DR. STRANGELOVE IS ALIVE AND WELL
How Madeleine got to Bomb the Serbs

R. K. Kent

A most revealing information comes out of two sources about the air war
for Kosovo. . Both merit attention and close reading. One is a former
United States Air Attaché at London, Alan J. Parrington. The other is
James F. Rubin, Madeleine Albright’s closest State Department associate.

Parrington was on duty in London just before, during and after the
bombings (24 March 1999 through 5th June, officially 10th June 1999). In
his own words:
“I saw a war of underlying motives, missed diplomatic opportunities,
misguided military strategies and questionable outcomes. Worst of
all, the war never need happened: Milosevic conceded major U.S.
demands two weeks before the war began.” (Colorado Springs Gazette,
October 12, 2000, reported by Ben Works).

Parrington went on to relate how, on 11th March 1999, he was approached
at a British Diplomatic reception by the Yugoslav Defense Attaché to
the Court of St. James,. The Attaché, a Serb Colonel, told him that
Milosevic is allowing international and even NATO troops into Kosovo but
must “first have a letter from Clinton explaining the benefit Yugoslavia
will receive in exchange.” At first, Parrington was taken aback because
the stationing of foreign troops in Kosovo was the “sticking point in
negotiations.” The” benefits” expected finally came down to

“three things Yugoslavia must have.” Yugoslavia must retain sovereignty
over Kosovo. The Kosovo Liberation Army must be disarmed. The
independence referendum must be “removed.”
According to Parrington this was “apparently too much for the Clinton
Administration to accept.” In the end, after eleven weeks of bombing:
“the Administration, running short of precision weapons and faced with
the prospect of a bloody ground war, abandoned the bombing strategy and
asked the Russians to broker a deal based
ON MILOSEVIC_S ANTEBELLUM OFFER” (caps added for emphasis).
Parrington concluded that the war achieved nothing beyond what Milosevic
had proposed beforehand and “only inflamed ethnic passions for
generations to come.” De jure, Kosovo remains a part of Yugoslavia, no
referendum on independence as such is scheduled but the KLA has been
only marginally disarmed. Parrington quotes a KLA leader speaking to him
personally, “one day, the Serbs will be selling us guns to shoot at
NATO.”
Clearly there was no need to go to war and, just as clearly, what was
unacceptable fourteen weeks earlier became even “useful” after the war
had spent itself. From a purely psychological point of view one could
say that the war took off to ratify the prerogative of superior power
to react punitively and even with vengeance when its will is thwarted.
While , despite the NATO framework, the “air war” was primarily an
endeavor of the Clinton Administration, the real driving, dominant
force in it was Madeleine Albright. It is virtually certain that
without her around a diplomatic solution would have prevailed. Rubin
states that NATO’s violent advent into the ex-Yugoslav space “had
become a very personal war for Albright.” Rubin joined her in this
respect, struggling to persuade “the West” to halt Serb “genocide” in
Bosnia. Rubin adds that

“by 1995, Albright’s views were vindicated when NATO’s air strikes
forced the Serbs to the bargaining table and a Bosnian peace accord was
finally reached that autumn .”
There are two items of disinformation in the quote. NATO’s air strikes
against Bosnian Serb positions did not “bring” the Serbs to the
negotiating table. In fact, they had been asking repeatedly for
negotiations but Alija Izetbegovic refused until NATO assured him of
an Air Force for the Bosnian Muslim side. Secondly, it is very easy to
advance “genocide” as a documented sin that cannot be left unpunished.
Its glib use immediately evokes the Holocaust (1939-1945)and is meant
to inflame to the point when no further questions need be asked. A
strict definition of genocide would exclude forcible expulsions of
groups regarded as inimical. What did happen in Bosnia fits “ethnic
cleansing” but not planned physical exterminations of entire groups of
people. Neither the Serbs nor the Croats planned to exterminate two
million Bosnian Muslims, nor did the Bosnian Muslims plan to exterminate
all of the Serbs and Croats inside Bosnia since, combined, they
accounted for roughly half of Bosnia’s total population.
Be that as it may, Madeleine was hardly “vindicated” (a claim now being
repeated for the 78 days of bombing Serbia itself). It is not well known
that she was actually opposed to Holbrooke’s dealing with “Milosevic”
at Dayton. It is even less known that she once threatened all of the
U.N. Security Council Ambassadors with the severing of relations with
her U.S. Mission if any of them received a Yugoslav (Serb) minister of
state invited to come for talks. It would have been humiliating for the
U.S. had there been an “Ambassadorial Revolt” proposing to stop the
Councils proceeding pending an apology for such an auto da fe but,
fortunately, the French and Chinese Ambassadors simply disregarded
Madeleine’s ultimatum. To return to Rubbings account, in order to get
her personal war going, Madeleine had to overcome several hard
obstacles. The first one was Europe’s general reluctance and, in some
cases, outright opposition to bombing Serbia Rubin is very clear on this
point. He relates how difficult it was to “galvanize the West” to act in
unison before 1999. While the Clinton Administration was “deeply
divided” within itself:

“Nearly all our allies, including the British, put roadblocks in
the way of decisive action prior to the Rambouillet peace conference


“in 1999. And during Rambouillet, the French and the Italians acted in
ways that could have derailed the Administration’s effort to unite
against the Belgrade regime.”

Some Europeans did not wish to side with the KLA. In Rubbings version
the Russian and German foreign ministers regarded the KLA as a terrorist
group. The “rebels were unknown figures raising money illegally through
smuggling, or worse.” Such reservations did not even phase Madeleine
although some people in the State Department did not dismiss them
entirely. The Europeans even made “crude jokes about Albanian immigrants
and criminal gangs.” Other European ministers did not wish to break
International Law, requiring prior U.N. Security Council action. They
defended this position on legal advice. Madeleine retorted “change the
lawyers.” It is obvious that she could not care less for International
Law and the U.N. Charter provisions if these interfered with an ardent
desire to” bomb the Serbs.” Some months after the bombing of Serbia,
Secretary Albright claimed formally in the New York Times that she
honors the U.N. Charter (“which we helped write”). At the time, however,
the Europeans were not sufficiently “motivated” to go to war against
Serbia, especially not on behalf of the KLA.
What was needed to push them over the point of no return? It should be
recalled here that the NATO bombing of Bosnian Serbs took place just
hours after the so-called “third marketplace massacre at Sarajevo.” A
U.N. Report in situ and quite “fresh” exculpated the Serbs nonetheless.
U.N. Ambassador Albright immediately demanded that this Report be kept
secret as it is to-date. The political value of yet another “massacre,”
this time of “Kosovars” by the “Serb butchers,” was hardly out of sight.
It came at a place in Kosovo called Racak, according to Rubin , on
January 15, 1999, over the radio. This date is interesting because the
first claim of a “massacre at Racak” came on 16th January 1999 but,
there is no doubt how it was used to “galvanize” the “international
Community” into action. The Racak massacre has all the elements of
staging and circumstances that cannot be really explained in any other
way.
The first item of circumstantial evidence resides in the quick ad hoc
posting to Kosovo of William Walker as the Administrations _s Special
Envoy. One would assume some Balkan diplomatic pedigree here. Instead,
Mr. Walker had headed the U. S. Embassy’s Political Section in Salvador,
1974-1977. He was posted to Honduras (l980-1982) when arms were being
funneled via Honduras to the Contras in Nicaragua. He spent another four
years (1988-1992} as Ambassador to Salvador just when the local death
squads were liquidating anyone close to humanitarian concern, including
a Roman Catholic Bishop. A French source once described Mr. Walker as
the “control” of a “government of assassins which used its last days in
power before the end of civil war to _rub out_ all of its opponents.”
There can be no doubt that Mr. Walker had close relations with the CIA.
Why he came to Kosovo will become apparent with what follows.
On 16th January 1999, the SERB police INFORMED “Ambassador” Walker that
an attack was being prepared against Racak, a KLA stronghold. Suddenly,
an open-mass grave with 47 bodies came into view as Walker was GUIDED to
it with a host of journalists and a TV crew. “Its a massacre” said
Walker. Its a “massacre” repeated the journalists and the media
throughout the world in minutes and hours. There were no spent
cartridges at the grave site and no one even bothered to ask two key
questions. With an obvious international support for the KLA why would
the Serb Police inform Walker of their attack on Racak and then massacre
what looked like civilians? Why would the Serb Police furthermore not
try to hide its would -be crime by re-burying the bodies, practice the
Serbs had been consistently accused of for some four years before
Kosovo? A week before the start of the “air war,” on 17 March 1999, the
medical investigator, Dr. Helena Ranta of Finland, submitted a report
(21 kilos and 3,000 photos)plus a short public resume unable to
confirm the instant, ersatz verdict of William Walker. There is,
however, no doubt in respect to one result. His statement, reproduced
everywhere fast, “galvanized,” as Madeleine Albright put it, the
“International Community.” Racak led to Rambouillet . Rambouillet
led, in turn, to the air war in late March 1999.Part One of the
“galvanizing process” took place in Washington.
During the week of January l7th 1999, Madeleine Albright spent her time
