A Secret Aug. 10 Memo Laid Out Plan for NATO Attack; Deceit and Treachery

WASHINGTON, Sept. 13, 1995 - “With the ever-increasing air strikes and now use of Cruise missiles, there’s no doubt we’re experiencing ‘Mission Creep’,” Sen. John McCain of Arizona, a member of the Armed Services Committee, said on September 12. 

The former navy pilot in the Vietnam war is right in more ways than one.  Not only are we being sucked deeper into somebody else’s civil war from which America faces no national security threats whatsoever.  But the NATO bombing may be also a “Creepy Mission” because of the sly, underhanded and deceitful way in which it was prepared.  Its treachery ranks right up there with the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964, and Hitler’s ruse in 1939.  In the former, the U.S. staged bogus assaults on its own ships for which it blamed North Vietnam, so as to justify an air campaign against it.  In the latter, German soldiers dressed as Poles “attacked” the Nazi troops in Germany - a pretext which Hitler used to wage war on Poland. 

In Bosnia, a secret five-page memo signed by the UN commander in the former Yugoslavia, Gen. Bertrand Janvier, and the top NATO officer in the region, Adm. Leighton Smith, on August 10 at the Pleso airport in Croatia, set the stage for the air attack.  The existence of a hush-hush deal, which turned the UN peacekeepers into NATO spies, came to light on September 12, when Itar-TASS and REUTER news wires filed reports about it.  The UN-NATO confidential memorandum made it clear that the massive bombing attacks would continue “until the military potential of the Bosnian Serbs is fully destroyed,” Itar-TASS reported.  The ink was barely dry on the August 10 document when Clinton dispatched Anthony Lake, his National Security Advisor, to European capitals ostensibly to sell a “secret new US peace plan.”  As we now know, the plan was, in fact, a declaration of war by NATO on the Bosnian Serbs. 

But there were three hurdles. 

First, some UN troops were still in Gorazde and could be taken hostage by the Serbs in case of NATO strikes, as was the case last May.  So to fool the Serbs, the US leaked the news that its new peace plan would award Gorazde to the Serbs in exchange for their concessions around Sarajevo.  Once the UN troops were out, however, the US denied that Gorazde was ever a part of its proposals.  After all, it was only a “rumor,” remember?

The second problem was that the Serbs had to be made to look as if they had provoked NATO’s “retaliation.”  So some Western intelligence agencies helped the Muslim government forces plan and execute the “Markale II” massacre on August 28, according to several media sources, and Gen. Ratko Mladic’s September 4 letter to Gen. Janvier.  With the British and the Ukrainian troops out of Gorazde by then, and the US aircraft carrier in position in the Adriatic, the first NATO bombs started to rain on the Serbs shortly after midnight on August 30.

The third hurdle was the Russians.  When Lake met the Russian foreign minister, Andrei Kozyrev at the Soca resort on August 13, he failed to get Russia’s agreement for punitive NATO strikes against the Serbs.  Now it appears that Lake also neglected to tell the Russians about the secret agreement to destroy the Bosnian Serbs’ military capability which Gen. Janvier and Adm. Smith signed three days earlier.

“No problem,” Clinton’s schemers must have reasoned.  “Sooner or later we have to teach the Russians a lesson who’s boss these days.  So it might as well be in the Balkans.  Just jump over this hurdle.”  And off the bombs went...

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You would think that Bill Clinton and his “Mission Creep” advisors would have learned from history, wouldn’t you? 

You would hope that at least someone in Congress would have warned them that Machiavellian schemes tend to backfire, wouldn’t you? 

And you would think, that even if the Clinton administration officials and our Capitol Hill reps were all bumbling idiots who have contracted the Alzheimer’s disease, the U.S. media would be anxious to expose the ruse, and thus prevent our young men and women from risking their lives needlessly, wouldn’t you? 

And finally, you would think that all those naive liberals who wept for the victims of the many made-for-TV Sarajevo massacres carried out by the Muslims in the last three years with a single-minded purpose - getting America to fight their war for them - would now be shedding tears for the hundreds of Serbian civilians who are dying daily in the NATO bombings?

Well, think again, on all four counts...

· “Clinton et. al.” is following right in Lyndon B. Johnson’s footsteps.

· The Capital Hill politicians, with some honorable exceptions (e.g., McCain), are giving Clinton tacit support for the bombing, figuring that wars with no American casualties are good for reelections. 

· The national media are too busy basking in self-righteousness and arrogance to print the truth about the Clinton-Lake ruse.

· The weeping liberals are nowhere to be seen now that the Serbian children are being maimed and killed by NATO’s bombs.

