>"Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture"
>Vol. 24, No. 12, December 2000 - pp. 28-29
>
>SIGNS OF THE TIMES
>"All the News Unfit to Print"
>
>As Slobodan Milosevic was fighting for his political life in Belgrade,
>Secretary of State Albright condemed him and expressed support for his
>opposition - while at the same time acting as if the State Department would
>do all in its power to help Milosevic survive. "Kostunica not Clinton
>administration's man," reported UPI's Martin Sieff on September 25, a day
>after the Yugoslav electio. The former professor is "far from welcome to
>the Clinton administration":
>
>"U.S. leaders -- Republican and Democrat alike - are now used to attacking
>Milosevic as, if not a Hitler, then at least a Saddam Hussein figure. They
>have made clear they hope that a pro-American opposition candidate will
>eventually succeed him and agreed to U.S.-mediated solutions to Bosnia and
>Kosovo. But Kostunica is not pro-American. He is as virulent a critic of
>recent U.S. policies as Milosevic himself. And he has said he is determined
>to not to give an inch on the Kosovo issue. . . From the Clinton
>administration's point of view, the trouble with Kostunica is precisely
>that he does appear to accurately express the democratic aspirations of the
>Serbian people. The only trouble is that they are not the aspirations that
>the Clinton administration would like them to be."
>
>Sieff's assessment was supported by a stream of otherwise inexplicable
>official "leaks" from Washington about the millions of dollars supposedly
>given by the U.S. government to the opposition in Serbia. The opening shot
>came on September 19, just five days before the election, in a front-page
>story in The Washington Post that seemed to reinforce Milosevic's
>contention that the opposition was in the pay of the Western powers. The
>story was swiftly translated into Serbian and carried by the
>Milosevic-controlled media. Opposition supporters were outraged. As Reuters
>reported from Belgrade on September 26,
>
>"We do not need their help. Statements like this are not helping the
>opposition at all," said Gordana, a 35-year-old civil engineer. "If they
>want Milosevic to leave, they should keep quiet," she said. "They should
>remember that although the majority of citizens are against Milosevic, we
>have not forgotten that they bombed us." "I am begging some unhinged world
>leaders to spare us any counterproductive help because so far they have
>made many promises and done many things which have only caused the
>suffering of our people," said Momcilo Perisic, leader of the opposition
>Movement for Democratic Serbia.
>
>One of the three leading French dailies, "Liberation," reported on
>September 23 that American "confessions" of covert support to the
>opposition were a boon to Milosevic, who constantly accused his political
>opponents of being a fifth column:
>
>"On that pretext he represses the unfriendly media or organizations. All
>admittedly were flooded of European and American money. 'Faxes, surveys,
>polls, plane tickets, photocopiers, seminars abroad, media... All that is
>paid by us, and back-up stations in Hungary,' testifies a former employee
>to the State Department, who had worked on the assistance to the Balkans. .
>."
>
>On September 29, as the post-election struggle in Belgrade intensified,
>American diplomats in Budapest provided the Associated Press with more
>pro-Milosevic ammunition.As the AP's George Jahn reported from the
>Hungarian capital.
>
>"The United States funneled $35 million to opponents of Yugoslav President
>Slobodan Milosevic (news - web sites) in little more than a year as part of
>efforts to weaken him that culminated in his apparent electoral defeat. The
>money was part of a long-term Western effort to strengthen anti-Milosevic
>forces over the past decade U.S. diplomats in the region say much of the
>American money was spent on computers for human rights groups, transmitters
>for independent B2-92 radio and other non-governmental radio stations and
>other basics for student organizations and labor unions, such as fax
>machines and telephones. The funds even paid for a rock band that played at
>events to mobilize voters ahead of the Sept. 24 elections More money
>appears to be on the way. The House of Representatives passed a bill Monday
>authorizing $60 million for further pro-democracy activities in Serbia."
