Issue 60 Table of Contents

Issue 60
Table of Contents

	How Kosovo Could Drag us Towards WWIII	by Franz Schurmann In October 1962 Kennedy and Khrushchev knew they had to move fast and agree before the diplomatic tapestry of mutual understanding and arms control unraveled. This time three leaders hold the fate of the world in their hands: Clinton, Yeltsin and Milosevic. It's much trickier when three decide than when it's two. Clinton and Yeltsin have nukes but Milosevic can spread a pandemic of chaos beyond Yugoslavia and maybe beyond Europe too
	Anxiety Growing Across Europe	by Ramesh Jaura There is a growing anxiety across Europe as NATO extends its air assaults on Yugoslavia and the number of refugees from Kosovo swells, reviving memories of World War II. The disquiet, which analysts expect to grow the longer the war -- with its unforeseen consequences -- drags on, has already been manifested in protests held, among others, in Greece, Italy, Spain and Germany. Analysts say the need for repeated explanations is becoming increasingly pressing as a winning strategy eludes NATO and voices of protest become louder
	Bombing the Baby With the Bathwater	by Veran Matic The bombing has jeopardized the lives of 10.5 million people and unleashed an attack on the fledgling forces of democracy in Kosovo and Serbia. It has undermined the work of reformists in Montenegro and the Serbian entity of Bosnia-Herzegovina and their efforts to promote peace. The bombing of Yugoslavia demonstrates the political impotence of U.S. President Bill Clinton and the Western alliance in averting a human catastrophe in Kosovo. It's not easy to stop the war machine once its power has been unleashed
	Anti-West Anger Explodes in Russia	by Sergei Blagov NATO warplanes had hardly begun their action before demonstrators were gathering at the U.S. embassy to hurl obscenities, bottles, rocks and eggs before being dispersed by police. The spontaneous reaction a soon gathered strength in political quarters. Russian nationalists proposed that Yugoslavia join a defense pact of former Soviet states to counteract the NATO threat. The ultra-nationalist followers of Vladimir Zhirinovsky began setting up recruitment centers throughout Russia for volunteers to help defend Yugoslavia
	NATO Bombs Will Encourage Repression	by Eric D. Gordy When President Clinton explained the reasons for bombing Serbia to the American public, he emphasized humanitarian concerns, and argued that the United States could not afford to let repression in Serbia continue. Yet judging from the responses of the Serbian regime to international actions and threats of action, the bombing is likely to have just the opposite effect
	UN Stalemate Over Yugoslavia, But Islamic Nations Back NATO	by Thalif Deen Although the UN Security Council voted 12-3 in rejecting a Russian-sponsored resolution to end NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said there is little he can do, the United States has found a political ally at the United Nations: the world body's Islamic countries
	The First Internet War	by Allan R. Andrews News coming from Kosovo and its adjoining states is coming from schoolgirls, Orthodox monks, political operatives, victims, aggressors and working stiffs such as the security guard who told reporters of damage done to Yugoslavian homes by an errant NATO missile. For the most part, these citizen reports are circling the globe via the World Wide Web because these people in the midst of the crisis have access to a computer and a transmission line
	NATO Using Radioactive Bullets in Kosovo	International Action Center A respected antiwar group, The International Action Center, has called the Pentagon's decision to use the A-10 "Warthog" jets against targets in Kosovo "a danger to the people and environment of the entire Balkans" because it fires 30mm rounds reinforced with depleted uranium, a radioactive weapon
	NATO, Sig Heil!	by Alexander Cockburn It's remarkable how America's gangsterism has grown more shameless even since the days of George Bush. In 1991, Bush devoted months of diplomatic effort toward getting supportive votes in the United Nations for the expedition to free Kuwait. In 1999, Bill Clinton more or less left the United Nations' secretary general, Kofi Annan, to find out from CNN about NATO's decision to bomb
	Yugoslavia Might Put Globe on Path to Wider War	by Franz Schurmann By ordering military action against Yugoslavia, Clinton suddenly changed the rules of the international game. Peace is one kind of game and has its special rules. War is a different kind of game and has its own rules. The last time this happened in America was on February 5, 1965 when President Johnson ordered the sustained bombing of North Vietnam
	A War With no Fast and Easy Victory Ahead	by Randolph T. Holhut We're in the easy stage of this fight. It's been a push-button war of sanitized killing with bombs and cruise missiles. But just dropping bombs will not achieve the objective of keeping the Serbs and the ethnic Albanians from killing each other in Kosovo. The U.S. dumped millions of tons of bombs on North Vietnam, and they prevailed. The Germans bombed London day and night for months. The English prevailed. So what happens if we bomb the Serbs for weeks, and nothing happens? Will we have to send in 200,000 troops to invade Yugoslavia, as NATO has estimated? And then there's the worst case scenarios...
