May 5th, 1999

Is NATO better than Milosevic?

    An average representative of almost any of the 19 NATO alliance countries' public opinion will react with disgust at the very utterance of this question. He'll routinely categorize you as a victim of Milosevic regime propaganda, immediately after having seen, between pet food and new laundry detergent ads, on CNN or SKY, a report on the current course of events in the "humanitary bombing" of Yugoslavia. Still, the writer of these lines, keeping himself in struggle against the dictator Milosevic regime since his teens, surely doesn't esteem himself as subject to the propaganda of Serbian state television (among other reasons, because of not watching it for more than 9 years now). And still he puts the question in the caption. Yes, is there really any difference between what Milosevic is doing on Kosovo and what NATO is doing in whole Yugoslavia?

    For quite a while a new NATO tactic is clear in this tragical conflict. Day by day, always seeming like a complete accident and always with a laconic pretext of "civilians not having been a target", most of the dead are just completely innocent civilians. Men, women and children, who did no harm to anyone. In Grdelica a train was hit while crossing a bridge. The bridge still stands, but more than 20 people were killed. Center of Aleksinac was hit, where there are no military installations for kilometers around. More tens of dead people. Center of Surdulica, Jamie Shea, NATO spokesman, says that "the first two bombs hit the target, but the others went somewhat astray due to dust and debris". That 'somewhat' was more than kilometers, and 16 dead civilians. Cacak (72 year old lady), Belgrade (three year old child, sitting on the pot! - as well as several tens of civilians in attack on RTS), Nis, Murino (Montenegro), Albanian refugee convoy on Kosovo (more than 30 dead), Sombor, Kraljevo, Novi Sad, Zlatibor, Pristina, Kursumlija, Djakovica, Savine Vode, Vranje - just a few of the places where the civilians suffered from the consequences of NATO bombing. It sums to, in first 37 days of NATO action, more than 600 (six hundred!!!) civilians lost their lives. Lately, absolutely each day brings a new slaughter, of civilians - as a rule. Last night NATO hit a bus which crossed a bridge on Nis-Pristina road. This bridge remained intact as well, but more than 40 people lost their lives in the bus! Is there really any difference between the massacre in Racak, when Milosevic's special police units killed 26 people, and this one on the bridge, when NATO killed more than 40 people? Both of them claimed that the civilians are the regrettable en passant victims of countdown with military units.

    My Western friends will laconically answer with the CNN-launched gloss that "Milosevic kills civilians intentionally, while NATO, when it does, does it accidentally!". Even if it may be so, does it mean anything to those who were killed, and to those who remained behind them, whether they were killed accidentally or intentionally? And can it be called an accidental murder when a pilot clearly aims at the train and not the bridge (confirmed by footage taken from plane's cockpit!), or when the bridge remains undamaged, and the bus gets completely destroyed? Is it really accidental that in last three days the attacks repeat within 20 minutes, when the ambulance arrives at the spot to help the injured, and the firemen stop the fire (in Belgrade 3 members of special rescue units died, when 20 minutes after the first, a second attack on the administrative center of VJ followed. On earlier mentioned bridge second attack took place again after 20 minutes and the ambulance team was heavily injured as well - see the pictures. And it all happened at 1 PM, when there's peak traffic on the road).

    It's clear that NATO opted for a strategy of frightening the civilians and breakdown of wide masses' morale. Is there any difference in strategy between that and the absolutely identical and equally targeted Milosevic's terror procedures conducted over Albanian civilians? Is there a difference between burning the houses of Albanian families in Kosovo, performed in order to frighten the Albanian population, and the systematic tearing down of civilian houses, factories, bridges, TV repeaters and schools (as it was two days ago in Belgrade), conducted with the SAME goal upon the complete population of Yugoslavia by NATO? Is there any difference between systematic laying off of the Albanian workers and destroying the factories and therefore the jobs for hundreds of thousands of citizens of Yugoslavia, as done by NATO? Is there any difference between shutting down of all independent media in Serbia which fail to comply to Milosevic's taste in reporting, and destroying the buildings and repeaters, and killing the reporters and technicians whose reporting doesn't comply to the taste of NATO strategists who pick the targets? Is there any difference in devastating Sarajevo from a safe distance, as was done under control of Milosevic, and devastating the whole of Yugoslavia, with bombs as well, from even safer distance, as is done now by NATO?

