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From notes@igc.apc.org Tue Aug 22 12:10:07 1995 Received: from cdp.igc.apc.org (192.82.108.1) by MediaFilter.org with SMTP (MailShare 1.0b10); Tue, 22 Aug 1995 12:10:08 -0500 Received: (from notes) by cdp.igc.apc.org (8.6.12/Revision: 1.203 ) id GAA13953 for "conf-zamir.chat"; Tue, 22 Aug 1995 06:46:53 -0700 Date: 22 Aug 1995 06:01:12 Reply-To: Conference "zamir.chat"From: f.h.riley@ucc.hull.ac.uk Subject: Re: John Bennett's Snow Job To: Recipients of zamir-chat-l Message-ID: <199508221254.FAA26758@igc3.igc.apc.org> In-Reply-To: <199508221034.DAA22681@ix3.ix.netcom.com> X-Gateway: conf2mail@igc.apc.org Errors-To: owner-zamir-chat-l@igc.apc.org Precedence: bulk Lines: 30 From: f.h.riley@ucc.hull.ac.uk (Fred Riley) >From: doctorb@ix.netcom.com (. ) > >>My Serb acquaintances here are already celebrating. . > > And I really believe you were sitting with the sister of an 18 year Austrian >"idealist" who died fighting for Bosnia too, or an Israeli predicts an "intafada" >in Europe if we don't cantonize BiH on the model of Switzerland. [snip] Could someone - the list owner, preferably - explain the purpose and scope of this list? I was hoping that the list was intended both as a means of communication to/from FY and as a forum for rational discussion as to how to achieve peace in FY. I'm sure it's not here for rabid foaming-at-the-mouth nationalists to inflict their irrational ravings upon us. If anyone wants to rant they should try the Usenet newsgroups alt.current-events.bosnia and soc.culture.bosna-herzgvna - there's no shortage of red-blooded propaganda and rhetoric there. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred Riley Email: f.h.riley@langc.hull.ac.uk Software Development Adviser Tel: 01482 466316 CTI Centre for Modern Languages University of Hull HULL, England HU6 7RX ------------------------------------------------------------------------- From notes@igc.apc.org Tue Aug 22 12:18:02 1995 Received: from cdp.igc.apc.org (192.82.108.1) by MediaFilter.org with SMTP (MailShare 1.0b10); Tue, 22 Aug 1995 12:18:05 -0500 Received: (from notes) by cdp.igc.apc.org (8.6.12/Revision: 1.203 ) id DAA22662 for "conf-zamir.chat"; Tue, 22 Aug 1995 03:45:30 -0700 Date: 22 Aug 1995 03:41:17 Reply-To: Conference "zamir.chat" From: doctorb@ix.netcom.com Subject: John Bennett's Snow Job To: Recipients of zamir-chat-l Message-ID: <199508221034.DAA22681@ix3.ix.netcom.com> X-Gateway: conf2mail@igc.apc.org Errors-To: owner-zamir-chat-l@igc.apc.org Precedence: bulk Lines: 57 From: doctorb@ix.netcom.com (. ) >My Serb acquaintances here are already celebrating. . And I really believe you were sitting with the sister of an 18 year Austrian "idealist" who died fighting for Bosnia too, or an Israeli predicts an "intafada" in Europe if we don't cantonize BiH on the model of Switzerland. Hey, where are all the Arab countries taking these refugees? The Palestinians are practically Arab Jews to the Arabs. Female genital circumcision is making a comeback in Egypt because of the strict interpretation of a phrase from the Koran. The Algerians have set off another bomb in Paris. Both these countries would have voted themselves theocracies if they weren't thwarted by Western-backed militaries. You are total propganda. You know the US is getting ready to bomb the Serbs. You know it. You're setting us up for it. Mass-murderer G. Bush did very well for himself. The embargoe of Iraq has killed more than three times the bombing, and there's an embargo of Serbia. So how many Bosniac prisoners can they afford to feed? >She paused, as if savoring how delicious it all was. "And now the British >announce their withdrawing their troops from the town! {Gorazde] They claim they >can defend it with air power - I suppose the way they defended Srebrenica and >Zepa, the way they've been defending Sarajevo with their precious air power." >I asked her if she thought anybody believed that. > >"Sure," she said, "the ones who want to believe it. Who knows, maybe even >Richard Holbrooke believes