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were confronted with daily atrocity stories in our media,
of massacres taking place, of young Albanian men being
rounded up and taken away, of rape and pillage occurring
on a massive and systematic scale. Indeed, what United
States Secretary of State, Madeline Albright described as
the “galvanizing event” for NATO military action was
the alleged massacre of 45 Albanian Kosovars in the
village of Racak in January 1999. The New York Times wrote
in an article dated April18 of that year, that the Racak
massacre was a “turning point “in NATO’s road to
war. |
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as the bombing campaign was stepped up and thousands of
Albanians were being driven out of Kosovo by Serbian security
forces, it became evident that the bombing had not stopped
ethnic cleansing, but on the contrary had intensified it. To
convince the public that this was not the case, NATO
spokespeople began to talk about “Operation Horseshoe.”
This, we were told was a secret, long-range plan of ethnic
cleansing by Serbian forces to rid Kosovo of its Albanian
population. A diabolical scheme arranged and planned long
before the bombing took place. |
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German Defense Minister, Rudolph Scharping announced that the
details of “Operation Horseshoe” had been uncovered by
German intelligence intercepts. The revelation of this alleged
plan was used effectively by NATO to support the bombing of
Yugoslavia. Canadian Foreign Affairs spokespeople made
frequent references to “Operation Horseshoe” as
justification of the NATO military intervention. |
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a major victory after the war, NATO military spokespeople
boasted of dealing the Serbian war machine a crippling defeat.
The high-altitude bombing had, according to NATO, successfully
destroyed one third of the Serbian armor and one half of the
artillery. The Kosovo war was hailed as an example of how air
power alone could achieve victory. Even the British military
expert John Keegan was convinced that Kosovo had proven, “a
war can be won by air power alone."
The
problem with these assertions and claims by NATO is that they
were lies.
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to NATO’s own estimates there were approximately 2000 people
killed in Kosovo before the bombing took place [this figure
includes Serbs and Albanians]. After the bombing estimates are
that close to 10,000 people were killed -although far fewer
actual bodies have been found. Nevertheless, 2000 casualties
on both sides during a civil war do not constitute genocide. |
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so-called Racak massacre, which was a key issue for NATO
apologists, had been from the outset, challenged by French
journalists who were on the ground when the alleged incident
supposedly took place. More recently German investigative
reporters for the Berlin
Zeitung have charged on March 24 this year, that the
autopsy reports, to which they gained access, showed no
evidence of an execution scenario. It appeared the victims had
been killed in combat and later placed in a ditch to simulate
an execution. There is a strong suspicion that US General,
William Walker, in collaboration with the KLA, may have had a
part to play in staging this incident. |
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now know as a result of the disclosure of German General,
Heinz Loquai, that “Operation Horseshoe” was a complete
falsehood engineered by the German Defense Minister to swing
public opinion in favor of the bombing. There is absolutely no
evidence that the Serbs were planning to drive out all of the
Albanian population from Kosovo prior to the NATO bombing
campaign. The Sunday Times of London exposed this scandal on
April 2 of this year. It is interesting that despite this
being a major story in Germany and a matter of debate in the
German parliament there has been no coverage of the story in
the Canadian media. |
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The
current issue of Newsweek magazine [May 15] has reported on
the basis of a suppressed US airforce report that the number
of military targets destroyed by NATO air strikes during the
bombing, “was a tiny fraction of those claimed.” Newsweek
reported there were 14 tanks hit not 120; 17 armored personnel
carriers, not 220; 20 artillery pieces, and not 450.The
suppressed report stated there were only 58 confirmed strikes
by NATO pilots and not the 744 previously claimed by NATO
spokespeople. |
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regret to say that I fully expect more lies and falsehoods
about Kosovo will be revealed as time goes by. We haven’t
had the full story yet by any stretch of the imagination.
What was the extent of German and United States
assistance both militarily and financial to the KLA? When was
it decided that the civilian infrastructure of Yugoslavia had
to be destroyed because the military targets could not be
seriously damaged from a height of 15000 ft? |
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were the real reasons for the attack on Yugoslavia? Why was
there no serious attempt to negotiate with the Serbian side at
Rambouillet? And why did NATO finally agree to drop their
original insistence that a referendum on autonomy be held in
Kosovo? Why did NATO make other substantial concessions to the
Serbs after bombing them for 78 days? In time we will probably
get the answers to these and other questions, but it will be
after the fact and after the damage has been done. |
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is one to make of all this? Well, one thing is certain it
demonstrates pretty clearly that we cannot trust our political
leaders to tell us the truth. This may not come as a total
surprise to many of you who have already had some experience
with the political process. Nevertheless it is not a
comforting thought. It is particularly distressing when we are
talking about serious issues -when matters of life and death;
war or peace and the destruction of modern states; are at
stake. |
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the case of Canada and some of the other smaller NATO members
it may well be that these countries themselves were at the
beginning misled and misinformed. This cannot, however, be an
excuse and we must not forget that the Canadian Ministers of
Foreign Affairs and National Defense stoutly defended the NATO
action. These same Ministers make no apology for sending the
Canadian armed forces to war against a sovereign state and
former ally in two world wars. Nor have they as yet expressed
any misgivings that for the first time since the founding of
the United Nations Canadian armed forces were engaged in a
military action not authorized by that body and in direct
violation of its Charter. |
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the credit of Greece, despite its membership in NATO, its
Government refused to take part in any of the military actions
against Serbia The people of Greece from the outset of the
bombing made abundantly clear their adamant opposition to the
war. This is not the first time in history that Greece has
adopted a courageous and heroic stand in the interests if
truth. |
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The
Kosovo war also reveals another disturbing characteristic.
That is the ease with which the main stream media accepted
and indeed supported without serious question the NATO
military action. None of the major Canadian newspapers or
TV networks, to my knowledge, expressed concern about the
legality of the bombing and- more alarmingly- seemed
almost eager to accept and condone the massive bombing of
civilian targets in Yugoslavia. All of the atrocity
stories related by Albanian Kosovars were accepted at face
value and few questioned the canned news stories
manufactured by the NATO public relations machine.
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