1. U.S. CONGRESSMAN SAYS FORMER PRESIDENT HAD LIED TO JUSTIFY BOMBING
OF YUGOSLAVIA
2. REMEMBER KOSOVO?
=== 1 ===
http://www.mfa.gov.yu/Pressframe.htm
U.S. CONGRESSMAN SAYS FORMER PRESIDENT HAD LIED TO JUSTIFY BOMBING OF
YUGOSLAVIA
WASHINGTON, Jul 18 (Tanjug) - US Congressman Kurt
Weldon wondered Thursday why the Democratic Party had
not protested when former president Bill Clinton had
lied and twisted facts on alleged mass murders in the
Balkans in order to justify the NATO invasion on the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the spring of 1999.
Reacting in the Congress to the strong criticism by
the democrats regarding the truthfulness of the
reasons President George Bush had given for the recent
intervention in Iraq, Weldon said he wished to remind
fellow democrats of the claims made by Clinton to
justify the bombing of Yugoslavia.
The Clinton administration had claimed at the time
that hundreds of thousands of people had been killed
in ethnic cleansing and buried in mass graves, in an
attempt to justify the NATO intervention and war
against (former Yugoslav president) Slobodan
Milosevic, in which both US soldiers and innocent
Serbs were being killed, Weldon said, underlining that
the justification for the US involvement in the war in
Yugoslavia was a load of false information.
---
http://www.house.gov/curtweldon/july16speech.htm
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Wednesday, July 16, 2003
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH -- (House of Representatives - July 16, 2003)
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gingrey). The gentleman from Pennsylvania
(Mr. Weldon) is recognized for 40 minutes.
Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, enough is enough. I sat in my
office last night and listened to Member after Member on the other side
rail about President Bush and whether or not we could trust him in the
Iraqi situation. I have listened to my colleagues tonight. Enough is
enough. Mr. Speaker, this is just outrageous.
So what I have done is I have got a whole file here, and I am going to
remind my colleagues on the other side of the aisle about their
President for the previous 8 years, and I am going to cite articles and
claims and I am going to cite the justification for the invasion of
Yugoslavia as outlined by President Clinton.
Where were these voices, where were these petitions, where were these
outcries when President Clinton told us about the Balkans mass deaths
to justify NATO's invasion into the Balkans? The Clinton administration
claimed that ethnic cleansing had killed hundreds of thousands of
people, and I will include the articles from the papers in the
Congressional Record.
The Clinton administration was later criticized, and I have newspaper
articles here to back it up by the press for grossly exaggerating the
number of victims of ethnic cleansing, the mass graves. President
Clinton told us we would find 100,000 people that were murdered and
that was his justification for using NATO for the only time ever to
invade a non-NATO
country in order to justify a war against Slobodan Milosevic where U.S.
citizens, where U.S. troops, and where innocent Serbs were killed. That
is the first example.
(...)
Mr. Speaker, in one night, in one day, I have listed five times of
major significance that the leader of the party of the other side,
these righteous, indignant people who have railed and whined and cried
on the floor of this body said nothing about lies to the American
people.
Mr. Speaker, some would say, well, these did not involve death of
American citizens or war, and I would remind my colleagues, the
justification that President Clinton used to take this country into war
in Yugoslavia was basically a bunch of false information. In fact, it
was the USA Today in July of 1999, an article that said, ``As the
allied forces take control in Kosovo, many of the figures used by the
Clinton administration and NATO were greatly exaggerated. Six hundred
thousand ethnic Albanian men were not trapped within Kosovo or buried
in mass graves, as President Clinton told a veterans group. Instead of
100,000 ethnic Albanian men feared murdered, officials now estimate
about 10,000; and we think the confirmed number was 3,000.''
Mr. Speaker, that was from USA Today in 1999.
Let us go to the Little Rock newspapers. They did an investigative
story on January 16, 2000, after the Clinton administration had made
these outrageous claims of ethnic cleansing. Why did they say these
things, Mr. Speaker? Because they wanted the Congress and they wanted
the American people to support his war to get Milosevic out of power.
Let us read some of the quotes from the Arkansas Democrat Gazette,
January 16, 2000:
``Of 500 potential grave sites, 150 have been opened and, no, we have
not found the 100,000 missing declared by President Clinton, or the
lower but probably equally preposterous figure of 10,000 advanced by
British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook and repeated by the BBC.''
This was not the Republican Party. This was the Arkansas Democrat
Gazette on January 16, 2000, saying that all the justification that
Clinton used to go to war in Yugoslavia was false, it was erroneous.
Where was the outcry by these liberal groups in this country? Where was
the outcry by the Democrats we have seen running down to the well
complaining that this President needs to be investigated? Where was the
consistency of the principled position of my colleagues on the other
side?
Let us go on, Mr. Speaker, with the Arkansas Democrat Gazette article
of January 16, 2000: ``We have more than 10,000 photographs of graves,
sites and bodies, and more than 300 hours of video, and we share all
our evidence with the war crimes tribunal. From survivors who are
giving us testimonies,
we calculate there were 6,000 Kosovo Albanians killed in the 3 months
of the war,'' not before the war, in the 3 months of the war which
President Clinton led, ``and perhaps 2,000 still in Serbian prisons.''
Listen to this, Mr. Speaker. In the previous 12 months before the war,
there were 1,000 killed. So 1,000 were killed in the previous months,
6,000 were killed in the immediate 3 months of the war itself by the
bombs of the U.S., France and Germany and the other NATO countries.
