SIT-REP 5-13; Thursday, May 13, 1999

In this Issue: Attrition and Diplomacy

Mush has transpired since my last report and none of it is very comforting. One can only say that this dishonest diplomatic bobbling and bumbling continues while the NATO air campaign remains brutish and largely off target.

Last Tuesday (May 4), Army and special police commanders reported to Mr. Milosevic that they had ended their campaign against the KLA successfully; not quite true, but close enough for public relations purposes. One fight does continue around the border garrison at Morina, and per Thursday's Times of London, the KLA and NATO air forces are seeking to keep a "meat grinder" battle going against the Yugoslav army defending the border area north of the KLA's training bases around Tropoje in northern Albania. Serb troops holding that border are vulnerable to NATO air attacks, even scattered in small groups in a flexible defense-in-depth, they are vulnerable to B-52 "pattern bombing" strikes using 500-pound Mk 82 dumb bombs.

Elsewhere, according to the New York Times' Steven Erlanger and other sources, there appear to be only scattered incidents mounted by small bands of 3-5 guerrillas, remnants of the defeated KLA brigades. Remember that his articles remind us that most of the alleged and real beastliness in Kosovo transpired after the bombing began; NATO got post-facto justification from extremists as a rationale for beginning its very questionable bombing campaign. This is a classic "false cause" ("post hoc") reason for attacking a sovereign state. How many Albanians, Serbs, Gypsies, Gorani and Turks are dead because of NATO and not Milosevic?

After 51 days, how weak is Milosevic anyway? On Wednesday, Western spin doctors tried to make much of a Milosevic statement acknowledging the sacrifices and many deaths among the ranks of the armed forces and special police, but the statement itself read like a short version of the customary "epitaphios" speeches given by leaders since the time of Pericles of Athens. The fact is that NATO still pins its hopes on a relentless and sustained attrition campaign by high altitude bombing. But like MACV in Vietnam, NATO-Brussels relies on a measurement by "body count" since it cannot take the ground from Yugoslavia.

Attrition over eight years did not work for the US, and attrition over the summer months will likely not work for NATO; too many bombing targets are too difficult to successfully explain away already. NATO has also signaled that its concern over getting refugees properly housed before winter's return (25 weeks away) further limits its flexibility and indicates to Belgrade how long it must hold out. On Thursday, The Times of London etched out the current NATO-Russian thinking that in 5 more weeks they can negotiate a "fait accompli" deal to impose upon Milosevic with UN Security Council approval.

Though NATO does not wish to acknowledge it, it appears that Yugoslavia is withdrawing from Kosovo significant numbers of its special police forces and some army forces, showing film of one rifle company of about 120 infantry boarding three buses for the journey north as one anecdotal bit of confirmation. Since NATO is attacking, these convoys will remain small, come from areas all over Kosovo, and move carefully in bad weather and at night to avoid air attack. It makes sense to pull superfluous troops out of Kosovo and to bring them back under the thicker protective umbrella of the country's core air defenses in central Yugoslavia. It has psychological and diplomatic value, as well, when NATO finds Belgrade still won't cave in to bombing.

It could be some time before NATO has to acknowledge the pattern of withdrawal, which will not satisfy its ceasefire terms anyway, since President Milosevic has signaled he intends to maintain the 11,000 man "Pristina Corps" in the province. A Serb source indicates that some army units may be rotating in and out, but that the special police are genuinely reducing their presence in the province, while the army prosecutes that one big border fight.

The Air Campaign's Progress:

After 50 days, here is part of a "body count" summary of "things destroyed" received from the British Press (attached to the website version of this newsletter). Note; the Yugoslavs are good at using obsolete equipment (particularly Mig-21s, which Israel recently determined were not worth modernizing) and plywood-canvas dummies as decoys, so NATO may have overstated the real equipment damage,

The reader can see that at best, only 20% damage to Yugoslavia's "secondary" military infrastructure has been inflicted and the army in the field is still well-trained, supplied, motivated and dispersed. In another 50 days, given the lack of strategic targets and the difficulty of finding small groups of soldiers to attack, NATO may be no closer to imposing its will on Yugoslavia.

