Drudge 8/6/98 "The NEW YORK TIMES reports on Friday that Janet Reno has ordered a formal 30-day review of what government officials described as "a previously unexamined campaign finance issue that could ultimately lead the attorney general to refer the tangle of political finance issues to an independent prosecutor. The paper does not disclose the nature of the accusations under review or the identity of the subject of the inquiry..."

Wall Street Journal 8/12/98 Gerald F. Seib "IN THIS SUMMER of his scandal discontent, President Clinton now has been challenged abroad by three different sets of bad guys. In Iraq, Saddam Hussein again is stiffing international weapons inspectors. In Kosovo, Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic is uprooting ethnic Albanians by the tens of thousands in his quest for control of their land. In Africa, terrorist bombs explode at U.S. embassies. Is all this connected to domestic woes? Are villains on the move because they think the president is weakened and distracted at home? ."

MSNBC 10/1/98 "The nightly news last night showed the bodies of dead women and children, the senators are getting softened up.The talking heads are calling it "Murder in Kosovo", even they are heating up the passions so that Clinton's actions will seem justified."

AP 10/1/98 Tom Raum "Diplomacy will be given a final chance but NATO "is now prepared to act" militarily against Serbian positions, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright declared Thursday after briefing nearly the entire Senate on escalating tensions in Kosovo. As the Clinton administration reached out for bipartisan support, it laid the groundwork for possible new airstrikes to retaliate for the weekend massacres of ethnic Albanians in the Serb-run province of Yugoslavia. The State Department also announced a travel advisory urging Americans not to travel in Yugoslavia.

The Times UK 10/7/98 Bronwen Maddox "If you listened to the sabre-rattling coming from Robin Cook and the Foreign Office, or from Congress, you might join the chorus accusing the Clinton Administration of being inhumanly hesitant in taking action in Kosovo. That would be unfair. Yes, President Clinton has had distractions, from Monica to the money markets. But even though America's direct self- interest is slender, and the mission would be messy and of uncertain duration, there is astonishing support in Washington - in both the Administration and on Capitol Hill - for military action. The best reason for America's apparent slowness in acting is simple uncertainty about what kind of military action to take. Those who rush to criticise the US for failing to think through its military manoeuvres - with justice, considering the recent Sudanese and Afghan bombings - should at least give credit for the practical difficulty of fostering a lasting peace in Kosovo, and for the efforts now underway to form such a plan.."

Washington Post 10/8/98 George Wil "Sophisticated weaponry can serve, or even produce, simple-minded policy. We may yet see again how some marvels in the U.S. military inventory, cruise missiles, produce a retrograde policy that can properly be called high-tech isolationism. When U.S. leaders who are ill at ease with U.S. power hear the word duty, they reach for their cruise missiles. Those weapons provide telegenic, antiseptic action-at-a-distance. They make possible illusory decisiveness, without follow- through. The Clinton administration has used them as a substitute for serious policy regarding Iraq and terrorism. Now cruise missiles may be fired to express ersatz seriousness about Serbia's actions in the province of Kosovo. Someone the New York Times identifies as "a senior administration official who requested anonymity" -- one can see why -- says, "We are at last serious." At last, but about what? People stabbed with a pitchfork, eyes gouged out with a cleft stick, a decapitated man's brain removed and left displayed beside his wife's corpse, a woman shot in the face, her two daughters ages 7 and 5, also dead, in their yellow rubber boots, 10 men beaten and executed and their mutilated bodies returned to their families, an elderly couple butchered, a woman seven months pregnant dead with her stomach slit open.."

Fox News 10/10/98 "A Russian general said Saturday Moscow might break a U.N. embargo on arm sales to help Yugoslavia if NATO launched air strikes against Serbian targets to try to end the Kosovo crisis. "If the norms of international law are violated, then the March 1998 embargo will also cease to exist for us,'' Leonid Ivashov, head of the Defense Ministry's main directorate for International Military Cooperation, told NTV television. "In this case, I think Russia would have the right to full-scale military cooperation with the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. You cannot abandon a brotherly nation in such a crisis,'' he said.."

Fox News 10/10/98 "Defense Secretary William Cohen ordered the deployment of six B-52 bombers, one reconnaissance aircraft and 13 tankers to Britain on Saturday in preparation for possible NATO military intervention in Kosovo. The planes will be among 260 U.S. aircraft already committed by the United States to support air operations against Serb forces. Most of the force already is in Europe, either stationed at bases there or aboard the aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower, which is currently in the Mediterranean Sea, the Pentagon said. The threat of air strikes is aimed at pressuring Yugoslavia's president, Slobodan Milosevic, to comply with U.N. demands to withdraw Serbian forces from Kosovo, allow humanitarian aid into the province and open serious talks with ethnic Albanians there who seek greater autonomy.."

Reuters 10/10/98 Patrick Worsnip "..Cohen told a news conference in the Qatari capital Doha the B-52s were being moved so that, if NATO issued an ``activation order'' in the next few days, ``those aircraft could be available for SACEUR (NATO European commander) to use should he deem it necessary to do so.'' The Pentagon said that in addition to the B-52s, each of which can carry up to 20 air- launched cruise missiles, an RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft and an unspecified number of tanker aircraft would also be sent. U.S. officials said they expected NATO to issue its activation order, which would authorize NATO commander General Wesley Clark to begin strikes at a time of his choosing, at a meeting of ambassadors in Brussels Monday.."

Reuters 10/12/98 "In signs of mounting East-West tensions over Kosovo, Russia said it had recalled two of its senior officials from NATO headquarters on Monday and its Communist Party leader vowed support for Yugoslavia. Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said Russia was "surprised" to learn NATO's council planned to decide whether to launch strikes before U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke had presented the results of his talks with Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic to the Contact Group that links Russia and top NATO powers. ."We think (military action) is a very dangerous decision which brings us to the red line, after which, from our point of view, some very hard consequences may follow," he said. "

FoxNews 10/12/98 "Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has agreed to withdraw Serb forces from Kosovo and allow 2,000 international observers on the ground in an attempt to avoid NATO airstrikes, a senior U.S. official said Monday. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the concessions were made in the last several days of talks with U..S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke in Belgrade. The official said the United States maintained a deep distrust of Milosevic and was pressing for NATO approval of an activation order authorizing airstrikes in the event that Milosevic refused to honor his agreement. ."

AP 10/8/98 Kevin Galvin "A Texas businessman who has pleaded guilty to illegal campaign donations says in an affidavit that House Majority Whip Tom DeLay encouraged him to circumvent election laws. ``The allegations are false,'' said DeLay spokesman John Feehery. Peter F. Cloeren, the chief executive officer of Cloeren Inc., has pleaded guilty to funneling $37,000 in corporate funds into the failed 1996 campaign of House GOP candidate Brian Babin. He was fined $200,000, as was his firm.."

The Times UK 10/9/98 Michael Evans "AMERICA has assigned 260 strike aircraft, including two B2 Stealth bombers and six B52s, to attack Serb military targets in Yugoslavia if a last-ditch diplomatic mission to Belgrade fails. The US Air Force and US Navy aircraft represent 60 per cent of the 430 bombers and support aircraft that have been offered by Nato.."

MSNBC 10/26/98 MSNBC ".Serbian security forces continued to reinforce positions in Kosovo on Monday as NATO officials hinted that another air-strike deadline would pass without military action. "WE'RE NOTICING build-up by both the Serbs and (ethnic Albanian) Kosovo Liberation Army in some sensitive areas," a spokesman for the Kosovo Diplomatic Observers Mission (KDOM) told Reuters by telephone from the province. The apparent reinforcement comes less than 24 hours before a NATO-imposed deadline for Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to withdraw army and police forces from Kosovo

Richard Holbrooke came back empty-handed from Kosovo. "Milosevic didnt feel enough pressure," according to TIME Central Europe bureau chief Massimo Calbresi.

August 2, 1998 Eric Margolis "The growing war in Kosova reached a new level of intensity, and a new low of cynicism and hypocrisy, this week. NATO, which had vowed to prevent a repeat of Bosnia's genocide, gave Serbia a green light to unleash a major offensive against Albanian civilians and independence fighters. Six months ago, after a decade of brutal repression, widespread torture, and massive human rights violations by Serb authorities, small bands of Albanian guerrillas, known as the Kosova Liberation Army (KLA) began fighting to liberate the province from brutal Serb control. Savage massacres and reprisals by Serb security forces caused the tiny rebellion to spread rapidly. But neither the U.S. nor Europe would accept independence for Kosova, though 92% of its people are ethnic Albanians who clearly want freedom from Serb oppression..

AP 10/13/98 Nicole Winfield ".U.N. peacekeeping missions lost over 16,000 big-ticket items between 1993 and 1995, at a whopping cost of $23 million, a U.N. report said Monday. Most of the goods were stolen, but accidents accounted for another significant chunk of the lost goods, followed by disappearances caused by ``acts of war'' or hostilities, the report said. Negligence on the part of U.N. staff was also to blame. The report covered only U.N. peacekeeping operations from those three years, and represented only a fraction of what the United Nations may have lost in all of its other missions, including refugee operations, humanitarian aid and civilian police forces.."

UPS 10/13/98 Georgie Anne Geyer ".The generals in Brussels can cry till the cows come home that they are only doing their job under NATO bureaucratic rules, but no one believes them anymore. The White House can excuse itself by insisting that we are indeed going to act in Kosovo, well, maybe, if only ... The fact is that most of the world has seen the pictures of the West's perfidy, first in Bosnia and now in Kosovo. These daily revelations provide an apt occasion to ridicule the West, a ridicule that is quickly translated into disdain for the West and disregard for its power. At this point, others step in, even those with hardly any power at all. They soon learn, as Milosevic so happily learned since he started massacring Bosnians in 1991, that Americans and Europeans exist today in a high-wire balancing act between their sensitivity to atrocity, their fear of casualties, and their unwillingness to judge because judgments can never be perfect. Hence, they have successfully castrated their power in the world.. And, as James R. Hooper, head of the Balkan Action Council here, wrote recently: "When all eyes turn to Belgrade, rather than Washington, to await the next move in a conflict that jeopardizes regional stability, it is a sign that something profound has changed in Europe. The stabilizing role that the United States established in the Balkans in 1947, when Truman issued his doctrine, has come to an end as Serbia rewrites the rules of the new Balkan order."."

AP 11/10/98 George Gedda ".Alarm bells sounded when the State Department learned a close relative of its No. 2 official was engaged in secret negotiations with representatives of Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, an indicted war crimes suspect. Officials say Cody Shearer, brother-in-law of Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, was acting without authorization, and they moved quickly to end the discussions. For a time, the department worried that Shearer, a self-styled conflict mediator, might undo the delicate 1995 Bosnia agreement negotiated by Ambassador Richard Holbrooke that ended Europe's bloodiest conflict since World War II. Officials said it took them weeks to fix the problems Shearer created. Talbott has a longtime friendship with President Clinton, dating back almost 30 years to when they were classmates in Britain. Shearer is the brother of Talbott's wife, Brooke Shearer. Another sibling, Derek Shearer, is a former ambassador to Finland.."

Reuters 1/16/99 ".President Clinton condemned the murder of civilians in Serbia's rebel province of Kosovo in ''the strongest possible terms'' on Saturday and Washington said it would be seeking a response from the NATO alliance. Clinton said there could be no justification for the killings, which ethnic Albanians say were carried out by Serbian police. The head of an international observer mission visited the scene, near the village of Racak, and said it looked like an execution. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said U.S. diplomatic observers had counted 45 corpses.."

Reuters 1/17/99 ".Serbian police on Sunday started moving into the Kosovo village of Racak, where security forces were accused of massacring more than 40 civilians two days ago. Reuters reporters at the scene saw at least one armored vehicle setting off across a field toward the village and more than two dozen police in full combat gear taking up positions around the village.."

Reuters 1/20/99 Douglas Hamilton ".NATO said Wednesday it was sending warships to the Adriatic Sea after Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic refused to back down in the Kosovo crisis. At the same time, the alliance said it was cutting to 48 hours from 96 its readiness period for executing possible airstrikes against Yugoslav military targets.."

NY Times 1/20/99 Roger Cohen ".NATO warned the Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic, on Tuesday to stop an offensive in Kosovo or face possible air strikes, but the alliance faces enormous obstacles to ever carrying out such a threat. Even as Gen. Wesley Clark, NATO's commander, traveled to Belgrade to deliver the warning, senior NATO officials in Brussels conceded that Western policy was in disarray, now complicated by the deployment in Kosovo of hundreds of unarmed international monitors who would have to be removed before any bombing. This potential problem was evident from the moment Richard Holbrooke negotiated a flimsy, largely oral accord last October that briefly stopped the fighting in Kosovo without setting any basis for a political agreement between the Serbian-dominated Yugoslav government and ethnic Albanian insurgents in Kosovo.."