``But then the figures become a little vague. The total of dead and
missing becomes 7,000 rather than 8,000; the figure of prewar killings
rises from 1,000 to 2,000.'' Mr. Speaker, the information leading up to
President Clinton's decision to go to war in Yugoslavia is filled with
gross, not just information distorted, gross distortions of fact, lies.
Where are my colleagues? What were they saying?
Let us go on, Mr. Speaker, to some other examples.
Here is an article from the Washington Post, March 26, 2000. The
headline, Was It a Mistake? We Were Suckers for the KLA was the
headline of this article written by Christopher Layne and Benjamin
Schwartz. Let us go through some of the claims.
``Clinton's assertion,'' and I am quoting here, Mr. Speaker, ``at a
June 25, 1999, postwar news conference that the bombing was a way to
stop, quote, deliberate, systematic efforts at genocide,'' he called it
genocide in Kosovo. It goes on to say, ``was either disingenuous or
ignorant. Before the start of NATO's bombing on March 24, 1999, almost
2,000 civilians,
overwhelmingly ethnic Albanians but also Serbs, had been killed in 15
months of bitter warfare. Up to that point, there had been no genocide
or ethnic cleansing.'' The genocide and ethnic cleansing started when
Bill Clinton and Jacques Chirac started the war against Milosevic.
I will go on, Mr. Speaker, this same article, Washington Post, March
26, 2000:
``Not only did the forced removal of civilians result from the NATO
bombing, but administration claims of mass killings, made to rally
popular support for the war, turn out to have been exaggerated. Clinton
defended the intervention on the grounds that the Yugoslavs had
slaughtered tens of thousands.'' President Clinton said tens of
thousands, Mr. Speaker. It never
turned out to be true. All lies. Secretary of Defense William Cohen
termed it a, quote, horrific slaughter. The numbers we now have,
according to this article in the Post, disprove those claims. U.N.
numbers and U.S. numbers and Allied numbers say the information
provided to Congress was wrong.
Let us go on to a story in the Contra Costa Times, March 4, 2000. ``We
became involved in Kosovo after being bombarded with exorbitant claims
of ethnic cleansing, subsequently proven exaggerated and largely
committed after NATO started bombing.''
Another newspaper, Mr. Speaker. I do not remember my colleagues quoting
from these papers. I do not remember my colleagues coming to the floor
and demanding an investigation of Bill Clinton for distorting things.
Not only were these distortions, they were outright, outright lies.
We will go on with that Contra Costa story of March 4, 2000:
``As a result of false and misleading news reports, Americans were led
to believe tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of ethnic
Albanians were killed by the Serbs and buried in mass graves. Many are
still under that impression.
``According to U.N. investigators who have been scouring the area since
the bombing stopped, the total number of ethnic Albanians killed by the
Serbs is closer to 2,000, far fewer than the number of civilians killed
by NATO bombers.''
Let me repeat that statement again, Mr. Speaker. Listen to this,
please, quoted from the Contra Costa Times, March 4, 2000: ``According
to U.N. investigators who scoured the area since the bombing stopped,
the total number of ethnic Albanians killed by the Serbs is closer to
2,000, far fewer than the total number of civilians killed by NATO
bombers.''
Let us go on to some additional articles, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the
distortions of the other side are outrageous. I did not want to get up
and do this. But I, Mr. Speaker, was sick and tired of sitting in my
office listening to Members parade down here, 1-hour special orders,
talking about how they were misled. What a crock, Mr. Speaker.
First of all, if any Member of Congress was misled by President Bush's
State of the Union speech, then there has got to be something wrong
with them, because the vote to give the President the use of force was
in October of last year. What did they do, read the speech 3 months
before it occurred?
The vote did not come after the President's speech. These Members on
the other side who voted to give the President the use of force to
remove Saddam Hussein voted in the fall of last year, 3 months before
President Bush made the State of the Union speech here.
Mr. Speaker, it is all partisan rhetoric, and I am sick of it.
(...)
Mr. Speaker, I could go on and on. I did the research in 1 day. I could
have gone on and probably spent weeks and weeks getting tons of
additional information about the misstatements, about the denial of the
missiles that were sent to Pakistan, about the misleading information
leading up to the war in Kosovo. Yet we never heard one peep out of the
other body. I raise all of these facts, Mr. Speaker, only as a
defensive response to my colleagues on the other side. They have made
such outrageous claims, and I heard it in 5-minute speeches tonight. I
heard it in 1-hour Special Orders last night. I heard it right before I
spoke here tonight like somehow this is not going to go refuted and,
Mr. Speaker, I cannot do that. George Bush
had the decency and honesty to say that when he made the State of the
Union speech from that podium, perhaps that information given him, even
though today he maintains it is still factually correct, should not
have been included in the State of the Union speech. He was honest.
Where was the honesty of the previous President? Where was the other
party that was down here railing about Bush and demanding a retraction?
Where were these interest groups on the Internet demanding that we have
accountability through petition drives? Where were they? They did not
exist because they are a part of the Democrat machine that did not care
what Bill Clinton said, did not care about distortions, did not care
about out-and-out lies.
(...)
Why would my colleagues on the other side think it was okay to support
President Clinton in using military force to remove Milosevic from
power, and, by the way, they did not go to the U.N. for that vote
because France knew Russia would veto a U.N. resolution? How could they
support that military action, but then question President Bush when he
uses military action to remove the worst human rights violator since
Adolph Hitler from power just this year? And that claim of Saddam
Hussein's being the worst human rights violator since Adolph Hitler
does not come from me. It comes from the U.N. Special Rappateur for
human rights when he was comparing the human rights record of Saddam
Hussein.