>
>In fact, that bill - HR 1064 - was designed to continue the sanctions
>regardless of whether Milosevic fell from power. Under HR 1064, the
>sanctions are to be kept in place until Milosevic's successor complies with
>every demand from Washington, including the delivery of all indicted war
>criminals to The Hague. The intent of the bill was apparent from the
>comments by Sen. Joseph Biden (D-DE), when he introduced it:
>
>"To be blunt: respect for Dayton and cooperation with The Hague Tribunal
>must be litmus tests for any democratic government in Serbia. [If] Mr.
>Kostunica comes to power and thinks that his undeniable and praiseworthy
>democratic credentials will enable him to pursue an aggressive Serbian
>nationalist policy with a kinder face, then we must disabuse him of this
>notion Should our West European allies choose to embrace a post-Milosevic,
>democratically elected, but ultra-nationalistic Serbia, then I would say to
>them good luck...."
>
>When Russian President Vladimir Putin invited both Milosevic and Kostunica
>to Moscow on October 2, the Associated Press immediately reported State
>Department's demand that Russia turn over Milosevic to the Hague tribunal
>upon his arrival in Moscow, quoting State Department spokesman Philip
>Reeker:
>
>"There's an indictment that calls for any country to hand him over to The
>Hague. We expect the indictment to be followed," he said. Asked how Putin's
>offer to mediate could take shape if the moment Milosevic showed up he
>would face extradition to the Hague, Reeker said: "That's a question for
>Putin and Milosevic to discuss. We believe (Milosevic) should be out of
>power, out of Serbia and in The Hague to face justice. Period."
>
>Dr. Kostunica responded by accusing the United States of placing the
>destiny of one man ahead of the fate of an entire nation. Many in the
>Russian media were even more blunt. "Washington has thereby done Mr.
>Milosevic one more service: He now has a pretext for not traveling to
>Moscow," commented the pro-Western Kommersant on October 4.
>
>Ultimately, the subterfuge didn't work: The people of Serbia took matters
>into their own hands and threw Milosevic out. Within days, however, Mrs.
>Albright, Robin Cook, and other supporters of last year's NATO bombing
>started claiming credit for Milosevic's downfall. As Simon Jenkins wrote in
>The Times of London (October 7), it was not the bombing, the sanctions, and
>the posturing of NATO politicians that got rid of Milosevic; in fact, his
>fall was impeded by Western intervention:
>
>"[O]utsiders such as [British Foreign Secretary] Mr Cook should stop
>rewriting history to their own gain. They did not topple Mr Milosevic. They
>did not bomb democracy into the last Communist dictatorship in Europe. They
>merely blocked the Danube and sent Serb politics back to the Dark Ages of
>autocracy. It was not sanctions that induced the army to switch sides;
>generals did well from the black market. The fall of Mr Milosevic began
>with an election that he called and then denied, spurring the electors to
>demand that the army respect their decision and protect their sovereignty.
>For that, Yugoslavia's democracy deserves the credit, not Nato's Tomahawk
>missiles."
>
>This assessment was echoed by the BBC's John Simpson, writing in The Sunday
>Telegraph on October 8:
>
>"The kind of people who made last Thursday's revolution [were] depressed in
>equal measure by the careless savagery of the Nato bombing and the sheer
>nastiness of the Milosevic regime."
>
>While Serbia's misery has abated, the less fortunate people of Iraq
>continue to be squeezed between the Western hammer and their ruler's anvil.
>We now learn from Scottish sources that their experience of "careless
>savagery" included the deliberate poisoning of Iraq's water supplies by the
>allies during the Gulf War. According to The Sunday Herald (September 17):
>
>"The US-led allied forces deliberately destroyed Iraq's water supply during
>the Gulf War - flagrantly breaking the Geneva Convention and causing
>thousands of civilian deaths. Since the war ended in 1991 the allied
>nations have made sure than any attempts to make contaminated water safe
>have been thwarted Professor Thomas J Nagy, Professor of Expert Systems at
>George Washington University with a doctoral fellowship in public health,
>told the Sunday Herald: "Those who saw nothing wrong in producing [this
>plan], those who ordered its production and those who knew about it and
>have remained silent for ten years would seem to be in violation of Federal
>Statute and perhaps have even conspired to commit genocide."
