Posted on 11/16/2003 10:30:47 AM PST by nwrep
Source qualified to what? For damage assessment or damage control? "Qualified sources" are still strugling, 60 years after the war to document how many civilians have died in Dresden due to allied firebombing. Was it 8000 or 200,000? 35,000 or 135,000? As if people are potatoes.
It seems that 4:1 ratio in assessments casulties is customary practice.
Amnesty International report has put the number of civilians murdered by NATO in 1999 to over 500.(560 if memory serves me right, I would have to look it up somewhere else, AI has pulled report from the public view.)
"Are you kidding?" "There's weren't even hundreds, if scores."
No, I am not kidding, I will leave it to Jokers on the FR.
AI has described only the clear cut cases of war crimes, violation of Geneva and Hague conventions. However, the number AI provided is not final, nor it is definitive. Milosevic government has hid the total number of killed civilians to show to their supporters how they "won" the war over NATO. This is perhaps one of the sicker things Milo did to remain in power.
In post war assesments it is standard procedure to calculate the loss attributed to the war. In other words, how many people would not die if there were no war. (Observed mortality rate minus average mortality rate)
E.g almost all pregnancies were terminated in Belgrade and Pancevo due to high exposure to leaked terrotogenic and carcinogenic agents from NATO destruction of petrochemical complex in Pancevo (12 miles from downtown Belgrade) The risk of deformities was too high.
In my book, those unborn are the victims of NATO aggression. If there were no agression and no destruction of Pancevo Petrochemicals, those children would be four years old today. Just like the babies in The Mother and Child Hospital in Belgrade who died when the elecrical grid was destroyed by NATO graphite bombs.Strictly speaking, babies were not struck by NATO bombs, yet they have died as a consequence of NATO intent to terrorize civilian population. "No power to your fridge" tactics in this case translated to "no power to your incubator".
The closest estimate is 1500 directly killed, 5000 wounded, many of whom died due to inadequate care.
Indirectly killed are in the thousands. Cancer mortality rate in Pancevo is signifficantly higher than pre war average. The effects of bombing are still felt in Serbia and will not go away.
I wish if only you are right and myself wrong, a liar you accused me to be. I would be very happy.
You should have qualified your initial assertment of thousands of deaths with something like this, at least it's open to debate... Saying that thousans of Serb civilians were actually killed opens you up to ridicule, and rightly so.
These words almost preclude any reason to read further: Once again, the US is safely enclosed within the Sacred Shroud of Sanctity, never to be held accountable for any crime. This belief is part of the American Myth,one that promotes the idea of exceptionalism--much to the misery of lesser mere mortals.
Our military never deliberately... Wounded Knee? No Gun Ri? My Lai? Thousands of tons of napalm and millions of gallons of Agent Orange: all vetted by committee, but nothing deliberate, of course: all sacred, all part of the myth.
And apparently you did not; you are wildly out of context.
Wounded Knee? No Gun Ri? My Lai? Thousands of tons of napalm and millions of gallons of Agent Orange: all vetted by committee, but nothing deliberate, of course: all sacred, all part of the myth.
Help me here, exactly where in Kosovo is Wounded Knee? And No Gun Ri--Serbia proper? And was it the Serbs or the Albanians that were killed at My Lai; I can never keep it straight.
Are you always this incoherent?
LMAO!!!!!
I hope it doesn't hurt too much, you need a lot of it—and confronting the falsehoods of your position can indeed be painful.
At first it seems incoherent.
Oh no, your post and incoherence are inalienably linked: substitution of slogans and emotionalism for facts, false linkages between events, inductive reasoning using selected examples from mixed epochs to make generalizations about current circumstances; all dressed up in a shroud of sanctimony.
Let me guess. We went to war in Iraq for the oil, right?
So, what's the difference? The President of the U.S. may have the ultimate authority, but Clark knowingly disregarded the Constitution of the United States (just like his boss) by going along and, moreover, issuing some very questionable orders during the illegal and unjustified war on Serbia.
The military's role is to obey their Consitutionally designated commander--the President. Civilian control of the military was built into the Constitution and Wes Clark would have rightfully been sacked or court-martialed for failure to obey the commander in chief. We step onto very dangerous ground when the military decides on its own what is and is not Constitutional--what orders from the President to obey or not obey. Our Constitutional checks and balances serve the purpose of preventing a President from stepping too far away from the will of the people or violating the Constituion. Congress can cut off funds for the war, the Supreme Court can rule on Constitutionality--neither of those things occurred in Kosovo. Remember, also, that the USA has used force dozens of times without a declaration of war; most recently in Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom.
BTW, what orders did he give that you considered unconstitutional? That's a new one to me.
Even when he flagrantly breaches that very same Constitution? I am no expert/constitutional lawyer, but I thought every U.S. soldier swore to upheld and protect THE CONSTITUTION, and the U.S. Constitution says that the President cannot wage war for more than 60 days without actually declaring it. Did Clinton declare war after 60 days?
True. And the President is the Constitutionally designated commander of the military.
and the U.S. Constitution says that the President cannot wage war for more than 60 days without actually declaring it.
Banat, there is nothing like that in the Constitution.
The Congress had withdrawn their funding (essentially, their support) for the NATO-led aggression within 65 days, yet Clinton continued to wage the war on Serbia.
You are exactly right in that the U.S. military swears allegiance to the Constitution, not to a person or office. Unconstitutional orders are not to be obeyed.
The Congress had withdrawn their funding (essentially, their support) for the NATO-led aggression within 65 days, yet Clinton continued to wage the war on Serbia.
A measure was proposed to cut-off funding, but it did not pass. Congress, in fact did the opposite in that on May 20, 1999 it passed H.R. 1141, an emergency supplemental appropriations bill, that provided billions in funding for the existing U.S. Kosovo operation.
Several members of Congress sued the President to have the War Powers Act applied, but were turned down at every level—the Supreme Court refused to hear the case.
The military is obligated to obey orders unless they are un-Constitutional or unlawful. The Kosovo action was neither, regardless of personal feelings and opinions on the matter.
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