in intensive pursuit of a green light to go to war with the Serbs. Her
working group consisted of Secretary Cohen, National Security Adviser
Sanford Berger, CIA Director George Tenet and General Shelton, Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. A collective decision was made in a few
days and “the speed reflected the meeting of minds that had developed
between Albright and the President. “She “worked” President Clinton by
pounding on his “indecision in Bosnia.” Having gotten his nod she used
it then “pass on” as the President’s “own” inclination to go into
action. Thereafter came “Galvanizing II.” as she—in Rubbings
words—“began to work the Europeans.” By February 1999 Rambouillet was
on.
The talks at Rambouillet were decidedly not going Madeleine’s way. She
expected the Serbs to reject the “Peace Plan.” She even asked all the
NATO Members_ Foreign Ministers, according to Rubin, “to instruct”
their “ambassadors in Brussels to support air strikes should the Serbs
be responsible for a breakdown in the talks.” The Ministers agreed but
“only after securing the pledge to punish the Albanian side in the event
the KLA caused a breakdown.” The Serbs, who were supposed to reject
the granting of Autonomy to Kosovo and thus give her the pretext to
bomb, actually agreed to restore it, allowing foreign troops under the
U.N. but not under NATO. The KLA political leader Hashim Thaci,
unexpectedly, would not sign the “Peace Plan.” He did not want
Autonomy. He stuck to the demand for Independence instead. Neither
Madeleine’s “charm” nor threats of losing the U.S. support (an
admission that the U.S. was supporting the KLA in the field as well
despite” denials”} made Thachi budge form his position. Nothing was
mentioned about the “pledge” to Thaci despite an added European demand
that the Albanians defer the issue of Independence.
The “unity of the Europeans was cracking,” as Rubin assessed the
situation. The French proved to be least prone to play according to
Madeleine’s game plan. “We knew the critical factor for the KLA was the
prospect of air strikes and NATO ground troops. So we had arranged for
NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, General Wesley Clark, to come to the
castle to brief them on NATO military plans and help win them over in
the final hours of the conference.” The French would not allow the
“formidable figure” of General Clark to enter Rambouillet, “arguing
that his NATO role would somehow upset the diplomatic balance with the
Serbs.” But, “Albright finally convinced Hubert Vedrine, the (French)
foreign minister to allow four KLA members to leave the castle for a
briefing with Clark at a military airfield.” The formula was the same
as in the NATO air war over Serb Bosnian positions years earlier. Give
the KLA NATO’s planes and missiles, show them exactly in a secret
military briefing, how you plan to “hit the Serbs.” Hint to them that
the action is worth a “slight postponement” of Independence, along with
an eventual support for it, promise clandestinely that Kosovo will be
turned over to KLA at the exclusion of “moderate” Ibrahim Rugova, and
the result came out just the way Madeleine wanted it. Thaci would sign.
Since the Serbs, however, had just about accepted the major sticking
point of foreign troops, along with Autonomy for Kosovo, the final
pretext for the bombs was still missing. Serbs had to be made to reject
the “Peace Plan.”
The idea was brilliant in its evil banality. Someone recalled the 1914
ten-point ultimatum to Serbia by Austria in 1914, after the
assassination of Archduke Ferdinand at Sarajevo. Two Appendices added
overnight to the previous text of the “Peace Plan.” One of the two,
Appendix B, spelled out in great detail that Serbs must agree to an
immediate occupation of all of Yugoslavia, including Belgrade, by NATO
troops which not only had a total freedom of movement and action but
which would be a priori immune from prosecution for any types of crime.
Colonial “Capitulations” come to mind, delivered with supreme arrogance.
When the Serb delegation walked out of Rambouillet, Albright spread the
word. “The Serbs have rejected the Peace Plan.” She would quip after the
air war, that “we raised (at Rambouillet)the bar so Milosevich could not
jump over it. Yugoslavia needed a little bombing.” By the beginning of
June 1999, Serbia’s infrastructure was taken out to the tune of over
$100 billion. Hospitals ,factories,churches (even a Synagogue at Nis),
schools, soccer fields, shopping malls, generators, a TV station, even
the Chinese Embassy, were hit. Some 3,000 Serb civilians were killed
with about three times that many of the wounded, more or less seriously.