USA Today 1/27/99 Fred Coleman ". Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Tuesday that using U.S. ground troops as part of a NATO peacekeeping force in Kosovo is an option under allied consideration. Asked at a news conference if U.S. ground troops might help police a future cease-fire in Kosovo, Albright replied that Washington had told NATO allies ''we would examine that among other options.''."

Chicago Tribune 2/8/99 Freeper Stand Watch Listen ".The bloody massacres of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo in recent weeks are threatening to draw U.S. troops into the latest Balkan maelstrom. President Clinton announced Thursday he is "seriously considering" sending 2,000 to 4,000 peacekeeping troops to join a proposed international operation in Kosovo. Clinton has made no final decision, but by floating the idea he has launched a campaign for popular support that many Americans will be loath to offer. Defense Secretary William Cohen, in notifying Congress this week, let it be known that Clinton can send forces without Congressional approval. Under these circumstances, that would be a political mistake..."

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. 2/14/99 Editorial ". Nor is Greater Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic overly impressed by our regularly throwing down the velvet gauntlet. The latest plan for settling the Kosovo problem comes in two steps. (Don't they all?) And the hostilities were to conclude by the middle of this month--just like the impeachment trial. As usual this president talks tough: "We stand ready to back that strategy with the threat of force." No sooner was that presidential statement recorded than this administration was assuring anybody paying attention that (a) there was no way U.S. troops would be involved in the operation and (b) that they would be limited to a few thousand. Maybe as the clean-up crew after the heavy work was over. No word on who would do that. Perhaps the Swiss Guard could be called upon, though by now the Vatican is one of the few remaining European states that does not belong to NATO. AS ALWAYS, the words of this president have to be parsed and analyzed. In this case, note that Bill Clinton didn't promise to back his words with force but the "threat of force." (You've always got to watch for the clinton clause.) This latest diplomatic solution would require Belgrade to cut the number of troops and police in Kosovo--again. But wasn't that the agreement last time? .."

Washington Post 2/26/99 "...For those of us who think an involvement in Kosovo is worth it, no question pointing the other way is tougher to deal with than the legal challenge raised by Rep. Tom Campbell (R-Calif.). No mean partisan, Campbell has joined with Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) to gather some 40 congressmen to demand on constitutional grounds that the president obtain authority from Congress before taking military action against Yugoslavia...."

Savannah Morning News 2/26/99 Editorial "...MOST AMERICANS probably can't find Kosovo on a map. To suggest that 4,000 American ground troops be sent there as part of a 28,000-strong NATO peacekeeping force, which President Clinton has done, would bog this nation in another quagmire at a time when U.S. military readiness is nearing its breaking point. But expect the Clinton administration to try anyway.... Give Mrs. Albright credit. She is trying to broker a deal between neighboring groups of people who have hated each other for centuries. But if the agreement hinges on the deployment of 4,000 U.S. ground troops, then Congress and the public should just say no. For those who aren't paying attention, U.S. troops are already in the Balkans. About 7,000 U.S. soldiers remain in Bosnia, where they were deployed as part of the 1995 Dayton Accords. Mr. Clinton had initially promised they'd be needed there for just one year...."

San Antonio Express-News 2/24/99 Austin Bay Freeper Stand Watch Listen "...So the Kosovo deal is on hold until mid-March, when more peace talks are planned. After more than two weeks of negotiations in Rambouillet, France, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright failed this week to produce a peace agreement that would halt the Kosovo civil war between the Serbs and ethnic Albanians. Agreement or no agreement, the United States remains a step away from putting troops into Kosovo, another bitter Balkan corner where ethnic friction and thug leadership merge into genocide. ......Military strategists use the term "defeat in detail." This occurs when a comparatively weaker combatant secures victory over a larger and more powerful opponent through the piecemeal destruction of the stronger force...."

Pacific Stars And Stripes 2/27/99 Jim Lea "...Calling North Korea a "huge threat" to the United States, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Thursday there can be no improvement in relations until American concerns about a suspected nuclear construction site are eased. Albright spoke on the eve of talks between Washington and Pyongyang on a U.S. demand for inspection of a suspected nuclear facility that are set to reopen Saturday. Albright also expressed deep concern about North Korea's missile development program.... She also said the United States has great concern over the development, deployment and export of long-range missiles by the North. But Albright urged legislators to release money Washington needs to pay for oil to fuel North Korea's conventional power plants...The Pentagon has said that the missile fired in August was a three-stage rocket with the third stage apparently solid-fueled. If the North possesses solid-fuel technology, U.S. Defense officials have said, it soon could build intercontinental ballistic missiles that will be a threat to the United States...."

Associated Press 2/25/99 George Gedda "...Secretary of State Madeleine Albright today called North Korea a "huge threat'' to the United States but rejected a congressional appeal for a suspension of food aid to that country.... Among the concerns listed by Albright were U.S. suspicions that North Korea may be embarked on a new nuclear program at a secret underground site, and its missile development program.... A congressional source, asking not to be identified, said Congress has been told about an alleged North Korean program to export homegrown heroin to earn sorely needed cash. Rep. Henry Hyde., R-Ill., said the U.S. food assistance program for North Korea enables that country to divert funds for its military buildup. He said such assistance should be cut off. ..."

AP 2/24/99 "…More than half of Americans say they favor U.S. participation in a NATO peacekeeping force in Kosovo, but four out of five think President Clinton should get approval from Congress first, says a new Gallup poll. People were about evenly divided when asked whether they favored a U.S. role in NATO airstrikes against Serb military installations if the Serbs and ethnic Albanians fail to reach a peace agreement to end their yearlong conflict. The poll of 1,014 adults taken Friday through Sunday had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. …"

Washington Post 2/28/99 Charles Krauthammer "…Madeline Albright was hardly subtle in her invitation to the peace conference at Rambouillet. Addressing mainly the Serbs, who control the province of Kosovo and deny autonomy to its 90 percent Albanian population, the U.S. secretary of state basically said, "Make peace or die.".......And why is this an American problem? If the Europeans believe a NATO invasion of Yugoslavia will save the day, let them do it. They have the manpower and the arms to hold tiny Kosovo. If they don't have the will, it is not America's job to provide it…."

Global Intelligence Update 2/28/99 Red Alert Summary "…The Tuesday deadline for an agreement over Kosovo came and went as had the prior Saturday deadline. Serbia wasn't bombed and the Serbs didn't agree to let NATO peacekeepers into Kosovo. Indeed, by the weekend, Serb forces were digging in along Kosovo's borders with Macedonia (where peacekeepers would have been coming from), planting minefields, and surrounding predominantly Albanian towns. The March 15th date for a resumption of talks is, of course, a mere fig leaf. U.S. aircraft were already being rotated back to the United States. There were a host of reasons for the stand down…And of course, it was increasingly clear that attacking Serbia would have meant a serious and possibly irreparable breach with the Russians. The latter was the most important reason for declaring victory and going home. The most important event in the world this week was not the fact that the U.S. threw in the towel on Kosovo, but the extraordinary explosion that took place between the United States and China. We have been chronicling deteriorating U.S.- China relations for quite a while now, but this week's explosion between the two countries on the eve of a visit to China by Madeleine Albright was startling in its intensity. Triggered by the release of a State Department report criticizing China's human rights record, it was clear that U.S. policy makers knew the explosion was coming. Given that they knew that a breach in U.S.-China relations was in the works, they also clearly understood that a simultaneous breach with Russia was strategically unthinkable. This was one of the reasons they backed off on Kosovo. China and Russia are close enough to each other now without the U.S. deliberately driving them into each other's arms…."

Jewish Task Force 3/3/99 "…Last week, JTF began summarizing a reliable account which appeared in a well-known French newspaper proving that the so-called Racak "massacre," the incident which the West has treacherously used to slant world opinion against the Serbs in favor of their Albanian Muslim foes, was a fiction concocted by the terrorists of the Kosovo "Liberation" Army (KLA) and the Arabist news media…."

The Independent (UK) 3/4/99 Emma Daly Freeper marshmallow "…Yugoslav army forces are digging in positions along Kosovo's southern border with Macedonia and forcing thousands of Albanian villagers to flee, apparently in preparation to confront Nato troops should they try to march north….."

Michael Reagan Website 3/4/99 "…Their limbs askew, two bodies lay by a railway track Thursday morning: Serb brothers gunned down in the night by the well armed terrorists in the KLA. A third brother, his eyes bloodshot from sorrow and lack of sleep, identified the victims. Their bodies were found near their car, which was riddled up. They were on their way to meet the son of one of them, Miljan Mitrovic, a Yugoslav Army soldier who apparently has been captured by ethnic Albanian terrorists. a soldier, who was on the leave and coming home last night. The terrorists hit their care with several missiles fired from automatic weapons, according to Kosovo.com, information service run by the Serbia Ministry of Information….Meanwhile, monitors arranged to move the Mitrovic family out of the village at their request - the only Serbs left in a village that once had hundreds. Their departure adds one more village to the nearly 100 that have been cleared of Serbs in the last year…."

AP via Drudge Alexander Dragicevic 3/7/99 "…The Serb-ruled part of Bosnia plummeted into a political crisis after international moves to dismiss its hard-line president and transfer this strategic city from exclusive Bosnian Serb control. In the wake of the moves, which took place Friday, hard-line Bosnian Serb President Nikola Poplasen refused an order by the top international official in the country to step down…"

UPI 3/6/99 Nancy Torner "…A club-wielding mob attacked American soldiers in the northeastern Bosnian Serb town of Ugljevik, leaving one Bosnian Serb dead. SFOR (NATO Special Forces) is viewing this as an isolated incident, " SFOR spokesman Maj. David Scanlon says…."

Associated Press 3/7/99 Jim Abrams "…Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott said Sunday the Senate will move to block money for any peacekeeping operation in Kosovo if the administration fails to meet conditions set by Congress. One condition, Lott said on "Fox News Sunday,'' would be to find a way to pay for the estimated $2 billion a year it would cost the United States to be part of a NATO force in the Serbian province. "Remember this: If that $2 billion is not paid for, that would come out of Social Security trust funds,'' Lott said…."

N.Y. Post 3/9/99 Deborah Orin Andy Soltis "…House Speaker Dennis Hastert scheduled a vote for Thursday on sending U.S. troops to Kosovo - a step that amounts to a no-confidence motion on a key element of the Clinton administration policy in the Balkans. The non-binding resolution will ask whether Americans should be part of a NATO peacekeeping force once the two sides in the war-torn Serbian province agree on a proposed peace plan. "I have admitted frankly to the president and his senior advisers that I have reservations regarding the wisdom of deploying additional U.S. troops to the former Yugoslavia," Hastert said. "In my judgment, members of Congress have a solemn duty to vote before thousands of American men and women are placed in harm's way," he said…."

Wall Street Journal 3/9/99 Tom Delay "…The U.S. should not send its troops to Kosovo for a dangerous, open-ended and ill-defined peacemaking mission. The Clinton administration has persistently failed to commit itself to an exit strategy in Bosnia. Similarly, the Kosovo initiative has no timetable, no rules of engagement and no greater strategic plan for the region. Further ill-defined U.S. military involvement in the Balkans is, for many reasons, a risky mistake. The proposed Kosovo mission is much more dangerous than the one in Bosnia. It cannot honestly be called a peacekeeping mission because there is not even the semblance of a cease-fire between the battling parties, who refuse to negotiate directly with one another. No number of soldiers can keep the peace where none exists. And unlike the request for assistance by the Bosnians, NATO has not been invited into Kosovo. In fact, both factions have rejected the accord proposed at Rambouillet, France…"

AP Katarine Kratovac 3/10/99 "… A top U.S. negotiator failed to persuade Yugoslavia's president to sign onto a new Kosovo peace deal Wednesday. Along the border, Yugoslav forces backed by tanks torched the homes of ethnic Albanians and sent hundreds fleeing…. Holbrooke pressed Milosevic to accept a peace plan or risk NATO strikes during more than four hours of face-to-face meetings Wednesday but instead the hard-line Yugoslav leader declared afterwards: ``Foreign troops have no business in our country.'' Milosevic said the U.S.-sponsored peace plan is ``a good basis'' for a political settlement of the Kosovo crisis. But he continued to reject the key provision -- the deployment of NATO troops to police it. More than 2,000 people have died and 300,000 have been displaced in a year of fighting between Yugoslav troops and ethnic Albanian rebels in Kosovo. Milosevic believes stationing NATO forces is tantamount to Western intervention in Yugoslavia, made up of Serbia and the much-smaller Montenegro. Kosovo is a Serbian province, but 90 percent of its 2 million people are ethnic Albanian…."