(...)
Mr. Speaker, I will make this commitment to my colleagues. If this
partisan rhetoric continues on the floor, I will be back here every
night and I will refute it, and I will bring out more of the gross
Clinton lies and distortions which that side remained silent on year
after year after year. I challenge them to end this garbage. Enough is
enough, Mr. Speaker.
END
=== 2 ===
http://www.antiwar.com/malic/m-col.html
ANTIWAR, Thursday, June 12, 2003
Balkan Express
by Nebojsa Malic
Antiwar.com
Remember Kosovo?
Balkans And the Big Picture A Year Later
There has been lately a great deal of commotion in the press as to
whether Emperor Bush the Lesser and his satellites have lied to their
people about the supposed "weapons of mass destruction," which have not
been found even after six weeks of occupation and unfettered access to
all parts of Iraq. As if the notion of the Emperor deceiving his
subjects was something new!
Does anyone remember Racak, the "massacre" used to justify the
Rambouillet ultimatum and the subsequent bombing of Serbia in 1999? Or,
for that matter, the "genocide" that took place in Kosovo during the
bombing only, it didn't? Apparently not. Nor is it remembered that
even after these lies were
decisively debunked, their peddlers never suffered any adverse
consequences.
In the specific case of Kosovo, the train of lies and abuses is so long
a thick book would hardly do it justice.
What is happening in Iraq now is merely a re-run of what happened in
Kosovo. Because the Empire got away with murder, literally, launching a
clear war of aggression and occupation while spinning all sorts of
preposterous lies about it, Kosovo made Iraq possible. Never forget
that.
Even as Tony Blair was trying to lie its way out of Iraq lies, the
Guardian featured a series of articles seemingly critical of British
support for Imperial interventions, titled "Did we make it better?" In
the segment on Kosovo, writer Jon Henley creates an impression that
even as poverty, crime and violence are rampant, NATO's bombing and
invasion in 1999 and the
subsequent occupation is one hundred percent justified. Four years
after the Operation Allied Force ended, the lies behind it persist.
Reign of Terror
On June 9, 1999, representatives of the Yugoslav government and NATO
signed an armistice in a tent outside Kumanovo, Macedonia, ending
NATO's 78-day air assault. Within a week, NATO troops occupied the
Serbian province of Kosovo, and their KLA allies began a reign of
terror that has continued ever
since.
In June 1999 alone, over 250,000 Serbs, Roma, Turks, Muslims, and Jews
were forced to leave Kosovo, often with little or no property. In
addition to targeting Serbs, Albanians launched special pogroms against
the Roma ("Gypsies"), in the best tradition of their WW2 ancestors.
In July 1999, 14 Serb farmers were murdered while harvesting their
fields outside the hamlet of Staro Gracko. (An IWPR hack aptly named
Fron Nazi claimed they were victims of "Serb subterfuge," even as KFOR
statistics showed one Serb was being murdered every 24 hours.)
In October 1999, an Albanian mob murdered Bulgarian UN worker Valentin
Krumov for speaking what sounded like Serbian.
In February 2001, a bus full of Serbs who were coming to visit their
cemeteries was blown up by a remote-controlled mine. Three Albanians
arrested in connection with the bombing were released by December 2001,
and one "escaped" from the US fortified base Camp Bondsteel.
Throughout Kosovo, Serbs have retreated into towns and villages that
have become virtual concentration camps. If they venture outside those
areas, which are guarded by NATO troops and not infrequently cordoned
off with barbed wire, they risk death. The most notorious ghetto has
been Orahovac.
Other enclaves, like Gracanica and Decani monastery, are frequently
under attack.
In the north of Kosovo, local Serbs have managed to stop the Albanian
takeover on the southern side of the Ibar River, in Mitrovica. Together
with several towns in the north, this is the only remaining territory
in Kosovo not dominated by the Albanian separatists, which has made it
a target for constant attacks by Albanians, occupation authorities, and
their
cheerleaders.
Even Albanians have been targets of organized violence, as the
terrorist KLA targeted "collaborators," political rivals and witnesses
to its murderous deeds.
Albanian militants have demolished or desecrated over 110 churches,
chapels and monasteries. They have destroyed hundreds of monuments and
even libraries, renamed towns, streets, and the entire province
("Kosova") in an effort to completely eradicate any non-Albanian
presence in Kosovo.
Reign of Lies
Reports often say all of this has happened despite the presence of
30,000 NATO troops, but the truth is, it happened because of their
presence.
The vast majority of attacks were never solved. Yet it is a public
secret that most perpetrators are "former" KLA now employees of the
UN-funded "Kosovo Protection Corps," commanded by the notorious KLA
leader and former Croatian officer Agim Ceku.
In April 2002, two men were killed while trying to plant a bomb under a
railroad track used by Serbs. They belonged to the "Albanian National
Army," the newest incarnation of the KLA, declared shortly thereafter a
"terrorist organization." They were also members of the KPC!
On June 3, 1999, NATO was still attacking Yugoslavia and the Alliance
mouthpiece Jamie Shea gave his usual afternoon briefing. When a
reporter asked if there were any indications that the KLA was prepared
to be disarmed by NATO "peacekeepers," Shea responded coyly: "Well, we
will have to
wait and see, won't we?"
