U.S. Desertions, Letter to Maclean's, Other Balkan stories (Mar 24, 2000)

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TiM GW Bulletin 2000/3-4

Mar. 24, 2000

A Letter to MacLean's Magazine in Canada: Soap Laced with Blood...

Kosovo-bound U.S. Troops Desert Enmasse?

Drugs and Prostitution at KFOR Base, and Other Kosovo Stories; Putin's Stunt

Standstill at the “Bondstill:” Drugs and Prostitution Blossom within KFOR

BELGRADE, Mar. 19 – Serbia’s largest daily, the state-controlled Politika, reported in its Mar. 19 edition that a whole platoon of the U.S. Marines had refused to board a transport plane at the Skopje (Macedonia) airport, destined for the new U.S. “Fort Bondstill” base in Urosevac (Kosovo).

Young U.S. soldiers and their commanders are more often getting to "come face to face with their conscience" during the controversial United Nations' KFOR mission in Kosovo, according to the sources that have “leaked” this story to Politika.

Instead of joining their troops within the KFOR, the Petrovac airport U.S. "rebels" are already getting rigorous military therapy, and an extra education on patriotism and the American national interests in this part of the world, according to Politika. Instead of the "insubordinate" platoon, more than three hundred "acceptable", specially trained U.S. Marines from Macedonia have been brought in to Kosovo as replacements.

The atmosphere within the "Fort Bondstill" (the largest American military base built after the Vietnam War), also attests as to a drop of morale among the American soldiers, the Politika report says. Even though the special team of military strategists and Pentagon information officers has done its best to create "a Kosovo and Metohija Disneyland" for the American troops, investing three hundred million dollars in the building of the base, boredom within the giant barracks encircled by fourteen kilometers (about nine miles) of barbed wire really makes it "a muddy Las Vegas", according to the Belgrade daily.

Boredom breeds unrest; unrest breeds anxiety; anxiety breeds sin… Enter the drugs and prostitution, both made easily available by the Kosovo Albanian thugs, who are circling the Bondstill base like vulchures, ready to pray on the weakness of the American “inmates,” according to the Politika news story. Here’s an excerpt from it:

“The soldiers only leave the base for patrol duties, equipped like NHL league hockey players, in equipment weighing fifteen kilograms. Three things are strictly forbidden to the American soldiers - the consumption of alcoholic drinks, sex and carrying loaded weapons.

There is no alcohol in Bondstill, but there is a pretty good market for condoms. In fact, they are selling like hot cakes. The soldiers admit that "sex is only forbidden if you get caught".

Those who know the conditions in this part of Kosovo and Metohija see the need for condoms as linked with the "outside world" beyond the walls of the "Hollywood" fort, where other soldiers are on the go - notably members of the ethnic Albanian mob who deal both in heroin and white slavery - young Albanian girls, sometimes no more than ten years old. They are being abducted from their homes and recruited as prostitutes (just as was the case during the war – see S99-90, Day 64, Item 4, May 26, for example). KFOR's tens of thousands of soldiers, with their wonderful hard currency bills, is an ideal opportunity for the Albanian pimps’ "business".

“British headquarters were forced to speak up about it when seven members of the British paratroopers' elite squad, who have already served in Kosovo and Metohija, were expelled from the British Army as junkies. During a routine narco-test, seven "naughty guys" were discovered to have been using heavy narcotics - heroin, LSD and cocaine.

It was a great humiliation for this British elite squad, the British press pointed out. Drug-addiction among the paratroopers leads to questions of their effectiveness of work within the KFOR, since it has long been known that the ethnic Albanians of Kosovo and Metohija are Europe's greatest drug-traffickers.

According to information coming from London and taking on more and more the form of the government's official attitude, Kosovo and Metohija have become a true paradise for junkies and drug-traffickers - so the nearly idyllic relationship between junkies-members of the UN military mission and the drug-dealers of Kosovo and Metohija was established.

Most of the KFOR soldiers are daily witnesses of these dirty dealings in which - the British press suggests - the officers, greedy for the Kosovo and Metohija terrorists' dollars, are also involved.”

