==================================================
All brasscheck.com dispatches on the US-led
attack on Yugoslavia are available, complete
with index, at http://www.brasscheck.com/yugoslavia
Please inform your friends, colleagues, and
others who you think might care.
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June 3, 1999

============================
Save lives, save a democracy
National war protest: June 5
Details: http://www.iacenter.org
============================

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BULLETIN: The government of Yugoslavia has
surrendered and accepted NATO's terms, 
but that's not good enough for Clinton and 
Blair.

BELGRADE (Reuters) - Yugoslav President Slobodan
Milosevic Thursday accepted an international peace 
plan for Kosovo but President Clinton vowed NATO 
bombing would continue until Serbian words were 
matched by deeds.
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The back of the bus

The New York Times ran a short item today
with the headline  "UN Finds Proof of 
'Ethnic Cleansing' in Kosovo." 

You have to read the article to the very last 
paragraph to discover that there are other 
refugees in the Balkans besides ethnic Albanians:
500,000 Serbians who the UN says are living in 
"subhuman conditions."

These 500,000 were 'cleansed' from their homes
four years ago and longer. Jared Israel sums up 
the story of how half of them were rendered
homeless in a matter of days:

"In 1995 the Croatian Army, trained, led and 
given air support by the Pentagon, launched a 
blitzkrieg against the Krajina section of Croatia, 
driving out in a matter of days approximately 250,000 
Serbian men, women and children whose ancestors had 
lived in that mountainous region since medieval
times. Thousands were strafed by U.S. planes or 
slaughtered by Croatian troops as they fled."
Source: http://www.counterpunch.org/zoos.html 
 
Somehow, this US-sponsored action didn't
qualify as an atrocity or ethnic cleansing. 

A recap of how it was the US news media came to
look the other way is repeated here:
http://www.brasscheck.com/yugoslavia/directory/53199a.html

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By the way, who gets the mineral deposits?

The New York Times let another well hidden
cat out of the bag today, 70+ days into the war:
the mineral wealth of Kosovo. The short article
entitled "Issue of Who Control's Kosovo's
Rich Mines" brings up - for the first time
in the mainstream US press - the fact that 
Kosovo is rich in mineral wealth.

"Experts say the resources include large
deposits of coal, along with some nickel,
lead, zinc, and other minerals."

In fact, Kosovo has the *largest* deposits
of lead in Europe and the largest deposits
of coal in all of southeastern Europe. 

I wonder what took the Times so long to 
mention this little fact?  Now, as a result
of the "humanitarian" war, ownership of
these important industrial raw materials,
valued in the billions, is suddenly up for 
grabs.  

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As of today, NATO has succeeded in killing over 2,000 
civilians in just two months. This is the same total, 
combatants and non-combatants, who were killed in the 
civil war in the *twelve* months preceding the bombing.

Photographic documentation of these assaults with details
not reported in the US press:
http://www.nekada.com    

A list of NATO's civilian bombings from Agency-France
Presse (AFP)
http://asia.yahoo.com/headlines/010699/world/928250340-90601151942.newsworld.html

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Sam Smith http://prorev.com passed this along. Can't 
say I'm surprised, but it's shocking nonetheless:

"Rowan Scarborugh and Valerie Richardson in the 
Washington Times report that today  will mark 
W.J. Clinton's first meeting with the Joint Chiefs 
of Staff since the war against Yugoslavia began. 
"In fact, the president has not met with the full 
Joint Chiefs in nine months. For the war in Kosovo, 
Mr. Clinton has relied on advice from his civilian 
national security team --none  of whom has military 
experience -- and Gen. Henry Shelton, the Joint Chiefs 
chairman." 

Waco veteran General Wesley Clark who has been calling
for a ground invasion of Yugoslavia and has been the
instigator behind things like bombing medical 
facilities and electric power plants, has been invited 
NOT to attend.

Earlier this week, the New York Times quoted a top
aide to Joint Chiefs  chairman Shelton's staff on the 
subject of Clark's qualifications to run a war: "The 
Saceur (Clark's command) staff is not a war-fighting staff. 
It has never fought or planned a war."

Yet Clark was given the equivalent of a blank
check to do with Yugoslavia as he pleased by a 
president so out of it he didn't even bother to 
consult with the Joint Chiefs before starting
the assault. 

And every day of bombing is another day the
president is in violation of the War Powers Act
and the Constitution. But the AP, Times, Washington 
Post, CNN and all the other news sources most 
Americans rely on, are silent on this point.
 
============================
Save lives, save a democracy
National war protest: June 5
Details: http://www.iacenter.org
============================