We didn't have to wait for long. The KLA entered Kosovo perched upon
NATO tanks, rampaged through the province unchallenged, made a big show
of handing over a handful of obsolete weapons, changed uniforms and
went legit, with a UN paycheck as an added bonus.
A Deadly Message
Four years after NATO's "humanitarian war" ended, it still claims
lives. UN police found the butchered bodies of Slobodan, Ljubinko and
Radmila Stolic [Stolich] inside their burnt-out home early on June 4
this year. It was an ax murder sloppily contrived to look like an
accident.
UN police spokesman Derek Chapelle is quoted in a June 4 Reuters report,
"The people were attacked as they were lying in bed in the middle of
the night. These people died as a result of a brutal beating, not a
fire."
At the very bottom of the article, tucked into near-oblivion, is a note
that local Serbs told the reporters the Stolic family was under
Albanian pressure to sell their house and leave Kosovo. That their
murder was meant as a message to other Serbs is abundantly clear. But
is this mentioned? No.
In fact, reporting that some 400 Serbs decided to pack up and leave
town after the murders, Agence France-Presse never once mentioned
possible perpetrators of the attack, let alone the motive. Official
American propaganda carried the same story, but focused on dismissing
Serb concerns about their security, and again, never even hinted at the
obvious identity
of the murderers. These are but the latest examples of an ongoing
pattern of denial and obfuscation, pervasive throughout the Imperial
media when it comes to reporting on Kosovo.
Murders of Serbs by Albanians were initially excused as "revenge
attacks," implying some sort of "payback" for Serb atrocities. But as
the attacks continued and atrocities accusations became increasingly
impossible to substantiate, a new euphemism was created: "ethnic
violence." This implies
that Serbs and Albanians are attacking each other. Yet no one can cite
a single case of Serbs wantonly attacking and murdering Albanians in
these past four years. Not one! When Albanians suffer violent deaths in
Kosovo these days, it is at the hands of other Albanians members of
crime syndicates or "former" KLA (often one and the same).
Spin the Murder
The Stolic family was murdered again this time metaphorically when
the politicians took the stage. UN Viceroy Michael Steiner claimed the
Obilic murders were "clearly aimed at stopping reconciliation a
perfidious crime which was directed against multi-ethnicity in Kosovo."
What reconciliation?
What multi-ethnicity? What planet does Steiner live on?
Kosovo Albanian "prime minister" Bayram Rexhepi issued a statement
expressing condolences to the Stolic family (!) and termed the murders
a "criminal act directed against the stability, peace, and prosperity
of Kosovo and its future."
But of course! Why hasn't anyone thought of this before? All these
brutal murders, abductions and massacres are really a sinister plot to
make the innocent, victimized Kosovo Albanians look bad and ruin their
future of peace, prosperity, multi-ethnic democracy and independence!
Why, the dastardly Serbs must have massacred themselves!
Official Serbian news agency cites an interview UNMIK spokesman Simon
Haselock gave BBC radio, where he is quoted as saying that "no police
force in the world is capable of protecting every family and every
individual" and that the security situation in Kosovo has lately
"improved dramatically."
Like the rest of NATO apologists to be fair, this is actually his job
Haselock uses the diminishing frequency of attacks to claim
improvement. But that attacks on Serbs now happen once a month instead
of once a day has largely been a function of the diminishing number of
Serbs, not the diminishing desire of Albanian segregationists to attack
them.
The platitudes of Steiner and Rexhepi and Haselock's tautological
nonsense are trying to divert attention from the realities of the
occupation. Kosovo Serbs and other ethnic groups are targets of an
organized, systematic Albanian campaign of ethnic cleansing, aimed at
creating an ethnically
pure, independent Albanian Kosovo. Sounds familiar? That's because this
was an accusation leveled at the victims, the Serbs, by the Albanians
and the Empire in an effort to preclude their defense.
Good Riddance
On the eve of the murders in Obilic, Viceroy Steiner announced he would
be quitting the job at the end of June. Kosovo Serbs should bid him
good riddance. From his first act in office forging a unified
Albanian political front to his most recent prevarications, Steiner
has pushed the occupied province on the road to ethnically cleansed
independence.
However welcome his departure may be, one must remember that Steiner
was never the real problem.
Conceived, established and perpetuated by violence, the occupation of
Kosovo is itself the greatest enemy of peace, liberty and prosperity in
the southern Balkans.
Bloody Hands
Many opponents of the Kosovo war supported George W. Bush in 2000,
fooled by the neocons' loud opposition to the bombing, which was
nothing more than opportunistic posturing, into believing Kosovo was
"Clinton's war." But
Bush the Lesser has made no changes to Clinton's policy in Kosovo or
anywhere in the Balkans, for that matter. And why would he? It was
Kosovo that made Iraq possible: both illegal, illegitimate wars
resulting in equally illegal and illegitimate occupations, not to
mention the toll in destroyed human lives and property, or the
destruction of social and cultural heritage.
Senator Joseph Lieberman, who would like to be Emperor after Bush, said
in 1999 that the blatantly fascist KLA was "fighting for American
values."
Lieberman came close to being elected vice-president in 2000, and this
statement was never held against him. There have been several proposed
resolutions in the Congress supporting the independence of Albanized
Kosovo, but not one not one! demanding an end to the occupation.
Today, Kosovo is an issue almost forgotten in the American political
discourse, even
though the United States is chiefly responsible for the current state
of affairs in that Serbian province. Empire's hands are drenched with
blood of the massacred and tears of the dispossessed.
It is not surprising that those who should be ashamed of their actions
have forgotten Kosovo. But those who care about honor, justice and
liberty have every reason to remember.
