Showing contempt for world opinion
NATO intensifies deadly bombing raids
By
Deirdre Griswold
If mass sentiment alone were enough to stop the mad bombers
of the Pentagon and NATO, the outrage that swept the world
after the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade May 7
would surely have brought an immediate halt to the merciless
pounding of little Yugoslavia.
But the generals responded on May 12 with the worst
onslaught of bombings since the aggression started 50 days
earlier.
Waves of bombers flew in for the first time from U.S. bases
in Hungary and Croatia. It was a bitter affirmation that NATO's
recent expansion to include formerly socialist countries in
Eastern Europe--Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic--was an
offensive, not defensive move. These governments, applauded in
the capitalist world for their new "freedom," are now puppets
of the imperialist West participating in armed aggression
against a neighboring country that never lifted a finger
against them.
On a lovely spring day, the planes dropped their deadly
cargo on cities and villages all over Yugoslavia.
Cluster bombs rained down on the eastern part of Nis, a city
in northern Serbia. These bombs are particularly diabolical.
They are intended to kill as many people as possible by
scattering sharp fragments or pellets in every direction as
they explode. Some are timed to go off after others, so that
rescuers will also be killed and maimed.
Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, was hit hard by missiles
that damaged a media center, the airport and two suburbs. When
NATO bombs drop on cities in Kosovo, they are killing and
terrorizing many of the very people the generals claim to be
helping--ethnic Albanians.
The same phenomenon is occurring almost daily in northern
Iraq, where U.S. air raids are killing Kurdish people and
destroying their homes, schools and other facilities even as
the generals and politicians in Washington claim they must
protect the Kurds from Iraq.
The hatred of the NATO generals for anything outside the
reach of multinational corporate profiteers may well have
contributed to picking their next target: a Serb collective
farm in Svetlje, housing Serb refugees from northern Kosovo.
Several people were killed when the bombs fell there and on two
nearby villages.
Now the capitalist class that produces such brutal and
arrogant militarists can dream of the day when the surviving
farmers will have no choice but to become low-wage, itinerant
farm workers at the beck and call of foreign agribusiness.
Before May 12, just one rail link remained between Hungary
and Yugoslavia--a 20-mile route running between the Hungarian
town of Szeged and the Yugoslav town of Subotica. It was cut
when a bombed overpass collapsed on the track, the Hungarian
State Railways said. Other links had already been bombed.
This frenzy of destruction took place after the Yugoslav
government had taken several conciliatory steps. It had
released the three U.S. prisoners of war to a delegation headed
by the Rev. Jesse Jackson. It had announced the withdrawal of
troops and police from Kosovo. The U.S. government replied it
was not impressed.
Instead, the Pentagon announced that the Air Force and Navy
were activating 2,173 more reservists, for a total of 5,000 to
be called up, and were sending 35 more attack planes and
refueling aircraft to the Balkans. Inevitably, this will mean
the deaths of more young men and women in a conflict that is
draining billions of dollars away from Social Security,
education and health care here while it fills the pockets of
arms makers.
For those who truly want to end this horrible war, the only
conclusion to be drawn is that the anti-war forces must become
stronger, bolder and more determined with each new escalation.
The militant reaction of young Chinese to the shameless attack
on their embassy sets a fine example.
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
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