Serbia’s (and Kosovo’s) air, soil and water were polluted with chemical
toxins of all kinds, with depleted uranium and graphite, assuring
mutation of genes yet to come. Thousands of the internationally banned
cluster bombs were dropped and are still killing both Serb and Albanian
children who find them easily because of their colors. General Clark
certainly knew what he was doing.
Before becoming a vice-presidential Candidate, Senator Lieberman
proclaimed that the Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was “fighting
for American values.” Vice-President Al Gore has been going around the
country telling the American People about “our” “victory” at Kosovo.
Following the fall of Milosevic, the main scribal media at home went
into overdrive about the “vindication” of Madeleine Albright. General
Wesley Clark went even further. He claimed on Public Television that the
eleven weeks of NATO bombings in Serbia and Kosovo brought Milosevic
down.
Since NATO “liberated Kosovo” from “Serb oppression” unadulterated
day-to-day realities have turned Senator Lieberman’s claim into a
tragic joke. At Kosovo, the “ex-KLA” members are engaged in organized
white slavery and prostitution, drug dealing, kidnapping, beatings and
murder. Just recently, KFOR with British Marines arrested an entire KLA
clan involved in such activities. Albanian piecemeal terror, on a daily
basis (and long after the advent of NATO) has “cleansed” some 300,000
non Albanians (mainly Serbs but also half a dozen other minorities).
Actual results reveal that there was no struggle for “liberation” but
for power, a struggle induced from outside of Kosovo and bankrolled by a
drug cartel seeking a free zone for huge profits. It wanted to replace
the constraints of State in favor of an acephalous area dominated by
Albanian clans engaged in criminal enterprise. Among thousands of
refugees in the post-NATO era there are Albanians who fled to
Serbia. The U.S. deliberately turned Kosovo over to its “air war”
ally, the KLA and its political head Hashim Thachi, dropping support for
of the only true leader of Kosovo’s Albanians, the poet Ibrahim Rugova.
The architect of this stunning success was the “vindicated” Madeleine
Albright. To get to bomb the Serbs she would have made a pact with the
Devil. Only one major and intriguing question remains. Was her
Serbophobia driven by some deeply hidden demons or was it merely
grafted on some geopolitical strategies pushed on the makers of foreign
policy by Madeleine’s mentor, Zbigniew Brzezinski?
It would appear from all the gloating about who did Milosevic in,
about the “Victory at Kosovo,” that nothing has been learned at the
top. It is very likely that a similar NATO intervention will never come
about in Europe. NATO in present-day Europe is an oxymoron.
It has no one to “defend” or attack on” humanitarian” grounds unless it
wishes to hit the French over Corsica, Spaniards over their Basque
problem and the English over their Colonialism in Ireland. Its
peace-keeping mission in Bosnia and Kosovo has not really settled
anything fundamental. The .U.S., if not alone, has been a major part of
the bloody problems in ex-Yugoslavia. It killed two viable peace
treaties in 1992 and in 1993. It sided with anyone who was against the
Serbs, arming and training the Croat Army to ethnically cleanse Krajina
of its long-time resident Serbs, some 250,000 of them. It allowed Shiite
Muslim extremists and arms into Bosnia and it has taken the side of
Kosovo’s Muslim Albanians under entirely false pretexts. Its gross and
continuous disinformation about the realities on the ground in Kosovo,
meant to secure the support of the American People, reveal with dramatic
force that an American Government, claiming to act in the National
Interest, is manipulating our Democracy, silencing informed criticism,
and acting against its own People. Its arrogance abroad, and especially,
against the small Serb people, has taken the Imperial Mask off the New
Uncle Sam’s face. It cannot grasp that the use of its military might
(without loss of a single American soldier), the economic conquests in
the globe and the cultural flooding out of other societies, coupled
with obvious arrogance and propensity to lecture everyone—that all of
this combined is fanning the latent fires of universal hate against the
New World Order and its Global Master. The Republican Presidential
Candidate has recognized the problem of arrogance and is promoting the
need for “humility.” It may already be too late unless the American
People take foreign policy from the hands of experts, “hawks” out to
“punish” and “teach” the rest of the world about Democracy while losing
it at home.