OF YUGOSLAVIA
2. REMEMBER KOSOVO?
=== 1 ===
http://www.mfa.gov.yu/Pressframe.htm
U.S. CONGRESSMAN SAYS FORMER PRESIDENT HAD LIED TO JUSTIFY BOMBING OF
YUGOSLAVIA
WASHINGTON, Jul 18 (Tanjug) - US Congressman Kurt
Weldon wondered Thursday why the Democratic Party had
not protested when former president Bill Clinton had
lied and twisted facts on alleged mass murders in the
Balkans in order to justify the NATO invasion on the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the spring of 1999.
Reacting in the Congress to the strong criticism by
the democrats regarding the truthfulness of the
reasons President George Bush had given for the recent
intervention in Iraq, Weldon said he wished to remind
fellow democrats of the claims made by Clinton to
justify the bombing of Yugoslavia.
The Clinton administration had claimed at the time
that hundreds of thousands of people had been killed
in ethnic cleansing and buried in mass graves, in an
attempt to justify the NATO intervention and war
against (former Yugoslav president) Slobodan
Milosevic, in which both US soldiers and innocent
Serbs were being killed, Weldon said, underlining that
the justification for the US involvement in the war in
Yugoslavia was a load of false information.
---
http://www.house.gov/curtweldon/july16speech.htm
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Wednesday, July 16, 2003
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH -- (House of Representatives - July 16, 2003)
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gingrey). The gentleman from Pennsylvania
(Mr. Weldon) is recognized for 40 minutes.
Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, enough is enough. I sat in my
office last night and listened to Member after Member on the other side
rail about President Bush and whether or not we could trust him in the
Iraqi situation. I have listened to my colleagues tonight. Enough is
enough. Mr. Speaker, this is just outrageous.
So what I have done is I have got a whole file here, and I am going to
remind my colleagues on the other side of the aisle about their
President for the previous 8 years, and I am going to cite articles and
claims and I am going to cite the justification for the invasion of
Yugoslavia as outlined by President Clinton.
Where were these voices, where were these petitions, where were these
outcries when President Clinton told us about the Balkans mass deaths
to justify NATO's invasion into the Balkans? The Clinton administration
claimed that ethnic cleansing had killed hundreds of thousands of
people, and I will include the articles from the papers in the
Congressional Record.
The Clinton administration was later criticized, and I have newspaper
articles here to back it up by the press for grossly exaggerating the
number of victims of ethnic cleansing, the mass graves. President
Clinton told us we would find 100,000 people that were murdered and
that was his justification for using NATO for the only time ever to
invade a non-NATO
country in order to justify a war against Slobodan Milosevic where U.S.
citizens, where U.S. troops, and where innocent Serbs were killed. That
is the first example.
(...)
Mr. Speaker, in one night, in one day, I have listed five times of
major significance that the leader of the party of the other side,
these righteous, indignant people who have railed and whined and cried
on the floor of this body said nothing about lies to the American
people.
Mr. Speaker, some would say, well, these did not involve death of
American citizens or war, and I would remind my colleagues, the
justification that President Clinton used to take this country into war
in Yugoslavia was basically a bunch of false information. In fact, it
was the USA Today in July of 1999, an article that said, ``As the
allied forces take control in Kosovo, many of the figures used by the
Clinton administration and NATO were greatly exaggerated. Six hundred
thousand ethnic Albanian men were not trapped within Kosovo or buried
in mass graves, as President Clinton told a veterans group. Instead of
100,000 ethnic Albanian men feared murdered, officials now estimate
about 10,000; and we think the confirmed number was 3,000.''
Mr. Speaker, that was from USA Today in 1999.
Let us go to the Little Rock newspapers. They did an investigative
story on January 16, 2000, after the Clinton administration had made
these outrageous claims of ethnic cleansing. Why did they say these
things, Mr. Speaker? Because they wanted the Congress and they wanted
the American people to support his war to get Milosevic out of power.
Let us read some of the quotes from the Arkansas Democrat Gazette,
January 16, 2000:
``Of 500 potential grave sites, 150 have been opened and, no, we have
not found the 100,000 missing declared by President Clinton, or the
lower but probably equally preposterous figure of 10,000 advanced by
British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook and repeated by the BBC.''
This was not the Republican Party. This was the Arkansas Democrat
Gazette on January 16, 2000, saying that all the justification that
Clinton used to go to war in Yugoslavia was false, it was erroneous.
Where was the outcry by these liberal groups in this country? Where was
the outcry by the Democrats we have seen running down to the well
complaining that this President needs to be investigated? Where was the
consistency of the principled position of my colleagues on the other
side?
Let us go on, Mr. Speaker, with the Arkansas Democrat Gazette article
of January 16, 2000: ``We have more than 10,000 photographs of graves,
sites and bodies, and more than 300 hours of video, and we share all
our evidence with the war crimes tribunal. From survivors who are
giving us testimonies,
we calculate there were 6,000 Kosovo Albanians killed in the 3 months
of the war,'' not before the war, in the 3 months of the war which
President Clinton led, ``and perhaps 2,000 still in Serbian prisons.''
Listen to this, Mr. Speaker. In the previous 12 months before the war,
there were 1,000 killed. So 1,000 were killed in the previous months,
6,000 were killed in the immediate 3 months of the war itself by the
bombs of the U.S., France and Germany and the other NATO countries.
