Archive through Apr...
 
Notifications
Clear all

Archive through April 29, 1999

69 Posts
20 Users
0 Likes
5,553 Views
(@daniela)
Reputable Member
Joined: 25 years ago
Posts: 333
Topic starter  

What did I say Roy ("Roy"-oops, that's from the BBC comedy program, BBC2 to be specific, "The Fast Show")? Desperate to pick up a fight, still .
________________________________

"What about you during war time?
Where you an angel too?
Quess not.
Come up with something constructive not from another site, but out of your own mouth."
Emina.

I'll write to you only this one:
Be certain that all your posts are speaking more
than what you belive...
And you claim to be a psychiatrist !!! HA


   
ReplyQuote
(@daniela)
Reputable Member
Joined: 25 years ago
Posts: 333
Topic starter  

A report from the "independent" source makes one at least a bit clear of insults;
so, borrowed from another site (www.wsws.org -
- it's American )


" By a reporter
29 April 1999

An item which appeared in the Washington Post Wednesday marks the
first report in a major American newspaper of the clause in the Rambouillet Accords on Kosovo which effectively authorized a NATO occupation of Serbia. The German press has carried several reports this month on the previously undisclosed Appendix B of the accord, but the American media has maintained a wall of silence.

Appendix B includes the following section (FRY is an abbreviation for Federal Republic of Yugoslavia):

"NATO personnel shall enjoy, together with their vehicles, vessels, aircraft and equipment, free and unrestricted passage and unimpeded access throughout the FRY including associated airspace and territorial waters. This shall include, but not be limited to, the right of bivouac, maneuver, billet, and utilization of any areas or facilities as required for support, training, and operations."

This language made it inconceivable that any government in Belgrade
could accept the Rambouillet pact, since it would have transformed the
entire territory of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, not only the
province of Kosovo, into a NATO parade ground. This provision was included by the US government in order to insure that the government of
President Slobodan Milosevic rejected the agreement and provided a
suitable pretext for launching the air war on Yugoslavia. "


   
ReplyQuote
(@daniela)
Reputable Member
Joined: 25 years ago
Posts: 333
Topic starter  

>>> Mirvei, a tall Albanian woman clutch ing her four-month-old baby, looked bewildered when asked if Serbian troops had driven her out. "There were no Serbs," she
said. "We were frightened of the bombs." _ Red Cross officials say many of the most recent arrivals [in Macedonia] intend to return to Kosovo as soon as the
NATO bombardment stops.
[London Sunday Times, March 27] <<<<<


   
ReplyQuote
 nick
(@nick)
Estimable Member
Joined: 17 years ago
Posts: 182
 

This sites needs less Jack London's and more Basil's, Ddc's, Spiro's and Daniela's.

Spiro, thanks for posting the Robert Fisk info, you beat me to it by a couple hours.

Ddc's 10 points are an objective, comprehensive and well thought out analysis.

Jack London should join the Clinton hordes of Huns, so that he could say then that grass no longer grows once it's been sprayed by Tomahawks.

Some people are running out of ideas, but thank God once they got each other's emails and travel arrangements out of the way, we might get more space for discussion and our web page will definitely load faster...


   
ReplyQuote
(@emina)
Reputable Member
Joined: 17 years ago
Posts: 441
 

TO DANIELA.
Believe what you want to believe.
Not Going for the invitation are you? Afraid that you don't like what you will see.
No i am not ready to fight and i never will be.Does this answer your question?
Emina


   
ReplyQuote
(@guido)
Estimable Member
Joined: 25 years ago
Posts: 137
 

Basil,
Thank you for your references to me. It really makes my day whem someone as brainwashed as you starts cutting me down. I had a bad day going until I read your post, but it made me laugh! You are obviously ignorant of how war really is. Innocent people will die from mistakes, hell we even kill our own people by mistake. I am not really nuts (Emina may dispute this) I just can't stand to see innocent people die when there is an alternative. Ground troops can see their intended targets (please keep them on when we invade) and discern between civilians and military. Bombs are too powerful and kill all around the target. Just be thankful we are not genocidal like Milosevics paramilitary units or the war would already be over and there would be no more Serbians. The USA war machine is not desperate, we have all the time and recources we need to defeat a little piss ant dictator like Milosevic. I just hate to see the innocent Serbians die for a cause that has no basis in truth.

Daniela,

You are so full of sh*t, it is running out of your mouth.