WASHINGTON, Mar. 2 – The following is a letter that an enlisted U.S. soldier sent to the World News Daily on March 2. It needs no further elaboration, especially in light of the above moral deterioration of the U.S. armed forces deployed in Kosovo:

“(Jon) Dougherty (a WND correspondent) is the man. I wish the president and Congress would listen to him. Right now, I'm an enlisted soldier in the Army. Dougherty listed almost every reason why many of my friends and I are not going to reenlist in the Army. I think we have a good chance of getting our ass kicked in the next major war the U.S. gets involved in. God forbid it's a two-front war.

I am so sick of the Army's sensitivity training. We just spent an hour the other day being briefed on the Army's new policy toward homosexuals (on Valentine's Day of all days). Sensitivity training is getting out of control. Basic Training is being increased from 10 weeks to about 13 weeks to include more sensitivity bull (Army Core Values, Consideration of Others, and Equal Opportunity training).

When I went through Basic Training in April 1998, (when Basic was only eight weeks) we had, honest to God, almost three weeks of briefings and classes on being sensitive. We spent less than two weeks on the M-16 range. Two weeks is not enough time to train a soldier how to become a killing machine with a weapon. I thought we could have used another two weeks on the range. I might not be able to fire expert on an M-16, but I can sure tell you how to be sensitive and considerate toward the feelings of others.

Basic Training used to be tough. I was embarrassed when I graduated. "Is that it?" I asked my drill sergeant. Basic Training is so easy now anyone can get through it.

The coed training is a joke. Females were not held to the same standards that the males were. They could run around obstacles on the obstacle course if they couldn't climb the rope or if "it was too scary." The training barracks were bordellos at night after the drill sergeants went home. I hope the Marine Corps never makes the mistake of combining men and women for training.

I think the only way for the policymakers of our armed forces to see the errors of their ways is going to be when we lose the next war with a China or Russia. I wonder how many soldiers, marines, airmen and sailors will pay the ultimate price because we have an under-funded, under-manned, under-trained, yet sensitive and considerate fighting force.

TiM Ed.: True, it is madness. True, it will cost lives. True, we (Americans) are going to get our asses kicked in the next real war.

But also true… All these “sensitive American warriors” are likely to vote for Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, John McCain or any other arcane “liberal” politician who gave them a chance to frolic at “Fort Hollywood-Bondstill” in Kosovo, or any other drug- or prostitution-infested camps around the U.S. and the world. Which is why, of course, they signed up in the first place.

Sorry, Spc. Kelly, that no one told you before you had signed up for a losing cause that the “Wag the Dog” movie is an American reality today. Let us pray…

BELGRADE, Mar. 17 – A unique collection of the NATO war memorabilia opened in Belgrade on Friday, Mar. 17, as a prized exhibit in the Yugoslav Army's airspace museum, the Associated Press reported on Mar. 18. The museum director unveiled several new pieces to mark the March 24 anniversary of NATO's air bombardment of this Balkan nation.

Among the new pieces were the very first Tomahawk missile shot down by the Yugoslav air defense the day the campaign began, and a highly sophisticated AGM 154, which when dropped from an aircraft releases cluster bombs.

The 1,500 NATO artifacts collected or donated from across the country take up half the ground floor of the three-story domed building.

Museum Director Cedomir Janjic said more pieces were being polished and prepared for the exhibit in a new wing to be dedicated to the air strikes.

"It is truly amazing how many aircraft and drones were downed with the relatively modest and primitive equipment" of the Yugoslav army, Minister for Science and Development Cedomir Mirkovic said Friday.

The downing of the F-117A was the first known loss of a stealth aircraft in combat. The pilot ejected and was later rescued by U.S. troops. Next to the stealth lay the remains of an F-16 fighter like a giant bird's wing. It was hit by an SA-3 surface-to-air missile. Its tailpiece, chipped and charred around the edges, still brandished a huge white painted Night Hawk, the AP report said.

Mirkovic refuted Western claims that Yugoslav air defense downed only the two planes. "We shall prove we have more," he said, without elaborating. During the bombing, the then-chief of the Yugoslav army, Gen. Dragoljub Ojdanic, claimed 61 NATO aircraft had been downed.

A few feet away, a Predator drone hung suspended from the ceiling like a large model plane. It was one of seven pilotless NATO drones on display. Six more had yet to be recovered from unexplored sites, Janjic said.

LONDON, Mar. 20 – Phillip Knightley changed our view of war and the media with his book The First Casualty, the London-based Observer reported on Mar. 20. To mark its updating, he argues that the war correspondent has an easy choice: become part of the military's propaganda machine – or quit.