	Kosovo Could be "Second Vietnam," Warn Soviet Vets	by Sergei Blago As NATO warplanes streaked across Europe on yet another bombing raid against Yugoslavia, many Russian military veterans had good reason to believe that air attacks alone would not be enough for the alliance to achieve its ultimate goals. The might of the Soviet Air Force failed to overcome guerrillas in Afghanistan and the United States knows only too well that its massive air superiority in Vietnam was not enough to win the war
	Creating a Worst Case Scenario	by Mark Weisbrot Americans are understandably sympathetic to the plight of the Kosovar Albanians being driven from their homes. But it would be a mistake to believe that our government is waging this war in order to help anyone. We now know that U.S. intelligence anticipated that Milosevic would respond to the bombing with a massive "ethnic cleansing" of Kosovo. Yet they not only went ahead and bombed, they did nothing to prepare for the ensuing refugee crisis. Why? Because they do not really care about the Kosovars. Although they are now airlifting some of the displaced Albanians to safety, the amount that the Clinton administration allocated for refugee since the bombing began is telling: $58.5 million dollars. That's about the cost of 29 air-launched cruise missiles fired at Belgrade
	How the IMF Dismantled Yugoslavia	by Michel Chossudovsky Macro-economic reforms imposed by Belgrade's external creditors since the late 1980s had been carefully synchronized with NATO's military and intelligence operations. Resulting from the IMF's deadly economic medicine, the entire Yugoslav economy had been spearheaded into bankruptcy. The result is a nation of shuttered factories, jobless workers, and gutted social programs, and "bitter economic medicine" is the only prescription
	Kosovo "Freedom Fighters" Financed by Drug Money, CIA	by Michel Chossudovsky Heralded by the global media as a humanitarian peace-keeping mission, NATO's ruthless bombing of Belgrade and Pristina goes far beyond the breach of international law. While Slobodan Milosevic is demonized, portrayed as a remorseless dictator, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) is upheld as a self-respecting nationalist movement struggling for the rights of ethnic Albanians. The truth of the matter is that the KLA is sustained by organized crime with the tacit approval of the United States and its allies
	GOP In Disarray Over Kosovo	by Jim Lobe Just three weeks ago the Republican Party trumpeted the results of an opinion poll that showed that U.S. citizens had more confidence in Republicans on foreign-policy issues. Seizing on that piece of good news, the first since their debacle over Clinton's impeachment, Republican leaders vowed to make foreign policy a major priority in their drive to recapture the White House in next year's presidential election. Today, however, that strategy is in a shambles
	The GOP's New Platform: More Big Government	by Christopher Caldwell In the last five years, a Republican Party that promised to shrink the government to the size of a dust mite has quietly discarded every single one of its small-government principles. Last week, Republicans had a chance to take the offensive and tell us exactly what they wanted. What they want is increased entitlements
	Rigging the Polls	by Christopher Caldwell Perhaps it's a mistake to look at polls in the first place, which at this stage are rigged by the candidates to serve as fundraising bait. Still, even in a Washington where everyone knows how self-serving polls can be, last week saw the most self-serving poll of all time. The Family Research Council commissioned pundette pollster Kellyanne Fitzpatrick to ask people about drugs.