More aircraft are arriving and the skies grow more crowded. A problem has cropped up; Greece, though a NATO member, will not allow NATO use of its air space. Per an Athens spokesman: "It is certain that Greek soil will not be used (for the NATO offensive), and its airspace will not be open for the overflight of planes taking part in the military operation," Dimitris Reppas said. (quoted by AFP May 13, 1999). There goes NATO's helicopter assault into Kosovo from Macedonia. Concurrently, Budapest told a visiting Tory MP that it remains adamantly opposed to ground troops passing through on their way to fight Belgrade.

At the strategic level, NATO has already resorted to an attempt at psychological warfare against the major cities, terror bombing but with light casualties. Sometimes already-destroyed targets are whacked in the dead of night --sleep deprivation. But Wednesday NATO again dropped cluster bombs on Nis, just before Mary Robinson, UN High Commisioner for Human Rights, passed through to survey previous damage. Alas, she said very little to the Western press and Thursday, was refused a meeting with Mr. Milosevic.

In Thursday's New York Times, LT General Michael Short USAF, "stressed the need to attack leadership sites in Belgrade" and indicated cities were still on the target list. NATO is getting more aggressive, too, about letting "collateral damage" happen in residential areas --a reader in Novi Sad sent an interesting report about further strikes on the TV station there. It also appeared clear that NATO was still bombing towns in Kosovo, where prior urban bombings triggered floods of refugees, as confirmed in Erlanger's dispatches to the New York Times over the last week. I expect a bombing blitz this weekend as NATO seeks to rush things along. It is also widely rumored that NATO is trying to interrupt satellite internet traffic to and from Yugoslavia --we can't have free speech and access to information, now, can we? More "Censorship by Terror?"

From here, Generals Clark and Short appear to be headed towards fouling the drinking water supply, and otherwise, further degrading the quality of civilian life in Yugoslavia. I guess they will try to stampede more refugees out of Kosovo's cities and towns as well, to further vindicate their campaign.

This has brought Human Rights Watch (HRW) to the point where it has become concerned with NATO bombing practices, while remaining concerned about ethnic cleansing and Mrs. Robinson's planned visit with Mr. Milosevic. HRW seems to partly realize that the cure may well be as bad as the disease (HRW's news release is attached to the website edition of this report; also see www.hrw.org for their select chronology of attacks on Yugoslav civilian populations).

Diplomacy:

There is no "art of the deal": here, one has to conclude, just a high-stakes poker game. Clinton, Blair, Albright, et al, have too-committed their reputations and legacies in an ill-conceived intercession and intervention. The secret to NATO's official unity of purpose is that almost all of its 19 governments have recklessly committed to the Albright package (Greece and Turkey are only partly "supportive").

"We must all hang together, or we will all hang separately," as Ben Franklin observed to his fellow signers of the Declaration of Independence. Scoundrels as well as the honorable know they must stick together or get apprehended one by one. Politicians are too often a breed of scoundrel and our current crop of leaders are no exception. Thus, in Brussels, NATO cannot find a way to compromise without exposing its members to votes of no confidence.

Enter The Times' reported current form of a NATO-Russia deal, mentioned above. But that has to be pulled together in a few weeks and presented from a position of strength that together, NATO and Russia may not enjoy. The international force, per The Times, wants to enter Kosovo in mid-August, about 13-14 weeks from now, or about 9 weeks after the estimated deal-date.

The UN represents an optional exit strategy, but that has been delayed by events in Belgrade, Beijing and Moscow. NATO continues to insist that it must provide the core of the Kosovo security force, though they might do it under a UN flag, with Russian and other non-NATO forces. But NATO insists on the political point that all Yugoslav troops must withdraw --surrender. Who can reasonably expect Belgrade to surrender its sacred ground in Kosovo, when it has won its fight with the KLA?

This NATO condition is not a diplomatic point, but a political one, recognizing a Washington DC, necessity. There is all that campaign money over the years that bought political support and poisoned minds about who were the oppressors and who were the oppressed in Kosovo.