``But then the figures become a little vague. The total of dead and
missing becomes 7,000 rather than 8,000; the figure of prewar killings
rises from 1,000 to 2,000.'' Mr. Speaker, the information leading up to
President Clinton's decision to go to war in Yugoslavia is filled with
gross, not just information distorted, gross distortions of fact, lies.
Where are my colleagues? What were they saying?
Let us go on, Mr. Speaker, to some other examples.
Here is an article from the Washington Post, March 26, 2000. The
headline, Was It a Mistake? We Were Suckers for the KLA was the
headline of this article written by Christopher Layne and Benjamin
Schwartz. Let us go through some of the claims.
``Clinton's assertion,'' and I am quoting here, Mr. Speaker, ``at a
June 25, 1999, postwar news conference that the bombing was a way to
stop, quote, deliberate, systematic efforts at genocide,'' he called it
genocide in Kosovo. It goes on to say, ``was either disingenuous or
ignorant. Before the start of NATO's bombing on March 24, 1999, almost
2,000 civilians,
overwhelmingly ethnic Albanians but also Serbs, had been killed in 15
months of bitter warfare. Up to that point, there had been no genocide
or ethnic cleansing.'' The genocide and ethnic cleansing started when
Bill Clinton and Jacques Chirac started the war against Milosevic.
I will go on, Mr. Speaker, this same article, Washington Post, March
26, 2000:
``Not only did the forced removal of civilians result from the NATO
bombing, but administration claims of mass killings, made to rally
popular support for the war, turn out to have been exaggerated. Clinton
defended the intervention on the grounds that the Yugoslavs had
slaughtered tens of thousands.'' President Clinton said tens of
thousands, Mr. Speaker. It never
turned out to be true. All lies. Secretary of Defense William Cohen
termed it a, quote, horrific slaughter. The numbers we now have,
according to this article in the Post, disprove those claims. U.N.
numbers and U.S. numbers and Allied numbers say the information
provided to Congress was wrong.
Let us go on to a story in the Contra Costa Times, March 4, 2000. ``We
became involved in Kosovo after being bombarded with exorbitant claims
of ethnic cleansing, subsequently proven exaggerated and largely
committed after NATO started bombing.''
Another newspaper, Mr. Speaker. I do not remember my colleagues quoting
from these papers. I do not remember my colleagues coming to the floor
and demanding an investigation of Bill Clinton for distorting things.
Not only were these distortions, they were outright, outright lies.
We will go on with that Contra Costa story of March 4, 2000:
``As a result of false and misleading news reports, Americans were led
to believe tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of ethnic
Albanians were killed by the Serbs and buried in mass graves. Many are
still under that impression.
``According to U.N. investigators who have been scouring the area since
the bombing stopped, the total number of ethnic Albanians killed by the
Serbs is closer to 2,000, far fewer than the number of civilians killed
by NATO bombers.''
Let me repeat that statement again, Mr. Speaker. Listen to this,
please, quoted from the Contra Costa Times, March 4, 2000: ``According
to U.N. investigators who scoured the area since the bombing stopped,
the total number of ethnic Albanians killed by the Serbs is closer to
2,000, far fewer than the total number of civilians killed by NATO
bombers.''
Let us go on to some additional articles, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the
distortions of the other side are outrageous. I did not want to get up
and do this. But I, Mr. Speaker, was sick and tired of sitting in my
office listening to Members parade down here, 1-hour special orders,
talking about how they were misled. What a crock, Mr. Speaker.
First of all, if any Member of Congress was misled by President Bush's
State of the Union speech, then there has got to be something wrong
with them, because the vote to give the President the use of force was
in October of last year. What did they do, read the speech 3 months
before it occurred?
The vote did not come after the President's speech. These Members on
the other side who voted to give the President the use of force to
remove Saddam Hussein voted in the fall of last year, 3 months before
President Bush made the State of the Union speech here.
Mr. Speaker, it is all partisan rhetoric, and I am sick of it.
(...)
Mr. Speaker, I could go on and on. I did the research in 1 day. I could
have gone on and probably spent weeks and weeks getting tons of
additional information about the misstatements, about the denial of the
missiles that were sent to Pakistan, about the misleading information
leading up to the war in Kosovo. Yet we never heard one peep out of the
other body. I raise all of these facts, Mr. Speaker, only as a
defensive response to my colleagues on the other side. They have made
such outrageous claims, and I heard it in 5-minute speeches tonight. I
heard it in 1-hour Special Orders last night. I heard it right before I
spoke here tonight like somehow this is not going to go refuted and,
Mr. Speaker, I cannot do that. George Bush
had the decency and honesty to say that when he made the State of the
Union speech from that podium, perhaps that information given him, even
though today he maintains it is still factually correct, should not
have been included in the State of the Union speech. He was honest.
Where was the honesty of the previous President? Where was the other
party that was down here railing about Bush and demanding a retraction?
Where were these interest groups on the Internet demanding that we have
accountability through petition drives? Where were they? They did not
exist because they are a part of the Democrat machine that did not care
what Bill Clinton said, did not care about distortions, did not care
about out-and-out lies.
(...)
Why would my colleagues on the other side think it was okay to support
President Clinton in using military force to remove Milosevic from
power, and, by the way, they did not go to the U.N. for that vote
because France knew Russia would veto a U.N. resolution? How could they
support that military action, but then question President Bush when he
uses military action to remove the worst human rights violator since
Adolph Hitler from power just this year? And that claim of Saddam
Hussein's being the worst human rights violator since Adolph Hitler
does not come from me. It comes from the U.N. Special Rappateur for
human rights when he was comparing the human rights record of Saddam
Hussein.