The New York Times 3/12/99 A. M. Rosenthal "… 3. The NATO treaty was drawn up, and signed by the U.S., to protect Western Europe against the Soviet Union. Now the U.S. and other NATO members use the alliance to bomb or threaten countries involved in a civil and religious war, as in Bosnia, or a movement for relief and independence, as in Serbia's Kosovo Province…."

Reuters 3/12/99 Philippa Fletcher "… Russia and Greece said Friday that Yugoslavia totally rejected having an armed foreign force in Kosovo, a key pillar of the West's ``last chance'' peace talks set to resume in Paris Monday.

Belgrade's uncompromising stand dashed Western hopes that the two country's foreign ministers could succeed in wresting agreement from President Slobodan Milosevic where U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke had failed. ``Belgrade decisively and finally rejects the possibility of a foreign military or police presence in Kosovo,'' Russia's Itar-Tass news agency quoted Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov as saying after his meeting with Milosevic in the Yugoslav capital. ``The Yugoslav side said there is no need for peace troops...implementation can best be carried through by an extension of the current monitoring mission,'' Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou said after his talks with Milosevic. Both Russia and Greece have traditionally friendly ties with fellow Orthodox Christian Serbia. Milosevic's blunt ``no'' brought a warning from a senior NATO official that he should not underestimate the alliance's determination to end the conflict in the Serbian province where fighting continued between Serb forces and ethnic Albanian guerrillas Friday…."

Reuters 3/11/99 Fox News Wire "…The House of Representatives Thursday backed the deployment of U.S. troops in Kosovo as part of any eventual NATO peacekeeping mission. The non-binding resolution, which carries no actual weight of law, authorized President Clinton to carry out plans to send 4,000 troops to the Balkan province as part of a 28,000-strong NATO force to implement a peace deal if it is reached. The House approved the resolution on a 219-191 vote. The House earlier had amended the resolution to call on Clinton to report to Congress on a variety of issues related to the deployment, including details on the rules of engagement for peacekeeping forces and an eventual exit strategy. The Clinton administration and many Democrats had objected to even debating the issue Thursday, fearing it could upset the fragile peace efforts underway in Kosovo…."

The London Telegraph 3/12/99 Freeper Marianne "…Apparently unmoved by the threat of Nato air strikes, Mr Milosevic told Mr Holbrooke that foreign troops had "no business" in Kosovo, according to a statement issued by the Yugoslav leader's office. His wife, Mirjana, widely believed to shape her husband's policies, also issued a statement calling for "all forms of resistance" against the United States, which she described as "the tyrant of the 20th Century". However, some elements of the KLA said that they were prepared to sign a deal…"

Global Intelligence Update 3/15/99 "… This past week Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic formally became part of NATO. This means that the mutual guarantees of assistance in time of war, that have been the essence of NATO for several generations, have now been extended to these three. If any of them are attacked then it is the legal and moral obligation of all NATO members to come to their assistance…. NATO has become defined in two ways. First, it has been defined, along with the European Union, as an alliance among democratic states. To be a bit more precise, it has been identified as an organization that motivates formerly non-democratic states to become democratic…. The second role that NATO has defined for itself derives from the first. If NATO is a club for democratic capitalist countries, and if its purpose is to motivate countries to be democratic and capitalist, then it follows that NATO should also punish countries that are not democratic and capitalist. One punishment is exclusion…. In extreme cases where the anti-democratic, anti-free market behavior of states goes beyond certain limits, NATO is seen as an instrument of rectification, imposing penalties on the transgressor, including military penalties. Serbia has become the exemplar of this treatment….NATO has, in other words, transformed itself from a defensive alliance against the Soviet Union, into a system of relations designed to regulate the internal political, economic and social relations of not only member countries, but also of non-members on the periphery of the NATO alliance…If the Russian view of the West has become as negative as it appears from what they say, then Russia will assume the worst of the West and act preemptively. In that case, it is a race over who will act first in the Baltics, Ukraine, and Slovakia…"

LA Times 3/14/99 Alan Tonelson Ted Galen Carpenter Freeper stralu "…Before President Bill Clinton sends a proposed 4,000 U.S. soldiers on a peacekeeping mission to Kosovo, he should consider this sobering reality: Peacekeeping operations all over the world are falling apart, despite the investment of billions of U.S. dollars and several dozen lives. Rather than continue pushing America's luck in regions irrelevant to the nation's security and well-being, Clinton should end this grandiose post-Cold War experiment in fixing failed states…"

Reuters via Central Europe Online 3/15/99 "…Reports that five Macedonian waiters beat up 22 British soldiers have filled many with pride in the former Yugoslav republic, where about 10,000 NATO troops are viewed with increasing mistrust. NATO sources said the incident was little more than a bar brawl involving drunken soldiers just over a week ago, but it has dominated talk at cafes across the capital Skopje…. Macedonia, eager to join NATO, offered to be the launch pad for a 28,000-strong NATO-led peacekeeping force the West wants to send to neighboring Kosovo if the Yugoslav government and Kosovo's ethnic Albanians agree a peace settlement. But some Macedonians said they have had enough of the troops stationed in their landlocked Balkan country of two million, which has a big ethnic Albanian minority of its own. Many fear Belgrade's opposition to the force will drag their republic -- the only one to leave the old Yugoslavia without a shot fired -- into the conflict raging next door…."

Fox Newswire 3/16/99 Reuters Freeper marshmallow "…The Yugoslav military has moved more than 30,000 Serbian troops into and near Kosovo and is "bracing for war'' with NATO as Serb officials take part in peace talks near Paris, the United States said Tuesday…."

Kosovan and Serbian Ministries of Information 3/17/99 by Freeper ohmlaw98 "…KOSOVO: "The credibility of NATO is at stake now that Serbia has engaged in a large-scale offensive and massed troops and armor in Kosova to defy it."........ SERBIA: ''We have no other country. We are the army which exists to defend its country and the people. Since our people decided to defend its country then we will be in front of the people. In that name I obligate you to fulfil our military and patriotic task with dignity and pride'', said Gen. Pavkovic...."

STRATFOR's Global Intelligence Update 3/17/99 "…Unless Belgrade suddenly reverses itself, which is always possible, the stage is now set for armed conflict between NATO and Serbia. The expectation is that air attacks on Yugoslavia will parallel those in Iraq. In Iraq, the United States and its allies have largely determined the scope and tempo of air operations. Iraq has essentially absorbed those air strikes without launching its own military counter-operations. To be more precise, Iraq has, on occasion, appeared to try to interfere with air strikes using anti-aircraft systems and some air interception, but Iraq has never tried to respond with ground operations outside of Iraq. It has appeared, at least publicly, to be a basic assumption in NATO's strategy that Serbia would follow the same pattern….We do not know how Belgrade is planning to respond to NATO air attacks nor even if they are planning to capitulate at the last minute. But assuming that maintaining the territorial integrity of their country is as important to the Serbs as it is to most countries, it is important to consider what military cards the Belgrade has available, should it choose not to behave like Baghdad…. Serbia's primary military goal would be political: to raise the cost of anti-Serb operations higher than NATO in general and the United States in particular would find endurable. The key to achieving this goal is to inflict casualties and take prisoners…"

Fox Newswire 3/18/99 Reuters Freeper marshmallow "…U.S. and NATO forces are ready to strike Serb targets "very quickly'' with cruise missiles and bombs but are unlikely to act on Kosovo until diplomats, Western observers and aid workers are removed from Yugoslavia, the United States said Thursday…."

Fox Newswire 3/18/99 "…The United States urged its citizens to leave Yugoslavia Thursday ahead of possible NATO air strikes and President Clinton was to meet the leaders of Congress Friday to discuss the crisis in Kosovo.

Clinton will seek to convince the skeptical Republican leaders of Congress of the wisdom of military action against Yugoslavia if it fails to sign a peace accord designed to end the conflict in the southern Yugoslav province.

Kosovo's ethnic Albanians, who are fighting for independence from Yugoslavia, signed the document Thursday but Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic rejected it and his forces appeared to be preparing for war in the province…."

Kosova Daily Report, Kosova Ministry of Information 3/18/99 Freeper ohmlaw98 "…"There are probably now 16,000 to 21,000 Serb forces gathered around the perimeter of Kosovo," Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon said Tuesday. Some 14,000 to 18,000 Serb troops are already in Kosova, he said. They (the Serbs) "are certainly bracing for war", Bacon told reporters. Meanwhile, the White House expressed grave concern Wednesday about large-scale Serbian troop movements in and near Kosova and warned the Serbs not to launch an offensive against ethnic Albanians, CNN reported. White House Deputy National Security Adviser James Steinberg said NATO was "prepared to take actions" in response…."

AP BREAKING NEWS 3/23/99 "…Azerbaijan has detained a Russian cargo plane carrying six MiG jet fighters that may have been heading to Yugoslavia, news reports said today. The Russian AN-124 cargo plane arrived in Azerbaijan's capital last Thursday for refueling. But customs agents prevented the plane from leaving after finding the jet fighters and other military equipment aboard along with 30 pilots and technicians, the Turan news agency reported. The crew said initially that the plane was heading for Yugoslavia, a Russian ally that is under an international arms embargo. But the crew said later that they were going to North Korea, Turan reported. The crew has refused to provide information on where their flight originated and other details sought by Azeri officials, who suspect the crew members are mercenaries…"

The Daily Republican 3/23/99 Jan Oberg Freeper hope "…In a long-term perspective, we are now witnessing the third round of Western-aided destruction of former Yugoslavia. First, there were the violence in Slovenia and Croatia; then Bosnia-Hercegovina and now present Yugoslavia/Kosovo threatening to not spill over into but drag Macedonia down in international warfare. In all cases, one or more actors were armed by Western powers, in all cases the UN was squeezed out and NATO came in, in all cases violence was not prevented in time and everywhere some peace plan was introduced that secured Western control and permits use of unlimited force "if necessary" - and in all cases ordinary citizens are the main victims…."

Reuters 3/23/99 "…A deeply divided Senate Tuesday backed President Clinton on the Kosovo crisis and supported impending NATO air strikes against Serb targets. The Senate voted 58-41 to authorize U.S. participation in military strikes designed to force Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to halt an offensive against ethnic Albanians in the Serbian province of Kosovo and sign a peace deal….."

STRATFOR's Global Intelligence Update 3/23/99 "… Russia has been consistent in its opposition to the use of military force against Yugoslavia, particularly by NATO, since the crisis emerged. Primakov argued on March 23 that such an attack would fundamentally change "the nature of international order," as Yugoslavia was not an aggressor against foreign countries. "Maybe someone would like to make an air strike against Turkey because the Kurdish problem hasn't been solved yet," he mused, "Or maybe against Spain because the Basque problem has not been solved." Primakov insisted that all diplomatic options had not been exhausted, while Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Vladimir Rakhmanin repeated the argument that, "One cannot use force in international relations without the agreement of the UN Security Council." The Kosovo crisis strikes a deep chord in Moscow, and has been the exceptional case uniting Russia's contentious political factions [http://www.stratfor.com/services/giu/101598.asp]. Moscow not only opposes the use of force against its traditional Slavic ally, but also sees NATO action as a dangerous precedent, furthering the encirclement of and threat to Russia itself. Already incensed at the geographic expansion of NATO, Russia is fiercely opposed to the expansion of NATO's mission….Also on March 23, Vafa Goulizade, senior foreign policy advisor to Azerbaijani President Heydar Aliyev, announced that a Russian cargo plane carrying six MiG fighters and 30 pilots and technicians had been detained at Baku's Bina airport on March 18. According to Goulizade, the Antonov An-124's crew had admitted that the plane was bound for Yugoslavia. According to Azerbaijani authorities, the crew later repeatedly changed their story, claiming to be bound alternatively for North Korea or the Czech Republic….Whichever proves to be the real story, the implications are the same. It is important not to underestimate Moscow's resentment of the way in which Russia has been marginalized in international affairs. And deeper still is Russia's opposition to what it sees as the tightening noose being drawn around it by the U.S. and NATO…"

Drudge 3/23/99 "… Russia's Defense and Foreign Ministries have been working on options to act, in connection with possible NATO strikes against Yugoslavia... All actions by the Defense Ministry will be aimed at increasing the combat readiness of Russia's armed forces. According to the information available to ITAR-TASS newswire on Wednesday morning, in case the situation takes an unfavorable turn for Russia, the Ministry is preparing proposals on possible deployment of tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of Byelorussia. Military officials are seriously considering the possibility of Russia's withdrawal from earlier agreements within the framework of the Russian-US commission as regards Russian arms supplies to Iran. Russia may order its peacekeepers in Bosnia and Herzegovina "not to take orders from NATO generals and only obey instructions from the Russian General Staff"... DEVELOPING HOT…"

The Washington Times 3/12/99 Bill Gertz "…Russia is recruiting spies, collecting technology, "sabotaging" international peacekeeping in the Balkans and using world organizations as cover, according to a classified CIA counterintelligence report. The report by the CIA's Counterintelligence Center said that Russian observers in the former Yugoslavia included many current and former intelligence officials who "conducted intelligence activities and cooperated with the Serbs," according to a report made available to The Washington Times. The CIA wrote the report to alert U.S. policy-makers to the problem of letting Russia participate in the Kosovo Verification Mission set up late last year by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe The spying has been facilitated by "a conscious international effort to include Russians in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia," the report said…"

STRATFOR's Global Intelligence Update 3/21/99 Freeper Brian Mosely "…In threatening air strikes against Serbia over Kosovo, Bill Clinton, the anti-war protestor, is following the same policies as Lyndon Johnson, the man he protested against. Air strikes, isolated from a general warfighting strategy, do not convince adversaries of resolve but of weakness. Serbia, like North Vietnam, is drawing the conclusion that the U.S. is not prepared to wage war against Serbia in an effective way. Like Vietnam, Serbia sees weakness in U.S. policy…"

AP 3/20/99 Freeper pea eye "…An investigation by an international war crimes tribunal recommended that three Croatian generals be indicted for leading the army to summary executions, indiscriminate shelling of Serb civilian populations and ``ethnic cleansing'' during a 1995 assault against the Serbs, The New York Times reported Sunday. In the course of the three-year investigation into the assault, the United States has failed to provide critical evidence requested by the tribunal, according to tribunal documents and officials, the newspaper said. The August 1995 Croatian offensive, which drove some 100,000 Serbs from a large area of Croatia over four days, was carried out by a Croatian army that had been schooled in part by a group of retired U.S. military officers, the Times reported…."

