June 17, 1999

* For war criminals: there's no place like home
* Now they tell us
* Trying to sort out the latest Kosovo news
* Spanish pilots say NATO ordered civilian attacks

- Where war criminals get their training

Seamus Martin, editor of the Irish Times, responded
to Brass Check's piece on NATO's Gen. Clark and Waco 
http://www.brasscheck.com/yugoslavia/clarkatwaco.html
with this comment:

"(Clark's) subordinate Gen Sir Michael Jackson was an 
officer in the British Parachute regiment during the 
Bloody Sunday massacare in Northern Ireland."

It seems that being involved in civilian atrocities
at home is an effective way to insure advancement in
the US and UK armed forces.

There is a historical precedent for this. In 1935,
General Douglas MacArthur authored a field manual offering
directions for handling labor demonstrations and other 
social unrest. It was called "Military Aid in
Civil Disturbances." According to George Seldes, it
became a guidebook not only for the US Army but also
for the National Guard and various vigilante groups
that were involved in "supressing strikes and disturbances
during the Great Depression."  

MacArthur's advice for handling strikers: 

- "...all efforts should be made if the use of gas is 
contemplated to supply plenty of it."

- "...airplanes may be used for the purpose of keeping
rioters off roofs by means of machine-gun fire"

- "...armored cars will be especially valuable in riot
duty"

And this gem, which Seldes characterizes as the "Shoot
to Kill" order: 

"Blank cartridges should never be used against a mob."

MacArthur developed the material for his manual during
various domestic operations including the gassing of 
fellow WWI veterans during the Bonus Army encampment 
in Washington DC in 1932.

- Now they tell us

Buried way back (A35) in today's Washington Post:

"The KLA had a simple, but effective, plan. It would 
kill Serb policemen. The Serbs would retaliate retaliate, 
Balkan style, with widespread reprisals and the occasional
massacre. The West would get more and more appalled, until
finally it would -- as it did in Bosnia -- take action. In 
effect, the United States and much of Europe would go to 
war on the side of the KLA."

How many lives would have been saved if this
had been on the front pages 80 days ago? 
I wonder why the Washington Post took so long to, 
quite timidly, publish this honest and common
sense report on the roots of the Kosovo crisis. 
Too busy flacking for the Pentagon I guess.

Of course, it's not quite as simple as the Post
presents it. Not mentioned as part of the KLA's 
"simple plan": 1) major PR support from the AP and
other US news outlets and 2) coordination with
NATO command before, during and after the bombing.
The current head of the KLA forces is a Pentagon
trained Croatian general, Agim Ceku, who earned his 
spurs killing Serb civilians in "Operation Storm"
in August of 1995. 

Also today, while US news outlets higlighted a 
single dramatic episode of NATO troops disarming
KLA terrorists - in a non-strategic area - Reuters
sent out this, mostly ignored, photo showing
armed KLA members marching into a Kosovo town 
with US armor providing escort.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/p/nm/19990616/ts/mdf89497.html 

- Trying to sort out the Kosovo news

Silvia from http://www,keepfaith.com writes:

"... there are at least four versions of every story, when 
searched globally - from Australian, to British, to the US 
press and so on.

"Sample - The two Serbs killed by the NATO troops in the small
yellow car were: two Serbian suicide bombers, two drunken 
soldiers shooting in the air, KLA. 

Kacanic mass graves were: discovered by British paratroopers, 
shown to NATO by KLA, shown to NATO by a girl carrying flowers. 

They were: 28 bodies in a covered up well that a KLA fighter 
refused to show to the present journalist, 81 individual graves, 
numbered but not named that the Yugo soldiers took out of a 
mass grave, autopsied and reburied individually before retreating,
about 90 individual graves that the British soldiers saw the 
local Albanians rebury, all men from 18-35 years, men, women 
and children, including three nurses, including two nurses 

- and this is just from the Western press." 

Source: http://www,keepfaith.com

- Spanish War Pilots Claim NATO Ordered Attacks 
on Civilian Targets

(Note: I don't know anything about "Articulo 20." I do
know that Spanish military have been resentful of
their treatment by NATO and there have been several 
interesting leaks to Spanish newpapers of internal NATO 
documents relating to the Yugoslavian assault. One, a PR 
strategy document, called for the use of "focus groups" with
"friendly journalists" to help NATO devise ways to "tell 
its story better.") 

The following article indicates there may be some pilots
willing to come forward and speak on the subject of 
NATO's targeting procedures. It will be interesting to
see what, if anything, comes of this.)

June 14, 1999
Articulo 20 (Spain-weekly)
By Jose Luis Morales (?)


               The pilots of Spanish planes who participated in bombing
raids against Yugoslavia do not feel like "supermen" nor masters of
aerospace. Quite the contrary, they say that our forces play to the tune
of music played by the North Americans, and accuse NATO of having
honoured with medals the bombing of civilian targets, what they
otherwise name "collateral damages".

                Captain Adolfo Luis Martin de la Hoz, who returned to
Spain at the end of May after having participated in the bombings from
the beginning, an "authentic expert for the dreadful F-18", the war
plane most often used in the war strategy of "scorched land" in the
Balkans, is very categoric: "First of all, I want to make it clear that
the majority, I say the majority, of my colleagues, even if not all, are
against the war in general and against this war of barbarity in
particular."

