U.S./NATO escalation
Genocide from air, troops on the ground
By Fred
Goldstein
In their fury over being unable to break the will of the
Yugoslav people, the U.S.-NATO aggressors have set the stage
for a ground invasion while expanding their air attacks on the
civilian population. Meanwhile, the Clinton administration has
signed the order for the Central Intelligence Agency to
escalate its "dirty tricks."
The new U.S.-NATO strategy is to combine genocidal tactics
from the air with threats and preparations for an invasion on
the ground. Supreme Commander of NATO forces Gen. Wesley Clark
traveled from Brussels to Washington on May 20 to bring
President Bill Clinton the message from the military that it is
high time to prepare to deploy ground troops.
Shortly thereafter Clinton "decided" to tell NATO to deploy
50,000 so-called peace-keepers in Macedonia and Albania. There
are already 5,000 U.S. troops in Albania, supposedly
accompanying the Apache helicopters. There are 8,000 Italian
troops in northern Albania, allegedly helping refugees. And
there are 13,000 British and French troops in Macedonia--part
of the original "peace-keeping force" that was supposed to be
deployed if Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic capitulated
and allowed NATO to occupy Kosovo. The plan includes bringing
the force in Macedonia up to 30,000, including 7,000 U.S.
troops. German troops are also to be added to the
contingent.
The official explanation of the deployment is that it is to
go into Kosovo after the Yugoslav government surrenders to NATO
demands for an occupation force. But no one can take this
seriously, inasmuch as all the military planners have basically
said that the deployment for a ground invasion must begin by
early June. No Yugoslav can regard this as anything but the
first phase of that deployment.
An invasion force of 150,000
In fact, the New York Times of May 26 stated that "some NATO
officials said some of the forces could also play a combat role
if the alliance later decides to mobilize for a land attack.
Alliance officials estimated that an invasion force could
number more than 150,000 soldiers...."
In the meeting in Brussels where NATO approved the
deployment, Clark showed a slide listing "possible evolution of
a military campaign," wrote the Times: "threat of air strikes,
use of air strikes, threat of ground forces, use of ground
forces." The message was clear. The ground invasion has already
been outlined.
Military planners are working on the logistics of an
invasion, given the difficulty of moving heavy equipment and
massive numbers of troops over the rugged roads leading into
Kosovo from Albania and Macedonia. But the fact that the
invasion is difficult, and is encountering resistance from
German imperialism, should not take anyone off-guard.
The NATO meeting that approved the 50,000 ground troops was
run by Clark and was designed, among other things, to run
roughshod over Washington's imperialist rivals in Bonn.
According to the Times, "After a general plan for the force was
circulated" by the U.S. commander, "NATO members were given
until 5 p.m. today in Brussels to object or attach
conditions.... No members of the alliance took either
step."
Washington isolated the Schroeder government and put it up
against the wall. In the imperialist camp, it is German
capitalism that has the most to lose if the U.S. imperialists
take over southern Europe and the Balkans. This is Germany's
"backyard." It is not only the Schroeder government that
opposes what is basically a U.S. takeover by invasion. The
Christian Democrats have actually accused Schroeder of being
too "pro-NATO," according to the Times.
Bonn is hoping for a "negotiated settlement" in which the
Russians play a key role. By this they mean a negotiated
victory, because all the negotiations are going on between
Viktor Chernomyrdin, Yeltsin's special envoy, Strobe Talbott,
Clinton's deputy, and the German government. In other words,
the imperialists are negotiating with each other over the terms
of victory, and not with the Yugoslav government.
Schroeder is hoping to get the Russian capitalist government
to agree by June 8 to a UN-sponsored occupation. That's when
the G-8--the seven major imperialist powers plus Russia--meet
in Cologne.
Meanwhile, U.S. imperialism has put on the line its
credibility as the supreme force of world domination and is
hell bent on total military victory. In fact, by now most major
military and political advisers who have done service in the
imperialist establishment, as well as the major imperialist
newspapers, have gone on record demanding that Washington be
prepared for a ground war. They include Henry Kissinger, Brent
Scowcroft, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Colin Powell, the New York
Times, the Washington Post and a host of others.
Attacking a whole people
The Pentagon and the NATO military establishment have raised
their war against the civilian population to a new level of
criminality. Shortly after it became apparent that the
Milosevic government was not going to surrender Yugoslavia's
sovereignty to a NATO occupation force under a bombing attack
directed at military targets, Gen. Wesley Clark gave the orders
to begin attacking civilian targets.
For weeks there followed the bombing of bridges, roads,
railroads and fuel supplies. Then came factories, television
stations, hospitals, villages, residential buildings, and a
whole series of other individual war crimes aimed at harassing
the Yugoslav population and killing groups of civilians. This
is the classic imperialist strategy when fighting a people
engaged in a war of national resistance.
But all these acts of terror were unable to subdue the
masses. So the U.S.-NATO high command is planning to expand its
attacks on the people. Part of General Clark's presentation in
Brussels on the preparation for a NATO ground invasion included
adding new civilian targets such as the telephone system, more
factories, more television stations, historic sites and
so-called military targets in civilian neighborhoods. (New York
Times, May 26)
In the third week of May NATO escalated its attacks to
include the electrical system and the water supply of the large
population centers in and around Belgrade, Novi Sad and Nis.