Moscow: Mr. Yeltsin has sacked Mr. Primakov, in favor of Mr. Stepashin, current chief of internal security forces. Mr. Primakov is widely popular with nationalists and communists, Mr. Stepashin is popular with nobody in particular. Primakov was not involved in the NATO-Yugoslav "negotiations," handled by the more pliable Mr. Chernomyrdin, who also enjoys scant popularity.

Mr. Primakov was on the edge of closing that $4.1 Bil IMF loan, which is back on "hold." That was to help Russia recover from a similar loan to Chernomyrdin's government, which evaporated mysteriously last summer. Yesterday, as Yeltsin was firing Primakov, Larry Summers (Mr. "Botched IMF Loans") was tapped to succeed Robert Rubin as Secretary of the Treasury. Hmm· Maybe those theorizing a conspiracy to break up Russia over Caspian oil and gas aren't so off the mark? --But that is speculating; and SIRIUS is guarded about its speculations.

Mr. Yeltsin will have to seek support from NATO members in order to survive the impeachment process being considered by the Duma, which tends to support Yugoslavia against NATO. I suspect that Mr. Yeltsin will attempt to be more conciliatory to NATO and less accommodating to Belgrade, to the point where Mr. Milosevic's refusal to compromise will further weaken Yeltsin domestically.

Beijing, unsatisfied with Washington's handling of the embassy bombing fiasco, need not cooperate overmuch with Russia either.

Beijing: When NATO hit the Chinese Embassy last Friday, some diplomatic "progress" was apparently being made; that is now all but dead, with Yeltsin in that pickle at home. The Clinton Administration cavilled, parsed, triangulated, but did not earnestly apologize to China. And though it is the leader of the "Free World" and is "the sole remaining Global Superpower," Mr Clinton, Mme Albright, Mr. Cohen and others did not feel the particular need for a formal apology and board of inquiry to get to the root of why such a stupid mistake could be made (see the attached analysis parsing the half-baked confessions of error attached to the website edition).

The worst part of the debate was how many officials and pundits chose the low-road of attempting the sophistry of moral relativism, enumerating China's many transgressions --Tibet, espionage, campaign finance peccadilloes, etc., ad nauseum. This is arguing "beside the point," entry-level political sophistry. The fact is, that as the leading democracy in the world, the US is obliged to set the higher standard, not to seek to pass the buck or dissemble in order to deflect legitimate questions of accountability.

Espionage is universal and it is incumbent on the possessor of secrets to protect them, as a virgin's parents protect her chastity. We spy on China; they spy on us. This has nothing to do with destroying a neutral power's embassy in Belgrade. Taken to its logical conclusion, all those deflective arguments posed by leaders and pundits make me wonder why we are bombing Belgrade instead of wicked Beijing.

Beijing let its conservative university students enjoy a four day flush of fervor in front of our embassy there, just shy of 10 years after the Tienanaman Square massacre. Ham-fisted American policy and empty rhetoric has brought us in a decade from being the exemplar of goodness and democracy for Chinese students, to being the ultimate tyrant.

Beijing remains unsatisfied with Washington's casual forms of apology and intends to extract its price, in time, if it remains unsatisfied. Now we might worry about nukes, Taiwan, Korea or something explosive; or we might wonder what Beijing really knows about Mr. Clinton that Congress has not yet ferreted out in its investigations of campaign finance chicanery and espionage.

Our governing elites in the NATO countries are not serving us well; but then, they view us as docile and co-dependent revenue-units, not as citizenries. If they can only break us of the ancient habits of self-reliance, in favor of easy, cozy self-esteem, we will be enslaved.

© Copyright 1999 by Benjamin Works - SIRIUS www.siri-us.com

Excuses, Excuses

By William Saletan Posted Tuesday, May 11, 1999, at 10:15 a.m. PT

Last August, after finally admitting to Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's grand jury that he had carried on and covered up an inappropriate relationship with Monica Lewinsky, President Clinton went on national TV to apologize. He began by calling his behavior "wrong" and taking "complete responsibility" for it. But within seconds, Clinton tarnished his apology by lapsing into excuses, self-justifications, and blame-shifting. This week, as he tries to explain NATO's bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, he's doing the same thing.