>
>Professor Nagy obtained a minutely detailed seven-page document prepared by
>the US Defense Intelligence Agency. Entitled "Iraq Water Treatment
>Vulnerabilities," it was issued the day after the war started and
>circulated to all major allied command officers. The document reported that
>Iraq had gone to great trouble to provide a supply of clean water to its
>population, but it had to depend on importing specialized equipment and
>purification chemicals. The report then stated:
>
>"Failing to secure supplies will result in a shortage of pure drinking
>water for much of the population. This could lead to increased incidents,
>if not epidemics, of disease and certain pure-water dependent industries
>becoming incapacitated Full degradation of the water treatment system
>probably will take at least another six months."
>
>According to The Sunday Herald, Iraq's eight multi-purpose dams had been
>repeatedly hit during the Gulf War, smashing the infrastructure for flood
>control, municipal and industrial water storage, irrigation, and
>hydroelectric power. Four of Iraq's seven major pumping stations were
>destroyed, as were 31 municipal water and sewerage facilities - 20 of them
>in Baghdad, resulting in sewage pouring into the Tigris. Water purification
>plants were incapacitated throughout Iraq. Thousands of civilians died as a
>result of those attacks. The paper concluded:
>
>Water-borne diseases in Iraq today are both endemic and epidemic. They
>include typhoid, dysentery, hepatitis, cholera and polio (which had
>previously been eradicated), along with a litany of others Chlorine and
>essential equipment parts needed to repair and clear the water system have
>been banned from entering the country under the UN "hold" system.
>
>The Iraqis may derive some comfort from the knowledge that the allied
>governments are equally secretive when it comes to the suffering of their
>own people. The Sunday Times reported on September 3 that "tens of
>thousands" of British and American soldiers are dying from exposure to
>radiation from depleted uranium (DU) shells fired during the Gulf war:
>
>The findings will undermine the British and American governments' claims
>that Gulf war syndrome does not exist and intensify pressure from veterans
>on both sides of the Atlantic for compensation Once inside the body, DU
>causes a slow death from cancers, irreversible kidney damage or wastage
>from immune deficiency disorders. In the UK more than 400 veterans are
>estimated to have died from "Gulf war syndrome."
>Vol. 24, No. 12, December 2000 - pp. 28-29
>
>SIGNS OF THE TIMES
>"All the News Unfit to Print"
>
>As Slobodan Milosevic was fighting for his political life in Belgrade,
>Secretary of State Albright condemed him and expressed support for his
>opposition - while at the same time acting as if the State Department would
>do all in its power to help Milosevic survive. "Kostunica not Clinton
>administration's man," reported UPI's Martin Sieff on September 25, a day
>after the Yugoslav electio. The former professor is "far from welcome to
>the Clinton administration":
>
>"U.S. leaders -- Republican and Democrat alike - are now used to attacking
>Milosevic as, if not a Hitler, then at least a Saddam Hussein figure. They
>have made clear they hope that a pro-American opposition candidate will
>eventually succeed him and agreed to U.S.-mediated solutions to Bosnia and
>Kosovo. But Kostunica is not pro-American. He is as virulent a critic of
>recent U.S. policies as Milosevic himself. And he has said he is determined
>to not to give an inch on the Kosovo issue. . . From the Clinton
>administration's point of view, the trouble with Kostunica is precisely
>that he does appear to accurately express the democratic aspirations of the
>Serbian people. The only trouble is that they are not the aspirations that
>the Clinton administration would like them to be."
>
>Sieff's assessment was supported by a stream of otherwise inexplicable
>official "leaks" from Washington about the millions of dollars supposedly
>given by the U.S. government to the opposition in Serbia. The opening shot
>came on September 19, just five days before the election, in a front-page
>story in The Washington Post that seemed to reinforce Milosevic's
>contention that the opposition was in the pay of the Western powers. The
>story was swiftly translated into Serbian and carried by the
>Milosevic-controlled media. Opposition supporters were outraged. As Reuters
>reported from Belgrade on September 26,
>
>"We do not need their help. Statements like this are not helping the
>opposition at all," said Gordana, a 35-year-old civil engineer. "If they
>want Milosevic to leave, they should keep quiet," she said. "They should
>remember that although the majority of citizens are against Milosevic, we
>have not forgotten that they bombed us." "I am begging some unhinged world
>leaders to spare us any counterproductive help because so far they have
>made many promises and done many things which have only caused the
>suffering of our people," said Momcilo Perisic, leader of the opposition
>Movement for Democratic Serbia.
