Greece, Russia and some Democrats in Congress for a pause in NATO bombing. He said now is the time to apply maximum pressure on Milosevic, as more strike aircraft join the battle and the weather improves. "It is precisely the wrong time to be talking about a pause," Cohen said. In the Pentagon's regular briefing on NATO's air campaign, Air Force Maj. Gen. Charles Wald told reporters that airstrikes are accelerating, with the focus on facilities throughout Yugoslavia that command and control Serb military operations in Kosovo. The Pentagon also disclosed that an Air Force A-10 ground-attack plane returned safely to its base in Italy on Friday after the pilot reported an explosion near the aircraft as it was flying a mission into Yugoslavia. Spokesman Col. Richard Bridges said the explosion caused a mechanical problem and the pilot aborted his mission and returned to base. The incident was still being investigated, but the explosion apparently was from a Serb surface-to-air missile, Bridges said. Wald said as many as 10 NATO planes have been hit by Serb air defenses since the start of the air campaign March 24. In that period, two have crashed - an F-117 stealth fighter and an F-16 fighter. A few weeks ago, an A-10 lost part of its engine but landed safely in Macedonia. Wald expressed concern at plans announced Friday by the International Rescue Committee, a private humanitarian organization based in New York, to begin airdrops of food and supplies in Kosovo for the hundreds of thousands of displaced ethnic Albanians. The first airdrops, scheduled for Monday, will be flown by Moldovan crews in private U.S. planes. "I think it's not a good idea, frankly, as an airman," said Wald, a former F-16 pilot. "One reason I say that is because I have zero trust in what Milosevic or his army might try to do. I think they're putting themselves .... at great risk in doing this. I hope it succeeds, for their sake." Wald said NATO will not patrol the air corridor in which the International Rescue Committee planes are flying, meaning they will have no defenses should the Serbs fire on them. State Department spokesman James P. Rubin said, "We think that there are risks, but we also think there are gains if the planes can be flown in and tens of thousands of meals ready to eat or humanitarian daily rations can be brought to the people of Kosovo." He said arrangements have been made to inform Yugoslav authorities of the flight plans.