May 23, 1999

"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your common sense."
--Buddha

That's eight weeks...60 days and counting that the Western Powers are INTENSIFYING the war against Serbia AND the so-called diplomatic efforts. Eight weeks, 60 days and counting. On Wednesday, we will enter the ninth week...63 days. And there will be a tenth week and eventually a 100th day. And we will continue to intensify our "diplomatic efforts" until the total surrender of Serbia.

The simple fact is, the Western Powers are not interested in diplomacy whatsoever. "Our military campaign will continue until these conditions are met," writes the 42nd President of the USA, William Jefferson Clinton, in an OP-ED published in today's New York Times. "These conditions" are nothing less than total Serbian sovereign abdication and the strategy remains simple; keep bombing. This strategy is working according to Mr. Clinton. "Our air campaign has destroyed or damaged one-third of Serbia's armored vehicles in Kosovo, half its artillery, most of its ability to produce ammunition, all its capacity to refine fuel and done enormous damages to other sectors of its economy," says the President.

What do you think Mr. Clinton means by "[NATO having] done enormous damages to other sectors of its economy?"

Elsewhere, in the same edition of The New York Times (page A12), you can read that "allied bombing had destroyed 31 percent of Yugoslavia's tanks, artillery and other heavy equipment in Kosovo," repeating the President's assertion. But the next paragraph of the article is quite telling as to our strategy and diplomatic efforts. It reads, "The announcement did not just highlight NATO's claim that the air campaign is having success against Mr. Milosevic's heavy forces in Kosovo. It also set a benchmark to follow as the debate over ground forces intensifies. Military theory holds that combat units lose their ability to fight after suffering losses of 50 percent or more, though General Clark has been careful never to give a figure publicly."

Now, link the above to yesterday's news (Saturday) announcing the amassing of 50,000 troops on the borders of Kosovo.

Do you see? There is no diplomatic effort that deserves mention. There is an attempt to quiet the Russians on the one hand, and then, on the other, there is the reality on the ground, a strategy of destruction and a cold-blooded decision to exert a dictate upon Serbia.

Dear readers, you do not have to believe me. Actually, I would respectfully enjoin you to follow Buddha's precept: "Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your common sense."

And then ask yourself whether you have ever read in the national media or watched and heard on the networks, in your respective countries, the views and opinions of the other side, the Serbian side?

Indeed, one may wonder, do the Serbs exist at all, really?

My friend, Liouba, writes, "By the way, if you want to see Serbs in the flesh and bones (they are not all anthropophagites [a.k.a. cannibals]) allow me to direct you toward the addresses of a few Serbian churches in California."

"In San Francisco: St. John the Baptist Orthodox Serbian Church. I forgot the address, says Liouba, but I remember that the church was modern, all white, and looked over the Bay. I went there in 1988 and I have fond memories of a priest, Dusan Bunjevic, who was a professor of history and had a beautiful library. And the choral was splendid (Americans singing in Slav)!

"In Oakland: The Serbian Orthodox Church of St. George, located at 94 Ninth Street and Oak."

"I know there is a Serb Orthodox Bishop in California, I guess in Los Angeles."

"I do not want to throw you in the arms of orthodox priests with their long hair and beard, but in the present circumstances, the ONLY place where all the Serbs get together, either to pray or to help (to bundle up parcels) or to simply bring some warmth to people who are getting increasingly colder and for whom it is getting harder to understand that what is happening to them, the bombing, is ordered by their friends of ALWAYS."

Well, I am not the religious type, to say the least, and Liouba has known me and my convictions for over two decades, but I can assure him and all of you that Serbs are definitely NOT cannibals and it is us all who are the cold-blooded murderers!

We are the accomplices of the annihilation of our friends of ALWAYS. We are annihilating all sentiments of humanity within us all. As Henry S., of Las Vegas, Nevada, wrote me, "We who love freedom pray for these madmen that want to incinerate the free spirit." And Henry signed his E-mail, "An ashamed American"

Note: Albert Einstein once wrote, "There is the danger that everyone waits idly for others to act in his stead." Please, do not. Write to and call your representatives, write to your newspapers, to tell them, like Buddha, what you really believe. Please.

Misguided Bombs and Accidental Collateral Damage by Jan Baughman

Kosovo: The Continuing Decline of the West by Marian in New Mexico

Controlling Public Opinion Through Silence by Gilles d'Aymery