Love,
Guido AKA nuts


   
ReplyQuote
(@stoney)
New Member
Joined: 25 years ago
Posts: 1
 

gee,why turn on the television when all you need to do is come here to see people fighting.
Stoney


   
ReplyQuote
 nick
(@nick)
Estimable Member
Joined: 17 years ago
Posts: 182
 

Some users will easily insult someone who does not agree with them. This applies also to politicians:

British cabinet minister accuses Labour MPs opposed to NATO bombing of "appeasing" fascism
By Julie Hyland 22 April 1999:

"Clare Short, International Development Secretary in the Labour government, has denounced MPs from her own party as "equivalent to the people who appeased Hitler". Her outburst was directed against 13 Labour MPs critical of the NATO
bombardment of Serbia who had tried to force a vote in the House of Commons debate on Kosovo on Monday evening. The dissident Labour MPs were seeking to register their opposition to the war, but the attempt, led by Tony Benn and Tam Dalyell, fell far short of the 40 members needed to bring on a vote.
Short said that she was "ashamed" that such people were members of the Labour Party. She likened them to pro-Nazi sympathisers in the Second World War. "There were people then who thought Hitler was a good thing, there were people who opposed action being taken against Hitler," she said.

Her remarks are not the first time the Labour government has sought to cloak NATO aggression with the garb of "anti-fascism". Such imagery
has been essential in attempting to maintain shaky public support behind the war drive. In an interview with Newsweek magazine a fortnight ago,
Prime Minister Tony Blair claimed that his government's policy was motivated by the lessons of the Nazi holocaust. His generation had learnt
the cost of attempting to "appease dictators", he claimed.

Both Blair and Short's comments are based on flagrant historical falsification. It was not the British establishment's attempts to "appease"
Hitler that enabled the Nazi dictatorship to carry out genocide, but their active support for Hitler before the war.

During a previous Commons debate on the Balkans, Benn read from documents taken from the captured German Foreign Office at the end of the Second World War. One recorded an exchange between Hitler and Lord Halifax, the British Foreign Secretary, prior to the outbreak of war. Halifax told the dictator: "Herr Chancellor, on behalf of the British Government, I congratulate you on crushing communism in Germany and standing as a bulwark against Russia".

The British ruling class welcomed the victory of fascism in Germany as a pre-emptive strike against a socialist movement of the European working class. Moreover, they saw it as a means for overthrowing the Soviet Union. Only when the Nazi dictatorship's expansion began to threaten the
British Empire did the ruling class decide, reluctantly, to move against it. Even so, despite their knowledge of the "Final Solution", Jewish refugees attempting to flee Germany and Eastern Europe were barred from entry to Britain.

No military or economic grounds exist for Blair's comparison between 1930s Germany (a country seeking to violently establish its own world
Reich, or empire) with present day Serbia, a small and impoverished land.

The only country whose national sovereignty is being violated in today's war is Serbia. When Milosevic refused to agree to a virtual take-over of the country by US-led NATO troops, the current bombardment began.

Previously, when Milosevic's clampdown on internal dissent was aimed at facilitating the imposition of IMF economic diktats against a hostile
population, the democratic rights of the Balkan peoples counted for nothing within the British establishment. In the Dayton Accord for Bosnia,
the Western governments dropped any action against the "war criminal" Milosevic, in return for his aid in enabling them to carve out spheres of
imperialist influence within the country based on its partition along ethnic lines.

The Blair government's concern for "humanitarian principles" is based solely on the cold calculation of its foreign policy interests. The British ruling class fears that the expansion of the European Union--under German hegemony--and the launch of the euro will lead to its isolation on
the continent. Britain's enthusiastic participation in the action against Serbia, under US leadership, is an attempt to use its not insignificant military advantages to make up for its economic and political weakness.

In this respect, Blair could be compared with the cowardly, ineffectual child who allies himself with the playground bully. The price of Blair's
"reflected glory" is being paid by the defenceless civilians sheltering in Yugoslavia's devastated cities, or the refugee convoys trying to escape to
safety, or the tens of thousands forcibly detained on the border to Montenegro in conditions of utter degradation.

For weeks, the British government claimed that its actions were motivated by concern for the Kosovar Albanians. On Tuesday, it revealed the extent of its magnanimity--announcing it would grant
immediate asylum to just 126 Kosovar women and children.

