MORE KOSOVO LIES
Richard Poe
July 9, 1999

Press reports assure us that we have won a great victory in Kosovo. They say that Clinton’s air campaign has crippled Milosevic and compelled him to accept our terms. They say that mass graves of innocent civilians are turning up all over Kosovo -- somber testimony to Serb brutality and to the righteousness of our cause.
But how much of this is true? Sadly, we have no way of knowing. In Kosovo, as in other matters, American journalists have long since demonstrated their inability -- or perhaps unwillingness -- to distinguish between fact and White House spin.

Let’s start with the alleged success of the air war. During the fighting, NATO claimed to have wiped out 122 Yugoslav tanks and more than 220 troop transporters. But these figures now appear to have been grossly inflated.

"I do not believe these figures at all,” said a military expert in Paris who would not give his name, in a July 2 bulletin from Agence France-Presse. "If we had smashed as many tanks as NATO said, we would see them.”

In fact, very few damaged or destroyed vehicles have been found in Kosovo. The Serbs evidently fooled our airmen into attacking false tanks made from wooden frames covered with tarpaulins or plastic sheeting.

NATO commander Wesley Clark publicly admits that the Serbs "did skillfully deploy lots of decoys.” Yet the U.S. media have largely ignored this story.

How about Milosevic’s alleged surrender? Again, it appears to be fantasy. After two and a half months of fighting, Milosevic agreed to essentially the same terms that he had already accepted before the bombing started.

Back in March, Milosevic agreed to grant autonomy -- but not independence -- to Kosovo and to allow a partly Russian UN peacekeeping force to patrol the province. But NATO wanted more.

An appendix of the Rambouillet agreement required that NATO troops be granted "free and unrestricted passage and unimpeded access throughout FRY (Federal Republic of Yugoslavia).” NATO forces would be free to use any Yugoslav street, airport or port without charge, and would have the right to commandeer any land or facilities "as required for support, training and operations.”

In short, NATO was demanding a military occupation of Yugoslavia. Milosevic rejected this, along with NATO’s demand for international deliberations on Kosovar independence. So Clinton started bombing.

The peace agreement struck June 3 yields both points to Milosevic: No Kosovar independence, no NATO troops in Serbia.

"Well, so what?” defenders of the war will counter. Milosevic was committing genocide. We had to do something. Even if the war ended in a stalemate, our decision to fight was still morally sound.

But was it? German government investigators have found no evidence of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo before the onset of NATO bombing.

"Even in Kosovo an explicit political persecution linked to Albanian ethnicity is not verifiable...” said one report, quoted in the April 24, 1999 issue of the German newspaper Junge Welt. The report concluded that Serb security forces were targeting KLA guerrillas and collaborators but apparently not innocent civilians.

What about the 100,000 - 500,000 Kosovar men allegedly missing and feared killed? USA Today reported on July 1 that U.S. officials have now lowered that figure to 10,000. Further reductions seem likely.

Then there are the mass graves. It was the discovery of one such grave in January that triggered NATO intervention. When 45 bodies were found near the town of Racak, a U.S. media blitz accused the Serbs of slaughtering innocent civilians.

NATO commander Wesley Clark personally confronted Milosevic with photos of the victims. "This was not a massacre,” Milosevic cried. "This was staged.”

The New York Times reported this exchange on April 18, 1999, three months after it occurred, but unfortunately failed to explain to readers that Milosevic was probably telling the truth.

By the time that article was written, the Los Angeles Times, Le Monde, Die Welt, the BBC, and others had already raised doubts about the alleged massacre. Forensic investigators had concluded that the bodies were probably those of KLA guerrillas killed in action. The bodies appear to have been dressed in civilian clothes, then shot additional times and cut with knives several hours after death, in order to simulate a brutal massacre.

In view of the Racak hoax, it would seem wise to reserve judgment about the flood of reports now pouring out of Kosovo concerning mass graves. Many atrocities have undoubtedly occurred, on both sides. But there is little evidence that Serbia has behaved more villainously than its adversary, the KLA.

Since 1993, Clinton has presided over the systematic dismemberment of Yugoslavia, piece by piece. He has armed and supported one rebel leader after another, including Franjo Tudjman, the accused war criminal whose Croatian forces "ethnically cleansed” 300,000 Serbs from Krajina in 1995.

Clearly, there is a purpose behind Clinton’s policy, and just as clearly it has nothing to do with defending human rights. But what that purpose is we are not being told. Until we learn to question our leaders and probe their motivations, we can only look forward to more and deadlier foreign adventures in the future.