How did the bombing happen? According to Secretary of Defense William Cohen, NATO "attacked the wrong target because the bombing instructions were based on an outdated map," which "inaccurately located the embassy in a different part of Belgrade." Henceforth, said Cohen, "the State Department will report to the intelligence community whenever foreign embassies move." In other words, people in the U.S. government who knew the embassy had moved hadn't bothered to tell their colleagues who were deciding which buildings to bomb. There's nothing for the United States to say about this except that we perpetrated a moral outrage through inexcusable stupidity and recklessness. But as usual, Clinton is finding plenty of other things to say.

1) "I've already apologized." Last year, when asked to apologize, Clinton repeatedly insisted that he had already done so. But saying you have already apologized is the opposite of apologizing. The latter is a way of accepting criticism; the former is a way of deflecting it. Saturday, in his initial remarks about the bombing, Clinton expressed "regret" and "condolences" to China but never used the word "apologize." Two days later, he declared, "I have already expressed our apology." When asked about American responsibility for the tragedy, Cohen, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and State Department spokesman Jamie Rubin reiterated that Clinton had already "apologized."

2) "My actions were minimal." In his speech last August, Clinton used weasel words and passive verbs to minimize his deceit. "While my answers were legally accurate, I did not volunteer information," he allowed. "My public comments and my silence about this matter gave a false impression." To minimize this week's embassy bombing, Clinton called it a "mistake," "accident," and "tragic event" (other U.S. officials called it "regrettable" and an "error" entailing "loss of life"). Clinton used the passive voice to obscure his responsibility ("the Chinese Embassy was inadvertently damaged and people lost their lives") and offered good intentions as an excuse ("We're doing everything that we can to avoid innocent civilian casualties").

3) "Everybody does it." In 1992, Clinton smothered questions about his adultery by confessing to "causing pain in my marriage," refusing to say more, and pointing out that many American couples were in a similar position. In his August 1998 speech, he offered the same defense. Likewise, Clinton suggested this week that in war the occasional embassy bombing is to be expected. "This will happen if you drop this much [ordnance]," he argued Saturday. Cohen echoed that line Monday ("In combat, accidents will happen"), as did White House spokesman Joe Lockhart ("Mistakes happen").

4) "It's the economy, stupid." Unable to convince Americans last year that he was truly sorry for offending their values, Clinton appealed instead to their material interests, vowing incessantly to "keep working for the American people." This week, having bombed the Chinese Embassy, Clinton is making a similar appeal to China's prudence. On Monday, he reminded China of his "commitment to strengthen our relationship," while Albright and Lockhart emphasized that "good relations are manifestly in the interest of both nations" and that "a broad-based relationship ... serves both our interests."

5) "It's my enemy's fault." Clinton ruined his speech last August by blaming Starr and Paula Jones' lawyers for forcing him to shade the truth to fend off Starr's investigation, which had "gone on too long, cost too much, and hurt too many innocent people." This week, Clinton again buried his apology under a recitation of his enemy's wrongs. He even used the same word--"proportion"--to deflect scrutiny. "We need some sense of proportion" in evaluating the bombing, Clinton pleaded. "This was an isolated, tragic event, while the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo ... is a deliberate and systematic crime." Albright, Rubin, and other U.S. officials reasserted that distinction, and Defense Department spokesman Ken Bacon pointed out that the other guy started the fight: "This was not a fight that NATO sought. It was a fight that could have been avoided, but Mr. Milosevic decided not to avoid it."

It's true that the Serbs' crimes dwarf NATO's in scale and malice. It's true that China's financial interests are best served by stifling its anger. It's true that wars always cause unintended civilian casualties. It's true that NATO is trying to avoid such casualties. And it's true that Clinton has apologized. These are all perfectly good spins. But the point of an apology is to accept responsibility for what you did and otherwise to shut up. To apologize, in short, is to abstain from spin--one of the few feats of which Clinton seems incapable.

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FACTS AND FIGURES OF NATO 50-DAY CAMPAIGN

By Bob Roberts, Political Correspondent, PA News

The huge Nato effort over Kosovo continues into its 50th day today with few signs that a Yugoslav surrender is in sight.

Nato aircraft have now flown 18,800 sorties - with 4,800 of those being attack missions.

A total of 796 attacks have been made against 324 individual sites, of which 275 have been damaged.