(...)
Mr. Speaker, I will make this commitment to my colleagues. If this
partisan rhetoric continues on the floor, I will be back here every
night and I will refute it, and I will bring out more of the gross
Clinton lies and distortions which that side remained silent on year
after year after year. I challenge them to end this garbage. Enough is
enough, Mr. Speaker.
END
=== 2 ===
http://www.antiwar.com/malic/m-col.html
ANTIWAR, Thursday, June 12, 2003
Balkan Express
by Nebojsa Malic
Antiwar.com
Remember Kosovo?
Balkans And the Big Picture A Year Later
There has been lately a great deal of commotion in the press as to
whether Emperor Bush the Lesser and his satellites have lied to their
people about the supposed "weapons of mass destruction," which have not
been found even after six weeks of occupation and unfettered access to
all parts of Iraq. As if the notion of the Emperor deceiving his
subjects was something new!
Does anyone remember Racak, the "massacre" used to justify the
Rambouillet ultimatum and the subsequent bombing of Serbia in 1999? Or,
for that matter, the "genocide" that took place in Kosovo during the
bombing only, it didn't? Apparently not. Nor is it remembered that
even after these lies were
decisively debunked, their peddlers never suffered any adverse
consequences.
In the specific case of Kosovo, the train of lies and abuses is so long
a thick book would hardly do it justice.
What is happening in Iraq now is merely a re-run of what happened in
Kosovo. Because the Empire got away with murder, literally, launching a
clear war of aggression and occupation while spinning all sorts of
preposterous lies about it, Kosovo made Iraq possible. Never forget
that.
Even as Tony Blair was trying to lie its way out of Iraq lies, the
Guardian featured a series of articles seemingly critical of British
support for Imperial interventions, titled "Did we make it better?" In
the segment on Kosovo, writer Jon Henley creates an impression that
even as poverty, crime and violence are rampant, NATO's bombing and
invasion in 1999 and the
subsequent occupation is one hundred percent justified. Four years
after the Operation Allied Force ended, the lies behind it persist.
Reign of Terror
On June 9, 1999, representatives of the Yugoslav government and NATO
signed an armistice in a tent outside Kumanovo, Macedonia, ending
NATO's 78-day air assault. Within a week, NATO troops occupied the
Serbian province of Kosovo, and their KLA allies began a reign of
terror that has continued ever
since.
In June 1999 alone, over 250,000 Serbs, Roma, Turks, Muslims, and Jews
were forced to leave Kosovo, often with little or no property. In
addition to targeting Serbs, Albanians launched special pogroms against
the Roma ("Gypsies"), in the best tradition of their WW2 ancestors.
In July 1999, 14 Serb farmers were murdered while harvesting their
fields outside the hamlet of Staro Gracko. (An IWPR hack aptly named
Fron Nazi claimed they were victims of "Serb subterfuge," even as KFOR
statistics showed one Serb was being murdered every 24 hours.)
In October 1999, an Albanian mob murdered Bulgarian UN worker Valentin
Krumov for speaking what sounded like Serbian.
In February 2001, a bus full of Serbs who were coming to visit their
cemeteries was blown up by a remote-controlled mine. Three Albanians
arrested in connection with the bombing were released by December 2001,
and one "escaped" from the US fortified base Camp Bondsteel.
Throughout Kosovo, Serbs have retreated into towns and villages that
have become virtual concentration camps. If they venture outside those
areas, which are guarded by NATO troops and not infrequently cordoned
off with barbed wire, they risk death. The most notorious ghetto has
been Orahovac.
Other enclaves, like Gracanica and Decani monastery, are frequently
under attack.
In the north of Kosovo, local Serbs have managed to stop the Albanian
takeover on the southern side of the Ibar River, in Mitrovica. Together
with several towns in the north, this is the only remaining territory
in Kosovo not dominated by the Albanian separatists, which has made it
a target for constant attacks by Albanians, occupation authorities, and
their
cheerleaders.
Even Albanians have been targets of organized violence, as the
terrorist KLA targeted "collaborators," political rivals and witnesses
to its murderous deeds.
Albanian militants have demolished or desecrated over 110 churches,
chapels and monasteries. They have destroyed hundreds of monuments and
even libraries, renamed towns, streets, and the entire province
("Kosova") in an effort to completely eradicate any non-Albanian
presence in Kosovo.
Reign of Lies
Reports often say all of this has happened despite the presence of
30,000 NATO troops, but the truth is, it happened because of their
presence.
The vast majority of attacks were never solved. Yet it is a public
secret that most perpetrators are "former" KLA now employees of the
UN-funded "Kosovo Protection Corps," commanded by the notorious KLA
leader and former Croatian officer Agim Ceku.
In April 2002, two men were killed while trying to plant a bomb under a
railroad track used by Serbs. They belonged to the "Albanian National
Army," the newest incarnation of the KLA, declared shortly thereafter a
"terrorist organization." They were also members of the KPC!
On June 3, 1999, NATO was still attacking Yugoslavia and the Alliance
mouthpiece Jamie Shea gave his usual afternoon briefing. When a
reporter asked if there were any indications that the KLA was prepared
to be disarmed by NATO "peacekeepers," Shea responded coyly: "Well, we
will have to
wait and see, won't we?"
We didn't have to wait for long. The KLA entered Kosovo perched upon
NATO tanks, rampaged through the province unchallenged, made a big show
of handing over a handful of obsolete weapons, changed uniforms and
went legit, with a UN paycheck as an added bonus.
