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June 9, 1999

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Q: Who said the following on March 27 before ordering 
a massive air assault on Belgrade - in the name of 
international peace and stability?

"I have done everything honestly to bring Yugoslavia into 
our community (of nations)... Unfortunately these endeavors 
did not meet with success...Therefore I have...arranged for 
all necessary measures... with military means."

Answer at the end of this piece
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Is NATO bombing withdrawing Yugoslav troops?

One of the lasting images of the Iraq War was
the unwarranted slaughter of thousands of retreating 
Iraqi soldiers by air bombardment on the highway
leaving Kuwait.

Today, in the midst of peace talks and formal NATO/Yugoslav
coordination on the details of how the Yugoslavian armed forces
will leave Kosovo, NATO announced its first successful
signficant use of air power against a *military* target
in Kosovo in over 34,000 missions.

Here's the line from the Washington Post as relayed by
the San Francisco Chronicle:

"Several hundred Yugoslav soldiers are believed to have 
been killed in a raid by an American B-52 bomber that caught
them massing in a field near the Kosovo-Albanian border 
on Monday, NATO sources said yesterday."

"The casualty toll may have been the highest suffered by 
the Yugoslavs in a single attack since NATO's air war began
11 weeks ago." 

The question is why, after 11 weeks of easily evading 
NATO bombardment would the battle-tested Yugoslav forces
suddenly start massing in the open air in a field in
plain sight of NATO bombers?

The Post article offers this:

"NATO military sources said two Yugoslav Army battalions 
were spotted by allied reconnaissance assembling on a 
hillside in the Mount Pastrik area. The troops were apparently 
trying to thwart ethnic Albanian guerrillas who in the past 
two weeks have mounted an offensive seeking to establish new
corridors to the Pec-Prizren road from their border strongholds."

An elaborately detailed, plausible-sounding answer that upon 
examination raises more questions than it answers. 

The war in Kosovo is a guerilla war. The KLA - if 
it is acting independently without the help of US and UK 
Special Forces - has the ability to do little more than 
take random pot shots and lob artillery shells here and 
there hoping to hit something. (As was demonstrated in
the Bosnian and Croatian wars, the only thing US/NATO 
surrogates can do with any proficiency is kill large 
numbers of unarmed civilians.)

Why then would the Yugoslavian army suddenly change its 
successful tactics, abandon its training and experience 
and respond  to the KLA's method of warfare by massing 
18th century style in a field?

The Post article offers this non-explanation:

"The recent offensive by ethnic Albanian rebels of the 
Kosovo Liberation Army has succeeded in flushing out many 
Yugoslav soldiers who were previously well dispersed and 
hidden in ways that had made it difficult for NATO warplanes
to strike them."

The military coordination of the terrorist KLA and NATO 
is an open secret that is now apparently suitable
for public consumption as the above remark indicates,
but this statement confuses the matter even further.

Were these two battalians flushed out by KLA attacks or 
were they massing in the open air - against all common sense -
for an attack on the KLA? It's got to be one or the other 
and neither makes sense. 

Here's a possible key: "NATO military sources said...the 
troops were apparently trying to thwart ethnic Albanian 
guerrillas..." and so on. 

The reliability of NATO accounts has already been 
demonstrated so it's fair to hold, as a possibility
at least, that NATO is again, with the help of its
friends at the Washington Post, lying.

Yugoslavia has been silent about this bombing 
which took place Monday. Given that there is a 
war going on, their silence on the matter is 
understandable. You don't admit or publicize
military casualties especially if they are severe. 

But what were these two battalians doing, out
like sitting ducks in the open air, if not preparing
to move in a "verifiable" way out of the area? That's
a more plausible exaplantion than the ones offered
by the Post and NATO. If that's the case, the bombing of
several hundred soldiers in the process of withdrawing
would be in keeping with NATO's consistent multi-year 
strategy of doing everything possible to undermine peace
in the region.

40,000 soldiers have to move out of Kosovo with
US-supported KLA terrorists on the ground and NATO
bombers in the air. And NATO says it won't stop
the bombing until it is satisfied with the
withdrawl. Does anyone else see the bind
here?

====================================================================  

Who said this on March 27 before starting the boming
of Belgrade?

"I have done everything honestly to bring Yugoslavia into 
our community (of nations)... Unfortunately these endeavors 
did not meet with success...Therefore I have...arranged for 
all necessary measures... with military means."

Not Bill Clinton.

Adolph Hitler in a wire to Mussolini before beginning
the air assault on Belgrade - March 27, 1941.
Source: William L. Shirer: "The Rise and Fall of the 
Third Reich" pages 825, 826

"Belgrade itself, as Hitler ordered, was razed to the ground.
For three days and nights Goering's bombers ranged over the
little capital at rooftop level - for the city had no
anti-aircraft guns - killing 17,000 civilians, wounding many
more and reducing the place to a mass of smoldering rubble.
'Operation Punishment,' Hitler called it"

Ibid p. 826