‘New York Times’ reports that Jewish donors shape Democrats’ regressive position on Israel

US Politics

Philip Weiss on March 28, 2019

https://mondoweiss.net/2019/03/regressive-democratic-groundbreaking/

This weekend the New York Times breaks one of the biggest taboos, describing the responsibility of Jewish donors for the Democratic Party’s slavish support for Israel. Nathan Thrall’s groundbreaking piece repeats a lot of data we’ve reported here and says in essence that it really is about the Benjamins, as Rep. Ilhan Omar said so famously.

The donor class of the party is overwhelmingly Jewish, and Jews are still largely wed to Zionism– that’s the nut.

Though that party is breaking up. Thrall’s labors are minimized by the New York Times with the headline “The Battle Over B.D.S.,” but his message is that the progressive base has a highly-critical view of Israel that the leadership has refused to reflect, and that’s about to change. We’re inside the tent. The party is going to have to reflect the pro-Palestinian positions. Ben Rhodes tells Thrall that the moment of overcoming the fear of the pro-Israel lobby (as the Cuba fear was overcome) is about to happen.

The article is a thorough-going rebuke of every journalist and former official (Daniel Shapiro, a former ambassador under Obama, for instance, as well as the Forward and the Times opinion writers) who says that money is not at the root, or very near the root, of Democratic Party support.

So let’s follow the money, and review the money quotes. Deep into his piece, Thrall explains why progressives aren’t being heard. Megadonors.

For all the recent tumult over Israel in Washington, the policy debate remains extremely narrow… Despite pointed critiques of American support for Israel by representatives like Betty McCollum of Minnesota, [Rashida] Tlaib and Omar, there is little willingness among Democrats to argue publicly for substantially changing longstanding policy toward Israel. In part, some Hill staff members and former White House officials say, this is because of the influence of megadonors: Of the dozens of personal checks greater than $500,000 made out to the largest PAC for Democrats in 2018, the Senate Majority PAC, around three-fourths were written by Jewish donors. This provides fodder for anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, and for some, it is the elephant in the room. Though the number of Jewish donors known to prioritize pro-Israel policies above all other issues are small, there are few if any pushing in the opposite direction…

As we reported from Ben Rhodes’s book, Rhodes tells Thrall that donors forced Obama to hew to the Netanyahu line.

According to Ben Rhodes, a former deputy national security adviser and one of Obama’s closest confidants, several members of the Obama administration wanted to adopt a more assertive policy toward Israel but felt that their hands were tied. “The Washington view of Israel-Palestine is still shaped by the donor class… The donor class is profound to the right of where the activists are, and frankly, where the majority of the Jewish community is.” Peter Joseph, an emeritus chairman of the center-left Israel Policy Forum, told me that the views of major Democratic Jewish donors could act as a check on the leftward pull by progressive voters who are strongly critical of Israel: “I can’t imagine that mainstream Democratic Jewish donors are going to be happy about any Democratic Party that is moving in that direction.”

Off the record, people go further. The Obama administration didn’t just support the occupation, it kept supporting it right up till the November 2016 election so that Hillary Clinton wouldn’t lose donors. We reported as much at the time.

Another former member of the Obama White House, who asked not to be named, fearing professional retaliation, said that concerns about donors among Democrats dominated not just “what was done but what was not done, and what was not even contemplated.” Even the timing of the administration’s policies toward Israel was dictated by domestic politics. Faced with a 2016 United Nations Security Council resolution condemning settlements, the Obama administration abstained (effectively supporting the resolution), but only after having signaled it would not consider backing any resolution before November. “There is a reason the U.N. vote did not come up before the election in November,” the former official said. “Was it because you were going to lose voters to Donald Trump? No. It was because you were going to have skittish donors. That, and the fact that we didn’t want Clinton to face pressure to condemn the resolution or be damaged by having to defend it.”

Everyone knows this math. And the Democrats fear they’ll lose all their money.

What worries establishment Democrats, the former official added, is that the partisan divide over Israel will concretize — with Republicans defined as pro-Israel, Democrats defined as anti-Israel — and that the party coffers will empty. Joel Rubin, a deputy assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs in the Obama administration, former political director at J Street and a founding board member of the centrist Jewish Democratic Council of America, agreed: “The fight over Israel used to be about voters. It’s more about donors now.”

Thrall says the Democratic Party leadership is perfectly happy with AIPAC, but he leaves out what we reported here: the extent of the reliance on Jewish donors is “gigantic” and “shocking,” according to insiders JJ Goldberg and the head of Emily’s List, and AIPAC gets to script congressional campaigns on their middle east positions before the candidates can raise money from the Jewish community.

We always said Sanders could be better on Palestine because he avoided the donor class of the Democratic party. Rhodes agrees.

“If you don’t rely on a traditional fund-raising model, then you have more freedom on these types of issues,” Rhodes said. “You’re not worried about the one-hour phone call that you’re going to have to do after the presidential debate with a really angry donor.”