When groups of old war correspondents gather in a bar - as they have been known to do - they shed a nostalgic tear for Vietnam, the days when they were heroes, famous and important. [...]

Now fast-forward 25 years to Kosovo in March last year. More correspondents than ever were all set to cover the conflict - an astonishing 2,700 media people accompanied the NATO forces when they entered the province at the end of the bombing campaign, according to the Observer. Here is an excerpt from that story:

“Official arrangements for them were awe-inspiring. There was a daily briefing t Nato's headquarters in Brussels, a series of briefings at the Ministry of Defence in London, media meetings at the Pentagon, press conferences at the White House and statement after statement from President Clinton, Prime Minister Blair, and numerous other Allied ministers. Nato generals lined up to be interviewed and armchair strategists jostled for air time. There were even Allied correspondents in the enemy capital, Belgrade, and Serbian journalists attended Nato briefings in Brussels.[…]

"We were given lots of material but no information," says Sky war correspondent Jake Lynch. British journalist Peter Dunn wrote that it was "the first international conflict fought by press officers."

General Sir Michael Rose, former commander of the UN force in Bosnia, said that at Nato "rhetoric has taken over from reality".

What had changed between Vietnam and Kosovo? Basically, the military has won its 150-year battle with war correspondents: journalists want to tell the public everything; the military's attitude is: "Tell them nothing till the war's over, then tell them who won."

Defeated by the military, governments and spin doctors, war correspondents now face an agonising choice. If they can no longer be heroes, do they want to continue as propagandists and myth makers, subservient to those who wage the wars? [...]

So by the time Kosovo came around, the lies, manipulation, news management, propaganda, spin, distortion, omission, slant and gullibility involved in trying to report the conflict brought war correspondents to the current crisis point in their short history. Their role has never been more insecure. […]

One difficulty is that the media have little or no memory. War correspondents have short working lives and there is no tradition or means for passing on their knowledge and experience. The military, on the other hand, is an institution and goes on forever. The military learned a lot from Vietnam and these days plans its media strategy with as much attention as its military strategy.

The Pentagon and the MoD have manuals, updated after every war, which serve to guide the way they will manage the media - as does every other major military power. What media organisation has anything similar?

All these military manuals follow basic principles - appear open, transparent and eager to help; never go in for summary repression or direct control; nullify rather than conceal undesirable news; control emphasis rather than facts; balance bad news with good; and lie directly only when certain that the lie will not be found out during the course of the war.

We are learning only now what lies we were told and what secrets were kept from us during the war in Kosovo. We were not told that the CIA helped train the Kosovo Liberation Army before the bombing began. We were not told that the KLA realised its attacks on Serb policemen would bring retaliation on ethnic Albanian civilians but it went ahead anyway because it hoped that Serbian atrocities would bring in the west - as they did.

We did not realise at the time that Nato was lying when it said it did not deliberately attack civilian targets. It was not until June that Nato's commander, General Wesley Clark, admitted to the BBC's Mark Urban that Nato planes were targeting "phase 3" [civilian] targets.

We believed Nato when it said that after the war it would disarm and disband the KLA. But Jonathan Dimbleby wrote in January that the KLA remained in control of the streets, Nato had delivered Kosovo from one catastrophe straight into another and western leaders had stayed shockingly silent about outrages taking place there. "So much for moral crusades," said Dimbleby.

We believed Nato when it said it was systematically destroying the Serbian army in Kosovo, only to learn after the war that this was simply not so. We believed the figures the State Department and Pentagon released for the number of ethnic Albanians murdered by Serbs, only to see them come tumbling down - 500,000, then 100,000, then 10,000 - when Nato entered Kosovo and sufficient mass graves failed to materialise.

True, the nature of the war played into the military's hands in keeping the true face of battle from the public. It was fought entirely from the air by means of a high-altitude bombing campaign, so no one - except the victims - really knew what was happening on the ground. [...]

According to veteran correspondent Robert Fisk, one of the few heroes left, this lack of access to the war produced two types of journalists – the "frothers" who had "convinced themselves of the justice of the war and the wickedness of the other side" - and the "sheep" who blindly followed Nato's word. […]

MOSCOW, Mar. 21 – Russia has threatened a NATO confrontation, claiming the KFOR Kosovo peacekeepers are covering up for ethnic cleansing of the Serbs, another World Net Daily report by Toby Westerman asserted on Mar. 21.