Drudge 3/24/99 "…MURMANSK (Itar-Tass) - Vice-Admiral Vyacheslav Popov, Commander of Russia's Northern Fleet, in comment on the NATO decision to deliver airstrikes against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, told Itar-Tass on Wednesday in an exclusive interview that "the Northern Fleet is ready to carry out any order issued by the Supreme Command to defend Russia's interests". …"

Drudge 3/24/99 "…BELGRADE (Itar-Tass) - NATO threats triggered an unprecedented wave of patriotism in Yugoslavia and people back the tough stance of President Slobodan Milosevic. "If Milosevic has retreated, he would have lost his post", a young street vendor told Tass on Wednesday adding that "it is better to die proudly than to live in disgrace". …Experts note that the United States and NATO helped raise the patriotism in Yugoslavia to a level which is unprecedented in post-World War history. They recall that a year or two ago many people, mostly from Belgrade intelligentsia, actually reconciled with the feared loss of Kosovo to Albanians. But such sentiments began to disappear when the first threats to bomb Yugoslavia were voiced last autumn…."

AP 3/24/99 Robert Reid "… U.S. B-52 bombers took off from their base in Britain today, and air raid sirens sounded in Kosovo's capital after NATO gave the go-ahead for allied airstrikes on Yugoslavia. Eight B-52 bombers armed with 20 cruise missiles each for possible attacks on Serb air defenses flew out of their base in Gloucestershire, England, this morning, the British news agency Press Association reported…."

United Press International 3/24/99 Freeper Jai "…Russia is considering a range of retaliatory measures if NATO goes ahead with plans to bombard Yugoslav positions within the next 24 hours. Among the steps being considered are shipments of armaments to Yugoslavia, which would in Moscow's opinion be free of a U.N. Security Council-imposed embargo on arms sales after the attack; deployment of Russian nuclear warheads in Belarus; and resumption of recently curtailed arms sales to Iran, breaking an agreement between Moscow and Washington. . . ."

Agence France-Presse 3/24/99 Freeper Jai "…China Wednesday warned any military action against Yugoslavia over Kosovo would be a breach of international law, and called for further dialogue to resolve the impasse between Belgrade and the Western alliance. "The question of Kosovo is an internal matter of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY)," Chinese ambassador to the UN Qin Huasun was quoted as saying by Beijing's official Xinhua news agency. . . . "

Associated Press 3/24/99 Greg Myre "… Boris Yeltsin pulled Russia out of its partnership with NATO on Wednesday and warned of possible further steps to protest the airstrikes against Yugoslavia -- attacks that he called deeply troubling. If the conflict grows, Russia reserves the right to take ``adequate measures, including of a military character, to ensure its own and general European security,'' Yeltsin said after airstrikes began. His statement did not elaborate. ``Russia is deeply upset by NATO's military action against sovereign Yugoslavia, which is nothing more than open aggression,'' Yeltsin said. NATO strikes began a few hours after Yeltsin spoke with President Clinton for more than half an hour by phone, urging him not to take the ``tragic step'' of bombing. Yeltsin also called for an immediate session of the U.N. Security Council…."

Intelligencer Report 3/24/99 Freeper ilosetoo "…ACCORDING TO SOURCES IN THE COUNTRYSIDE IN YOGOSLAVIA A NATO PLANE HAS BEEN SHOT DOWN, SOURCES SAY IT WAS A AMERICAN PLANE. SOURCES ALSO ARE REPORTING THAT NATO PLANES SHOT DOWN TWO YUGOSLAVIA…."

Times Newspapers 3/24/99 Roger Boyes Eske Wright "…THE Kosovo Liberation Army, which has won the support of the West for its guerrilla struggle against the heavy armour of the Serbs, is a Marxist-led force funded by dubious sources, including drug money. That is the judgment of senior police officers across Europe. An investigation by The Times has established that police forces in three Western European countries, together with Europol, the European police authority, are separately investigating growing evidence that drug money is funding the KLA's leap from obscurity to power. The financing of the Kosovo guerrilla war poses critical questions and it sorely tests claims to an "ethical" foreign policy. Should the West back a guerrilla army that appears to be partly financed by organised crime? Could the KLA's need for funds be fuelling the heroin trade across Europe? The KLA has become an essential component of the Kosovo peace agreement; without it, there would be no equal negotiating partner for the Belgrade Government…."

Fox News 3/24/99 Freeper weston "…Fox News reporting over 100 cruise missles have been launched. Some have hit an airport in Montenegro. This was unexpected since Montenegro has adopted policies in opposition to Melocevic…" Freeper stormchaser "…CNN says 70 planes took off form the bas in ITaly..including 10 f-117's stealths…" Freeper weston "…Fox now reporting this is the first time America has ever attacked a soverign nation that has not ventured out of it's own country…."

New York Daily News 3/24/99 Lars Erik Nelson "…You have heard this all before. We must go to war to defend our credibility as a great power. We must fight now or risk the domino effect of a spreading conflict. We must use bombs to halt a slaughter of innocents. We must fight to protect our jobs. President Clinton tried manfully yesterday to justify U.S. military intervention in Kosovo. But he was using arguments that he did not accept, a generation ago, as a justification for the war in Vietnam. He was right then. He's wrong now. The Kosovo conflict is a vicious religious/civil war between two peoples, the Orthodox Christian Serbs and the Muslim Albanian Kosovars, that goes back at least 600 years. There is zero U.S. national interest in who wins….The Serbs want to retain sovereignty over Kosovo. The Kosovars want independence. A Kosovo Liberation Army has devised a cynical but effective strategy to gain our backing: It murders Serb policemen. Vengeful Serbs, claiming to seek out guerrillas, massacre innocent Kosovars and drive tens of thousands of others from their homes — all on nightly television…."

The Washington Times 3/19/99 John Solomon AP "…Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott's brother-in-law received thousands of dollars from an associate of Radovan Karadzic around the time he tried to arrange the accused Bosnian war criminal's surrender in 1997, according to lawyers and government officials. The brother-in-law, Cody P. Shearer, has recently reported receiving mail threats from Bosnian figures who say he took the money in exchange for promises to win leniency for Mr. Karadzic on the war crimes charges. The mail threats demand that he pay Mr. Karadzic's family $1 million or risk "tragedy." Mr. Shearer's attorney denies his client ever promised to win leniency for Mr. Karadzic. He says the money he received was reimbursement for expenses he incurred while helping a Karadzic associate pursue peace in Bosnia. Even before Mr. Shearer reported the threats, the State Department inspector general and the FBI had begun investigating whether he had misrepresented his ties to the Clinton administration in his dealings with the Bosnian figures, several government officials told the Associated Press. The contacts were first disclosed last fall by former GOP congressional investigator David Bossie, who wrote about them in The Washington Times. U.S. officials said then that Mr. Shearer was not acting on behalf of the United States. A senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the State Department's current assessment is that Mr. Karadzic tried to use the Shearer connection to claim influence with Mr. Talbott and President Clinton and "sow seeds of discontent" among Bosnian Serbs….Mr. Shearer is the brother of Brooke Shearer, who is married to Mr. Talbott. Mr. Shearer's brother, Derek, was Mr. Clinton's ambassador to Finland…."

Reuters 3/24/99 "…Conceived in the Cold War and long cloaked in secrecy in the American heartland, the multi-billion-dollar B-2 stealth bomber got its first test in combat Wednesday in a NATO raid on Yugoslavia. Two of the sleek, black radar-evading jets attacked military targets in Yugoslavia, carrying 2,000-pound (900 kg) satellite-guided bombs capable of shattering hardened command facilities, Air Force officials told Reuters. Defense Secretary William Cohen said the B-2s performed as advertised….. The stealth bombers, which look like angular boomerangs, each cost $2.1 billion, were part of a $43 billion U.S. fleet of 21 B-2s built by Northrop Grumman Corp. with special materials to virtually escape detection by enemy radar…."

Drudge Report 3/24/99 Yeltsin speech "… Only the Security Council of the United Nations has the right to take decisions regarding measures, including military measures, needed for the support or establishment of international peace and security. Such decisions regarding Yugoslavia have not been taken by the Security Council. This violates not only the UN charter, but also the Founding Act of mutual relations, cooperation and security between Russia and NATO. A dangerous precedent has been set creating a policy of dictate through force, placing in jeopardy the entire contemporary framework of international law. In fact, we speak of an attempt by NATO to enter the 21st century in the uniform of a world policeman. Russia will never agree to this….Those who have set off on this military adventure bear complete responsibility before their own peoples and the world community for the grave consequences to international stability. In the event the military conflict worsens, Russia retains the right to take adequate measures, including military ones, to defend itself and the overall security of Europe…."

3/25/99 BELGRADE (Itar-Tass) "… Yugoslavia's air defense troops have shot down two NATO's planes and six cruise missiles, the commander of the 3rd Army, Lieutenant-General Neboisa Pavkovic said on Serbian state television on Thursday. He said his army, depployed in southern Serbia, is part of Kosovo's Pristina Corps which he said took most on NATO's strikes last night…. Most of planes and missiles came from the direction of Macedonia and Albania, Pavkovic said. He said the Pristina Corps suffered minimal losses, without elabotrating, but the air raids caused a serious damage of civilian facilities and civilian victims, including among Serb refugees camped in the town of Prokuplje. Pavkovic said the Kosovo Liberation Army, or KLA, activated after NATO launched the military operation. KLA mounted several attacks on Serbian villages, army and police units in Orahovac, Srbca, Glogovac and Podujevo. Serbian telvision said about a thousand of Albanian guerrillas are staying near the border with Yugoslavia waiting for a signal for invasion of Kosovo…."

UN.Org 3/24/99 "…The United Nations Security Council met in emergency session on Wednesday night after NATO launched airstrikes against targets in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Several delegates described the NATO action as a last resort to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo after the failure of all diplomatic efforts to find a peaceful solution. Security Council resolutions recognized that the situation in Kosovo was a threat to regional peace and security and invoked Chapter VII of the Charter, they said. However, other representatives condemned what they described as the unilateral use of force against a sovereign State, in violation of the United Nations Charter and without Security Council authorization. …. "

Freeper Alas Babylon reports 3/24/99 on all channels speech by Clinton "…He doesn't mention that Kosovo is PART of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, just like New York or Florida are part of the USA…." Freeper walkin man adds "…

Reuters 3/24/99 "…A NATO plane was shot down over northern Kosovo Wednesday as the 19-member Western alliance unleashed air attacks across Yugoslavia, a NATO spokesman at the Vicenza airbase in Italy said. ``It happened in the northern region (of Kosovo),'' the spokesman told Reuters by telephone. ``We do not know what kind of plane or from which base it came from.'' …"

Reuters 3/24/99 Philip Pullella Freeper Earl B. "…A deathly silence fell over the ship at 1700 GMT after General Quarters, or battle stations, was announced over the scratchy public address system. "I told my men: 'This is a combat situation, unfortunately some members of the force that we are targeting may die,"' Jenkins said. "This is not a softball game. They (my men) understand what we have to do. There will not be any cheering tonight. There will not be any high-fiving tonight," he said. Just before the first missiles were fired, the ship's Christian chaplain, Lieutenant Frederick McGuffin, got on the horn and read a prayer. "Lord, we come to you this evening wondering what it may hold. We ask that you watch over us," he said…."

