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All brasscheck.com dispatches on the US-led
attack on Yugoslavia are available, complete
with index, at http://www.brasscheck.com/yugoslavia
Please inform your friends, colleagues, and
others who you think might care.
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May 21, 1999

This letter says it all. Note the source. 

(Published in the Chicago Sun Times last week --
this version found at http://www.zmag.org/aggression.htm)

U.S. AGGRESSION

Letter by Walter J. Rockler, Former prosecutor, Nuremberg war
crimes trials

As the bombs, smart and dumb, fall ceaselessly on Serbs,
Montenegrins and sometimes Albanians, on bridges, waterworks,
electric generation plants and factories, and on trains, trucks and
homes, the remorseless crusade for "humanitarianism" presses
forward to the applause of journalistic and academic shills. To
paraphrase the Roman historian Tacitus*, we are busy creating a
desert, which we can then call peace.

For the United States, alias "NATO," the planning and launching of
this war by the president heightens the abuse and undermining of
warmaking authority under the Constitution. (It seems to be
accepted that the president can order his personal army to attack
any country he pleases.) The bombing war also violates and shreds
the basic provisions of the United Nations Charter and other
conventions and treaties; the attack on Yugoslavia constitutes the
most brazen international aggression since the Nazis attacked
Poland to prevent "Polish atrocities" against Germans. The United
States has discarded pretensions to international legality and
decency, and embarked on a course of raw imperialism run amok.

Our alleged concern with human rights borders on the ludicrous.
We dropped twice as many bombs on Vietnam as all the countries
involved in World War II dropped on each other. We killed
hundreds of thousands of civilians in the course of that war. Very
recently, in Central America, we sponsored, trained and endorsed
the local armies--Guatemalan, Salvadoran, and Nicaraguan
Contras--in the killing of at least 200,000 people. We encouraged
the Pinochet coup in Chile with the resulting killing of another few
thousand or so people, including the democratically elected
president. We saw nothing wrong with the Croat slaughter and
expulsion of 200,000 Serbs from the Krajina area. We have taken
very little stand on the monumental slaughters of hundreds of
thousands, if not millions, of people in Africa. We have restrained
the Iraqis from attacking Kurds but see nothing amiss in Turks
attacking Kurds. We cannot even agree to abandon the use of land
mines.

In reality when we, the self-anointed rulers of this planet, issue an
ultimatum to another country, it is "surrender or die." To maintain
our "credibility," we must crush any semblance of resistance to our
dictates to that country.

* Brasscheck note: 

The quote: "The Romans make a desert and call it peace,"
is from Galgacus, a Caledonian chieftain, in a speech
to his army before meeting the Romans in battle in 86 AD.
It's cited in Tacitus' "Life of Agricola."

========================================================

A paper that's changed its tune

A month ago, the New York Observer was describing
the bombing of Yugoslav civilians with casual detachment
and calling Milosevic one of the greatest mass
murderers of the 20th century who must be stopped
at any cost.

That rhetoric has disappeared and been replaced
by this from columnist Nicholas von Hoffman.
It's an excellent summary of the true moral
position of the US in this war.

"In what may come to be called the Coward's War,
civilian casualties mount as diplomacy languishes...
To these almost daily horrors, the 
White House-Pentagon-State Department line is to
first deny responsibility and then categorize the
fussing about them as a Yugoslavian "public
relations offensive." Similarly, the Serbian
refusal to call dead people 'collateral damage'
and their persistence in publicizing the gory
effects ** of our precision bombing is deemed
a fraudulently transparent attempt to gain
sympathy.

Washington's talk about making war for humanitarian
goals has markedly lessened of late. When the slaughter
began, Heartfelt Willie's speech was perfumed with
the humanitarian sentiments he speaks with such
facility. The word, humanitarian, was seldom off
the lips of American officialdom, but the emphasis
has switched over from aid, comfort, and help
to winning. No more sweet talk, not it's crush
the enemy, conquer them, and on to victory."

** Brasscheck note: In the process of the war NATO has 
destroyed several Yugoslavian television stations and killed
and injured numerous journalists both Yugoslav
and Chinese. Recently, the US, until caught and 
stopped, was in the process of forcing Yugoslavia's 
US-owned commercial Internet access provider
to take the nation off the network. Stated goal:
to stop "Serbian propaganda."

========================================================

In a visit to Washington yesterday, British Foreign Minister 
Cook had this to say:

"The U.S.A. should be proud of what is has accomplished
in the Kosovo campaign...This is not the time to lose
our nerve. The air campaign is working and NATO should
be ready to take advantage of its success. 

Cook's bottom line: "We can't buckle first" because
that would greatly weaken NATO. 

So now, we are bombing Yugoslavian civilians to
insure the health and longevity of NATO!? By whose
authority is this bombing taking place anyway?

"NATO press release

22 March 1999 

STATEMENT BY THE NORTH ATLANTIC ALLIANCE ON THE SITUATION IN KOSOVO

In response to Belgrade's continued intransigence and repression,
the Secretary General of NATO, to whom the North Atlantic 
Council had delegated on 30 January the authority to decide
on air operations, is completing his consultations with the 
Allies to this end. 

In view of the evolution on the ground of the situation in 
Kosovo, the North Atlantic Council has also authorized today
the Secretary General, to decide, subject to further consultations,
on a broader range of air options if necessary."

And what were the demands refused by Yugoslavia
which the country still deems unacceptable:

    "7. NATO personnel shall be immune from any form of arrest,
    investigation, or detention by the authorities in the FRY (Federal
    Republic of Yugoslavia.)

    8. NATO personnel shall enjoy... free and unrestricted passage and
    unimpeded access throughout the FRY including associated airspace and
    territorial waters.

    11. NATO is granted the use of airports, roads, rails and ports
    without payment...

    15. [NATO shall have] the right to use all of the electromagnetic
    spectrum..."

    Source: The Rambouillet Text of Feb. 23. Excerpts from Appendix (B)

In other words, an unelected body designated an individual
who is answerable to no electorate to make the decision on 
undertaking a massive, violent assault against a sovereign 
country that has not invaded or threaten to invade any member
of NATO. And why? Because NATO wants said country to give its 
consent to an unlimited military occupation. 

The last time such a twisted justification for attacking a 
European country was invoked, the words came out of the mouth
of Adolph Hitler. That's history folks, like it or not.