Short's outburst must serve as a warning to all critically minded people. Only last week, senior Labour officials were involved in a "whispering"
campaign against BBC World Affairs editor John Simpson. Complaining that his news reports from Serbia were too "critical" of the NATO action,
they let it be known that they considered him to be Milosevic's "stooge".
Following NATO's attack on the refugee convey--which caught it in a web of lies and disinformation--Blair's senior press adviser, Alistair Campbell, was seconded to NATO to prevent any further "public relations disasters".

Such blatant attempts to censor the press are now being followed by denouncing the parliamentary opponents of the war as virtual supporters
of fascism.

Despite government claims to the contrary, there is mounting evidence that NATO is preparing the invasion of Serbia using ground troops. One
unnamed military official was quoted recently saying its objective would be "to strangle Serbia". Short's remarks are part of preparing public opinion for this eventuality by poisoning the political atmosphere to prevent the possibility of free and critical discussion."

Fascinating, isn't it ?


   
ReplyQuote
(@buffyt)
New Member
Joined: 25 years ago
Posts: 1
 

Dear Lord Jesus...watch over our men and women as they fight for the freedom of these people. Lord be with them and protect them, let peace abide again in this country...Father help our leaders and give them wisdom now..in JESUS name, amen


   
ReplyQuote
 nick
(@nick)
Estimable Member
Joined: 17 years ago
Posts: 182
 

While we are on the subject of freedom of speech/information:

Behind the attacks on veteran journalist John Simpson:

British government criticises BBC for its war coverage By Stuart Nolan and Barbara Slaughter
20 April 1999:

"Senior British government officials have denounced John Simpson, the BBC World Affairs Editor, for his supposedly "biased reports" about the impact NATO's bombing is having on Belgrade.

He has been accused of being "pro-Serb" and part of the "Milosevic propaganda offensive" for citing Serbian sources regarding the numbers of civilian casualties and damage caused by the NATO bombardment. Simpson is also charged with having been "grossly simplistic" by suggesting that ordinary Serbs were putting aside their differences with Milosevic to oppose the bombing.

The Times newspaper on Saturday April 17 describes private discussions in which officials used "strong language" against the veteran BBC reporter. The unnamed government sources describe Simpson's work as falling short of the "expected standards" of a leading journalist.

Labour Party ministers are said to be preparing to make a formal complaint to the BBC over reports by Simpson and other BBC journalists. In an earlier criticism about BBC coverage of the war, a
Foreign Office official said, "The newspapers have been very supportive, but we are getting massacred by the broadcasters."( Observer, March 28).

Simpson is one of the few British journalists remaining in Belgrade. He has relayed reports about what he has seen and heard. What is it that Downing Street objects to? On March 28, in a report entitled "Life under fire in Belgrade", Simpson stated, "But Serbs do not have to be ordered out of their schools or hospitals or factories to go and demonstrate against the West, as happens in Iraq. Here the feeling is
genuine and it can break out at any moment." (BBC News Online)

Simpson's report contradicts NATO's predictions that the bombing campaign would strengthen opposition to Milosevic. Simpson has warned of the dangers of demonising the Serbs and the consequences of ignoring the history of the region.

In a broadcast from Pristina on April 8, he reported that an attack on a local oil depot had destroyed the city's heating system. He added, "The worst damage is in the city centre. A telecommunications centre has taken a direct hit, and round about it other large modern buildings have been badly damaged--a bank, a social security office and a public library."

A question-and-answer programme with Simpson, hosted by BBC News Online, attracted 2 million visitors on April 14. The journalist explained, "I've spoken to a wide range of people here, many of whom took part in the 88 days of demonstrations against Milosevic two years ago, and they have all said that the bombing has put them behind him."

The campaign against Simpson began on the same evening that NATO spokesmen were denying responsibility for the bombing of Albanian
refugee convoys. When introducing the news footage of the attack, Simpson pointed out that the Serbian authorities would not have allowed him onto the scene if they were not confident of the facts.

A previous report from Simpson that NATO jets had destroyed a passenger train on a bridge near Leskovac was later confirmed. Forced to finally admit NATO's responsibility for this attack on civilians, Cabinet officials aimed their fury at the veteran BBC journalist.

He came under similar attacks by the former Tory government for his broadcasts from Iraq in the 1990 Gulf War. Earlier this year, during the
renewed bombing of Iraq, Alistair Campbell (Tony Blair's Chief Press Secretary), Defence Secretary George Robertson, and Foreign Secretary Robin Cook all lodged formal complaints about the BBC's
coverage.

