[Submitted by the author.]

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October 22, 2000

DR. STRANGELOVE IS ALIVE, WELL AND "VINDICATED"
How Madeleine got to Bomb the Serbs

R. K. Kent, Emeritus
History Department
University of California, Berkeley

A most revealing information comes out of two sources about the air war for
Kosovo. Both merit attention and close reading. One is a former United
States Air Attache at London, Alan J. Parrington. The other is James F.
Rubin, Madeleine Albright's closest State Department associate.

Parrington was on duty in London just before, during and after the bombings
(24 March 1999 through 5th June, officially 10th June 1999). In his own words:

"I saw a war of underlying motives, missed diplomatic
opportunities,
misguided military strategies and questionable
outcomes. Worst of
all, the war never need happened: Milosevic conceded
major U.S.
demands two weeks before the war began." (Colorado
Springs Gazette,
October 12, 2000).

Parrington went on to relate how, on 11th March 1999, he was approached at a
British Diplomatic reception by the Yugoslav Defense Attache to the Court
of St. James. The Attache, a Serb Colonel, told him that Milosevic was
allowing international and even NATO troops into Kosovo but must "first have
a letter from Clinton explaining the benefit Yugoslavia will receive in
exchange." At first, Parrington was taken aback because the stationing of
foreign troops in Kosovo was the "sticking point in negotiations."
The"benefits" expected finally came down to "three things Yugoslavia must
have." Yugoslavia must retain sovereignty over Kosovo. The Kosovo
Liberation Army must be disarmed. The independence referendum must be
"removed."

According to Parrington this was "apparently too much for the Clinton
Administration to accept." In the end, after eleven weeks of bombing:

"the Administration, running short of precision
weapons and
faced with the prospect of a bloody ground war,
abandoned the
bombing strategy and asked the Russians to broker a
deal based
ON MILOSEVIC'S ANTEBELLUM OFFER" (caps added for
emphasis).

Parrington concluded that the war achieved nothing beyond what Milosevic had
proposed beforehand and "only inflamed ethnic passions for generations to
come." De jure, Kosovo remains a part of Yugoslavia, no referendum on
independence as such is scheduled but the KLA has been only marginally
disarmed. Parrington quotes a KLA leader speaking to him personally, "one
day, the Serbs will be selling us guns to shoot at NATO."

Clearly there was no need to go to war and, just as clearly, what was
unacceptable fourteen weeks earlier became even "useful" after the war had
spent itself. From a purely psychological point of view one could say that
the war took off to ratify the prerogative of superior power to react
punitively and even with vengeance when its will is thwarted. While,
despite the NATO framework, the "air war" was primarily an endeavor of the
Clinton Administration, the real driving, dominant force in it was Madeleine
Albright. It is virtually certain that without her around a diplomatic
solution would have prevailed. Rubin states that NATO's violent advent into
the ex-Yugoslav space "had become a very personal war for Albright." Rubin
joined her in this respect, struggling to persuade "the West" to halt Serb
"genocide" in Bosnia. Rubin adds that

"by 1995, Albright's views were vindicated when NATO's
air strikes forced the Serbs to the bargaining
table and a
Bosnian peace accord was finally reached that autumn."

There are two items of disinformation in the quote. NATO's air strikes
against Bosnian Serb positions did not "bring" the Serbs to the negotiating
table. In fact, they had been asking repeatedly for negotiations but Alija
Izetbegovic refused until NATO assured him of an Air Force for the Bosnian
Muslim side. Secondly, it is very easy to advance "genocide" as a
documented sin that cannot be left unpunished. Its glib use immediately
evokes the Holocaust (1939-1945)and is meant to inflame to the point when no
further questions need be asked. A strict definition of genocide would
exclude forcible expulsions of groups regarded as inimical. What did
happen in Bosnia fits "ethnic cleansing" but not planned physical
exterminations of entire groups of people. Neither the Serbs nor the Croats
planned to exterminate two million Bosnian Muslims, nor did the Bosnian
Muslims plan to exterminate all of the Serbs and Croats inside Bosnia since,
combined, they accounted for roughly half of Bosnia's total population.

