Yugoslavia worrying precedent for U.S. air power

MANAMA, Sept 21 (Reuters) - If the 1999 war with Yugoslavia is anything to go by, the United States may launch 1,000 warplanes against Osama Bin Laden's Afghan hideouts without destroying or even crippling his shadowy forces.

Ultimately, troops on the ground backed by a credible threat of invasion might be required for a successful assault.

America and its NATO allies had some 900 aircraft flying at the height of Operation Allied Force, completing some 35,000 sorties on Yugoslav targets over 78 days, for a remarkably thin haul in enemy casualties and military destruction.

Following last week's devastating suicide attacks in the United States, for which Washington says bin Laden is a prime suspect, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Thursday U.S. military forces were being deployed to help fight a new "war on terrorism."

He gave no details, but three aircraft carriers and air deployment announced by defence officials could place up to 500 U.S. warplanes in the Mediterranean, Gulf and Indian Ocean areas for what Washington suggested could be a strike against Afghanistan.

In that war-ravaged, impoverished country, military targets for U.S. pilots would be far fewer than in Yugoslavia.

In the 1999 bombing campaign, NATO said it destroyed 93 Serb tanks. The Serbs said they lost only 13 and military experts said there was very little sign of a shattered army in Kosovo.

In the end, Milosevic's Yugoslavia yielded only when Washington and NATO got serious about a land invasion, setting a mid-September 1999 date for an offensive by some 210,000 troops, according to diplomatic sources.

In one of the acknowledged strategic errors of the Kosovo campaign, a ground offensive against Yugoslavia had originally been ruled out by then-President Bill Clinton.

President George W. Bush has ruled nothing out in his "war against terrorism" in the wake of the September 11 attacks with hijacked airliners on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington.

Rumsfeld has declined to say if elite Special Operations troops might move towards the Afghanistan region, but said army elements were part of his deployment order.

While estimates of the Taliban's antiquated arsenal vary widely, military experts say their fighters could spend years punishing an occupied force from the rugged hills and valleys of the countryside.

While air strikes might have U.S. popular backing, Bush has acknowledged that it doesn't make sense to fire a "$2 million missile into a $10 dollar tent to hit a camel in the butt."

It would most probably be a futile waste of expensive precision-guided munitions, as well as a public failure to strike a decisive blow at the perpetrators.

This reflects the dilemma faced by the United States and allies in Kosovo, when Western public opinion rapidly ran out of patience with NATO's inability to stop, and punish, the so-called "fielded forces" of the Yugoslav Army.

Western media demanded to know why bombs were being rained on refineries far away from the scene of suspected genocide.

But air force generals "don't like plinking tanks and they don't like bombing mud," said a frustrated former NATO Supreme Commander Europe, General Wesley Clark, at the time.

Clark fought an uphill battle with his Pentagon bosses to deploy a symbolic ground force of 5,000 troops plus Apache attack helicopters and Army tactical missiles in neighbouring Albania, as a token of NATO's readiness to invade.

It came late and was never thrown into battle and it was unclear how decisive the move was in bringing about the Yugoslav surrender.

"If there's nothing worth fighting for and maybe dying for, then maybe there's nothing worth living for," he said.

07:32 09-21-01
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If the USA ends up killing 5000 in Afghanistan, should we consider that genocide? If not, why should we consider the Serb response to terrorism any different.

Are you aware of the KLA's daily terrorist activities within Kosovo?

Do you purposely ignore the fact that there was NO line of refugees leaving Kosovo until after the bombing started. If a mass killing of civilians was occurring wouldn't more people have left their homes before the (our) bombs started falling?

Have you heard all the stories of non Albanians being shot in the head for not heeding the warnings to leave their homes, after Kosovo was occupied by NATO forces? I'm sure, if you even heard these stories, you would believe them because most of those stories were relayed from American soldiers that witnessed those atrocities.

Face it, we backed the wrong side in Kosovo. You may have a better argument when it came to Bosnia, but as soon as the anti Serbian forces had American air cover, they committed atrocities every bit as atrocious as the Serbs. You could say it was "just" retaliation, but it also could be that they were all along attempting to cleanse the area of Serbs but were denied the ability by the quick response of Serb forces.

Look, I understand your feelings. I fell for it (during Bosnia) at first too. I didn't really understand what was going on. I couldn't tell who was fighting who or why. I, like you, trusted our media when they said the Serbs were evil. I don't like being ignorant so I started learning everything I could about the situation there. The more I learned, the more I found out we were only getting half of the story. When the air strikes in Bosnia were claimed to have been successful, and the major media outlets said there was now piece in the region, I was reading multiple daily articles about women, children, and old people being forced from their homes or killed. Then I would read a single article about a Serb attack and guess what, that story would make the major news. Slowly I started to say "Hey, wait a minute, what the hell is going on here"? Well now my ears were perked. But it was too late to complain about Bosnia so I said "oh well".

Ok, now I had a news source I trusted to give me both sides of the story (AFP). Soon after, I started reading story after story after story about terrorist attacks and ambushes against Serbs (in fact, every non Albanian) in and around Kosovo. Old people, young people, men, women, police headquarters, churches, schools etc., were victims of these attacks. Did any of these stories find there way onto CNN? NOOooooooo. Then Serbs started to search for the perpetrators of these crimes. No hidden agenda. The (AFP) reported the crack down along with quotes from Serbian police of their intentions to search for and destroy the forces behind these terrorist acts (as we're doing now), and that's exactly what they did. Did the instances of the "crack down" make it onto CNN? Hell yes. Meanwhile the attacks on non Albanians went on and on completely unreported.

I didn't blame people around me for hating the Serbs because they were only hearing HALF of the story. That kind of unbalanced reporting has gone on to this day. You are just another victim.

Did you ever wonder why or how Kosovo became 90% Albanian if Christian Serbs had such a irrational hate for all other ethnic groups? Ever wonder why Serbia was the most ethnically diverse section of all of Yugoslavia? Well maybe it's time you did. You won't be handed those answers by the media because then they would have to admit the were wrong to fan the flames of Serb "intolerance".

One more thing, do a Google search for "Greater Albania" and read read read. Don't be a fool any longer than you have to be.

Good luck.

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