>
>One of the three leading French dailies, "Liberation," reported on
>September 23 that American "confessions" of covert support to the
>opposition were a boon to Milosevic, who constantly accused his political
>opponents of being a fifth column:
>
>"On that pretext he represses the unfriendly media or organizations. All
>admittedly were flooded of European and American money. 'Faxes, surveys,
>polls, plane tickets, photocopiers, seminars abroad, media... All that is
>paid by us, and back-up stations in Hungary,' testifies a former employee
>to the State Department, who had worked on the assistance to the Balkans. .
>."
>
>On September 29, as the post-election struggle in Belgrade intensified,
>American diplomats in Budapest provided the Associated Press with more
>pro-Milosevic ammunition.As the AP's George Jahn reported from the
>Hungarian capital.
>
>"The United States funneled $35 million to opponents of Yugoslav President
>Slobodan Milosevic (news - web sites) in little more than a year as part of
>efforts to weaken him that culminated in his apparent electoral defeat. The
>money was part of a long-term Western effort to strengthen anti-Milosevic
>forces over the past decade U.S. diplomats in the region say much of the
>American money was spent on computers for human rights groups, transmitters
>for independent B2-92 radio and other non-governmental radio stations and
>other basics for student organizations and labor unions, such as fax
>machines and telephones. The funds even paid for a rock band that played at
>events to mobilize voters ahead of the Sept. 24 elections More money
>appears to be on the way. The House of Representatives passed a bill Monday
>authorizing $60 million for further pro-democracy activities in Serbia."
>
>In fact, that bill - HR 1064 - was designed to continue the sanctions
>regardless of whether Milosevic fell from power. Under HR 1064, the
>sanctions are to be kept in place until Milosevic's successor complies with
>every demand from Washington, including the delivery of all indicted war
>criminals to The Hague. The intent of the bill was apparent from the
>comments by Sen. Joseph Biden (D-DE), when he introduced it:
>
>"To be blunt: respect for Dayton and cooperation with The Hague Tribunal
>must be litmus tests for any democratic government in Serbia. [If] Mr.
>Kostunica comes to power and thinks that his undeniable and praiseworthy
>democratic credentials will enable him to pursue an aggressive Serbian
>nationalist policy with a kinder face, then we must disabuse him of this
>notion Should our West European allies choose to embrace a post-Milosevic,
>democratically elected, but ultra-nationalistic Serbia, then I would say to
>them good luck...."
>
>When Russian President Vladimir Putin invited both Milosevic and Kostunica
>to Moscow on October 2, the Associated Press immediately reported State
>Department's demand that Russia turn over Milosevic to the Hague tribunal
>upon his arrival in Moscow, quoting State Department spokesman Philip
>Reeker:
>
>"There's an indictment that calls for any country to hand him over to The
>Hague. We expect the indictment to be followed," he said. Asked how Putin's
>offer to mediate could take shape if the moment Milosevic showed up he
>would face extradition to the Hague, Reeker said: "That's a question for
>Putin and Milosevic to discuss. We believe (Milosevic) should be out of
>power, out of Serbia and in The Hague to face justice. Period."
>
>Dr. Kostunica responded by accusing the United States of placing the
>destiny of one man ahead of the fate of an entire nation. Many in the
>Russian media were even more blunt. "Washington has thereby done Mr.
>Milosevic one more service: He now has a pretext for not traveling to
>Moscow," commented the pro-Western Kommersant on October 4.
>
>Ultimately, the subterfuge didn't work: The people of Serbia took matters
>into their own hands and threw Milosevic out. Within days, however, Mrs.