AP wire service 3/24/99 "…With NATO bombs and cruise missiles battering Yugoslavia, NATO troops in nearby Bosnia stepped up security measures Wednesday in response to unspecified threats. A statement from NATO provided no additional information about the threats, saying only they were related to the situation in Kosovo and made by persons ``who stand to gain by destabilizing the peace process.'' …"

Jane's Defence Weekly 3/25/99 "…UNNOTICED as the eyes of the world have focused on Kosovo is the dramatic build-up of weapons in neighbouring Macedonia. In addition to the 20,000 NATO troops stationed in the country, ready for some eventual intervention in Kosovo, Bulgaria has agreed to supply 150 main battle tanks and 150 artillery pieces to the Macedonian army. What are they for?…"

Reuters 3/24/99 "…The Kosovo crisis presented President Clinton with the biggest test of his credibility among Americans since the Senate acquitted him of impeachment charges five weeks ago. Clinton's critics in Congress, some of whom tried to have the president removed from office over the Monica Lewinsky affair, chose to support U.S. forces in action against Serb targets despite their distaste for Clinton's overall Kosovo policy. "Whatever our reservations about the president's actions in the Balkans, let no one doubt that the Congress and the American people stand united behind our men and women who are bravely heeding the call of duty there,'' said Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, a Mississippi Republican…."

Hellenic Orthodox Traditionalist Church of America 3/23/99 Metropolitan Archbishop PAVLOS to Clinton "...Again I write to you as a Christian and as an American. Sir, we are poised on the brink of disaster, a disaster that is manifold in its dimensions and character. As I expressed to you in my previous letter this imminent and unprovoked attack against Yugoslavia is immoral. Even the trepidation alone that we have instilled in the people of Yugoslavia is a horror. The fact that this is exactly one of our intentions is offensive. Legally speaking our country is heading toward the perpetration of a crime of international proportions. We are acting without a UN mandate. We are violating the very charter of the NATO Pact. NATO is acting without a UN mandate. We are violating every international law governing respect for the sovereignty of nations. We are acting without the mandate of the American people. Do the American people truly believe our national interests are at stake? A recent CBS Radio broadcast quoted a poll that said 50% of Americans cannot find Kosovo on a map! Is this the well-informed constituency that gives us a mandate to attack Yugoslavia? I ask again by what authority do we act? Is it the authority of the law of God, the law of our country, or international law? ..."

Interfax 3/25/99 "...Russia will not use force to settle the Kosovo conflict. "We are not discussing using force in response to force," Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov told Interfax after a Thursday morning meeting with Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov. On the possibility of Russia's unilaterally dropping sanctions on arms deliveries to Yugoslavia, Ivanov said, "An aggression was launched against a sovereign country that did not start any aggression, and under the U.N. charter other countries U.N. members may offer assistance to such a country." He did not specify what assistance could be given..."

USA Today 11/29/98 AP "...The man accused of orchestrating the U.S. Embassy bombings in Africa operates a terrorist network out of Albania that has infiltrated other parts of Europe, The Sunday Times reported. The newspaper quoted Fatos Klosi, the head of the Albanian intelligence service, as saying a network run by Saudi exile Osama Bin Laden sent units to fight in the Serbian province of Kosovo. Bin Laden is believed to have established an Albanian operation in 1994 after telling the government he headed a wealthy Saudi humanitarian agency wanting to help Albania, the newspaper reported. Klosi said he believed terrorists had already infiltrated other parts of Europe from bases in Albania. Interpol believes more than 100,000 blank Albanian passports were stolen in riots last year, providing ample opportunity for terrorists to acquire false papers, the newspaper said...."

Serbian Unity Congress 10/8/98 The European Stella Jatras "...The Jerusalem Post said it best when it reported on Sept 14, 1998 regarding Kosovo, "Diplomats in the region say Bosnia was the first bastion of Islamic power. The autonomous Yugoslav region of Kosovo promises to be the second. During the current rebellion against the Yugoslav army, the ethnic Albanians in the province, most of whom are Moslem, have been provided with financial and military support from Islamic countries. They are being bolstered by hundreds of Iranian fighters, or Mujahedeen, who infiltrated from nearly Albania and call themselves the Kosovo Liberation Army." What we are seeing in Kosovo is an Islamic army that has been trained in Osama bin Laden's terrorists camps in Afghanistan. Although we cannot rule out that the recent massacres were perpetrated by the forces of Slobodan Milosevic, we must ask ourselves the question, who has the most to gain from these horrendous massacres (or however many it may take to get NATO to bomb) considering the KLA is losing on the battlefield? Furthermore, the method of the killings are exactly the same methods that are used in Algeria by Algerian fundamentalists who have thus far literally butchered over 80,000 by slitting of throats. Oddly enough, there have not been any calls to bomb the Algerian government on a humanitarian basis...."

WorldNetDaily 3/25/99 William Westmiller "...When the first bomb dropped on Serbian forces in Kosovo, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization died. Established fifty years ago as a purely defensive organization, NATO has violated its own founding principles by initiating an offensive war against another sovereign nation. The assault will fail and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will cease to exist. The bombing will fail because the exalted military power of the great western nations cannot stop the despicable assault on Albanian Kosovars. The victims are not being killed by A-6 missiles, or tank assaults, or by battalions of Serbian soldiers; they are being killed with a single bullet to the head. No cruise missile can knock that pistol out of the hands of each assailant. Kosovo homes aren't being strafed with napalm by fighter aircraft; they're being torched with a single match. We'll be treated to video clips of the pinpoint destruction of vacant buildings and superfluous facilities across Serbia, but the bombing will be totally ineffective against the design and intents of Slobodan Milosevic. This is hand-to-hand combat that NATO can't survive...."

Government of the FRY borba.co.ya 3/25/99 "...Yugoslav Prime Minister Momir Bulatovic announced over Radio-TV Serbia and other TV stations in the country Wednesday night that, in keeping with its constitutional powers, the Federal Government had declared a state of war in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. "NATO this evening carried out aggression on the FRY. A sovereign country has been attacked contrary to all the principles and norms of internatinal law. For that reason, the Federal Government has decided to turn the declared state of an immediate war threat into a state of war..... President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic on Wednesday made statement to the Yugoslav public. He said: "Dear citizens, I believe that National Assembly did the right thing when it decided not to accept the presence of the foreign troops in our territory. This decision was made unanimously by the National Assembly, which proves the unity of all the citizens of our country and their commitment to the independence and freedom and unhindered development of our country and all its citizens. This is not all about Kosmet, although Kosmet is extremely important to us, this is about the freedom of our whole country, and Kosmet would only represent a door through which foreign troops were to come and question this greatest value. They selected this door because it was assumed that ethnic Albanian separatist movement would be there, and not the Yugoslav Army and all the citizens of this country, and that in such a way our country would lose gradually its independence and freedom. The only correct decision that could be made was refusal to accept foreign troops in our territory. However, we want to continue a persistent advocating of peaceful solution to Kosovo-Metohija problem....."

Associated Press 3/25/99 Barry Renfrew "...President Boris Yeltsin said today that Russia has decided not to use force to counter NATO attacks against Yugoslavia and will continue its efforts to find a peaceful solution to the Kosovo conflict. "Russia has a number of extreme measures in store, but we decided not to use them so far," Yeltsin said after meeting with his top ministers at the Kremlin. "Morally we are above America."..... "We would have liked to use grenades, but all we had were eggs," said protester Denis Yasov in St. Petersburg..... But after its initial harsh reaction to the bombings, Moscow appeared to be backing away from confrontation with the United States and its NATO allies. The ITAR-Tass news agency reported today that Russia would keep its mission at NATO headquarters in Brussels open and apparently would continue to take part in other alliance programs. Despite its staunch support for Yugoslavia, Russia's options are limited. It is no longer a major military power, and it desperately wants Western aid to revive its shattered economy..."

San Jose Mercury News 3/25/99 Luba Brezhnev "... Most Americans are not aware of the very important reason for the mutual hate between Serbs and Albanians, which has deep roots in history. Americans and the president should be reminded that the Serbs were the only people within Yugoslavia who fought against Hitler during World War II. In 1940, Hitler's Axis included almost all the countries that surround Yugoslavia. Greece and Yugoslavia were the only countries in the area that firmly refused to collaborate with Nazi Germany and fascist Italy. Massive anti-fascist demonstrations spread through the country. Infuriated by the unwillingness to submit, Hitler, in April 1941, ordered the bombing of the largest Yugoslavian cities, including Belgrade. The Axis army occupied Yugoslavia and divided it into several zones. Bosnia and Herzegovina were made into a part of Croatia, a pro-fascist independent state, ruled by the Ustashi, the fascist movement that controlled Croatia during the war. The Germans awarded control over Kosovo to the devoted ethnic Albanians, who were, at that time, among the most fanatical allies of fascist Italy. In Croatia, the local authorities built death camps, in which 350,000 to 450,000 Serbs, Jews and Gypsies died. The ethnic Albanians played an active role in the policy of genocide against the Serbs and others. In response to these atrocities, the Serbs organized a powerful partisan movement, the National Front, which was headed by Tito, who was sympathetic enough to allow Albanian refugees to live on Serbian soil after the war. With help from the Red Army, the Serbs drove the Nazis from Yugoslavia. The Serbs suffered, proportionally, the greatest loses of World War II -- 1.5 million dead, 10 percent of the population...."

Fox News 3/25/99 AP "....A statement faxed to The Associated Press by the Serb government today said: "Journalists of foreign public media from the countries that took part or allowed their territories to be used in NATO aggression on our country will be expelled.'' The order was issued "because they, by their reporting from the territory of the Republic of Serbia, strengthened the aggressive acts of NATO forces aimed at violent destruction of ... the territorial integrity of Serbia and Yugoslavia,'' said the statement. "This order is effective immediately,'' said the statement, which accused the foreign media of disinformation. It was signed by Information Minister Alexander Vucic. In a related development today, all but one of two dozen foreign journalists detained by police in Yugoslavia while watching NATO airstrikes were released...."

UPI Focus 3/25/99 "...At her weekly news conference today, Reno said the department's Office of Legal Counsel, which serves as the government's advising attorney, determined that the president had the constitutional authority to order the airstrikes in concert with NATO allies. The ongoing airstrikes mark the first time that NATO has attacked a sovereign nation. Previous airstrikes were conducted against Bosnian Serbs to end the fighting in that part of the former Yugoslavia, not against Yugoslavia itself. Reno said, "We were consulted and we advised the National Security Council that what the president proposed to do was constitutionally and otherwise lawfully authorized." In response to a question, the attorney general indicated that OLC did not examine the validity of the NATO action under international law, saying only, "We looked at what the president of the United States was constitutionally authorized to do."..."

AP John Diamond 3/25/99 "…Legal justification for the U.S.-led NATO air offensive against Yugoslavia is written in no diplomatic charter, international law or U.N. Security Council resolution. At best, scholars say, the Clinton administration can rely on an unwritten principle that allows intervention to protect people besieged by their own government. The administration lists a range of practical and political reasons for the attack. The trouble in Yugoslavia could spread to neighboring states, President Clinton said. Belgrade has failed to abide by international agreements. But for the strikes, Yugoslavia would continue attacks on the independence-seeking ethnic Albanians in the Kosovo province of Serbia. International legal scholars see scant legal backing for the NATO action beyond the unwritten principle of ``humanitarian intervention'' that permits nations to violate the sovereignty of another to stop widespread human rights abuses. ``I don't know any neighboring state that's been threatened, and I don't see how this (attack) can be self-defense,'' said Allan Gerson, a senior fellow in international law at the Council on Foreign Relations. As for Yugoslavia's refusal to settle the Kosovo crisis peacefully, he said, ``I don't know of any precedent that gives you the right to go to war against any party that refuses to reach a settlement at the peace table.'' But Gerson said the strictures of international law must move aside in an emergency. ``When you have massive human rights abuses, it's important that you respond immediately,'' he said…."