       		Martin de la Hoz says that he and his colleagues "are
burnt out".

                "A  few days ago, there appeared in the papers certain
statements of Commander Maches Michavilla, who is now in the air base at
Aviano with the pilots who replaced us, in which he said that our main
helper in the air was mental and physical health. But I tell you that
our worst enemies are our own authorities, the Defence Minister and all
his team, the members of the Government, who know nothing about war and
go along with it without informing themselves about anything and, what
is gravest, who are guilty of lying to the Spanish people through the
papers, radio and television, foreign correspondents and press
agencies."

	      The suspicions that NATO's repeated bombings of
civilian victims and non-military targets are not the result of war
"errors", are confirmed by Captain Martin de la Hoz:

                  "Several times our colonel protested to NATO chiefs as
to why they select targets which are not military targets. They threw
him out with curses, saying that we should know that the North Americans
would lodge a complaint to the Spanish Army, once through Brussels and
again to the Defence Minister. But there is more, and I want to tell it
to the whole world: once there was a coded order from the North American
military that we should drop anti-personnel bombs over the localities of
Prishtine (Pristina) and Nish (Nis). The colonel refused it altogether
and, a couple of days later, the transfer order came. But what I say now
is nothing compared to what I shall have to say when the time comes."

                   The Spanish military denounces that "the Spanish
Government not only does not try to inform themselves, but that they
also accept the false reports that are edited for them in Aviano, where
there is a sort of military press cabinet in the hands of North American
generals and functionaries. Ever since we arrived in Italy - the captain
goes on - there is no end to humiliations and insults. The only
order-givers are the North American generals, and no one else. We are
zeroes, just as our replacements are going to be.

                But there is still more to that. Here, they say that
several operations were directed by Spanish commanders and pilots. Lies
over lies. All the missions that we flew, every single one, were planned
by high U.S. military authorities. Even more, they were all planned in
detail, including attacking planes, targets and type of ammunition that
we have to drop. We never directed anything, and our missions were
limited to flying over the borders of Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia and
Slovakia (Slovenia?)."

Government's lies

                  None of the pilots presently stationed at Aviano, who
replaced those who went to the Italian base shortly before the start of
war, last March 23, were there with a clear conscience, says the Spanish
military.

                   "It is being written to saturation that the
disciplined and patriotic Spanish pilots - according to Minister Eduardo
Serra - are concentrating on the complexity of their war missions".

                    But we read so many discrepancies, so many lies,
that we agreed to not read a single newspaper until we return. Our anger
is enormous. The President of the government, the Minister of Foreign
Affairs and the Defence Minister are lying brazenly each time they talk
about the war. Some of us are of another opinion and believe that they
do not inform themselves, because the North Americans - the White House,
the Pentagon, the CIA, the Embassy or military information service,
whoever, do not inform them about anything. How should they inform
themselves if our own Javier Solana has not informed himself since the
war broke out?

                   Solana is a puppet who has been put there by the
Yanquis to do what they tell him he must do. And so he does, standing
straight before General Clark when he talks to him, or better said, when
he issues him the orders that he has to implement without delay."

                    On the subject of manipulation of war information,
Captain de la Hoz says that "no one has said anything about the
incidents that took place in Aviano, about the disastrous maintenance of
Spanish machines, about everything, and about the constant humiliations
to which we were subjected from the beginning.

   	Not that we are cannon fodder. No. We are nothing.
About the fatal accidents, the losses suffered without connection to
combat, the contempt and the sanctions, not a word. From no one!"

                       For the wrong selection of targets and
humiliations, the Spanish military are ever more certain that there is
no alibi.

                       "We know perfectly well that we are intervening
in a conflict - says Martin de la Hoz - which is rejected by the
majority of the Spanish people and this is most important for us. But
what they do not say in any information, commentary or speech, is that
the Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese ... that we are there to cover for the
North American generals who are wheeling and dealing in the war.

                         There is no journalist who has the slightest
idea what is happening in Yugoslavia. They are destroying the country,
bombing it with new weapons, toxic nerve gases, surface mines dropped by
parachute, bombs containing uranium, napalm, sterilization chemicals,
sprayings to poison the crops and weapons of which even we still do not
know anything.

		      The North Americans are committing there one
of the biggest barbarities that can be committed against humanity. Many
very bad things will be told in the future about what was happening
there because, by the way, judging by what we talked about with the
British and German officers, it was designed in order to divide the
Europeans and keep us subjected for many decades.

                             Therefore, Captain Martin de la Hoz is
enraged when there is talk about the costs of the war. There should be
no doubts, he confirms, that the military detached in Aviano are
receiving bonuses which "multiply by five our salary, but not
considering the daily expenses and other perquisites. We could say that
we should be satisfied with what this war means economically for each
one of us, but it is not true, what they give us is chocolate for the
parrots.
		
			     This war is going to cost the Spaniards
more than all the money allocated for culture in the last five years.
And, even if now no one says anything because of the elections, it will
come in a few months and will be felt in our pockets. Because this
brutal Yanqui-only war, no one's but the Yanquis, is going to be paid by
all of us.

                               Be certain that what I say is not to
exculpate myself and to intone 'mea culpa' for having participated in
it, because I will never be able to forget that what was being committed
there was one the biggest savageries of history."