The key element here is, older Jewish donors are conservative about Israel. A former Clinton campaign official:

“There’s no major donor that I can think of who is looking for someone to take a Bernie-like approach.” And whereas none of the most liberal Jewish donors have threatened to withdraw support because a candidate was too pro-Israel, pro-Israel donors and PACs have a history of financing opposition to candidates deemed unfriendly. Haim Saban, one of Hillary Clinton’s top five donors in 2016, has financed opponents of Democratic candidates critical of Israel

Sadly the Jewish community is largely supportive of Israel, as Thrall shows. By and large, American Jews are Zionists. Trump’s horrors in the Middle East are OK by them.

In the same [Mellman] poll — conducted after the United States closed the Palestinian diplomatic mission in Washington, moved the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, appointed a fund-raiser for the settlements as U.S. ambassador and cut humanitarian aid to Palestinians — roughly half of American Jews said they approved of President Trump’s handling of relations with Israel. On what is considered the most divisive issue in U.S.-Israel relations, the establishment of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, a November 2018 post-midterm election poll of more than 1,000 American Jews that was commissioned by J Street, the pro-Israel lobby aligned with Democrats, found that roughly half said the expansion of settlements had no impact on how they felt about Israel.

Those Jews are conservative compared to the base, which is increasingly people of color and real progressives.

Members of the Democratic Party’s progressive activist base, by contrast, find themselves light years from their representatives in Washington.

And any declension in US support is seen as alienating the donor class.

Joel Rubin said: “The problem for center-left groups that are more critical of Israel is that the Jewish donor class is comfortable with current U.S. policies. They just don’t like Trump on other issues.” In October, just weeks before the 2018 midterm election, as the Democratic leadership was working to take back the House, a Democratic staff member, who asked not to be named for fear of professional retaliation, told me that it was important to retain the support of all major donors, not just the most liberal ones. Referring to two of the largest Jewish donors to Democrats, on opposite ends of the political spectrum, the staff member said: “Our members need George Soros and Haim Saban. And they need everything in between.”

Thrall shows that fear of losing donors played a role when the University of Michigan student body passed a narrow divestment measure last fall– to divest only from companies doing business in the occupation— and still, the administration said No way.

Michigan’s administration quickly issued a statement that it would not appoint a committee to investigate divestment. A month later, the board of regents released a letter backing the decision. (The two regents who didn’t sign it were the only people of color on the board.) Like many large American universities, the University of Michigan has extensive research partnerships with Israeli universities. And many of its institutes and buildings are named after alumni donors who have contributed large sums to Israel or pro-Israel groups.

Lara Friedman of Foundation for Middle East Peace and formerly of Peace Now continues to blaze a trail by honestly describing the intolerance in the Jewish community for debate of Israel. That community has pushed the anti-BDS legislation.

“The American Jewish community, which is broadly speaking liberal, has allowed itself in the name of defending Israel and fighting B.D.S. to become the leading edge of illiberalism by pushing legislation to curb free speech.”

OK now let’s get to some of the good news here. Thrall’s overall point is that the battle is breaking out, thanks to those women of color in the House and the progressive base.

As the Democratic Party is pulled toward a more progressive base and a future when a majority of the party will most likely be people of color, tensions over Israel have erupted.

In the past several months, a fierce debate over American support for Israel has periodically dominated the news cycle and overshadowed the Democrats’ policymaking agenda.

BDS is gaining ground. Israel knows it.

Emmanuel Nahshon, a spokesman for Israel’s foreign ministry, told me, “Despite the overwhelming support for Israel in the U.S., we see that the attempt to delegitimize Israel is gaining ground, especially among extreme left-wing marginal groups.”

When have you ever seen such a fair assessment of BDS in the Times?

Instead of tying itself to a specific outcome, the B.D.S. movement insisted on these three principles, which could be fulfilled any number of ways: two states, one state with equal individual rights, a confederation with equal collective rights.

This is a simple turn by Thrall on why Zionism is racist at its core.

Following the 1948 war, which erupted after the United Nations announced its plan to partition Palestine into two states, the Jews who fled could return; Palestinians could not.

Here’s another great moment, brilliant reporting.

I asked [Zionist Organization of America’s Morton] Klein why he believed it was “utterly racist and despicable,” as he put it, for [Richard] Spencer to promote a state for only one ethnic group but not racist for Israel to do so. “Israel is a unique situation,” he said. “This is really a Jewish state given to us by God.” He added, “God did not create a state for white people or for black people.” Senator Charles Schumer, the Democratic minority leader, similarly told the AIPAC conference in 2018: “Of course, we say it’s our land, the Torah says it, but they don’t believe in the Torah. So that’s the reason there is not peace.”

Thrall says Israel is Jim Crow society thru and thru.