	Kissinger Rewrites History	by David Corn Those old enough to remember Watergate will recall the cry that rang out after President Richard Nixon published his memoirs: "Don't buy books from crooks!" After watching Henry Kissinger hawking the latest installment of his self-serving memoirs on Crossfire last week, a viewer in the know might want to shout: "Don't buy lies from those who worked with crooks!" It was amazing how many untruths passed between the lips of the Doctor in so short a time
	Liddy and St. Steve Play The Crowds	by David Corn Elizabeth Dole unveiled the formation of her exploratory campaign during a talk-show-like event, working the crowd, microphone in hand, and discussing her merits. Chief asset? "I am not a politician," said the two-time Cabinet member who served in three other high-ranking administration jobs. Steve Forbes also played to his weakness on his first official outing of Campaign '00. When Forbes stumped in 1996, he dismissed the Christian Coalition -- accurately pegging the group's leader, Pat Robertson, as a "toothy flake" -- and wiggled like a worm around the abortion issue. Now Forbes has undergone a political conversion. Preparing for his second run, last year he repeatedly appeared before religious right rallies; he declared that outlawing abortion is more important than implementing his cherished flat tax
	The Speaker's New Best Friends	by Jim Hightower Dennis Hastert is the low-key Illinois Republican who sort of bumbled into the speaker's job after Newt Gingrich tumbled out of it and Bob Livingston stumbled while trying to grab it. Hastert's only been in the top spot a short while, but he's not the least bit lonely, because he finds himself surrounded by bunches of helpful friends
	Error 404: News Not Found in Your Daily Paper	The media war over Kosovo; Europeans make emergency plans for biotech disaster; Project Censored on TV; Paul Robeson, Cold War martyr; Henry Hyde and the sock puppet
	U.S. Leaders Undermined Asian Economies, Says NY Times Analysis	by Abid Aslam "For all Washington's insistence that it emphasised building financial oversight," the Times reported, "nowhere in the memo's three pages is there a hint that South Korea should improve its bank regulation or legal institutions, or take similar steps. Rather, the goal is clearly to use the OECD as a way of prying open Korean markets -- in part to win business for American banks and brokerages." Between 1970 and 1997, spending by investors in industrialized countries on overseas stocks increased 197-fold as they spanned the world for the highest -- and often the quickest -- returns
	Asian Economic Crisis Was Worse Than Assumed	by Thalif Deen The Asian financial crisis that devastated the economies of Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea and Malaysia was more widespread and deeper than originally foreseen, according to a UN report
	Australia Place Troops on High Alert	by Andrew Nette Analysts say the primary impetus behind these moves is the breakdown of law and order in Indonesia, but in early March, the Australian government announced the country's army would embrace a new doctrine that could see the use of "expeditionary forces" in intense conflicts well beyond Australia's shores
	Push For Pinochet Extradition To U.S.	by Jim Lobe Legal experts believe that Pinochet's prosecution for the 1976 assassination here of former Chilean Defense Minister would face many fewer legal hurdles than the far more ambitious case being prepared by Spain, especially in light of the Lords' ruling that he can be prosecuted only for crimes committed after 1988
	Uproar in Scotland Over Bank Deal With Pat Robertson	A proposed deal between the Bank of Scotland and Robertson's Christian Coalition would establish a virtual bank in the United States offering services only over the phone and the Internet or through the mail. Since the union of the bank and the controversial Robertson was revealed on March 2, a wave of protests has swept Britain, accusing the bank of entering into an unholy arrangement. The evangelist has been vilified as being homophobic, racist, anti-women, anti-Semitic, anti-Hindu, anti-Muslim and even of engaging in unsavory business practices
	UN Calls Growing Use of Mercenaries Alarming	by Thalif Deen Like those who once tried to overthrow legitimate governments, today mercenaries are being hired by democratically-elected governments to fight armed rebel groups. In some cases, they are being deployed by governments-in-exile seeking to return to power with the help of hired guns
