HUMANITARIANS OR AGGRESSORS?

ISSUES IN KOSOVO

By Karin Pekarcik

Are we the humanitarians we pose ourselves to be to all the world? Or are we really the aggressors in acts of violence when it suits us?

Let’s look at another perspective than the one we are currently seeing on the television and hearing on the radio.

What’s really going on in Yugoslavia?

NATO reports that 2,000 have been killed by the Serb military in attacks that began in the Summer ’98. These were in retaliation to guerrilla (KLA) attacks on police stations and civilians. The KLA is an organization based and funded from abroad. Several hundred thousand refugees resulted from this fighting.

Imagine how the United States would react if armed guerrillas supported by a foreign country were bombing our police stations and innocent civilians in one of our highly populated cities. What would we do?

This latest assault is being hailed as a humanitarian crisis, yet there are similar crises transpiring in various countries around the world and nothing is being done about it. Why did we intervene in this instance?

CNN constantly rolls pictures of this war drama for the whole world to witness. As we watch this drama unfold in living color we are being rallied to support the bombing strikes?

The term genocidal in the Kosovo situation is being used as a propaganda device to mobilize the public to back the Clinton’s wars.

Another point that is not widely known is the fact that just before the bombing, when the Serbian Parliament rejected NATO troops in Kosovo, it also supported the idea of the United Nations coming in to monitor the political settlement. This was written up in the New York Times on April 8th by Steven Erlanger a Belgrade correspondent. Why wasn’t this addressed?

Did we have our own agenda and we didn’t want anything getting in the way of the bombing?

This is the first time in NATO’s history that it attacked a sovereign state, which is in direct violation of what NATO stands for. The NATO Charter forbids an offensive war against other countries. And in this direction, President Clinton now has used NATO as an offensive tool of war. Other countries view the United States’ massive military involvement in the Kosovo crisis with overwhelming hatred. Public opinion in Russia, Eastern Europe and much of the Third War regard us as oppressive aggressors who are attacking their neighbors.

President Clinton tells us that it is necessary to ensure that everyone has the proper fear of the global enforcer. We must show our strength at any cost (with human lives being lost and countries being ravaged). The "humanitarian cover" of the NATO mission is now blown and seen for what it really is — an act of blatant aggression. This "humanitarian cover" has been used in the past by violent states throughout history. Under the guise of helping humanity, we annihilate them. History continues to be made with man’s war weapons leading the way. This US/NATO alliance in destruction has presented us to the world as aggressors of the worst kind. The legitimacy of this operation is questionable and only heightens the problems being faced in Yugoslavia.

The result of this attack on Yugoslavia that has been highly encouraged by America foreshadows the collapse of the NATO alliance and the end of American leadership in Western Europe, particularly Italy and Greece. This assault proves to the Russian citizens that NATO is an offensive military organization whose aim is to destroy Russia. This reasoning falls right into the agenda that the Russian leaders have been promoting for years. Here is the proof. What more do they need?

Our direct involvement in the war in Yugoslavia is fanning the hysteria in the Russian citizens to go to war with the United States. Hundreds of furious Russians marched through Moscow demanding that Russia go to war against NATO. One banner read "It’s time to bomb the military bases of the United States." Russian Nationalists voice the opinion: "What is happening in Serbia today, will happen in Russia tomorrow."

President Clinton has revived the Cold War with our launching into this war. A recent survey conducted in Russia after the NATO bombing on Yugoslavia, their traditional allies, the Serbs, showed that more than half of all Russians believe that NATO intends to attack Russia next.

Russia’s Parliament passed a resolution 366-4 that declares NATO’s "aggression" as a "threat to Russia’s national security" and called on the Russian government to begin war mobilization.

What have we started? It seems that Russia is now preparing themselves for war. They view this bombing as a direct attack on their nation. And when American refused to allow Russia to act as a broker for a peaceful settlement this pushed them even further from us and gave them a good reason to hate the West.

Here is what Russia is now in the process of implementing:

The Russian Defense Ministry is drafting over 150,000 men; recruiting over 60,000 Russian "volunteers" to fight NATO troops in Serbia; dispatched its Northern Fleet (ballistic missile submarines and warships) into Belarus which is Russia’s road to NATO. Once they are safely under sea it will be difficult for US sonar to detect them. The submarines submerge, lay low and await orders for deployment.

Russia still maintains the world’s largest arsenal of nuclear weapons, and the majority are pointed against the West. Russia has been conducting practice test exercises against the United States for the past two years. Russia has been moving its nuclear weapons onto naval ships ready for use and less vulnerable to attack.

A high ranking GRU officer who defected from Russia, Colonel Stanislav Lunev, warns that the Russian General Staff considers nuclear war with America to be inevitable. He said he spent thirty years preparing for a war against America." And now it seems the wheels are rolling into motion.

The massive hatred campaign that has been brewing for some time in Russia now has the spark ignited to attain the citizen’s approval for the use of force against the United States.

A group of senators and legislators are calling for 200,000 American ground troops to be sent to the conflict area. The implications of this move are frightening as it escalates us to the point of no return.

Several days ago there were casualties when an innocent refugee convoy was accidentally attacked by a NATO warplane. We are getting deeper and deeper into the humanitarian issue — killing innocents in the name of war.

What makes this even more potentially serious is the new global alliance that was announced in November ’98 between China and Russia. Both countries have no love of the United States. This new alliance represents the greatest shift in the balance of power since World War II.

Russia and China have a combined force of 30,000 nuclear weapons, 6 million army, hundreds of combat divisions, thousands of military tanks and ballistic missile weapons just waiting for the opportunity to be moved into action.

What have we now got ourselves into? The stage is being set for a global conflict. Fear and hatred proceed to propel us closer to our own destruction. Will anyone be backing down on their hard-nosed stance in the near future? We are all in a no win situation. Is there any hope of mending the harm we have caused by our blatant hostility in our actions in Kosovo? Something to think about as we watch the daily news stories continue to roll out the war tactics and rally the public for their support.

Karin Pekarcik is a free-lance writer living in Anaheim, California. Feel free to e-mail her at: karinjulia@earthlink.net