Earlier this year, the New York Times ran several stories and editorials on the release of a report by the Guatemalan Historical Clarification Commission, a
report that, in the words of a front-page Times story (2/26/99):

"concluded that the United States gave money and training to a Guatemalan military that committed 'acts of genocide' against the Mayans during
the most brutal armed conflict in Central America, Guatemala's 36-year civil war…. The panel also found evidence that the United States had
knowledge of genocide and still supported the Guatemalan military."

There is ample evidence to suggest that the U.S. is selective in its objection to governments that orchestrate violence against internal minorities. In 1992, at the
height of Turkey's repression of its Kurdish minority, a State Department spokesperson summarized U.S. policy (National Journal, 4/15/95):

"There is no question of halting U.S. military assistance to Turkey. The U.S. sees nothing objectionable in a friendly or allied country using
American weapons to secure internal order or to repel an attack against its territorial unity."

Wines could have calculated the value the U.S. places on "a single human life" by examining the U.S.'s policy of imposing sanctions on Iraq. While malnutrition
was almost unknown in Iraq before the Gulf War, "from 1991 to 1998, children under 5 were dying from malnutrition-related diseases in numbers ranging
from a conservative 2,690 per month to a more realistic 5,357 per month," according to U.N. figures (Seattle Post Intelligencer, 5/11/99). When 60
Minutes (5/12/96) asked Secretary of State Madeline Albright whether sanctions that left half a million Iraqi children dead were "worth it," Albright replied, "I
think this is a very hard choice. But the price--we think the price is worth it."

A graphic demonstration of the Western attitude toward human life came in the closing days of the war in Yugoslavia--after Belgrade had already agreed to
withdraw its forces from Kosovo, and all that remained to be worked out were the technical details of an international occupation--when the U.S.
carpet-bombed two battalions of Yugoslavian soldiers gathered in an open field near the Albanian border, who were skirmishing with KLA fighters. News
reports indicated that the number of soldiers killed as a result in this meaningless battle was in the hundreds (AP, 6/9/99).

http://www.fair.org/activism/kosovo-wines.html

*** The revelation that American reporters knew about a U.S. strategy to create a pretext for NATO's war on Yugoslavia - but did
not report on it - raises serious questions about the independence of mainstream news organizations.

---

WHAT REPORTERS KNEW ABOUT
KOSOVO TALKS -- BUT DIDN'T TELL

Was Rambouillet Another Tonkin Gulf?

June 2, 1999

New evidence has emerged confirming that the U.S. deliberately set out to thwart the Rambouillet peace talks in France in
order to provide a "trigger" for NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia.

Furthermore, correspondents from major American news organizations reportedly knew about this plan to stymie the Kosovo
peace talks, but did not inform their readers or viewers.

FAIR's May 14 media advisory, "Forgotten Coverage of Rambouillet Negotiations,"
( http://www.fair.org/press-releases/kosovo-solution.html ) asked whether the media had given the full story on Rambouillet.
News reports almost universally blamed the failure of negotiations on Serbian intransigence. The headline over a New York
Times dispatch from Belgrade on March 24 - the first day of the bombing - read "U.S. Negotiators Depart, Frustrated By
Milosevic's Hard Line."

But the evidence presented in "Forgotten Coverage" suggested that it was U.S. negotiators, not the Serbs, who blocked an
agreement.

Now, in the June 14 issue of the Nation, George Kenney, a former State Department Yugoslavia desk officer, reports:

An unimpeachable press source who regularly travels with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told this [writer]
that, swearing reporters to deep-background confidentiality at the Rambouillet talks, a senior State Department
official had bragged that the United States "deliberately set the bar higher than the Serbs could accept." The Serbs
needed, according to the official, a little bombing to see reason.

In other words, the plan for Kosovo autonomy drafted by State Department officials was intentionally crafted to provoke a
rejection from Serb negotiators. In his Nation article, Kenney compares this plan to the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

Providing further confirmation of Kenney's account, Jim Jatras, a foreign policy aide to Senate Republicans, reported in a May
18 speech at the Cato Institute in Washington that he had it "on good authority" that a "senior Administration official told media
at Rambouillet, under embargo" the following:

"We intentionally set the bar too high for the Serbs to comply. They need some bombing, and that's what they are
going to get."

In interviews with FAIR, both Kenney and Jatras asserted that these are actual quotes transcribed by reporters who spoke with
a U.S. official. They declined to give the names or affiliations of the reporters.

The revelation that American reporters knew about a U.S. strategy to create a pretext for NATO's war on Yugoslavia - but did
not report on it - raises serious questions about the independence of mainstream news organizations.

More reporting is needed on the origins of this war, as well as the opportunities for peace that may have been overlooked.



This release will be updated as new information becomes available.

This media advisory was written by FAIR media analyst Seth Ackerman (mailto:SAckerman@fair.org).

"The ethnic Albanian and Serb populations of Kosovo have
been plunged into a humanitarian disaster. The rest of
Serbia has been bombed to rubble and ruin. The entire
Balkan region has been economically devastated. And the
reverberations of the war have been felt across Europe and
around the world. India's air strikes in Kashmir are one
example of what can follow, once the West has set a
pattern of gunboat diplomacy in international politics."

http://www.informinc.co.uk/

DANIELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLA.
Don't you have anything more accurate then a story of the 2nd of june.I saw and read it already 5 times.
Give us a break
Emina

To:Emina

Re: "I ... read it already 5 times."

And Your thoughts of it?