	1998 Top Stories Chosen by Project Censored	Threats to U.S. sovereignty through secret 'Multinational Agreement on Investment' tops list
	U.S. Leaving Panama a Minefield	by Silvio Hernandez At least 120,000 unexploded munitions on U.S. military ranges in the Panama Canal zone has heightened the conflict between the two countries over the U.S. obligation to clean up the area by the year 2000
	Amnesty International Puts U.S. on List of Violators	by Gustavo Capdevila Amnesty International caused a stir among human rights circles last week by including the United States on its list of persistent human rights violators, and excluding China and Cuba
	U'wa Homeland Becoming War Zone	by Yadira Ferrer The killing of three U.S. Native rights activists working with the U'wa people of Colombia demonstrated to what extent the ethnic group's reserve, involved in a struggle over oil drilling, has turned into a war zone
	Swiping Benefits	by Christopher D. Cook The future of welfare has arrived -- automatic teller-style benefit cards complete with bank logos and transaction fees. Under this "paperless government" scheme, operating in more than forty states, recipients can swipe plastic to access food stamps and cash benefits. But people on welfare are paying a high price for this brave new world of electronic welfare. It is invading their privacy. It hampers their ability to travel. It is difficult for some to use. Recipients have fewer protections than regular ATM cardholders. And they are losing benefit money due to surcharges. Meanwhile, companies like Citicorp and Lockheed Martin see big profits in it
	Outrage Over NYC Police Killing Still Growing	by Farhan Haq When Guinean immigrant Amadou Diallo was shot dead by four New York City police officers last month, many politicians expected the familiar cycle of outrage, a few protests and eventually a panel to review police procedure. What few officials -- including New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani -- expected was that, more than one month later, the outrage over the Diallo killing would actually grow into a major debate about how the police deal with racial minorities
	Italians Cheer Giuliani's "Tolleranza Zero"	by Jeff Israely For Italian media outlets -- not to mention politicians touting Giuliani's policies -- it was at the very least inconvenient to deal with the news that New York police officers fired 41 bullets at Guinea native Amadou Diallo on February 4. Only after a week of uproar in New York, did a few stories on the controversy appear here, most of them with a tone of "this won't stop the mayor from taking care of business..."
	India Ban on "Professional" Blood Donors Leads to Acute Shortage	by Ranjit Dev Raj Patients and their relatives who desperately look for donors in emergencies because of acute blood shortages brought on by a India Supreme Court ban on professional blood donors. The ban, effective since January 1998, failed to stop the trade in blood. "All it did was to drive the trade underground and raise the price of blood beyond the means of ordinary people," says Dr Iqbal Malik
	Brazil's Bailout is Environmental Time Bomb	by Danielle Knight and Abid Aslam Emergency loans assembled by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), designed to shore up the country's flagging financial markets and dwindling foreign exchange reserves, are being offered in return for austerity measures that will devastate the Amazon region
	International Protest of Home Depot	by Danielle Knight The average home owner in North America goes shopping for wooden doors and paneling for the house, or tools with wooden handles, without stopping to think that these these products may be from endangered forests. Worse still, if they shop at Home Depot -- one of the more popular home improvement stores in the United States and Canada -- chances are consumers could purchase a door made from endangered Mahogany from the Amazon rainforests, or plywood made from Lauan wood from the forests of Southeast Asia, say environmentalists
	Don't Buy Exxon's Fable of the Drunken Captain	by Gregory Palast The true cause of the Exxon Valdez catastrophe was the oil giants' breaking their promises to the Natives and Congress, cynically and disastrously, in the fifteen years leading up to the spill. As to Captain Joe Hazelwood, he was below decks, sleeping off his bender. At the helm, the third mate would never have collided with Bligh Reef had he looked at his Raycas radar. But the radar was not turned on