A Deadly Message
Four years after NATO's "humanitarian war" ended, it still claims
lives. UN police found the butchered bodies of Slobodan, Ljubinko and
Radmila Stolic [Stolich] inside their burnt-out home early on June 4
this year. It was an ax murder sloppily contrived to look like an
accident.
UN police spokesman Derek Chapelle is quoted in a June 4 Reuters report,
"The people were attacked as they were lying in bed in the middle of
the night. These people died as a result of a brutal beating, not a
fire."
At the very bottom of the article, tucked into near-oblivion, is a note
that local Serbs told the reporters the Stolic family was under
Albanian pressure to sell their house and leave Kosovo. That their
murder was meant as a message to other Serbs is abundantly clear. But
is this mentioned? No.
In fact, reporting that some 400 Serbs decided to pack up and leave
town after the murders, Agence France-Presse never once mentioned
possible perpetrators of the attack, let alone the motive. Official
American propaganda carried the same story, but focused on dismissing
Serb concerns about their security, and again, never even hinted at the
obvious identity
of the murderers. These are but the latest examples of an ongoing
pattern of denial and obfuscation, pervasive throughout the Imperial
media when it comes to reporting on Kosovo.
Murders of Serbs by Albanians were initially excused as "revenge
attacks," implying some sort of "payback" for Serb atrocities. But as
the attacks continued and atrocities accusations became increasingly
impossible to substantiate, a new euphemism was created: "ethnic
violence." This implies
that Serbs and Albanians are attacking each other. Yet no one can cite
a single case of Serbs wantonly attacking and murdering Albanians in
these past four years. Not one! When Albanians suffer violent deaths in
Kosovo these days, it is at the hands of other Albanians members of
crime syndicates or "former" KLA (often one and the same).
Spin the Murder
The Stolic family was murdered again this time metaphorically when
the politicians took the stage. UN Viceroy Michael Steiner claimed the
Obilic murders were "clearly aimed at stopping reconciliation a
perfidious crime which was directed against multi-ethnicity in Kosovo."
What reconciliation?
What multi-ethnicity? What planet does Steiner live on?
Kosovo Albanian "prime minister" Bayram Rexhepi issued a statement
expressing condolences to the Stolic family (!) and termed the murders
a "criminal act directed against the stability, peace, and prosperity
of Kosovo and its future."
But of course! Why hasn't anyone thought of this before? All these
brutal murders, abductions and massacres are really a sinister plot to
make the innocent, victimized Kosovo Albanians look bad and ruin their
future of peace, prosperity, multi-ethnic democracy and independence!
Why, the dastardly Serbs must have massacred themselves!
Official Serbian news agency cites an interview UNMIK spokesman Simon
Haselock gave BBC radio, where he is quoted as saying that "no police
force in the world is capable of protecting every family and every
individual" and that the security situation in Kosovo has lately
"improved dramatically."
Like the rest of NATO apologists to be fair, this is actually his job
Haselock uses the diminishing frequency of attacks to claim
improvement. But that attacks on Serbs now happen once a month instead
of once a day has largely been a function of the diminishing number of
Serbs, not the diminishing desire of Albanian segregationists to attack
them.
The platitudes of Steiner and Rexhepi and Haselock's tautological
nonsense are trying to divert attention from the realities of the
occupation. Kosovo Serbs and other ethnic groups are targets of an
organized, systematic Albanian campaign of ethnic cleansing, aimed at
creating an ethnically
pure, independent Albanian Kosovo. Sounds familiar? That's because this
was an accusation leveled at the victims, the Serbs, by the Albanians
and the Empire in an effort to preclude their defense.
Good Riddance
On the eve of the murders in Obilic, Viceroy Steiner announced he would
be quitting the job at the end of June. Kosovo Serbs should bid him
good riddance. From his first act in office forging a unified
Albanian political front to his most recent prevarications, Steiner
has pushed the occupied province on the road to ethnically cleansed
independence.
However welcome his departure may be, one must remember that Steiner
was never the real problem.
Conceived, established and perpetuated by violence, the occupation of
Kosovo is itself the greatest enemy of peace, liberty and prosperity in
the southern Balkans.
Bloody Hands
Many opponents of the Kosovo war supported George W. Bush in 2000,
fooled by the neocons' loud opposition to the bombing, which was
nothing more than opportunistic posturing, into believing Kosovo was
"Clinton's war." But
Bush the Lesser has made no changes to Clinton's policy in Kosovo or
anywhere in the Balkans, for that matter. And why would he? It was
Kosovo that made Iraq possible: both illegal, illegitimate wars
resulting in equally illegal and illegitimate occupations, not to
mention the toll in destroyed human lives and property, or the
destruction of social and cultural heritage.
Senator Joseph Lieberman, who would like to be Emperor after Bush, said
in 1999 that the blatantly fascist KLA was "fighting for American
values."
Lieberman came close to being elected vice-president in 2000, and this
statement was never held against him. There have been several proposed
resolutions in the Congress supporting the independence of Albanized
Kosovo, but not one not one! demanding an end to the occupation.
Today, Kosovo is an issue almost forgotten in the American political
discourse, even
though the United States is chiefly responsible for the current state
of affairs in that Serbian province. Empire's hands are drenched with
blood of the massacred and tears of the dispossessed.
It is not surprising that those who should be ashamed of their actions
have forgotten Kosovo. But those who care about honor, justice and
liberty have every reason to remember.