This is where six million of the 10 million people of Serbia
live.
"After two months of bombing," wrote the New York Times of
May 25, "which began March 24, NATO is going after Serbia's
electricity and water supplies in a serious way. The
high-explosive bombs are doing permanent damage to both
systems, considered essentials of modern civilian life."
Some of the devastating effects were described in the May 25
Los Angeles Times.
"After two and a half days without water and electricity,
residents of a 10-story apartment complex on the edge of
Belgrade descended darkened stairwells late Monday with as many
empty plastic containers as they could carry. A municipal water
truck, the Yugoslavian capital's latest defense against NATO,
had lumbered into the parking lot and opened its tap.
"This city of 2 million people was down to a few hours of
water reserves Monday in its seven reservoirs that don't
require electric pumps, officials said, after NATO bombs
damaged pumping stations and cut electricity to the few water
pumps still working. With about a week's worth of water in the
12 reservoirs that must be pumped, City Hall dispatched 50
tanker trucks normally used for street cleaning to take water
from these sources and spread it around town. The water went
first to hospitals and bakeries, then to residential areas
beyond the reach of those pipes where the water is still
flowing.
"Not since the North Atlantic Treaty Organization began
bombing Yugoslavia two months ago have so many Serbs felt the
war so directly for so long. The last big blackout, three weeks
ago, hit most of Serbia for about 16 hours. This one began
early Saturday with attacks on a power station near Belgrade
and continued with bombings Sunday and early Monday, causing a
near-continuous outage in more than two-thirds of Yugoslavia's
dominant republic.
"The city's major hospitals continued to perform emergency
surgery and deliver babies Monday with the help of emergency
fuel-powered generators, but medical personnel had to haul
water around in buckets or soft-drink bottles. Some smaller
clinics had no power until Monday afternoon. For Dr. Alexander
Savic, who treats 30 children for cerebral palsy, this meant
those suffering epileptic seizures could not be hooked up to
electronic monitors that help determine what kind of medication
they need. He recorded four such seizures during the blackout.
Belgraders took the disruption stoically."
Clinton, the CIA and the KLA
It is a measure of how desperate the Clinton administration
is to win the war that, according to Newsweek magazine of May
31, "last week Clinton issued a `finding,' a highly classified
document authorizing the spy agency to begin secret efforts `to
find other ways to get at Milosevic' .... Two weeks ago
[National Security Adviser Sandy] Berger secretly briefed
members of the House and Senate intelligence committees about
the details of the two-part plan. According to sources who have
read the finding, the CIA will train Kosovar rebels in
sabotage--age-old tricks like cutting telephone lines, blowing
up buildings, fouling gasoline reserves and pilfering food
supplies--in an effort to undermine public support for the
Serbian leader and damage Yugoslav targets that can't be
reached from the air.
"CIA has also been instructed to conduct a cyberwar against
Milosevic, using government hackers to tap into foreign banks
and, in the words of one U.S. official, `diddle with
Milosevic's bank accounts.'"
Of course, what is important about the Newsweek story is not
that Washington is going to finance and train the KLA. They are
undoubtedly already doing that. What is important is that now
it is official and the agency can do its dirty work more openly
and extensively, since Clinton signed a "finding."
As for breaking into bank accounts in Cyprus, Russia and
other countries, the CIA is treading on dangerous ground, but
the purpose is to wipe out funds that Yugoslavia is using to
pay for oil and other vital supplies.
Keeping a wood burning stove
Imperialism is in a genuine crisis in Yugoslavia. They
underestimated the Yugoslav masses. Right after the bombing of
the power grid, New York Times reporter Steven Erlanger
interviewed Jadranka Djordjevic, a Belgrade resident who used
to work for the U.S. Embassy. Erlanger was testing the mood of
the people to see how they responded to the latest genocidal
atrocity. Here is the message he sent back home to his bosses,
as published in the New York Times of May 25.
"I am absolutely certain," Djordjevic told Erlanger, "this
will not make people revolt against their government--they will
revolt against whoever is doing this to them. NATO is
terrorizing six million civilians in large cities in
Yugoslavia."
Speaking of British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, Djordjevic
said, "I've heard he's said that this might make people rise
against the regime." If he really said that, it means he's a
terrorist and should be put on trial by the international court
of justice in The Hague. You cannot terrorize civilians in this
way. We are talking about millions of people here who are
deprived of basic necessities."
"Ms. Djordjevic, 64, was 6 when the Nazis bombed Belgrade,"
wrote Erlanger, "and she also remembers the Allied bombing of
the city in 1944. `Our generation is well trained in war,' she
said.
"`My mother always had salt, flour and dried yeast in the
house at all times. I have 100 liters of water in my apartment
now. Of course, then we had wood stoves. My mother always
implored me not to get rid of our wood stove. And I still have
it in the pantry.'
"She has no stock of wood just now, she said. `But as a last
resort I can use my parquet floor. In fact I think it could
come to that this winter.'"
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