>Albright, Robin Cook, and other supporters of last year's NATO bombing
>started claiming credit for Milosevic's downfall. As Simon Jenkins wrote in
>The Times of London (October 7), it was not the bombing, the sanctions, and
>the posturing of NATO politicians that got rid of Milosevic; in fact, his
>fall was impeded by Western intervention:
>
>"[O]utsiders such as [British Foreign Secretary] Mr Cook should stop
>rewriting history to their own gain. They did not topple Mr Milosevic. They
>did not bomb democracy into the last Communist dictatorship in Europe. They
>merely blocked the Danube and sent Serb politics back to the Dark Ages of
>autocracy. It was not sanctions that induced the army to switch sides;
>generals did well from the black market. The fall of Mr Milosevic began
>with an election that he called and then denied, spurring the electors to
>demand that the army respect their decision and protect their sovereignty.
>For that, Yugoslavia's democracy deserves the credit, not Nato's Tomahawk
>missiles."
>
>This assessment was echoed by the BBC's John Simpson, writing in The Sunday
>Telegraph on October 8:
>
>"The kind of people who made last Thursday's revolution [were] depressed in
>equal measure by the careless savagery of the Nato bombing and the sheer
>nastiness of the Milosevic regime."
>
>While Serbia's misery has abated, the less fortunate people of Iraq
>continue to be squeezed between the Western hammer and their ruler's anvil.
>We now learn from Scottish sources that their experience of "careless
>savagery" included the deliberate poisoning of Iraq's water supplies by the
>allies during the Gulf War. According to The Sunday Herald (September 17):
>
>"The US-led allied forces deliberately destroyed Iraq's water supply during
>the Gulf War - flagrantly breaking the Geneva Convention and causing
>thousands of civilian deaths. Since the war ended in 1991 the allied
>nations have made sure than any attempts to make contaminated water safe
>have been thwarted Professor Thomas J Nagy, Professor of Expert Systems at
>George Washington University with a doctoral fellowship in public health,
>told the Sunday Herald: "Those who saw nothing wrong in producing [this
>plan], those who ordered its production and those who knew about it and
>have remained silent for ten years would seem to be in violation of Federal
>Statute and perhaps have even conspired to commit genocide."
>
>Professor Nagy obtained a minutely detailed seven-page document prepared by
>the US Defense Intelligence Agency. Entitled "Iraq Water Treatment
>Vulnerabilities," it was issued the day after the war started and
>circulated to all major allied command officers. The document reported that
>Iraq had gone to great trouble to provide a supply of clean water to its
>population, but it had to depend on importing specialized equipment and
>purification chemicals. The report then stated:
>
>"Failing to secure supplies will result in a shortage of pure drinking
>water for much of the population. This could lead to increased incidents,
>if not epidemics, of disease and certain pure-water dependent industries
>becoming incapacitated Full degradation of the water treatment system
>probably will take at least another six months."
>
>According to The Sunday Herald, Iraq's eight multi-purpose dams had been
>repeatedly hit during the Gulf War, smashing the infrastructure for flood
>control, municipal and industrial water storage, irrigation, and
>hydroelectric power. Four of Iraq's seven major pumping stations were
>destroyed, as were 31 municipal water and sewerage facilities - 20 of them
>in Baghdad, resulting in sewage pouring into the Tigris. Water purification
>plants were incapacitated throughout Iraq. Thousands of civilians died as a
>result of those attacks. The paper concluded:
>
>Water-borne diseases in Iraq today are both endemic and epidemic. They
>include typhoid, dysentery, hepatitis, cholera and polio (which had
>previously been eradicated), along with a litany of others Chlorine and
>essential equipment parts needed to repair and clear the water system have
>been banned from entering the country under the UN "hold" system.
>
>The Iraqis may derive some comfort from the knowledge that the allied
>governments are equally secretive when it comes to the suffering of their
>own people. The Sunday Times reported on September 3 that "tens of
>thousands" of British and American soldiers are dying from exposure to
>radiation from depleted uranium (DU) shells fired during the Gulf war:
>
>The findings will undermine the British and American governments' claims
>that Gulf war syndrome does not exist and intensify pressure from veterans
>on both sides of the Atlantic for compensation Once inside the body, DU
>causes a slow death from cancers, irreversible kidney damage or wastage
>from immune deficiency disorders. In the UK more than 400 veterans are
>estimated to have died from "Gulf war syndrome."