In the first week of NATO bombing of Serbia, BBC Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman and John Humphrys of BBC Radio Four's Today Programme were also criticised. Downing Street officials
advised Prime Minister Blair to pull out of a planned interview with Paxman, in what amounted to a formal protest, because they objected to his "sceptical tone". Humphrys was attacked for his regular use of the word "mess" when discussing NATO strategy during an interview with George Robertson.

In another interview, Robertson objected when Paxman said that "bombing Milosevic to the negotiating table" had failed. Robertson cut
short the interview.

Simpson defends himself:

Simpson has received many international awards for his war journalism. His colleagues at the BBC have defended him. Richard Ayre, deputy chief executive of BBC News, said, "It is important that audiences are given a true account of the public mood in Belgrade, not simply an account of what NATO governments might prefer to hear." (The Times,
April 16)

In the Guardian of April 17 Simpson defended himself, saying, "Impartiality of telling what's happening in front of you is bred into me. I've been in the BBC for 34 years now. I know how to have control over what I say or write." Simpson added that he knew far too much about the crimes of the Milosevic government to be taken in by their propaganda, "But I absolutely refuse point blank to put on all that easy chauvinistic stuff, talking about Nazis, fascists and evil empires. Facts speak for themselves."

In his regular weekly column in the Sunday Telegraph April 18, Simpson expressed contempt for his faceless critics in Downing Street. He said that the press in Yugoslavia had seized on the whispering campaign against him, believed to originate from Alistair Campbell. "They take it as a sign that for all its vaunted adherence to liberty, the British government is just as keen to control the media as Slobodan Milosevic is."

He continued, "This is my thirtieth war. I know very well how governments try to manipulate the media... There's a depressing pattern: when things go wrong British governments tend to lose their nerve. They get frightened at the thought of people getting independent, objective information so they start whispering about the personal abilities of the broadcasters. Anonymously, of course."

The attack on Simpson is a significant political development. Most British radio and television stations make no secret of their support for NATO's actions. Now there is an attempt to silence one of the few remaining critical sources of information. The pressure being brought against the BBC comes precisely at the point when the true social and human implications of the war--in the form of NATO attacks on civilians, both Serb and ethnic Albanian--are being revealed. This makes the preservation and strengthening of the media's overwhelmingly pro-NATO role, and their promotion of lies and distortions to conceal the war's real aims, all the more necessary.

The attempt to suppress the few reports that provide a picture of the tragic consequences of the bombing can only mean that NATO is planning to intensify its attacks on civilians. Another article in the Times, "Clear targets: Why there can be no let-up in the bombing", makes apparent that the aim of the air attacks is the destruction of Yugoslavia. A further, less direct indication of this, is the appointment of Alistair
Campbell to overhaul NATO's media strategy, in order that the Western governments can present a common front.

Campbell believes that some of the public relations fall-out resulting from the NATO bombing of the Albanian civilian convoy could have been lessened if London, the Pentagon and Brussels had adopted a common line. He has advised NATO spokesmen to say nothing further on the subject.

The fact that the Labour government is seeking to prevent the public from having access to any critical reporting provides a clear warning of the
danger to democratic rights presented by this war for working people all over the world. What kind of "free press" can there be, if the only
information and views allowed to be disseminated are those of the government?

The neo-colonialist and militarist policies being carried out by the US, Britain and NATO against weaker nations such as Serbia are, in the end,
incompatible with the exercise of basic democratic rights at home."

Pay attention to this: "Simpson is one of the few journalists who have remained in Belgrade." Which means that he can see for himself things that NATO does not want you to see and certainly things that some of you plonkers will never consider.

NATO is going to lose, you can tell from the huge number of media having a change of hearts about what is really going on between NATO and Yugoslavia.


   
ReplyQuote
 nick
(@nick)
Estimable Member
Joined: 17 years ago
Posts: 182
 

Here is a quote directed at our beloved NATO and Pentagon spokespersons when they target Guido and Jack London:

"In our time, political speech and writing are
largely the defense of the indefensible."
— GEORGE ORWELL

Yup


   
ReplyQuote
 nick
(@nick)
Estimable Member
Joined: 17 years ago
Posts: 182
 

Hard to keep up, NATO kill faster than I can count.

1) 4 civilians, 2 of them kids, killed last night during the bombing of a Gypsy settlement in
the Prizren area. This should be coming up in your "news".