Be that as it may, Madeleine was hardly "vindicated" (a claim now being
repeated for the 78 days of bombing Serbia itself). It is not well known
that she was actually opposed to Holbrooke's dealing with "Milosevic" at
Dayton. It is even less known that she once threatened all of the U.N.
Security Council Ambassadors with the severing of relations with her U.S.
Mission if any of them received a Yugoslav (Serb) minister of state invited
to come for talks. It would have been humiliating for the U.S. had there
been an "Ambassadorial Revolt" proposing to stop the Council's proceeding
pending an apology for such an auto da fe but, fortunately, the French and
Chinese Ambassadors simply disregarded Madeleine's ultimatum. To return to
Rubin's account, in order to get her personal war going, Madeleine had to
overcome several hard obstacles. The first one was Europe's general
reluctance and, in some cases, outright opposition to bombing Serbia.

Rubin is very clear on this point. He relates how difficult it was to
"galvanize the West" to act in unison before 1999. While the Clinton
Administration was "deeply divided" within itself:

"Nearly all our allies, including the British, put
roadblocks in
the way of decisive action prior to the Rambouillet
peace conference
in 1999. And during Rambouillet, the French and the
Italians acted in ways that could have derailed the
Admini-
stration's effort to unite against the Belgrade regime."

Some Europeans did not wish to side with the KLA. In Rubin's version the
Russian and German foreign ministers regarded the KLA as a terrorist group.
The "rebels were unknown figures raising money illegally through smuggling,
or worse." Such reservations did not even phase Madeleine although some
people in the State Department did not dismiss them entirely. The Europeans
even made "crude jokes about Albanian immigrants and criminal gangs." Other
European ministers did not wish to break International Law, requiring prior
U.N. Security Council action. They defended this position on legal advice.
Madeleine retorted "change the lawyers." It is obvious that she could not
care less for International Law and the U.N. Charter provisions if these
interfered with an ardent desire to" bomb the Serbs." Some months after the
bombing of Serbia, Secretary Albright claimed formally in the New York
Times that she honors the U.N. Charter ("which we helped write"). At the
time, however, the Europeans were not sufficiently "motivated" to go to war
against Serbia, especially not on behalf of the KLA.

What was needed to push them over the point of no return? It should be
recalled here that the NATO bombing of Bosnian Serbs took place just hours
after the so-called "third marketplace massacre at Sarajevo." A U.N. Report
in situ and quite "fresh" exculpated the Serbs nonetheless. U.N. Ambassador
Albright immediately demanded that this Report be kept secret as it is
to-date. The political value of yet another "massacre," this time of
"Kosovars" by the "Serb butchers," was hardly out of sight. The news came
from a place in Kosovo called Racak, according to Rubin, on January 15,
1999, over the radio. This date is interesting because the first claim of a
"massacre at Racak" came on 16th January 1999 but, there is no doubt how it
was used to "galvanize" the "international Community" into action. The
"Racak massacre" has all the elements of staging and circumstances that
cannot be really explained in any other way.

The first item of circumstantial evidence resides in the quick ad hoc
posting to Kosovo of William Walker as the Administration's Special Envoy.
One would assume some Balkan diplomatic pedigree here. Instead, Mr. Walker
had headed the U.S. Embassy's Political Section in Salvador, 1974-1977. He
was posted to Honduras (l980-1982) when arms were being funneled via
Honduras to the Contras in Nicaragua. He spent another four years
(1988-1992} as Ambassador to Salvador just when the local death squads were
liquidating anyone close to humanitarian concern, including a Roman Catholic
Bishop. A French source once described Mr. Walker as the "control" of a
"government of assassins which used its last days in power before the end of
civil war to rub out all of its opponents." There can be no doubt that Mr.
Walker had close relations with the CIA. Why he came to Kosovo will become
apparent with what follows.

On 16th January 1999, the SERB police INFORMED "Ambassador" Walker that an
attack was being prepared against Racak, a KLA stronghold. Suddenly, an
open-mass grave with 47 bodies came into view as Walker was GUIDED to it
with a host of journalists and a TV crew. "It's a massacre" said Walker.
It's a "massacre" repeated the journalists and the media throughout the
world in minutes and hours. There were no spent cartridges at the grave
site and no one even bothered to ask two key questions. With an obvious
international support for the KLA why would the Serb Police inform Walker
of their attack on Racak and then massacre what looked like civilians? Why
would the Serb Police furthermore not try to hide its would-be crime by
re-burying the bodies, practice the Serbs had been consistenly accused of
for some four years before Kosovo? A week before the start of the "air
war," on 17 March 1999, the medical investigator, Dr. Helena Ranta of
Finland, submitted a report (21 kilograms and 3,000 photos) plus a five-page
resume yet unable to confirm the instant, ersatz verdict of William Walker.
There is, however, no doubt in respect to one result. His statement,
reproduced everywhere fast, "galvanized," as Madeleine Albright put it, the
"International Community. "Racak of January led to Rambouillet in February.
Rambouillet led, in turn, to the air war in late March 1999. Part One of
the "galvanizing process" took place in Washington.

During the week of January l7th 1999, Madeleine Albright spent her time in
intensive pursuit of a green light to go to war with the Serbs. Her working
group consisted of Secretary Cohen, National Security Adviser Sanford
Berger, CIA Director George Tenet and General Shelton, Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff. A collective decision was made in a few days and "the
speed reflected the meeting of minds that had developed between Albright and
the President" She "worked" President Clinton by pounding on his
"indecision in Bosnia." With the "wag-the-dog" possibility in the air (and
posterity, no doubt, watching his Legacy) the President took Madeleine's
door which allowed, at the same time, an entry and an exit. Having thus
gotten his "nod" she used it then to "pass on" as the President's "own"
inclination to go into action. Thereafter came "Galvanizing II." as she
--in Rubin's words-- "began to work the Europeans." By February 1999
Rambouillet was on.

The talks at Rambouillet were decidedly not going Madeleine's way. She
expected the Serbs to reject the "Peace Plan." She even asked all the NATO
Members' Foreign Ministers, according to Rubin, "to instruct" their
"ambassadors in Brussels to support air strikes should the Serbs be
responsible for a breakdown in the talks. "The Ministers agreed but "only
after securing the pledge to punish the Albanian side in the event the KLA
caused a breakdown." The Serbs, who were supposed to reject the granting of
Autonomy to Kosovo and thus give her the pretext to bomb, actually agreed to
restore it, allowing foreign troops under the U.N. but not yet under NATO.
But, the KLA political leader Hashim Thaci, unexpectedly, would not sign the
"Peace Plan." He did not want Autonomy. He stuck to the demand for
Independence instead. Neither Madeleine's "charm" nor threats of losing
U.S. support (an admission that the U.S. was supporting the KLA in the field
as well despite"denials") could persuade Thaci to budge from his position.
Apparently, Madeleine mentioned nothing of "pledge" to Thaci despite an
added European demand that the Albanians defer the issue of Independence.

The "unity of the Europeans was cracking," as Rubin assessed the situation.
The French proved to be least prone to play according to Madeleine's game
plan. "We knew the critical factor for the KLA was the prospect of air
strikes and NATO ground troops. So we had arranged for NATO's Supreme
Allied Commander, General Wesley Clark, to come to the castle to brief them
on NATO military plans and help win them over in the final hours of the
conference. The French would not alllow the "formidable figure" of General
Clark to enter Rambouillet,"arguing that his NATO role would somehow upset
the diplomatic balance with the Serbs. "But, Albright finally convinced
Hubert Vedrine, the (French) foreign minister to allow four KLA members to
leave the castle for a briefing with Clark at a military airfield." The
formula was the same as in the NATO air war over Serb Bosnian positions
years earlier. Give the KLA NATO's planes and missiles, show them exactly
in a secret military briefing, how you plan to "hit the Serbs." Hint to
them that the action is worth a "slight postponement" of Independence, along
with an eventual support for it, promise clandestinely that Kosovo will be
turned over to KLA at the exclusion of "moderate" Ibrahim Rugova, and the
result came out just the way Madeleine wanted it. Thaci would sign. Since
the Serbs, however, had just about accepted the major sticking point of
foreign troops, including NATOs, along with Autonomy for Kosovo, the final
pretext for bombs was still missing. Serbs had to be MADE to reject the
"Peace Plan."

The idea was brilliant in its evil banality. Someone recalled the 1914
ten-point ultimatum to Serbia by Austria in 1914, after the assassination of
Archduke Ferdinand at Sarajevo. Two Appendices were added overnight to the
previous text of the "Peace Plan." One of the two, Appendix B, spelled out
in great detail that Serbs must agree to an immediate occupation of all of
Yugoslavia, including Belgrade, by NATO troops which not only had total
freedom of movement and action but which would be a priori immune from
prosecution for any types of crime. Colonial "Capitulations" come to mind,
delivered with supreme arrogance. When the Serb delegation walked out of
Rambouillet, Albright spread the word. "The SERBS have REJECTED the Peace
Plan." She would quip after the air war, that "we raised (at Rambouillet)
the bar so Milosevic could not jump over it. Yugoslavia needed a little
bombing."