    For common people in these areas - there's NO difference. There's no difference between the rude Milosevic and even more rude NATO. And I'm repeating - this is from a man who spent all his political life struggling against Milosevic, who bases all his political activity on principles of western democracy, and who, together with his friends, many times tried, with his Albanian friends, to find some provisions for a political and peaceful solution of the crisis.

    So does this situation have impact to the relevant part of Western public opinion? Of course not. NATO has performed an excellent media preparation. Milosevic is bloodthirsty (no remark here), and all the Serbs support Milosevic (the key and fatal generalization!). For, if it wasn't so, why wouldn't they move him out (just try to move a dictator out during a state of war! It was exactly the NATO intervention which destroyed in a moment everything that the democratic forces in Serbia and Montenegro achieved in 10 years)? So, all the Serbs are the same and deserve to die. If the western media would confess to the fact that not all of the Serbs are the same, and that the majority DOES NOT support Milosevic, but that he, just like any other dictator, uses the 30% support to hold 100% of power, well, in that case it would be rather hard to justify the bombing of all of the citizens of Serbia. And why do the civilians get most of the hits. Consequently, there is no way to allow to show in media that a majority of Serbs is not responsible for deeds of Milosevic. On CNN web site, the news of the 40 civilians killed in NATO attack on the bus is somewhere in the bottom of a side page, no pictures, worded in just three sentences. One bruise on the american soldier, who was captured previously and RELEASED THE SAME DAY, got the front page, three pictures, and more than 40 sentences. Top news on SKY today was that three people died in a bomb explosion in London. More than 40 people killed in NATO-shot bus were at the very bottom of the page. Terrorists are horrible, because they killed three innocent people. NATO bombs are, as once Jamie Shea claimed, are "angel's song", and the fact that they killed more than 40 completely innocent people doesn't seem to embarrass any of the SKY editors. The only mistake those people made is having been born in a country that a dictator mounted on for a ride. Does that mean that their lives are worth less than peanuts and that any half-dumb sky cowboy can cut them as soon as he gets a hard-on in the morning from realizing he's getting a chance to do a bit of death crop, or as he gets orders from some even more monstrous cowboy from some HQ? And may I, living up to the principles established by NATO today, legitimately express my bitterness with CNN's reporting by planting a bomb beneath that television, which will destroy her building and kill her reporters? Will that be named terrorism? And when the same thing is done by NATO, to a television which is not to the liking of its generals, casting itself into the role of the attorney, judge and executioner, from the sky, with sophisticated bombs, it's called "angel's song", while the dead are not called "savagely slaughtered", but a civilized "collateral damage" instead.

    It is a sad and hypocritical world we live in. There always were petty, bloodthirsty dictators, and there will be for a long time, but it's the first time that the mighty are so mighty to arrogantly and unselectively kill around and induce a principle of collective responsibility, abandoned 2000 years ago together with ancient Rome. And utilizing the frightening power of media, they turn everything into a TV soap opera where the just and the progressive defend the weak from the villains. In such a simplification, the destiny of the 600 civilian victims of NATO is decided between the aforementioned pet food and new detergent commercials. There's nobody to mourn after them, for they were on the villains' side. Even the three year old kids and five month old babies. But, modern media won't fret over the details which might divert the designed righteousness of this war. The war which makes the target group of voters feel so good.

    PS: couple of days after writing this text, NATO attacked the electrical grid in Serbia. As a consequence of this, some 70% of citizens of Serbia still got no electricity or has it for a few hours a day. Another consequence of the torn electrical grid is that most of Serbia has no water either, and bread supply is obstructed. Jamie Shea, NATO spokesman, stated that the electrical grid is a legitimate military target, because the army uses electricity as well. What's next? Poisoning of water, because the army drinks it, too? Or maybe use of battle poison aimed at air poisoning, because army breathes it too? Following the logic of choosing the targets that Jamie Shea brought, any target is justifiable. Women are a legitimate military target, for giving birth to soldiers. Children, for they may become soldiers when they grow up. Bridges, for the army walks over them. Even the destroyed cigarette factory is a legitimate military target, because everybody knows the army is consuming cigarettes. So, hit!

Severian
age 26, computer engineer