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As for that “Partnership for Peace” euphemism, its remaining shreds look more and more like the 1990s fig leaf for NATO’s version of the century-old German “Drang Nach Osten” strategy.  Such a US/NATO treachery could end - as most deceptions do - in tragedy. 

World War II followed the German prank on the Poles.  America’s Vietnam nightmare started after the Gulf of Tonkin deception.  What will “Markale II” lead to?

The mood in Russia is getting uglier every day.  Someone has already fired a grenade at the US embassy in Moscow. “From nationalists and communists to democrats and liberals, Russians appear unusually united in their outrage” over NATO’s bombing of the Serbs, Timothy Heritage, REUTER’s Moscow correspondent reported on September 13.

Will Congress wait for Clinton to start World War III as a part of his re-election campaign?

I say, hell no - Clinton must go! 

What do you say? r  

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Impeach the Baby Boomer!

PHOENIX, Sept. 3 - Margaret Thatcher had her war victory in the Falklands.  Ronald Reagan had his in Grenada.  Not to be outdone, George Bush, who earned the epithet of a “wimp” while Reagan’s vice president, launched two wars during his presidency (Panama and the Gulf War).  But he got us into the Somalia mess, too.

Now Bill Clinton, the Vietnam draft-evader who had never served in the armed forces, the un-Jimmy Dean - “a cause without a rebel,” America’s first “Baby Boomer” in the White House, is feverishly trying to prove that he can be tough, too.  And what better way to do it than to get us into another war which is none of our business?

Enter Bosnia, the latest U.S. show of force - the NATO bombing of the Serbs.  But rather than help him in a pre-election year - the true motive for this misadventure - should the truth come out, Pres. Clinton should be impeached:

·First, because Clinton lied to the American people when he said that the NATO raids were launched in response to a Serbian shell which killed 37 people on August 28 near the “Markale” market. 

·Second, because he involved the U.S. forces in an undeclared and unconstitutional war (without the Congress’ prior approval) taking sides in a foreign civil war.

·Third, because he abused his power as the chief commander of our armed forces and risked the lives of our soldiers needlessly (without a serious threat to our national security) - so as to advance his personal political agenda.

·Fourth, because our bombs killed more innocent (Serb) civilians in Bosnia during just the first day (August 30) of NATO bombing than had died either in the Sarajevo August 28 incident, or in the Oklahoma City blast!  In fact, this Baby Boomer gave a whole new meaning to that expression (Baby Boomer=Baby Killer).

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Why do I think that Pres. Clinton lied?

First, because a senior U.N. officer in Sarajevo, Col. Andrei Demorenko, said that the U.N. investigation was flawed, and the 120mm mortar shell which killed 37 people “could not have come from Bosnian Serb military positions,” the International Herald Tribune reported on Sept. 4.

Second, because Susan Woodworth, of the Brookings Institution, stated in a CNN interview on Aug. 30 that the decision to bomb the Serbs had been made before the Aug. 28 shell hit Sarajevo.

Third, the assistant secretary of state for Europe, Richard Holbrooke, threatened the Serbs with the NATO strikes on national TV - before he ever left for Europe on August 27.  Lest we forget, that was also before the “Markale II” shelling.

Fourth, the Bosnian Serb military commander, Gen. Ratko Mladic, said on August 30 that he was “absolutely certain” the shell “was not the work of the Serbs.”

Fifth, every crime has to have a motive.  The Bosnian Serbs had none to precipitate the NATO bombing.  Their enemies, on the other hand, had everything to gain from it.  They include Bill Clinton, and the French President Chirac, among others.

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How did “Clinton et. al.” manage to frame the Serbs for a cold-bloodied murder?  Easy.  “Practice makes perfect,” they say.  The Bosnian Muslims have been shelling their own civilians ever since May 1992 in the hopes of getting the U.S. involved in this civil war on their side.

Some people close to the situation also speculated that a French Foreign Legion commando unit from Mount Igman might have snuck through the Serb lines, fired the deadly shell and then departed. 

Others yet suggested a much simpler, and perhaps a more believable explanation - that the U.N. plain and simple - lied!

Jonathan Eyal, for example, a columnist for the London TIMES, wrote in his August 31 piece, “it would be wrong to assume that finding the culprits was a triumph of forensic science.”

But rather than speculate, if the Congress were really interested in finding the truth about this scam, it should commence immediate hearings on the subject.  And subpoena the Clinton administration officials to testify about their role in this morbid affair.  Chances are that, if the word leaked around the Beltway about it, there would be the greatest run on shredding machines in Washington since Oliver North’s days there!

One question which “Clinton et. al.” should be made to answer is, “if this were indeed a retaliation indended to protect the civilians in Sarajevo, why did NATO fly over 500 sorties in two and a half days, hitting 25 targets hundreds of miles away, only five of which were in the proximity of Sarajevo?  A related one is, “what threat did the Serb air-defense system, or the Pale telephone system and the university building, represent to Sarajevo civilians?” 

Another is, “if this were indeed an effort to bomb the Bosnian Serbs to the negotiating table, why did the NATO bombing proceed after they had already signed an agreement with the Serbian President, Slobodan Milosevic, empowering him to negotiate on their behalf?”

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Of course, even if the U.N. officials in Sarajevo lied about the August 28 shelling to please the U.S., the Congress cannot impeach them.  But it can our President.  And the Congress can and should cut off the funds for the U.N., this wholly undemocratic fig leaf for the global neo-colonialists who sent the likes of Bill Clinton and George Bush to the White House.  And who dispatched Cyrus Vance, a former U.N. negotiator, to “protect” the rights of the Krajina Serbs.

More than 200,000 Serbian refugees later, whom will the U.S. send next to guarantee the rights of the Bosnian Serb civilians - if and when a peace treaty is ever signed?  The German “SS?”  The “Ku-Klux-Klan?”  The “Hamas?”  Or the L.A. Police Dept.?

No, NATO will do.  It’s just as bigoted. r

An abbreviated version of the above column was published on Sept. 14, 1995 in the PHOENIX GAZETTEENIX GAZETTE.

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A Requiem for Republika Srpska: The Bad and the Ugly Win This Round 

PHOENIX, Sept. 2 - “There is no God,” a 68-year old Serb wrote to me on Aug. 30, the day NATO launched the most massive air strikes in Europe since World War II - against the Bosnian Serbs.  “If there is one, He must be either a Catholic or a Muslim.”

· “Why are all the world’s ‘toughies’ ganging up against us?,” asked an 85-year old Serb woman who had been a refugee herself in both 20th century world wars.

· “This is a gang rape of an entire nation,” a Belgrade medical doctor protested. 

· “What have you done to my country?” a Bosnian Serb officer screamed at a group of foreign journalists in Pale, following the NATO raids.  “What do you want here?”

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· “I am very pleased” with the progress of the NATO bombing operation, declared a jubilant Bill Clinton, a liberal “cause without a rebel,” as he shifted his foreign policy hub from a Jackson Hole, Wyoming, golf course, to another one in Hawaii.  The operation he was “very pleased” with had just killed more innocent civilians in one day than did the Oklahoma City blast. 

(Oops... we don’t talk about the “collateral damage” which our “smart” bombs cause?  “Out of sight; out of mind,” as in the Gulf War?  Are we supposed to be dumb enough to believe that only “dumb” terrorists kill innocent civilians?).

· “There is still plenty of sting left in the tail of the Serb scorpion,” said a U.N. official in Sarajevo who asked not to be identified.  He argued for continued NATO toughness against the Serbs.

· “Count Serbia out!” gloated a WALL STREET JOURNAL editorial on Aug. 31.

· Even the Vatican, that self-appointed bastion of the world’s “pro-life” movement, didn’t mind the Christian Serbs being bombed by NATO, or being “ethnically cleansed” by the hundreds of thousands at the hands of the (“little more Christian?”) Catholic Croats.

It was the second time in this century that St. Peter’s descendant, the infallible “pro-life” pontiff, condoned genocide.  Some 50⁺ years ago, another Pope sanctioned the Nazis’ and their Croatian puppet-state’s extermination of hundreds of thousands of Serbs and Jews.

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Of course, you’d never get that idea if you followed the Vatican or most of the Western propaganda.  The Serbs have been unabashedly branded as the “scorpions” or the “neo-Niggers” by the “neo-Arians” from Washington, Bonn, Paris and London.  Such racist talk by the “civilized West” makes even the detective Fuhrman of the O.J. Simpson trial sound like a civil rights activist!  Unlike the Third Reich’s Arians, who also bombed the Serbs, the latter day hatemongers have a zip code and an Internet e-mail address.  In this country, the former starts with 20....  The latter ends at the Foggy Bottom.  Or does the trail really lead to the Council for Foreign Relations?

In the end, “Republika Srpska” - the Bosnian Serb Republic - the only truly democratic, Christian embryo to have emerged from the ruins of the former Yugoslavia, has been aborted in a most un-Christ-like manner by the democratic, Christian, “civilized West.”  Aided, of course, by the local anti-Christ, Serbia’s communist president Slobodan Milosevic.

It is a victory of the Bad and the Ugly over the Good - to borrow the terms from the classic Western, “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.” 

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But there is hope, albeit not for the impatient.  And there is God, although His moves may not be obvious.  As an ancient Chinese proverb says, “the greatest gift a parent can give the child is roots and wings.”  The “roots” - to respect the family homestead and traditions; the “wings” to soar to greater heights than the parents could.

The Good may be weeping now.  But their children, born or unborn, will wipe away the tears, if the Good invest in and nurture them.  Especially those outside Serbia, as many of “the best and the brightest” are now scattered around the world. 

And the Good will have to wait for new generations to grow and mature.  And to return to their roots, spread their wings, and soar with the eagles. r  

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Phoenix Rally: "Clinton Must Go!"

PHOENIX, Sept. 9 - Some 200 Serbian-Americans gathered on this steamy evening in the “Valley of the Sun” under stormy skies in front of the Arizona State Capitol -  to protest the NATO bombing of the Serbs in Bosnia.  The demonstrators represent probably about 50% of the total possible ones for this small Serbian-American community in the desert. 

The event was organized as a “grass roots” effort by three young people (30 or under).  Most protesters wore shirts with Serbian flags on them; four or five “pairs” carried HUGE Serbian flags; and there were about half a dozen BIG signs (10’x20’).  Several dozen smaller signs were also carried protesting the NATO bombing in Bosnia.  

Prior to the “keynote” speech, there were two other speeches by the local Serbian-Americans.  Before the “keynote” speech,” the “MC” also read the messages we had received from Princess Eva Marija Karadjordjevic, Dr. Vidic and other academics from Washington (Georgetown University), and from Vojin Joksimovich of San Diego.

The text of speech, with the bracketed comments depicting the crowd reactions, may help you gauge the atmosphere at the event.  The event was covered by three Phoenix TV stations and by the leading Arizona print media (AZ REPUBLIC). 

The best part for my money?  More than 50% of participants were young people!

Some crowd reactions:

· How do we go about impeaching the President? (I explained the process to  them).

· “They (must have) heard us in Pale this time!”, said a coarse-voiced Serbian.

· “I was with Draza (Mihajlovich), and helped save the US flyers in WW II.  Now I am so disgusted, I wish I’d killed them!”  (I replied that he did the right thing the first time).

Bob Djurdjevic

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THE “KEYNOTE” SPEECH

 “Thank you for asking me to speak at this historic event. 

· I say historic - because we’ve never gathered here before - at the Arizona State Capitol to protest against anything, not even taxes. 

· I say historic - because never before has the destiny of the entire Serbian nation depended so much on what we, the Serbs in the Diaspora, can do to help them.

· I say historic, because never before has the unity among the Serbs been more important; and never before have those who sew divisiveness, and advance personal agendas done more harm to the common good.

Let me pass on to you the blessing and the message to us from the Serbian Patriarch Pavle, with whom I spoke yesterday morning:

“As I always say, we must be (decent) people, never beasts.

According to Christ’s word, ‘Don’t be afraid, even if you perish.  I was the first and the last living person who was dead.  And here I am - alive for centuries.’ 

Don’t be afraid of anything except of sin.

This is not the first time misfortune has hit our people.  We can only hope that, with God’s help, it is the last time.

But, as God’s people, we must always be on the side of the holy, the honest, and the dear God-pleasing.

That is my message to the people (at the Phoenix rally).

Please give everyone my regards, and let God give you good health.

All the best!”

V Serbian Patriarch Pavle, Belgrade, Sept. 8, 1995

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· I also say this is a historic rally - because we join our hands and our minds today with thousands of other Americans across the country, including those protesting in front of the White House, who are equally as outraged with the brutal, unjust aggression of the world’s superpowers against a small, but fiercely proud, people in the “Republika Srpska” (Bosnian Serb Republic). 

I have traveled through Bosnia several times in the last two years - I’ve been to Serb Sarajevo; I’ve been to Pale; I’ve been to Rogatica; I’ve been to Gorazde; I’ve been to Han Pijesak; I’ve been to Bijeljina...  And I can tell you that Republika Srpska is the only truly democratic, truly Christian, embryo to have emerged from the ruins of the former Yugoslavia.

[applause]

Is that why the supposedly “civilized and democratic international community” is raining bombs on this fledgling embryo - so that it doesn’t remind the New World Order creators of their own wickedness and treachery?

On that note, let me read to you the message to us from Metropolitan Irinej, of New Gracanica, in Chicago, with whom I also spoke yesterday:

 No wonder, the Serbs in the homeland, America’s friends and allies in two world wars, are simply bewildered by our and other Western governments’ belligerence toward them.

 · “Why are all the world’s ‘toughies’ ganging up on us?,” an 85-year old Serb woman, who had been a refugee herself in both 20th century world wars, asked me last week.

· “This is a gang rape of an entire nation,” a Belgrade medical doctor protested. 

· “What have you done to my country?” a Bosnian Serb officer screamed at a group of foreign journalists in Pale on August 30, following the first NATO raids.  “What do you want here?”

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“I am very pleased” with the progress of the NATO bombing operation, declared a jubilant Bill Clinton, that draft-evading  liberal; that un-Jimmy Dean - the “cause without a rebel,” as he shifted his foreign policy hub last week from a Jackson Hole, Wyoming, golf course, to another one in Hawaii. 

[applause]

Meanwhile, the operation with which our President was “very pleased” had killed more innocent Serb civilians than the Oklahoma City blast! 

On Thursday, for example, far away from CNN cameras, 16 civilians, including 4 children died in a Doboj bombing.  And today, even the CNN reported that 10 Serb civilians were killed by the French RRF artillery fire at a hospital in Serb Sarajevo.

[at this point, some one from the crowd yelle:“Death to the French murderers!”  But no one else reacted to it].

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But that’s not the only reason why Bill Clinton should be impeached.  There are at least three others: 

· Because he lied when he said that the NATO raids were launched in response to a Serbian shell which killed 37 people on August 28 near the “Markale” market.  Several UN experts and foreign intelligence agencies have disputed this assertion.

· Because he involved the U.S. forces in an undeclared and unconstitutional war (without the prior congressional approval) taking sides in a foreign civil war.

· Because he abused his power as the chief commander of our armed forces and risked the lives of our pilots needlessly (without a serious threat to our national security) - but so as to advance his personal political agenda in a pre-election year.

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As for the “Markale II” massacre, in 1939, the Nazis staged a similar ruse.  They accused the Poles of “aggression” against Germany, so as to justify the Nazis’ own assault on Poland - planned well in advance, just like Clinton’s war on the Serbs.  This kicked off WW II.

During the Gulf of Tonkin crisis, another democratic administration also lied to us.  Eventually it sucked us into the Vietnam nightmare.  Some 30 years and 58,000 lives later, Robert McNamara finally fessed up about “his war.”

Are we going to have to wait another 30 years for someone to tell the truth about the Sarajevo “Markale II” mass murder?

  I say - hell no!  Clinton must go!

What do you say?

[applause and loud cheers]

  I say - impeach Clinton now!  Clinton must go!  What do you say?

[a louder reply]

I say - let’s impeach Clinton now - before he gets a chance to start WW III as a part of his re-election campaign.

[loud cheers]

In a September 4 letter to the Arizona congressional delegation, I urged them to call for public hearings to determine the culpability of President Clinton and his officials for this shameful war. 

Nor are we alone in demanding that Clinton be impeached.  You had heard earlier the call for it from San Diego.  Here’s another one from Maryland.

Here’s what Prof. Alex Dragnich said in his message to our rally which he FAX-ed me last night.  For those of you that don’t know Prof. Dragnich, he is one of the nicest, most mild-mannered gentlemen you’ll ever meet.  But he had the courage to criticize the Tito regime in his many books at the time the West was supporting this communist dictator.  Born and raised in the American Northwest, Dragnich served as the cultural attaché at the American Embassy in Belgrade in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Here’s what he wrote:

 No, Alex, you need not.  But we do and must.

And I say again - impeach Clinton!

What do you say?

[“Impeach Clinton!” shouts]

I can’t hear you.

[louder shouts - “Impeach Clinton!”]

They can’t hear you in Pale!

[thunderous shouts - “Impeach Clinton!”]

Now they did. Thank you. God bless “Republika Srpska!” r

Also, check out... "Biting the Hand That Feeds You", "A Balkan Affairs Potpourri", "Put the U.N. Justice on Trial", "International Justice 'Progresses' from Kidnapping to Murder", "Milosevic: 'A Riddle Wrapped in a Mystery'...", "Kosovo Lie Allowed to Stand", "New World Order's Inquisition in Bosnia", "Kosovo Heating Up", "Decani Monastery Under Siege?", "Murder on Wall Street",  "Kosovo: 'Bosnia II'",  "What If the Shoe Were on the Other Foot?", "Green Interstate - Not Worth American Lives", and/or "Clinton arme secrètement les musulmans bosniaques"

Or Djurdjevic's WASHINGTON TIMES columns: "An Ugly Double Standard in Kosovo Conflict?", "NATO's Bullyboys", "Kosovo: Why Are We Involved?", and "Ginning Up Another Crisis"