it." No Serb would be gloating about the withdrawal of peacekeepers from Gorazde. This is preperatory only to bombing. The bombing will mean real casualties. The US could devestate the Serbs, kill them in large numbers. You know this. You're setting us up. You are a US propogandist. You want us to believe, that after the mass exodus from the Krajina, Croatian advances in Western BiH, impending war of 20,000 troobs in Dubrovnik and Trabinje that a Serb is happy the US is withdrawing refugee workers to put spotters for aerial bombardment? You want us to believe that? You know what you call "humanitarian assistance" some would call "aid and comfort to the enemy". The starvation of the Bosniacs, which would have completed the war, [assuming their leaders care anything whatsoever about their people], was stopped by the refugee relief effort. Which was allowed to go forward by the Serbs, by and large. UN casualties are very low by any standard. All the result of negotiations, which you deprecate. Because you're in to the blitzkreig results of you German and Croat collaborators in this form of "peacekeeping". Another letter: >A Serb acquaintance called me up on Sunday and said excitedly, "Have you >heard the news? CNN has just reported that three artillery shells have >slammed into Gorazde!" And he is exited because there will be no "retaliation" and "things are going our way now". What a snow job. From notes@igc.apc.org Tue Aug 22 12:18:13 1995 Received: from cdp.igc.apc.org (192.82.108.1) by MediaFilter.org with SMTP (MailShare 1.0b10); Tue, 22 Aug 1995 12:18:14 -0500 Received: (from notes) by cdp.igc.apc.org (8.6.12/Revision: 1.203 ) id CAA17805 for "conf-zamir.chat"; Tue, 22 Aug 1995 02:45:33 -0700 Date: 22 Aug 1995 01:53:17 Reply-To: Conference "zamir.chat" From: doctorb@ix.netcom.com Subject: Threat to Bomb 'Safe Areas' a Pretext To Croat Assault To: Recipients of zamir-chat-l Message-ID: <199508220847.BAA24358@ix8.ix.netcom.com> X-Gateway: conf2mail@igc.apc.org Errors-To: owner-zamir-chat-l@igc.apc.org Precedence: bulk Lines: 130 From: doctorb@ix.netcom.com (. ) Subject: Threat to Bomb 'Safe Areas' a Pretext To Croat Assault Threat to Bomb 'Safe Areas' A Pretext to Guarantee Croat Assault of the Krajina "The Bosnian Serbs say they attacked UN-declared ``safe areas'' only because the Muslim-led government continued to use many of them as launching pads for attacks, in defiance of an agreement to demilitarize them." (1) The US extension, to the other safe areas, of the threat of aerial bombardment, especially of Bihac, was a guise to pre- emptively bomb Serbs, coordinated with the impending US-backed buildup of Croatian forces for the 3 day blitzkrieg on the Krajina. The U-2 aerial photographs of Srebrenica were withheld until coincident wtih the largest single ethnic cleansing and largest mass movement of people in Eastern Europe since the Hungarian uprising of l956. The timing of their release was purely for propaganda purposes to cover the Defense Intelligence fingerprints on their re-armed--thanks the unenforced embargo-- new client state, Croatia. If the US suspected something similar to what happened in Srebrenica might happen in Zepa, they merely waited, and watched, and photographed, so as to use these photos as further evidence of the brutality of the Serbs and justify Franco Tudjman's completion of WWII quisling Anton Pavelic's conversion, expulsion, or murder, in equal third parts, of Serbs from Croatia. The threat to bomb the "safe areas" was not so much to defend them from Serb attack as to Guarantee the success of this Croatian objective. "NATO sources say that allied air strikes to protect the Bosnian safe areas of Bihac, Tuzla and Sarajevo will be triggered by a "judgment call" from NATO and U.N. commanders. And only if the areas are under "direct attack" or "direct threat of attack." Sources say the judgment would be based on the "disposition of forces". "We'll know when any side moves enough troops to threaten a safe area with enough force to cause the fall of that area," said one