-
- The embarrassing truth is starting to come out that the
Clinton Administration lied to us about Kosovo atrocities which were supposed
to justify the bombing of Yugoslavia. In five months of investigation and
exhumation of the dead in Kosovo, United Nations war crimes investigators
have found only 2,108 bodies.
-
- Before the bombing, Clinton and Defense Secretary William
Cohen repeatedly tossed out figures of 100,000 dead, and the State Department
even claimed that up to 500,000 Kosovars were feared dead. Clinton claimed
that his bombing prevented Milosevic from "deliberate, systematic
efforts at ethnic cleansing and genocide."
-
- The chief prosecutor for the UN war crimes tribunal,
Carla Del Ponte, can confirm only the 2,108 figure. That's what she reported
to the UN Security Council.
-
- Pathologist Emilio Perez Pujol, who led a Spanish forensic
team looking for bodies, found only 187, mostly in individual graves. He
calculated that "the final figure of dead in Kosovo will be 2,500
at the most. This includes lots of strange deaths that can't be blamed
on anyone in particular."
-
- The British, who seem to be more interested in getting
to the truth than Congress, are pressuring Foreign Secretary Robin Cook
to answer claims that Tony Blair's government misled the public over the
scale of deaths in order to justify NATO's bombing of Belgrade. Alice Mahon,
the Labor MP who chairs the Balkans committee, said that the Kosovo deaths
were tragic but did not justify the killing of Belgrade civilians by NATO's
bombing.
-
- Lacking a constitutional or national security basis for
his Yugoslav adventure, Clinton relied wholly on the humanitarian argument.
That rationale has fallen apart because the numbers of Milosevic's crimes
in Kososo were so grossly inflated, the indiscriminate damage done by the
Clinton/NATO bombing raids was so vast, and all the people he said he was
helping are far worse off than before the bombing started.
-
- The Clinton/NATO bombing was carried on for 78 days with
total disregard for human life. The bombs killed thousands of innocent
civilians and even destroyed hospitals and schools.
-
- The Clinton/NATO bombing decimated Yugoslavia's economic
infrastructure and created an environmental nightmare. Not only are water
and power systems destroyed, but the lifeline of the region, the Danube
River, is polluted and largely impassable because of destroyed bridges.
-
- Repeated air strikes on the Serbian town of Pancevo enveloped
the area in clouds of black smoke and flames for ten days and unleashed
tons of chemicals into the air, water and soil. The fish, produce and water
are all contaminated.
-
- What was advertised as an air war against Yugoslavia's
military capabilities was really a war directed against the Serbian people.
Dropping cluster bombs from 15,000 feet and firing missiles from many miles
away guaranteed "mistakes" and "collateral damage"
and prove that the targets were civilian as well as military.
-
- U.S. Air Force Commander Lt. Gen. Michael Short admitted
that the goal was to break the will of the Serbs and make them so miserable
that they would force Milosevic to pull out of Kosovo. Estimates of the
cost to rebuild the damage range up to $100 billion, but the costs in human
misery are incalculable.
-
- The situation in Kosovo, the province Clinton was supposed
to be protecting, is even worse. The danger from unexploded British and
American cluster bombs and mines is at alarming levels, according to international
aid agencies.
-
- Before the bombing began, there was no humanitarian crisis
in Kosovo. It was only after the U.S. and NATO air strikes began that the
Serbs started to expel Albanians from Kosovo.
-
- The NATO "peacekeeping" force in Kosovo is
completely unable to restrain the revenge-seeking Albanians who are beating
and murdering the Serbs (even targeting grandmothers) and burning their
homes and churches. More Serb civilians have been slaughtered in Kosovo
than ethnic Albanians before the bombing began.
-
- The daily violence continues even though there are now
more NATO troops in Kosovo than Serbs. According to Human Rights Watch,
164,000 Serb civilians have been driven out of Kosovo.
-
- The Clinton-Albright policy is based on the absurd fantasy
that America and NATO can force the Serbs and Albanians to live together
in a multiethnic society. Neither side wants that, and the attempt to impose
our will means that U.S. troops will play the costly roles of global cop
and social worker indefinitely.
-
- The only people happy about the Yugoslavia debacle are
the globalists who want America to be perpetually engaged in foreign conflicts.
In a speech to the Canadian Parliament, Czech leader Vaclav Havel praised
the Yugoslav war as "an important precedent for the future,"
saying that "state sovereignty must inevitably dissolve" and
nation-states will be transformed into "civil administrative units."
-
- When Clinton's National Security Adviser Sandy Berger
spoke to the Council on Foreign Relations on October 21, he described Clinton's
foreign policy as grounded in the policy of "engagement." America
will now be "engaged" in Yugoslavia for the rest of our lives.
-
-
- Read this column on-line at: http://eagleforum.org/column/1999/nov99/99-11-24.html
|