BBC News 3/24/99 "…Albanians claim that they are its original inhabitants, being the descendants of the ancient Illyrians. The Serbs say that Kosovo lay at the heart of its medieval kingdoms and that during the middle ages few, if any, Albanians lived amongst them. The Serbs buttress their claim by pointing to their ancient monasteries and churches which dot the landscape. A key date in Kosovo's history is the June 28, 1389. According to classical Serbian history, the Serbian Prince Lazar fought the invading Ottoman Turks at Kosovo Polje (The Field of Blackbirds) - and lost. Although his death was celebrated as glorious sacrifice, the defeat opened the gates to a Turkish advance which would only be checked some 300 years later at the gates of Vienna…. By 1459, all of Serbia, including Kosovo, had fallen under Turkish rule. Slowly but surely, the population balance began to change as the then-majority Serbs migrated northwards to Bosnia, the Austrian and Hungarian lands. Following a failed uprising in 1689, the numbers of Serbs emigrating began to escalate. They were replaced by mostly Muslim Albanians who came to Kosovo's fertile lands from the hostile mountains of Albania proper. From 1878, Serbia was a fully independent state again but Kosovo still lay under Ottoman rule. This year was also important for Albanians as it saw the foundation of the League of Prizren, which marks the birth of modern Albanian nationalism, not just in Kosovo but for all Albanians. By 1912, Serbia and the other independent Balkan states joined together to drive the Turks out of their remaining possessions in Europe. For Kosovo's Serbs, the arrival of the Serbian Army was a liberation. For Albanians, by now the majority population, it was nothing short of an occupation, coupled with massacres and expulsions. During the First World War, the Serbian authorities were themselves driven out and, in 1915, Albanians took their revenge for 1912 by exacting reprisals on retreating Serbian troops. The Serbian revenge for this came in 1918 when the army of what was now Yugoslavia returned…. In 1941, most of Kosovo became part of an Italian-controlled Greater Albania. …..Tito's Yugoslav Partisans found it hard to recruit Albanian soldiers, but in the end they had some success when they appeared to promise Kosovo Albanians the right to unite with Albania after the war. When, in 1945, it became clear that this promise was not to be kept, the Yugoslav authorities were again faced with Albanian uprisings…..Until the 1960s the province was kept on a tight leash, but in 1974 it was granted full autonomy, which gave it almost the same rights as Yugoslavia's six republics. From this time on, Serbs complained of harassment by Albanians who were also demanding the status of a full republic for the province. Serbs were also worried because, thanks to Serb emigration and a high Albanian birth rate, the proportion of Serbs in the province had now fallen to a mere one for every nine Albanians. Manipulating these grievances, Slobodan Milosevic, then the head of the Serbian Communist Party, rose to supreme power. In 1989 he stripped Kosovo of its autonomy. However, his actions precipitated a crisis across the rest of former Yugoslavia which was to end in its bloody collapse. Under the leadership of Ibrahim Rugova, Kosovo Albanians opted for peaceful resistance to Serbian rule under Mr Milosevic, declaring their independence and running a parallel state. However, over the last two years Mr Rugova has come under increasing attack from radicals who claim that his pacifism is tantamount to passivity. The events of the last year, and the emergence of the Kosovo Liberation Army, show that there are enough Albanians who are prepared to take up arms against Serbia to seriously threaten its hold on the province…."

ZDNN 3/25/99 Maria Seminerio Freeper Brian Mosely "…The barrage of cruise missiles raining down on Yugoslavia in the ongoing NATO offensive is only the most visible element of the campaign. Behind the scenes, military technologists are using 'infowar' tactics borrowed from hackers to disrupt the Serbian telecommunications infrastructure. The barrage of cruise missiles raining down on Yugoslavia in the ongoing NATO offensive is only the most visible element of the campaign. Behind the scenes, military technologists are using 'infowar' tactics borrowed from hackers to disrupt the Serbian telecommunications infrastructure…."

STRATFOR's Global Intelligence Update 3/25/99 "… The Ukrainian Parliament issued a statement on March 24 calling NATO military action in Yugoslavia an "aggression against a sovereign state." The Parliament also urged the Ukrainian government to change the country's non-nuclear status due to the NATO air strikes in the Balkans. The resolution was approved by an overwhelming majority of the members of the Ukrainian Parliament -- 231 in favor and 43 opposed. …. Perhaps the most notable statement was made by the Head of the Communist party of Ukraine, Petro Symonenko, who suggested that the country's legislative body reconsider immediately Ukraine's relationship with NATO. "If we do not make a decision on the alliance, that may entail a change in relations with Russia," Symonenko told Russian press agency ITAR-TASS. He also argued that Ukraine's cooperation with NATO complicates Kiev's relations with the CIS, especially with Russia and Belarus. Symonenko proposed that Ukraine recall its ambassadors in NATO countries and coordinate its security matters in the future with Russia and Belarus. Nearly all political parties in the Ukrainian Parliament have denounced NATO military activities in Yugoslavia. However, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, currently visiting Sweden, called the Parliament's proposal to rebuild a nuclear arsenal "emotional." Kuchma said that any efforts to change his country's nuclear status would complicate Ukraine's relations with the West and endanger European security. …"

John Birch Society - New American 3/15/99 William Norman Grigg "…As representatives of Kosovo’s Albanian population — including delegates from the KLA — and Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic met in Rambouillet, France to discuss "autonomy" for the province, Clinton Administration officials made it known that the President was prepared to deploy 4,000 U.S. servicemen to Kosovo as part of NATO’s "Operation Joint Guardian." They also made it clear that they did not consider it necessary to obtain congressional authorization for the deployment. In testimony offered on February 10th before the House International Affairs Committee, Under Secretary of State Thomas Pickering defended Bill Clinton’s unilateral decision to commit troops to Kosovo, claiming that "there is ample constitutional precedent for this type of action." While it is true that Congress on many occasions has abdicated its constitutional responsibilities in the face of presidential usurpation, such delinquencies do not constitute "constitutional precedent." Congressman Tom Campbell (R-CA) underscored that fact, pointedly informing Pickering that "previous constitutional violations do not justify subsequent ones."…Using such time-honored tactics, Bill Clinton is recreating the circumstances that led to the Somalia debacle in 1993: U.S. troops assigned to a UN-supervised "peacekeeping" mission, under foreign command, deployed to a region in which no "peace" exists to be kept…."There’s no doubt that bin Laden’s people have been in Kosovo helping to arm, equip, and train the KLA," Works declared. "Bin Laden’s the monster du jour, and here we are coming to the aid of his allies in the Balkans. There is a monster being created here, but in important ways it’s a monster of our own making. Hardly a day goes by without a terrorism alert at some U.S. embassy that has been targeted by bin Laden’s people, and the Administration’s policy in Kosovo is to help bin Laden, through the KLA, extend his reach in Europe. It almost seems as if the Clinton Administration’s policy is to guarantee more terrorism."…In his syndicated column for August 12, 1998, retired U.S. Army Colonel Harry G. Summers wrote that in Bosnia and Kosovo "we find ourselves championing the very Islamic fundamentalist terrorist groups who are our mortal enemies elsewhere."…"

AFP 3/25/99 BELGRADE "…Three NATO aircraft were reported to have been shot down over Serbia Thursday on the second day of NATO air strikes launched to pressure Belgrade into signing a peace deal for Kosovo. However a NATO military spokesman at the allied forces' headquarters at Mons in southern Belgium, early Friday denied any planes were lost…."

The Daily Republican 3/25/99 Jan Oberg "…NATO's unwise, counterproductive and non-legal bombing of sovereign Yugoslavia is justified by President Bill Clinton, EU and other Western leaders and media with reference to humanitarian concerns. Supposedly air strikes serve to stop ethnic cleansing, future massacres, refugee flows, and prevent innocent children and women from being killed. Diplomatically expressed, this comes from the marketing department. Bombings will to produce what it purports to prevent, right after the bombing campaign has started. This argument lacks credibility. …. The immediate consequence of the threats of NATO air strikes is that OSCE's Verification mission had to be withdrawn and that almost all humanitarian organizations withdrew to protect their staff. More refugees are now running over the border to Macedonia. With fewer ears and eyes on the ground, its free for all sides - NATO included - to step up the killing….NATO bombings will be perceived as a punishment of Serbs and a clear support to Albanian hardliners. Serbs will feel that it was the Albanian side that called this hell upon them. Thus, the little hope we may have had about Serbs and Albanians living peaceful together or as trustful neighbours in the foreseeable future, is now gone. Producing hate is the opposite of a humanitarian effort.

The Kosovo war has caused the death of about 2.000 people during the last year. This is serious, every human life is sacred. However, the international community has chosen not to intervene in the following when: 80.000 have been killed in Algeria; perhaps 10.000 in the Ethiopian-Eritrean war the last couple of weeks; 820,000 in Rwanda the last five years; 1.500,000 in Sudan the last 15 years; more than 1 million people have died because of the Western sanctions against the Iraqi people; perhaps as many as 500,000 have died in Burma since 1948. …"

Interfax 3/25/99 "…The Russian Defense Ministry has at its disposal operational reports on NATO preparation for a ground operation in Yugoslavia, Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev said on Thursday in Moscow. He said the NATO ground force to be sent to Yugoslavia will number 22,000 men. "We also know that the Yugoslav army is fully ready to repel the aggression in its territory. And there are no doubts that there will be proper resistance," Sergeyev said…"

Original Source 3/25/99 Mary Mostert "…CNN reporter Christiane Amanpour, who invariably reports the stories from Bosnia or Kosovo with a sympathetic slant to Muslims, Albanians and Croatians - never Serbs - reported the NATO bombing raids from a safe distance from a comfortable hotel where, she said, they were taking out "Serbian military installations." Clinton Administration officials claim that it is the Serbs who are practicing "ethnic cleansing" and who, therefore, must be stopped, lest they follow in the steps of Adolph Hitler and commit genocide. Another view was reported to me via an e-mail forwarded to me by a reader who has a friend in Novi Sad, the capital of the Province of Vojovodina on the Danube River. Aleksandar Jankovic wrote after the missiles hit: "The first reactions from the United States on CNN - they seem to think the first mission is a success. This area of Novi Sad is obviously of no major significance in terms of the damage it can cause to NATO planes but as the part of strategy to damage infrastructure and targets of lesser importance as well, we have been hit. "There seem to be no human casualties here. A motor factory in the city outskirts has suffered infrastructure damage and so far the damage is, it seems, more financial than tactical or strategic. again this applies just to Novi Sad immediate surrounding area. NATO has attacked many targets throughout the country and I have no way of knowing what they have achieved in terms of the goals they had set. The state TV of course denies any army casualties or damage to the anti-air-raid defense system. There has just been an announcement of a Pentagon briefing at 2 pm tomorrow on that, and we have just learned that yet 3 more missiles have been launched from Adriatic towards Kosovo" … My reader later talked with his friend Alex by telephone and wrote: "Alex confirmed that Clinton's armada has wasted at least 4 missiles @ $1 Mill (?) by hitting non strategic targets and empty Army barracks on the outskirts of this peaceful city. The petrified and until now lethargic populace is of course rallying against Madam and Bill, the 'US terrorists.'" …"

STRATFOR's Global Intelligence Update 3/28/99 "….The Russian brigade that is supporting the NATO Stabilization Force (SFOR) in Bosnia is apparently no longer reporting to the NATO command. It now seems that the brigade has withdrawn from both the command structure and the communication net. While it has made no overt moves against NATO, it also has not shown any inclination to withdraw. Clearly, this is a signal of Russian displeasure at U.S. policy in Kosovo. It is also a potential security risk in the event that NATO chooses to mount any operations out of Bosnia, or the Serbs attempt any operations into Bosnia. Either way, it is a complex and potentially dangerous evolution…."

Reuters 3/28/99 "…The U.S. embassy in Moscow, the target of large anti-NATO protests, came under automatic gunfire from a passing vehicle Sunday, RIA news agency reported. The report, which quoted Moscow city police, also said a grenade launcher was found nearby…."

Washington Post 3/28/99 Dana Priest "…Pentagon officials stared incredulously at television screens late yesterday afternoon as Serbian television broadcast footage of one of America's premier warplanes, the F-117A stealth Nighthawk fighter, crumpled and burning in hostile territory, its distinctive "ACC" and "HO" markings visible through the flames. Then, they waited. As senior officials sought to deflect a flood of media questions about whether a plane had been downed, U.S. search and rescue teams were dispatched on a covert recovery mission with specially equipped HH-60 Black Hawk helicopters and HH-53 Super Jolly Greens. Protected by a swarm of fixed-winged aircraft, they headed toward the site in northwest Yugoslavia, near the city of Novi Sad, where the plane had crashed. When news arrived that the pilot had been safely rescued and extracted from Yugoslav territory, "there was a huge sigh of relief," Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said at a briefing called at 10:30 last night. "The pilot has been rescued and is safe at a NATO base," he said….."

New York daily News 3/28 Charles Krauthammer Freeper starlu "…In fact, Clinton is wrong. The reason for the killing in Kosovo is not mindless ethnic hatred, but quite rational power politics. There is a guerrilla army of Kosovar Albanians who want independe nce and are willing to kill to achieve it. And there is a Serb army that wants to keep Kosovo in Yugoslavia and preserve the sovereignty of the state. And they are willing to kill for that…."