	What Exxon Hasn't Cleaned Up	by Alexander Cockburn Reacting to the smoldering fury of the spill's victims, Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska put through a law, known as the 1990 Oil Pollution Act, which forever barred a rehabbed Exxon Valdez from plying Alaskan waters. Unabashed, Exxon renamed the tanker the Sea River Mediterranean and tried to sail it back to Valdez. When the tanker was stopped, Exxon challenged the constitutionality of the 1990 act. Did the spill produce federal regulation to guard against such contamination in the future? The answer is an emphatic no. The companies are even resisting having their tankers escorted by tug boats through the sound
	Exxon Still Has Not Paid One Cent in Damages	by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman In September 1994, an Alaska jury found Exxon liable for punitive damages for its conduct in causing the oil spill and assessed $5 billion against the company. The lawsuit was brought by commercial fishermen, Alaska natives and others directly harmed by the spill. In the nearly five years since its jury verdict, Exxon has not paid a penny of the damages. Instead, it has chosen to use an appeals process to delay and possibly defeat any payment
	New Arctic Oil Drilling Could Dwarf Exxon Valdez Disaster	by Danielle Knight Lax regulatory oversight has created a climate where environmental crimes go unreported and risky, untested oil projects go ahead with little or no safeguards, said the report. "Corrupt and careless" industry practices "plague" the region, said Kolton who blames this on the huge influence oil companies wage over elected officials and regulatory agencies
	U.S. Farmland Soil is Wearing Out	by Andy Napgezek After examining 37 years of data collected from Wisconsin soil, researcer Phillip Barak has reached an alarming conclusion: Overuse of fertilizer is wearing out the soil, and there is no cure. Barak and his colleagues have found the soil's ability to hold onto small bits of calcium, magnesium and potassium, decreases because of soil acidity. "This change is irreversible," he said
	Taiwan Attempted to Sneak Toxic Waste Into U.S.	by Danielle Knight The Taiwanese company, Formosa Plastics, sparked an international furor by dumping the hazardous waste in Cambodia, a move that allegedly caused several deaths. When the Cambodian government demanded that the toxic barrels be removed, Formosa contracted with a U.S. waste disposal company to move it to a desert landfill near a low-income Latino community in California, near the Mexican border. But after protests from U.S. environmentalists that the waste was too toxic and violated EPA regulations, the contract was canceled
	Australia Hopes Seahorse Farms Will Stop Poaching	by Andrew Darby New ground is being broken in controlling the trade of wildlife as Australian authorities move to manage what is said to be the world's first big seahorse farming venture. The small and graceful 20 centimeter (8 inch) hippocampus abdominalis, or big bellied seahorse, of southern Australian waters is being farmed for the first time in the island state of Tasmania, to be dried and later powdered as Asian traditional medicine
	Indian Tigers Pay For Flagging Japanese Libidos	by Ranjit Dev Raj The tiger is being exterminated in one of its last strongholds in India because the Japanese and others believe that medicines made from its parts can cure them of anything from arthritis to poor libidos
	Neo-Nazis Remain Active in Latin America	by Daniel Gatti Despite efforts by governments to minimize the influence and political clout of extreme right-wing groups in Latin America, neo-Nazis have closed ranks and remained active. Ultra-rightist groups have been calling for an "International National Socialist" congress to be held in the year 2000 in the Chilean capital of Santiago
	Monsanto Gets Pie in the Face	by Donella Meadows The genetic revolution has engulfed agriculture with unbelievable speed. In 1996 virtually no transgenic crops were planted. In 1997 they covered 19 million acres in the United States; in 1998 50 million acres. Last year more than half the world's soybeans and one-third of the corn contained genes pasted in from other forms of life. Isn't that great? say Monsanto scientists
	Where do Churches Stand on Gay Hate Crimes?	by Dave Cullen For a week or two after pictures of Matthew Shepard splashed across the media, it seemed our churches might just support loving all thy neighbors. That moment passed. As Russell Henderson stands trial for Shepard's murder, the landscape is largely unchanged. In the five months in between, hate crimes legislation has gone down to defeat again in Wyoming and Colorado, another gay has been murdered in Alabama, gay bashings continues. Where are all the churches now?