More than 80 Yugoslav military aircraft have been destroyed - 19% of the total, a quarter of their key MiG 21 and MiG 29 fighters have been lost and 10 strategic SAM radar sites destroyed.

Nine military airfields, 40 aircraft hangars, 20% of all army barracks and 20% of all major ammunition storage sites have been damaged.

The two Yugoslavian oil refineries have been put out of action and 18 other oil storage depots have been attacked.

In total, 35 road and rail bridges have been damaged or destroyed, the two rail lines going into Kosovo have been cut and two of the eight roads into Kosovo closed.

Nato has lost two aircraft - a US Stealth bomber and a US F-16 fighter bomber.

Nato has suffered two casualties - the crew of an Apache attack helicopter which crashed during training. Another Apache has also been wrecked in a training accident.

Three US soldiers - Christopher Stone, Andrew Ramirez and Steven Gonzales - were taken as prisoners of war and have now been freed.

About 50% of Allied bombing missions have had to be cancelled because of bad weather.

Nato bombers have attacked a civilian train, a refugee convoy, the Chinese embassy in Belgrade and a hospital.

Britain has 46 aircraft in theatre - 16 Harrier GR7s at Gioia del Colle, 12 Tornado GR1s at Bruggen, four Tristar tankers at Ancona, four VC-10 tankers and three E-3D sentry aircraft at Aviano and seven FA2 Sea Harriers flying from HMS Invincible.

Britain has 6,500 troops in Macedonia to provide a Kosovo peacekeeping force - currently being reinforced with the arrival of a second armoured battle group.

At sea, Britain has the aircraft carrier HMS Invincible, the destroyer HMS Newcastle, two Royal Fleet Auxiliary supply ships Fort Austin and Bayleaf, the submarines HMS Splendid and HMS Turbulent and the frigates HMS Iron Duke and HMS Grafton - a total of about 2,000 sailors.

Nato has more than 800 aircraft in theatre from 13 countries - which is being increased to about 1,200.

The US says 100,000, possibly as many as 500,000, Kosovo Albanian men are unaccounted for.

Since the conflict started 422,700 refugees have fled to Albania, 241,200 to Macedonia and 63,200 to Montenegro.

There are estimated to be 690,000 "Internally Displaces Persons" still within Kosovo after being forced out of their homes.

According to Belgrade there are another 50,000 refugees in Serbia.

British forces have delivered 442,000 bars of chocolate, 264,000 litres of water, 129,000 loaves of bread and 46,000 whole chickens as part of the humanitarian effort.

The conflict has already cost the British taxpayer almost £80 million - and the bill looks set to rise much higher.

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GROWING CONCERN ABOUT NATO VIOLATING THE LAWS OF WAR

(New York, May 13, 1999) -- Human Rights Watch today sent a letter to Secretary General Javier Solana expressing concern at the mounting civilian casualties in NATO's air war against Yugoslavia.

In particular, Human Rights Watch raised serious concerns about whether NATO is targeting civilian objects or objects that, if attacked, would cause disproportionate harm to civilians. It also questioned whether, even in attacking legitimate military targets, NATO is taking all feasible precautions to avoid harm to civilians.

"NATO says it is fighting a war on behalf of human rights," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "If so, then it's absolutely essential for NATO to scrupulously respect human rights in its conduct of this war. NATO must do everything feasible to avoid hitting civilians."

Among recent incidents giving rise to these concerns are: the destruction of factories and other property belonging to political supporters of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic; attacks on Yugoslavia's electrical transformers; the destruction of several of Yugoslavia's television and radio stations; several bombings of civilian objects such as the May 7 bombing of the civilian hospital in Nis and the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, and the bombing of civilian vehicles because they were mistaken for military vehicles or were crossing bridges or near other installations at the time they were attacked.

Human Rights Watch called on NATO to investigate each incident in which a civilian target was attacked or civilian loss of life occurred to determine the exact circumstances of the attack and urged that the findings of such investigations be made public and corrective steps taken immediately to ensure NATO's strict compliance with humanitarian law.

The letter and a select chronology of NATO attacks are on the Human Rights Watch website, www.hrw.org.