An armed confrontation is possible between Russian and NATO forces in Kosovo, according to Russian Defense Minister Gen. Igor Sergeyev, the story said. In an address to a special assembly of the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian legislature, the Russian Defense Minister said that a stand-off between Russian and NATO forces could develop in two to three months on the border between Kosovo and Serbia. Sergeyev stated that Russia was attempting to avert such a confrontation.

The Kosovo-Serb border has seen an increasing number of armed conflicts between Serbs and ethnic Albanians crossing into Serbia from Kosovo. Moscow blames NATO for allowing the clashes, as well as for not protecting Serbs in Kosovo itself.

At the same Duma special session -- which was heard via the "Voice of Russia" World Service Short Wave Radio Broadcast -- Russian Foreign Minister, Igor Ivanov, declared the political situation in Kosovo to be "very alarming." He accused Albanian extremists of turning Kosovo into a center for drug dealing. Ivanov found it "even more alarming" that militant Albanians are using NATO peacekeepers as a "cover" for a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Serb population.

BRUSSELS, Mar. 22 – NATO has assembled a large force of naval ships and submarines in the Barents Sea north of Russia and Scandinavia, compromising relations with Moscow, a Russian vice admiral was quoted as saying, according to an Agence France Presse Mar. 22 report.

According to vice admiral Mikhail Motsak, at least 10 NATO submarines are patrolling in the arctic Barents Sea, while some 150 war ships were also in the polar region, the Interfax news agency reported. "This situation is far from improving relations between Russia and NATO," Motsak said.

Relations between Russia and NATO were frozen by Moscow after NATO air strikes on Yugoslavia last spring. But the two sides have begun renewing normal ties, as highlighted by NATO Secretary General George Robertson's visit to Moscow last month.

GROZNY, Mar. 20 – Can you envisage the “powdered princes” of the New World Order, such as Bill Clinton or Tony Blair, for example, taking a ride in the latest and the greatest fighter jet the world has ever known, even in one designed by America’s or Britain’s lowly “death merchants?”

No Sirree… No room for the “security detail,” of course, which are needed for the “beloved” leaders of the western democracies to be protected from the “love” of their people. The only “protection” which a two-seater fighter jet provides is that offered by God. Which is evidently of no use to the godless globalists.

But not to born-again Christians. Such as Russia’s shoe-in as the next president, Vladimir Putin. He performed a stunt on March 20 that no major western media have reported. And no wonder, given the wimpy “powdered princes” which such media serve. Here’s a report about that, which the TiM received from a Russian reader:

“Putin (who goes in Russian media as VVP--Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin) today certainly did a thing which no Western leader will ever dare. Putin flew into Grozny from Krasnodar on the two-seater SU-27 fighter (without bodyguards obviously) and doing so stunned all world when rolled this best fighter in the world to the terminal of Khankala airport in order to bid goodbye and award departing from Chechnya 331st Paratroop Regiment.

Was this trick of Putin? A pre-election PR stunt? Of course it was. But for all the world's media, starting from the stunned (and openly jealous CNN), they wished their Draftdodger-in-Chief could have done something like that.”

BELGRADE, Mar. 20 – One of the most heart-warming messages that the Truth in Media received on the eve of the first anniversary of the New Day of Infamy (Mar. 24, 1999) arrived from the Serb Orthodox Church Patriarchate in Belgrade. A group of German citizens, friends of the Serbian people, their fellow-Christians, has donated a huge, gold-plated cross, as their contribution to the remembrance of the Serb NATO bombing victims.

At exactly noon, on Friday, March 24, the Serbian Army’s helicopters will lift this 13.5-meter (40-foot) tall cross, weighing 2,200 kilos (over two tonnes), and place it atop Mt. Sokol (Mt. Falcon) near Ljubovija, in north-central Serbia.

The German citizens, all of whom were against last year’s NATO aggression against Serbia despite their government’s participation in it, had ordered the gold-plated cross cast at the Macvanska Mitrovica ship-building yard, across the river Sava from Sremska Mitrovica.

Bishop Lavrentije, the head of the Sabac-Valjevo Diocese, said that the installation of this cross, a symbol of Christian faith and suffering, represents an ideal of freedom for which the Serbs have been dying for centuries - impaled on a Turkish (Muslim) stake, hung from a western noose, or destroyed by NATO’s bombing. And he thanked the German fellow-Christians for their support.