	Time to Demand a Full Pentagon Audit	By David Morris For the fifth year in a row the GAO has labelled the military's financial and accountability system "high risk." "None of the military services or the department as a whole have yet been able to produce auditable financial statements." Last year the Pentagon was unable to account for an estimated $22 billion in disbursements, nearly one tenth of its total budget
	British Media Agog Over Monica	by Danny Schechter The British press was willingly co-opted, just like its American cousins into a hyperactive hype machine. Like Walters, Snow plugged the book which the tabloid press had also been milking for days. The Mirror carried back to back exclusives. There was Ms. L's secret photo album along with excerpts from "Monica's Story" by Princess Diana's authorized biographer, Anthony Morton. He told the Sunday Times that editors are addicted to the sexual side of the story "because they are not getting any." There was also the fascinating revelation that Monica still shops at the Gap despite all the problems one of their dresses had caused her. One critic in London's Independent spun the story differently -- as more evidence of the "last evil empire," another was of saying American imperialism, Thomas Fleming explains Monicization as part of an American led globalization that dominates the TV screens of the world. He calls Lewinsky a "goddess of sexual consumerism"
	Larry Flynt Does the Right Thing	by David Corn When Sen. Robert Byrd, a Democrat who had been critical of Bill Clinton, called for a quick end to the impeachment trial, the Flynt gang concluded there was no chance Clinton was going down; they decided to hold their fire. Bagging another Republican could only complicate matters and inflame proceedings that appeared to be breaking in Clinton's favor. "The decision was, 'Let's sit back and see what happens,'" Moldea says. As the trial stumbled along, Flynt liked what he saw and found no reason to pull the trigger. "He could have moved ahead and ruined some people"
	An Ugly Return to Fortress America	by Jim Lobe Both Congress and Clinton are rolling back the clock on the arms race and international trade laws
	Media on Both Sides Cranking Out Propaganda	by Norman Solomon This month, it would be an act of heresy in the mainstream media of the United States or Yugoslavia to suggest that Slobodan Milosevic and Bill Clinton share a zest for generating propaganda to justify involvement in killing for political ends. Whatever their differences, both speak a common language of world-class bullies, fond of proclaiming high regard for humanity as blood drips from their hands
	TV Screens Offer Us Illusions of War	by Norman Solomon Traditionally, American television networks like to show U.S. bombers taking off but decline to show what the bombs on board end up doing to human beings. So, American firepower appears to be wondrous but fairly bloodless. As for history, ancient and recent, it is usually rendered murky by the TV networks. The latest coverage has run true to form. "Distortion of important background by Western broadcasters, whether intentional or not, has also helped NATO's cause," the Financial Times observed
	Media Lays Groundwork For War	by Norman Solomon Going to war is not simply a matter of ordering soldiers to fire missiles and drop bombs. There's a lot more involved. The public must be induced to accept and even cheer the bloodshed. That requires some careful preparation. Consider the steps taken by our leaders before missiles began to explode in Yugoslavia on March 24. Prior groundwork was needed. Top U.S. officials deserve a lot of credit -- but they couldn't have gotten the job done without assists from reporters in Washington and their colleagues overseas
	Media Scenes You'll Never See	by Norman Solomon "The Monica Lewinsky interview that I did on 20/20 was a sexploitive bridge too far," Barbara Walters (didn't) declare in a statement released by ABC News
	One Last Look Before We Leap	by Alexander Cockburn There is a rhythm to these imperial forays, and we should understand clearly the stage to which we are now arriving, for Clinton's war policy is in the process of congealing into a long-term military strategy of truly appalling contours. As always, the initial predictions were optimistic, the rhetoric ebullient and the public reaction firmly adverse. The NATO bombing was to be of Serbian military units and brief in duration. Milosevic would soon come to his senses. The committal of ground forces was out of the question. Public opinion was hesitant even on the bombing and dead set against any ground war
	The Saga of Chevron's Exploding Refinery	by Alexander Cockburn The explosion came on March 25. At 2:28 in the afternoon, there was a huge bang. People closest to the Chevron refinery later described it as sounding as though a Mack truck had crashed into their house, which is indeed what some of them thought had happened. A column of thick, acrid, foul-smelling smoke rose high in the air, cloaked the refinery and then began to drift slowly to the southeast. Workers from the Sante Fe Railroad, whose site borders the refinery, described how instant waves of nausea brought them to their knees, retching and gasping for breath
	Prince Charles, Monsanto's Nemesis	by Alexander Cockburn Prince Charles has always been conspicuous for sensible environmental positions athwart conventional opinion, on the Amazon rainforest, on appropriate land use and on organic agriculture. And now, he's amply justifying my expectations, launching princely broadsides against some of capital's mightiest corporate powers, specifically Monsanto and the genetic-industrial complex
	The Suicide -- or Murder -- of a Clinton-Hater Hater	by TJ Walker Steve Kangas ended up with a bullet through his brain on February 8, a mere one week after publishing an Internet report questioning the sanity of Richard Mellon Scaife, the Pol Pot of the American conservative movement. The body was not found in a Washington, DC-area park, but on the 39th floor of Pittsburgh's One Oxford Center -- right down the hall from Scaife and his foundation's offices -- ground zero for professional Clinton-haters
	Letters	Kosovo, the most dangerous game; call for Henry Hyde investigation; investigate Pat Robertson; who killed Martin Luther King?
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