Los Angeles Times 3/28/99 Paul Watson "…The five Serbian police officers who killed human rights lawyer Bajram Kelmendi and his two sons must think that NATO will lose its war with Yugoslavia and that justice will not come to Kosovo. The officers didn't bother to pull down their black wollen hats to mask their faces when the abducted Kelmendi and his sons. And the left as witnesses two widows who saw straight into their eyes…."

FoxNews 3/28/99 Freeper rotorooter "…Serbian media reported that Yugoslav forces had downed five NATO jets and a helicopter Sunday during air strikes against military targets. In Washington, a Defense Department spokesman said: "I have no information on downed aircraft.'' … The Serbian side has made a number of claims of planes shot down since NATO launched their punitive air strikes Wednesday aimed at halting Serbian "genocide'' against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, most of them denied by the Western alliance. However Saturday NATO admitted an F-117 stealth fighter had gone down after wreckage was shown on Serbian TV. The pilot was rescued by a U.S. recovery team. The Serb side said the plane, designed to be invisible to enemy radar, had been shot down. NATO officials said it was still not clear why it had crashed…."

Stratfor 3/28/99 "…0117 GMT, 990329 - China’s Xinhua News Agency in Albania is reporting a huge explosion in the Macedonian town of Tetovo…. The blast occurred at about 2120 GMT or 2320 local time. Macedonia is hosting over ten thousand NATO forces who were supposed to deploy into Kosovo in the event of a treaty….."

Stratfor 3/28/99 "…0110 GMT, 990329 - Yugoslavia is warning its people that NATO aircraft are dropping beacons on a massive scale intended to guide aircraft to their targets…. The beacons are described as radio transmitters with battery and two antennae…."

Stratfor 3/28/99 "….2315 GMT, 990328 - Brigadier General William Lake held a press conference on March 28, 1999 at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico. BGen. Lake told reporters that Serb air defense systems were what NATO expected they would be…"

Stratfor 3/28/99 "…2310 GMT, 990328 - According to the Associated Press, an anonymous defense official has said that it was likely that a Yugoslav SA-3 SAM hit the F-117 stealth aircraft downed yesterday…"

Statfor 3/28/99 "…2230 GMT, 990328 - Michel Camdessus, the head of the International Monetary Fund, arrived in Moscow on Saturday for previously scheduled talks on Russia’s financial problems. Camdessus went out of his way to emphasize that there was no linkage whatever between the Yugoslavian crisis and IMF’s decisions on loans to Russia…"

Stratfor :,,,2155 GMT, 990328 - According to the Sunday Telegraph of London, Yugoslavia and Iraq have signed a secret cooperation pact. According to the agreement, Iraq would supply money and oil to Yugoslavia while Serbia would help rebuild Iraq’s air defense…"

Associated Press 3/28/99 Chaka Ferguson "…When Air Force Capt. Ken Dwelle saw the wreckage of a downed F-117A Nighthawk that crashed in Yugoslavia he knew there was something familiar about the plane — it was his…. "When I saw the wreckage on the news, I knew right away what it was,'' said Dwelle, who has been teaching pilots to fly the $45 million plane for the past 3 1/2 years. "When I saw what was burning, it was surprising.''…"

Stratfor "…0130 GMT, 990329 - Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpaee said on Sunday that India was considering entering into an alliance with Russia and China as a result of NATO’s attack on Serbia…."

David Hackworth 3/28/99 John Moore "…Col. David Hackworth spent his first tour of duty in the Balkans. He offers an insightful perspective on the problem which has escaped the Clinton Administration and all the media pundits. Imagine, says Col. Hackworth, that a few million Mexicans streamed across the Texas Border, settled for a brief period and then demanded autonomy for the entire state. This is exactly the way the Serbs feel about the Kosovo region. The Albanians are newcomers to an old Serbian province…."

AFP 3/28/99 "…Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on Sunday said India was examining a possible alliance with Russia and China following NATO air strikes on Yugoslavia. "Such a possibility is being considered," the Press Trust of India quoted the prime minister as saying during a visit to the northern city of Lucknow. …"

Yugoslav TANJUG PRESS 3/28/99 Freeper crypt2k "…Chanting "Kosovo, Kosovo" to the tune of popular songs, the protesters [in Belgrade's Republic Square] wore painted targets on their shirts over their hearts "for NATO to see us better," a youth explained…."

AP 3/28/99 Angela Charlton "…Gunmen with grenade launchers and an assault rifle opened fire on the U.S. Embassy in Moscow on Sunday, in an attack apparently linked to opposition to NATO airstrikes on Yugoslavia. Police firing pistols drove the attackers away from the embassy, which was hit by several bullets but suffered minimal damage. No one was hurt. Protesters in other capitals around the world demonstrated Sunday against the ongoing NATO operation, directing most of their anger at the United States….. In Sydney, Australia, about 7,000 protesters attacked the U.S. consulate. Some hurled broken pieces of concrete through windows of a shop and restaurant in the building where the U.S. diplomatic facility is located, and many compared President Clinton to Adolf Hitler….. In Salzburg, Austria, about 3,500 people carried banners denouncing the NATO air strikes, waved Yugoslav flags and declared their support for Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, the Austria Press Agency reported….. French riot police used tear gas to disperse about 300 Serb supporters who threw rocks and toppled security barriers in demonstration in front the U.S. Embassy in Paris…."

The Times 3/29/99 "…A SENSE of déjà vu reigned in central Belgrade's Republic Square yesterday, as a crowd of thousands spanning all ages jumped to the jaunty tunes of the local punk band, Electric Orgasm. Just over two years ago we were all gathered on the same spot, with the same band. The object of ridicule then was Slobodan Milosevic, and international journalists and Serbs alike danced in the belief that he was about to meet a Ceausescu-like end. What a difference a guerrilla struggle to take away your mythical homeland can make…."

Stratfors 3/28/99 "…It is now painfully clear that the four-day air campaign has thus far failed. The mission, to convince the Serbs to permit NATO forces in Macedonia to enter Kosovo province has clearly not been achieved. The amount of force NATO has brought to bear thus far has not been sufficient to force Belgrade to submit. Quite the contrary, reports we are receiving from Belgrade indicate that Milosevic’s position has been strengthened by the bombings. Potential democratic opponents against him have been silenced, lest they be labeled pro-Western traitors. The mood appears to be a combination of defiance and resignation. As with most bombing campaigns, government and nation are being driven together and not apart. NATO and Washington both seem utterly at a loss as to what to do. The option they have chosen, to continue the SEAD campaign while extending it to a tactical air campaign within Kosovo, is simply not credible. NATO has not deployed enough aircraft, NATO has not deployed the right kind of aircraft, NATO does not have sufficient tactical intelligence, NATO cannot afford attrition from Serbian shoulder-fired anti-air systems. Finally, you cannot stop a terror campaign on the ground from the air…."

Reuters 3/28/99 Gideon Long "… Italy said Saturday that air strikes against Yugoslavia could end within days despite NATO's announcement it was escalating attacks to ground targets in and around the province of Kosovo. ``A question of days,'' Foreign Minister Lamberto Dini told reporters when asked how much longer the attacks, which have pounded Yugoslav defenses since Wednesday night, might continue….."

The Daily Republican 3/28/99 Milosh Milenkovich "…President Bill Clinton's address to the nation about the Kosovo crisis on Friday was filled with inaccuracies and falsehoods. Sadly, the President's address contained so many serious errors of fact that any truth he may have intended, was lost. Truth must not be the first casualty of this war. As a direct consequence, our nation faces disaster. Take Kosovo autonomy, for example. The decision to change Kosovo's autonomous status in 1989 was not taken by Slobodan Milosevic alone. It was a consensual act signed by all the constituent republics of then Yugoslavia, including Kosovo. Its purpose was to amend the 1974 Yugoslav constitution and to avoid paralysis of federal business caused by the veto of a single province. The use of Albanian Language is another example. Kosovo's Albanian population has never been denied use of their own language or access to Albanian language schools. The Albanian-language university in Pristina and the many Albanian language newspapers published in Kosovo attest to this fact. Take the dissolution of Yugoslavia, for another. Serbia did not start the wars with Croatia and Bosnia. These were precipitated by the actions these republics and by Slovenia in declaring illegal and unilateral independence in violation of the then federal Yugoslav constitution. Premature recognition of these illegal acts by the European Union and the wider international including the United States, negated the negotiation process and made war inevitable. Then, there is that "Moral Imperative". The claim to a "moral imperative" is false. The U.S. took no action in 1995 when over 250,000 Serbs were ethnically cleansed from Croatia. In the present situation no such moral authority has been conferred upon the NATO action. Pope John Paul has described this as a "defeat for humanity." NATO is acting without UN authority and in direct violation of international law as framed in the UN Charter, the NATO Treaty, and the Helsinki Accords. …"

Chicago Sun-Times 3/28/99 Robert Novak "…At President Clinton's White House meeting Tuesday with important members of Congress, Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas interrupted his argument for using force against Serbia by saying: ``That's not true, Mr. President!'' During the briefing, Clinton repeatedly contended that NATO-U.S. bombing had ended the war in Bosnia and would achieve the same result in Kosovo. When the senior Republican senators present (Majority Leader Trent Lott and Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner) said nothing, Hutchison felt she had to object. A Senate defense appropriations subcommittee member who has visited Bosnia often, Hutchison pointed out that the Bosnian Serbs agreed to peace terms not because of U.S. air strikes but because they were losing the ground war to Croats and Muslims. After her interjection, Clinton did not repeat his claim…."

HoustonChronicle.com (editorial) 3/28/99 Dr. Ronald L Hatchett "…THE primary justification for our military strikes against Yugoslavia is its refusal to sign the Kosovo peace agreement put forward by the United States. and its allies at Rambouillet, France. The president told us that the Albanians chose peace by signing the agreement even though "they did not get everything they wanted." The Serbs, he said, refused to negotiate, even though the agreement left Kosovo as part of Yugoslavia. However, as in several other instances over the past months, the president is telling us only part of the story…Under the agreement, "Kosovo will have a president, prime minister and government, an assembly, its own Supreme Court, constitutional court and other courts and prosecutors." "Kosovo will have the authority to make laws not subject to revision by Serbia or the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, including levying taxes, instituting programs of economic, scientific, technological, regional and social development, conducting foreign relations within its area of responsibility in the same manner as a Republic." "Yugoslav army forces will withdraw completely from Kosovo, except for a limited border guard force (active only within a 5 kilometers border zone) "Serb security forces "police" will withdraw completely from Kosovo except for a limited number of border police (active only within a 5 kilometers border zone)." The parties invite NATO to deploy a military force (KFOR), which will be authorized to use necessary force to ensure compliance with the accords." "The international community will play a role in ensuring that these provisions are carried out through a Civilian Implementation Mission "appointed by NATO"." …"Three years after the implementation of the Accords, an international meeting will be convened to determine a mechanism for a final settlement for Kosovo on the basis of the will of the people." …."

Associated Press 3/29/99 John Diamond Freeper Brian Mosely "…Yugoslav defense specialists, expecting a war over Kosovo, met last month in Baghdad with Iraqi counterparts in what the Pentagon suspects was a collaboration between two U.S. enemies to prepare Yugoslavia to shoot down American war planes, government officials say…."

AP 3/29/99 Freeper Thanatos "…The Associated Press via NewsEdge Corporation : In another show of protest over the fighting in Kosovo, Russia's Defense Ministry said Friday it will stop cooperating with the United States on the Y2K computer problem. A ministry spokesman made the announcement to a government committee that is tackling the problem, the Interfax news agency said. …"

The Hindu 3/30/99 Freeper Jai "…China, which has maintained a silence over a Russian proposal for a strategic triangle between Russia, China and India, is now considering forging an alliance with Moscow to prevent the alleged U.S. hegemonistic plans. . . . "

International Herald Tribune 3/29/99 Brian Knowlton Freeper Stand Watch Listen "…President Bill Clinton said Sunday that ''continued brutality and repression'' by Serbian forces in Kosovo underscored the need for NATO to persevere in its air assault on Yugoslavia, and offered his strong support to the alliance decision to broaden the military operation. ...As the president turned to walk to a waiting helicopter for a flight to his retreat in Camp David, Maryland, a reporter asked whether the bombing campaign might be driving the atrocities. ''Absolutely not!'' Mr. Clinton shouted back…."

USA Today 3/29/99 Tom Squitieri "…U.S. officials confirmed Sunday that Serb military radar had tracked an F-117A Stealth fighter and that a missile had been fired in its direction before it crashed Saturday. Though it was unclear whether the plane was downed by enemy fire or equipment failure, the incident has raised concerns about the operations of the jet, which was designed to be virtually invisible to radar. …. Officials also said the loss of the F-117A would not jeopardize the U.S. monopoly on stealth technology. "The aircraft itself would be hard to replicate" with the remains of the downed jet, Cohen said…."