source. NATO military planners have a three-phase air campaign planned. Phase one would neutralize air defenses. Phase two would attack targets in the "zone of action" near the safe area. Phase three would be to attack targets anywhere in Bosnia." (2) "[Mario] Nobilo [Croatia's representative to the UN]. . acknowledged that the plan envisioned a ``minimal'' and a ``maximal'' option for the invasion, depending on both the international reaction and the stiffness of the Serbs' resistance. (3) A "direct threat of attack" would be sufficient to trigger a response in three phases, the last "to attack targets anywhere in Bosnia". The pretext was set to guarantee the success of the Croatian attack and indiscriminately bomb the Serbs "on the model of Iraq" as the UNPROFOR commander had threatened, if it could not succeed on its own. "Zepa's defenders, some armed only with hunting rifles, held out for 20 days against heavy tank and artillery fire. ." Their already collected evidence of executions at Srebrenica and their expectation of collecting more at Zepa were held in reserve in case the US had to bomb to assist the Croatian assault. It could cry it was acting to prevent "genocide" even as it committed it themselves, from the air. [The difference between taking people out and shooting them, or bombing them relentlessly for 40 days in Iraq was one of means; The result was the same: 1000 to 1 casualties-- by any other word: mass murder. The effects of the embargo are worse] (4) Relief agencies would complain that "The lack of action by the international community to defend Srebrenica and Zepa--or, at least, to guarantee the safe evacuation of non-combatants-- was a disgraceful evasion of responsibility by the UN and NATO." The "disgraceful evasion of responsibility" was deliberate and would be made up for by the pre-meditated bombing of the Serbs to Guarantee a Croat victory, even as it was billed as necessary to "save the remaining safe areas". "We note that safe passage was immediately attempted by the UN on behalf of the fleeing Krajina Serbs." (5) The UN ambassador to Croatia, Pater Galbraith, who had sat in on Croatian-Bosnian talks on July 22nd, to coordinate the assault, would not call the flight of between 150-250,000 Serbs "ethnic cleansing" because it was not accompanied by a sufficient level of "rape, murder or terror"! (1) The Irish Times 'Krajina Serbs challenge Western views of conflict', Nicholas Doughty, London (2) B o s N e t - August 3, 1995 (3) 8/12/95 'In Croatia, US Took Calculated risk',Stephen Engelberg, N.Y. Times News Service (4) We note that Serbian president Milosevic did not act to prevent the Croat attack in hopes of having the embargo against his country lifted. Likewise he has embargoed foodstuffs and arms to the Bosnian Serbs in the same hopes. Given that, it is no wonder so few survived the winters and privations of Bosnian Serb "concentration" [prison] camps while the US was attempting to starve Serbia into submission. No different really from the Bosnian Serb attempt to starve Sarajevo or Bihac. The efficiency of an economic embargo following a war can be seen in Iraq, where 500-1000 have been dying per day for years. That the Iraqis are "responsible" for this situation is absurd. The US is definitely causing the deaths of 500-1000 Iraqis per day for years although this is not seen as genocide: "In Iraq, Saddam Hussein, threatened incessantly by coup attempts and civil unrest, is also silent in the matter [of casualties]. Daily he extracts revenge for that hot day in hell when he blundered into Kuwait, plunging his nation into disaster. His people claim that more than 1 million Iraqis have died since day one of Desert Storm. Five hundred to 1,000 succumb daily to disease and famine. Black-market vultures circle, and Trade Minister Mohammed Mehdi Saleh says his country is ``jailed . . . since five years now.'' ---Patricia Axelrod, writing 22 months after 'Desert Storm', San Francisco Chronicle 8/20/95 (5) Bosnia Relief Watch No. 40 Compiled by Refugees International, August 8, 1995