2) Not satisfied with the Surdulica massacre, NATO planes came back to bomb some more ! Casualties not confirmed yet. If NATO were properly informed, they would know that there has not been army barracks for years there.

3) More propaganda pamphlets dropped by NATO over Novi Sad today, in an attempt to explain to the locals why they are killing their children.

4) Jamie shea's explanation to the bombing of residents house(s) in Sofia, Bulgaria: "the NATO aircraft targetted a Serb radar system and veered off course" - CNN. Say, Jamie, if Sofia is over 60 kms from the Yugoslav border and your nazi pilot did target something in Serbia, 60 kms is a hell of a mishap for a smart bomb.

You can expect harder bombing because THE RACE IS ON: it is NATO's only option to bomb Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo into oblivion BEFORE THEY ARE LEGALLY STOPPED, BY US CONGRESS OR THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY, WHICH MAY MEAN THE END OF THEIR EXISTENCE.

Nicolas


   
ReplyQuote
 phil
(@phil)
Eminent Member
Joined: 17 years ago
Posts: 32
 

"And all this fairy tales about Kosovo not being
Serbian?"
By Daniela on Thursday, April 29, 1999 - 10:29 am


Daniela, From the quote above I take it you disbelieve that the "ethnic Albanians" were in Kosovo prior to 600 AD. ((The Albanians are descendants of the ancient Illyrians who were living in the southeast Balkans as far back as 700 BC. "ALBANIANS IN KOSOVO: PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE (October 1994)" By Owen Bennett Jones))

How can any Serb, with a straight face, lay claim to territory taken from another (as we Americans did from the Indians) by their forefathers? How can any Serbian proclaim Kosovo to be theirs as a birthright?

I might argure that the "ethnic Albanians" are merely retaking what is rightfully theirs before it was taken from them and desecrated by the erection of blasphemous temples to a Christian god. phil


   
ReplyQuote
 ddc
(@ddc)
Trusted Member
Joined: 25 years ago
Posts: 84
 

Quick Political Scholastic Aptitude Test (QPSAT)

This test consists of one (1) multiple-choice question (so you better get it right!) Here's a list of the
countries that the U.S. has bombed since the end of World War II, compiled by historian William
Blum:

China 1945-46
Korea 1950-53
China 1950-53
Guatemala 1954
Indonesia 1958
Cuba 1959-60
Guatemala 1960
Congo 1964
Peru 1965
Laos 1964-73
Vietnam 1961-73
Cambodia 1969-70
Guatemala 1967-69
Grenada 1983
Libya 1986
El Salvador 1980s
Nicaragua 1980s
Panama 1989
Iraq 1991-99
Sudan 1998
Afghanistan 1998
Yugoslavia 1999

In how many of these instances did a democratic government, respectful of human rights, occur as a
direct result? Choose one of the following:

(a) 0
(b) zero
(c) none
(d) not a one
(e) zip
(f) a whole number between -1 and +1
(g) zilch

Mike Deal - miked@zonenet.net - www.zonenet.net / www.northwestextreme.com
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad
"Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer" - Adolf Hitler

MMMay Day this Saturday!
Peace not WoD!
FFFF
DdC


   
ReplyQuote
 phil
(@phil)
Eminent Member
Joined: 17 years ago
Posts: 32
 

Nick, if John Simpson's work is as inept as the article you posted by Stuart Nolan and Barbara Slaughter above, then he deserves all the criticism that can be heaped on him.

For example:
Nolan and Slaughter write "He has been accused of being "pro-Serb" and part of the "Milosevic propaganda offensive" for citing Serbian sources regarding the numbers of civilian casualties and damage caused by the NATO bombardment."

Defenitly a legit hit. How can he site a source or give it any credibility if the report can not be independently verified and critiqued? Any reporter who'll not put his "cahones" on the chop block for his comrades to take a swipe at is nothing but a "candy a*s."

Another example:
They (Nolan and Slaughter) write "Simpson is also charged with having been "grossly simplistic" by suggesting that ordinary Serbs were putting aside their differences with Milosevic to oppose the bombing."

Care to quote the paragraph in Stuart Nolan and Barbara Slaughter's article above that effectively contradicts the assertion that Simpson is "grossly simplistic?"

If one is going to try to chop another's "cahones" off at least make a sincere effort.

The rest of the article could be termed an "apologia" being slanted and lacking objectivity. They seem to be defending a hack with hack journalism. Where are the pom poms? phil


   
ReplyQuote
Page 4 / 5
Share: