Posted on 10/03/2004 3:31:19 PM PDT by Soliton
In emotional testimony, the American general who commanded NATO warplanes over Yugoslavia blasted the French on Thursday for vetoing planned airstrikes, saying the moves heightened danger to young U.S. fliers.
Lt. Gen. Michael Short, whose son flew an A-10 Warthog plane in the conflict, declared before a Senate panel that French officials, by imposing "extraordinary" restrictions on targets, made North Atlantic Treaty Organization operations more predictable and "placed our troops at increased risk."
France, whose fliers conducted only 8% of the sorties in the air war, should not have been "in a position of restricting American aviators who are bearing 70% of the load--and who are in harm's way," said Short, who retires from the military July 1.
After civilians were killed in a NATO airstrike on a bridge in the Serbian city of Nis, the alliance was told to hit bridges only between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m., and never on weekends, market days or holidays, he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu ...
Gee, and this was before Bush "alienated our valuable French allies". Someone needs to ask Kerry about this.
Someone please refresh my memory. When Reagan bombed Libya, didn't one of our pilots, tired from the extended flying time caused by France's refusal to allow us to fly over their air space, accidently fire a missile into the French Embassy in Tripoli?
The General also said they targeted civilian infrastructure to make life so hard for them that they would rise up against Milosevic. That is terrorism. NATO terrorized and made life difficult for Serbs because US policymakers wanted a puppet government in Serbia, and for the Serb army and police to leave Kosovo so they could cleanse non-Albanians from Kosovo.
Those 150 churches and monasteries, 70,000 homes and dwellings destroyed by Albanians, 2,000 non-Albanians murdered, 1,700 kidnapped, and 300,000 non-Albanians kidnapped - those were Albanians doing NATO's dirty work. NATO soldiers stood by and supervised it these past almost 5 1/2 years.
"and 300,000 non-Albanians kidnapped"
should be 300,000 non-Albanians ethnically cleansed from Kosovo
"Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without an accordian."
I always loved that one!
Yeah, and John F. Kerry, the quintessential warrior-hero, uses an accordion while crawling on his belly through the woods to hunt deer.
WHAT DID SERBS DO TO THE US TO DESERVE THIS?
Valuable French Allies in Bosnia:
good find.
France helped us in Kosovo and Afghanistan.
But not in Iraq and Libya.
Difference?
Oil.
The US is an ally of France. But so was Saddam. France chose Saddam over us. Not just the Food for Oil scheme but the for the much more valuable new oil exploration contracts Saddam ceded to TotalFinaElf (Chretien family asset). To some degree French ambitions for world-wide influence played to, the counter US strategy which manifests itself in other ways, like business deals with Iran and recent French naval participation with China during China's Taiwan Invasion manoeuvres. Also in play was Chirac's personal involvement with Saddam.
These incessant articles comparing French cooperation and lack of cooperation are ridden with anti-American assumptions, such as French difference is due to a failing with whomever is the current sitting US president. They rarely address French interests and ambitions since such analysis would detract from rhetoric pushing anti-American or, currently, anti-Bush propaganda.
Going to war without the French is like going deer hunting without your accordian. (as per Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, I believe)
Elected Slobodan Milosevic and then didn't have the common sense to kick him out before he got them bombed.
The RTS tower, if you'll remember, has the distinction of being one of the targets we notified the Serbs of in advance, which is why there have been lawsuits in Serbia where the relatives of the dead have sued the management who were notified of the impending strike but ordered the employees to go to work anyway.
Dragoljub Milanovic, the director of RTS during Allied Force, was found guilty by a Serbian district court in 2002 of intentionally placing low-level employees at risk in an effort to increase the number of civilian casualties and discredit NATO.
So the chain of events leading to those 16 deaths has been publicly available for over 2 years, yet to read your post, one would have to assume you're either ignorant of the facts or simply lying - what's your excuse?
And you'll note that we bombed Iraqi communications infrastructure during 2003 as well - so you can take your talk of American terrorism and execute a non-Admin Mod sanctioned activity with it.
WHAT DID SERBS DO TO THE US TO DESERVE THIS?
The Serbs didn't pose a threat to the USA at any time. They were not involved in international terrorism. We, the USA, had no reason or right to gert involved.
And the Sudanese government isn't involved in international terrorism either, nor are they threatening the USA by their actions in Darfur.
How lucky for them they're not destabilizing Southern Europe, like Milosevic was, instead of some corner of Africa nobody's ever heard of.
And what's this talk of a "right" to get involved? Explain that one for me.
This, along with French approval must be the "sensitive" approach Kerry talked about.
Patton said he's rather have a German Division in front of him than two French Divisions behind him.
EXCUSE ME, but you apparently don't know a thing about the Balkans conflict. It was a Civil War, nothing more, nothing less. Painting the issue as a religious conflict is blatantly stupid.
I spent 4 years in the Balkans, mostly in the Tuzla and Sarajevo regions. I supervised and worked with Croats, Serbs, and Bosnian Muslims. All were the same people.
The issue started when Slovenia broke away from Yugoslavia. The other semi-autonomous states tried the same and were set upon by the Serbian Army.
The issue of Kosovo was brought about because of the media. Simply put, the Kosovars received more pity from the world because the media showed the destruction being wrought upon them by the Serbian minority and Serbian military in that region.
The media also publicized the Serb concentration camps which brought about condemnation and a call for action against them. Nowhere was it shown that ALL the sides had their concentration camps, nor that all sides took part in atrocities against the civilian populace.
Tuzla and Sarajevo have been essentially cleansed of their Serbian population and most of the Croats too.
Over 150,000 Serbs left Sarajevo from 1991, yet its total population today is significantly larger than prewar, AND IT IS VIRTUALLY all Muslims. Tuzla, I am told, has destroyed Orthodox churches, but where is the publicity for that.
Recent article on a fatal shooting of a Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) by a San Jose police officer, mentioned, according to the man's cousin, that he was in a CROAT concentration camp called Dretelj for 83.
Where was the western media to publicize that Croat concentration camp back in 1998 when it held Muslims? It goes to show that the media was hiding so much. Before the Muslims were there, Serbs were tortured and killed there. Where was the media to publicize that? No where it didn't fit their AGENDA. They were 100% biased against the Serbs - even using an Orthodox funeral of dead SERB CHILDREN, editing out the priest and showing it on CNN as a funeral for Muslim soldiers. Stella Jatras saw this and realized it was the same footage she saw, only with the priest not edited out, on French TV.
The media did not cover the concentration camps run by Croats and Muslims, did not cover the beheadings and roasting of Serbs by local Muslims and the Mujahadeen - (except for 2 articles on Naser Oric and his video tapes of beheaded Serbs), did not cover Miro Bajramovic's confession in 1997 where he admitted killing scores of Serbs in Gospic Croatia by his own hand, and much more.
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