AFP 3/29/99 Freepr Thanatos "…The NATO air strikes on Yugoslavia stirred fears among Arab officials on Monday that a precedent was being set for similar attacks against Moslem and other countries in the future. "Some (Arabs) are happy with these strikes, but they forget that such action could be used against Libya, Sudan, Iraq, Sudan, Iran or India," an Egyptian foreign ministry official said on condition of anonymity. The strikes are aimed at punishing Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosovic for refusing to stop attacks by his forces on the mainly Moslem ethnic Albanians in Kosovo province…"

The New York Post 3/29/99 Steve Dunleavy "…WHATEVER valiant victories we have won from the air, that bastard Slobodan Milosevic, the Butcher of Belgrade, has won the war on the ground. Perhaps hard for us to face, inestimably harder for the victims, Kosovo for the Albanians no longer exists ... zilch, kaput, see ya later. In pure mathematics, it does not compare to the toll in the Nazi gas chambers or the Armenian massacre. But can we grasp that a half a million human beings, lucky to be alive, have fled the houses which were once their homes? The refugees are going everywhere. Macedonia first, Bosnia second, and now Albania, wandering pathetic minstrels of Milosevic's monstrosity. Nowhere to go, no one to see, no where to sleep, nothing to eat. And now the crunch for our morality or just to see how tough we are comes the words which every mother and father dreads: "Only NATO ground troops can stop the killing of Albanians in Kosovo."…. There is no doubt in my mind, and I'm not a military strategist, that right now we need a street crime unit of the most elite forces of NATO to go in and pluck these ravagers, rapists and murderers from the scene. Smart bombs can't do it. …. To condemn the Serbs would be like condemning Germans because of Hitler. As a half a million people run from their little ratty hovels, this nasty speck on humanity, Slobodan Milosevic, shames the proud name of Serbs. I was one of the few journalists who within the last 48 hours was on Yugoslav soil in Montenegro….."

BBC 3/29/99 "…After five nights of air strikes against Yugoslavia, the plight of Kosovo Albanians is getting worse, with no sign that Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic is prepared to back down in the face of Nato's air campaign. Nato says more than 500,000 Kosovo Albanians have been driven from their homes. A spokesman for the alliance, Jamie Shea, described the situation as the worst Europe had seen for more than 50 years: "We have to recognise that we are now on the brink of a major humanitarian disaster ... the likes of which we have not seen in Europe since the closing days of World War II," he said…."

Reuters 3/29/99 – "…Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev said Monday NATO air strikes had killed 1,000 people in Yugoslavia, most of them civilians, Russian news agencies reported….. Sergeyev told reporters that all military exercises being carried out in Russia were previously planned and were not linked to the increased tension between Moscow and NATO over the West's air strikes on Yugoslavia…"

Reuters 3/29/99 "…Russia readied a major diplomatic mission to Yugoslavia Monday to seek an end to the Kosovo crisis as NATO said five Kosovo Albanian leaders had been killed by Serb security forces….. On the ground, thousands more refugees streamed out of Kosovo, telling harrowing tales of atrocities by Serbian forces….."Reliable sources report that...Fehmi Agani, a member of the Kosovo Albanian delegation at Rambouillet...and peace negotiator over much of the past year, was executed Sunday, sometime after he attended the funeral of Bajram Kelmendi,'' the spokesman said…. In a dramatic bid to end the crisis and halt NATO's air blitz, Russian President Boris Yeltsin ordered his three top government ministers to Belgrade Tuesday…."

Detroit News 3/29/99 Tony Snow "…Key members of the United States Senate sat slack-jawed through a confidential briefing last Thursday from the Clinton administration foreign-policy team. They were waiting for some sign that the president and his advisers knew why they wanted to bomb Kosovo and possibly send troops there. Presidential mouthpieces previously had described our mission to Dalmatia either as a humanitarian gesture, an effort to avert World War III or a favor to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). But senators figured the White House was holding back some secret information that would silence critics on Capitol Hill. They were wrong. After the foreign-policy wise men asserted that the United States has a moral imperative to stop the murderous Serbian president, Slobodan Milosevic, one senator asked: How many Albanians have Milosevic's troops massacred this year? The president's emissaries turned ashen. They glanced at each other. They rifled through their papers. One hazarded a guess: "Two thousand?" No, the senator replied, that was the number for all of last year. He wanted figures for the last month - or even the year to date, since the president had painted such a grisly picture of genocide in his March 24 address to the nation. Said Clinton, "We've seen innocent people taken from their homes, forced to kneel in the dirt and sprayed with bullets; Kosovar men dragged from their families, fathers and sons together lined up and shot in cold blood." The senator pressed on. How often have such slaughters occurred? Nobody knew. As it turns out, Kosovo has been about as bloody this year as, say, Atlanta. You can measure the deaths not in the hundreds, but dozens. (I'm not trying to deny Milosevic's brutality here; only to provide some comparisons.) More people died last week in Borneo than have expired this year in Kosovar bloodshed - more died in a single Russian bomb blast; in a single outburst of violence in East Timor; in a single day in Rwanda. China has been bloodier this year. …."

Aviation Week & Space Technology 3/29/99 Freeper Fulbright "…Television footage of what was described as the downed USAF F-117 showed the burning remains of a relatively intact crashed aircraft, indicating the possibility of ground impact at a comparatively low air speed. Lighted by small fire, sections of the Nighthawk were large enough to display USAF star-and-bars insignia and the badge of the Air Combat Command…."

Newsday 3/27/99 H Josef Hebert AP "…Russia's anger at the United States over the bombing in Yugoslavia apparently is muted when it comes to rescuing a uranium deal that could yield as much as $12 billion to the financially beleaguered country. Only hours after NATO forces began their attacks in Yugoslavia, prompting outrage from Moscow, Russia and the United States quietly signed an agreement aimed at salvaging the multibillion dollar uranium deal that ran run into trouble in recent months. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson and Russia's minister of atomic energy, Yevgeny Adamov, toasted the agreement with champagne Wednesday night in a ceremony at the Energy Department, officials confirmed Friday. The signing was given no advance publicity….The agreement ``will facilitate the conversion of highly enriched uranium from dismantled Russian nuclear weapons into fuel for U.S. nuclear reactors,'' an Energy Department statement said. A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the signing occurred at all signals the importance both governments place on it…."

AP 3/26/99 "…One hundred ``combat-equipped'' Marines have been dispatched to guard the besieged U.S. Embassy in Macedonia, President Clinton said in correspondence to Congress. And more military personnel are needed in the country neighboring Serbia, he said. Clinton informed Congress of NATO's decision to deploy its Allied Rapid Reaction Corps Headquarters Rear Command Post to Macedonia. The 30 U.S. members of the command's staff would be added to the 400 U.S. troops already on the ground as part of the 10,000-strong NATO force that would help enforce any peace agreement…."

STRATFOR 3/27/99 "…There have been numerous reports out of NATO headquarters in Brussels that at 0515GMT 26 Mar 99 three Serbian Mig-29s violated Bosnian airspace. NATO sources stated that NATO fighters shot down two Mig-29s eight kilometers (five miles) inside Bosnia near the town of Bijeljina and that one Mig-29 fled back into Serbian airspace. NATO have said that the perceived mission of these fighters was to attack NATO Stabilization Forces (SFOR) in Bosnia. Serbian sources deny NATO claims that it sent fighters into Bosnia. NATO countered, initially claiming that it captured the pilots of both aircraft after they ejected, then later retracting that statement and saying that they were still searching for the pilots but that two parachutes were spotted…."

Janes defence 3/27/99 "…Former West German Chancellor, Helmut Schmidt, underlined his belief that this was just a new twist to the old game when he said in a recent interview: "Only the Americans would be naive enough to imagine that there could be a lasting peace in the Balkans". If, after the airstrikes, Milosevic backs down and a multi-national force is deployed then that force may not be an entirely NATO entity. Seen in the context of any future envisaged troop deployment in Kosovo, it is clear that Serbia could only sign up to a deployment which reflected an agreement between the powers (in this case the USA, on the one hand, and Russia and Moscow's supporters on the other)…..Despite denials by the ethnic Albanian leaders, there is no doubt that, situated as they are close to the Albanian frontier, the temptations of a future tie-up with a Greater Albania remain high on the agenda.Even without the Albanian issue, Macedonia has long been a controversial hot spot where Greek, Bulgarian and Serbian interests collide. Greece has long contested the right of the Macedonians to use the name of Macedonia, saying that it implied a territorial claim over Greek territory. Moreover, Greek politicians until relatively recently attempted to undermine the new state at international forums and in discussions involving new trade links.However, more recently under Russian, US and European pressure the Athens government has adopted a more supportive line, though this is of little comfort to the ethnic Albanian minority….."

SCMP 3/28/99 "…The British Embassy in the Macedonian capital was closed yesterday and ceasefire verification monitors who had been withdrawn from Kosovo were pulling out after being attacked by protesters. Demonstrators threw stones and petrol bombs at the US Embassy in Skopje on Thursday night and set fire to cars to protest at the Nato air strikes. Macedonian Premier Ljubco Georgievski said: "The two biggest problems the country is facing at the moment are the inflow of refugees from Kosovo and the emergence of anti-Nato and anti-American feelings among the Macedonian public." …"

Reuters 3/29/99 Freeper crypt2k "…"We will request that Macedonia urgently becomes a NATO member because of the current situation in Yugoslavia," the official told Reuters. "We have given NATO everything they have asked for and we need guarantees on their part."…"

STRATFOR's Global Intelligence Update 3/29/99 "…The U.S. Defense Department has thus far refused to comment on how the F-117 Stealth Fighter might have been shot down over Serbia, however, speculation has centered around Yugoslavia's SA-3 surface to air missile batteries. The F-117 wing being shown on Serbian television is peppered with irregularly sized and spaced holes, suggesting the aircraft was brought down by shrapnel from a large proximity fuzed warhead. While this could have resulted from either an air to air missile or large caliber anti-aircraft artillery, Serb attempts at interception have thus far ended up as one way trips to the ground and AAA in the concentrations the Serbs can employ would have had to be very good or very lucky to bring down the Stealth. This leaves SAMs, and particularly the SA-3. The SA-3 is a low to medium altitude SAM, fired from a static launcher. It has a maximum effective horizontal range of 22-25km and a maximum effective altitude of 12-18km, depending on the missile variant. Initial targeting comes from separate, van-mounted long-range radar, which feeds information to a trailer mounted fire control radar. The missile itself has a doppler radar proximity fuze. If an SA-3 did down the F-117, it would indicate that, for the right high-value target, the Serbs are now willing to utilize the anti-air assets they have until now been withholding…. Of course, the most interesting feature of this incident is the fact that, unless a lucky altitude or time-fuzed AAA round or an infrared AAM downed the F-117, the supposedly radar stealthy aircraft was apparently destroyed by an active radar guided weapon…."

3/29/99 Freeper Thanatos Inter Press Service via NewsEdge Corporation "…The failure of the United Nations to respond to NATO's attacks on Yugoslavia is another sign of the success of a U.S.-British alliance aimed at reshaping international politics. Most significantly, the NATO air strikes to punish Yugoslav military forces for their crackdown in Kosovo shows the strong influence of the U.S. and British government in determining war efforts with or without U.N. approval. The two nations were the most vociferous proponents of a NATO attack, and both defended the measure in an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council last night, although the Council never explicitly authorized the NATO action. …"

AFP 3/29/99 Freeper Thanatos "…An additional 20 aircraft, including five B-1 bombers, are being sent to Europe to beef up the NATO strike force as it steps up attacks on Yugoslav forces in the field, the Pentagon said Monday. The aircraft include five EA-6B electronic warfare planes and 10 air refueling planes as well as the B-1 bombers, which bombed Iraqi barracks last December in their combat debut during Operation Desert Fox, Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said. More unmanned reconnaissance aircraft also are being readied to get a closer look at what is happening on the ground in Kosovo, where Serb attacks against ethnic Albanians has put NATO in a race against what US officials say is a swiftly unfolding campaign of ethnic cleansing. "When we started this, we had what we needed to do the job that NATO had called for. That job has changed. So we are augmenting the assets available to do that," Bacon said…."

Chicago Tribune 3/30/99 Roger Simon Freeper HAL9000 "…Aside from the possibility of American casualties or captives, the chief fear among White House staffers is that Clinton will be blamed for making matters worse for the Kosovar Albanians rather than rescuing them. Instead of retreating, Serbian forces have stepped up what the United States calls the "ethnic cleansing" of the Kosovars, the exact opposite of what the NATO bombing campaign was supposed to accomplish…."

NBC, MSNBC web site 3/30/99 Preston Mendenhall, John Gibson Freeper 4Liberty "… A Russian-brokered bid to end NATO’s air campaign against Yugoslavia was quickly dismissed on Tuesday by the United States, Germany and Britain, with President Bill Clinton declaring