By the beginning of June 1999, thanks to the "vindicated" Madeleine
Albright, Serbia's infrastructure was taken out to the tune of over $100
billion. Hospitals, factories, churches (even a Synagogue at Nis), schools,
soccer fields, shopping malls, generators, a TV station, even the Chinese
Embassy, were hit. Some 3,000 Serb civilians were killed with about three
times that many wounded, more or less seriously. Serbia's (and Kosovo's)
air, soil and water were polluted with chemical toxins of all kinds, with
depleted uranium and graphite, assuring mutation of genes yet to come.
Thousands of the internationally banned cluster bombs were dropped and are
still killing both Serb and Albanian children who find them easily because
of their colors. General Clark certainly knew what he was doing.

Before becoming a Vice-Presidential Candidate, Senator Lieberman proclaimed
that the Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was "fighting for American
values." Vice-President Al Gore has been going around the country telling
the American People about "our victory" at Kosovo. Following the fall of
Milosevic, the main scribal media at home went into overdrive about the
"vindication" of Madeleine Albright. General Wesley Clark went even
further. He claimed on Public Television that the eleven weeks of NATO
bombings in Serbia and Kosovo brought Milosevic down.

Since NATO "liberated Kosovo" from "Serb oppression" unadulterated
day-to-day realities have turned Senator Lieberman's claim into a tragic
joke. At Kosovo, the "ex-KLA" members are engaged in organized white
slavery and prostitution, drug dealing, kidnapping, beatings and murder.
Just recently, KFOR with British Marines arrested an entire KLA clan
involved in such activities. Albanian piecemeal terror, on a daily basis
(and long after the advent of NATO) has "cleansed" some 300,000 non
Albanians (mainly Serbs but also half a dozen other minorities). Actual
results reveal that there was no struggle for "liberation" but for power, a
struggle induced from outside of Kosovo and bankrolled by a drug cartel
seeking a free zone for huge profits. It wanted to replace the constraints
of State in favor of an acephalous area dominated by Albanian clans engaged
in criminal enterprise. Among thousands of refugees in the post-NATO era
there are Albanians who fled to Serbia. The U.S. deliberately turned Kosovo
over to its "air war" ally, the KLA and its political head Hashim Thaci,
dropping support for one of the only true leader of Kosovo's Albanians, the
poet Ibrahim Rugova. The architect of this stunning success was the
"vindicated" Madeleine Albright. To get to bomb the Serbs she would have
made a pact with the Devil. Only one major and intriguing question remains.
Was her Serbophobia driven by some deeply hidden demons or was it merely
grafted on some geopolitical strategies pushed on the makers of foriegn
policy by Madeleine's mentor, Zbigniew Brzezinski?

It would appear from all the gloating about who did Milosevic in, about the
"Victory at Kosovo," that nothing has been learned at the top. It is very
likely that a similar NATO intervention will never come about in Europe.
NATO in present-day Europe is an oxymoron. It has no one to "defend" or
attack on "humanitarian" grounds unless it wishes to hit the French over
Corsica, Spaniards over their Basque problem and the English over their
Colonialism in Ireland. Its peace-keeping mission in Bosnia and Kosovo has
not really settled anything fundamental. The U.S., if not solely
responsible, has been a major part of the bloody problems in ex-Yugoslavia.
It killed two viable peace treaties in 1992 and in 1993. It sided with
anyone who was against the Serbs, arming and training the Croat Army to
ethnically cleanse Krajina of its long-time resident Serbs, some 250,000 of
them. It allowed Shiite Muslim extremists and arms into Bosnia and it has
taken the side of Kosovo's Muslim Albanians under entirely false pretexts.

Assisted by the main media, the gross and continuous disinformation of the
current U.S. Government, about the realities on the ground in Kosovo, meant
to secure the support of the American People, reveal with dramatic force
that an American Government, claiming to act in the National Interest, is
manipulating our Democracy, silencing informed criticism, and acting against
its own People. Its arrogance abroad, and especially, against the small
Serb people, has taken the Imperial Mask off the New Uncle Sam's face. It
cannot grasp that the use of its military might (without the loss of a
single American soldier), the economic conquests in the globe and the
cultural flooding out of other societies, coupled with obvious arrogance (do
read Chalmer Johnston's book "Blowback") and propensity to lecture everyone
(reflected beautifully in Al Gore's public posturing for the election)
--that all of this combined is fanning the latent fires of universal hate
against the New World Order and its Global Master. The Republican
Presidential Candidate has recognized the problem of arrogance and is
promoting the need for "humility." It may already be too late unless the
American People take foreign policy from the hands of experts, "hawks" out
to "punish" and "teach" the rest of the world about Democracy while losing
it at home.


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