Currently, hundreds of Israeli towns have admissions committees that can bar Palestinian citizens from living in them based on “social suitability.” (It’s illegal for people to be excluded on the basis of race, religion or nationality, but the rubric of “social suitability” permits the rejection of applicants who are not Zionist, haven’t served in the army or don’t intend to send their children to Hebrew-language schools.) More than 900 towns in Israel contain no Arab families, according to Yosef Jabareen, a professor at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa. Palestinian schools can lose government funding if they commemorate the Nakba, the displacement of Palestinians in 1948. Israeli law forbids citizens to obtain citizenship or permanent residency for Palestinian spouses from the West Bank and Gaza.

And that’s why MD Rep. Donna Edwards and two white congressional colleagues locked arms and sang We Shall Overcome in apartheid, Hebron:

Edwards and her colleagues looked up to see garbage-filled nets hanging above their heads, put up to catch trash thrown by Israeli settlers. “We had never seen anything like that,” she told me recently. “Hebron is the place where I think you can see in the most frightening way what the injustice is, where you have people on one side of the street who live one way and people on another side of the street living another way. And the streets that some people can cross and walk on, but other people cannot. To me, it looked like the stories that my mother and my grandmother told me about living in the South.”

The great news at the end of the article. Edwards et al are taking over the party. Thrall cites Electronic Intifada’s influence, and Jewish Voice for Peace, and IfNotNow too.

Politicians speaking on Israel-Palestine used to worry primarily about attacks from pro-Israel media and activist groups; now progressives are starting to feel some heat from the pro-Palestinian side.

But it’s over. All the anti-Omar stuff of recent weeks is just the froth on the wave. Jim Zogby got slam dunked on the platform in 2016 by the Clintonites. But that won't happen again.

James Zogby…  says that standing for Palestinian rights is guaranteed to be a major topic in the 2020 election: “It’s a smell-test issue. If you go to young people, they know you stink if you don’t talk about it right.” A senior Democratic staff member on Capitol Hill told me: “People like Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Bernie Sanders have opened the floodgates on this issue. It may be painful for the party as we move in a more progressive direction. But we’ll come out in a better place — a more moral and evenhanded place — in the end.”

This piece is going to resonate for weeks. It’s going to come under fierce attack. Because it’s huge, and it’s calm and factual. It doesn’t say a word about Christian Zionists because they don’t have influence in the Democratic Party. And Thrall did the shrewd thing of avoiding the word “lobby.” I guess it’s been anathematized, but that’s what this article is about. That and race. People of color are driving this change. They are going to be punished. Betty McCollum doesn’t get taken to the woodshed for calling it apartheid, but one county west, Ilhan Omar is going to be primaried next year.

US oppressing Huawei for political interests

By Fang Xingdong Source: Global Times Published: 2019/3/28

In recent years, the US government has stepped up its attacks on Chinese technology giant Huawei, trying to force countries around the world to ban it from their 5G rollout projects. Such acrimony against a firm is unprecedented in the history of global high-technology, and there are no signs of the US relenting. It is hard to predict the outcome of the standoff, but it is clear that the US government does not have proof that Huawei broke the law or breached data security. 

Faced with media scrutiny and inquiries by allies, US government officials have been unable to provide evidence. Nick Read, CEO of Vodafone, the world's second largest mobile operator, said at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona on February 25, "We need to have a fact-based risk-assessed review [...] People are saying things at the moment that are not grounded. I'm not saying that is the case for the US because I have not met them directly so I have not seen what evidence they have, but they clearly need to present that evidence to the right bodies throughout Europe." 

Huawei's rotating chairman Ken Hu Houkun called for the US and other countries to show evidence for their claims that Huawei is a security risk. In a meeting with reporters on December 18, 2018, he said, "There has never been any evidence that our equipment poses a security threat and we have never accepted requests from any government to damage the networks or business of any of our customers."

In spite of no evidence, the US government has taken the knives out for Huawei. In the MWC, Robert Strayer, ambassador for cyber and international communications at the US State Department, called Huawei "duplicitous and deceitful."

The US' words and deeds have damaged Huawei's normal business. On March 7, the technology firm announced that it will sue the US government. Huawei defending its legitimate interests through legal means is the best way for the company to show its innocence.

People are confused about the motive of the US government to uncharacteristically go after Huawei. The root cause is huge calculable and incalculable interests, including national, business, security and political ones.

Michael R. Wessel, commissioner of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, was more straightforward during his interview with the Voice of America: "We tend to focus on the economic cost and not consider the national security cost of something as significant as a nationwide 5G network rollout." 

Wessel also shared a bill: "US 4G leadership contributed around $125 billion in US company revenue from abroad and more than $40 billion in US application and content developer revenue, and created 2.1 million new jobs from 2011-2014." 

The US obviously worries that Huawei, a dark horse in 5G, will make the country lose its leadership in 5G network and great national interests. The commercial interests concerned are more specific, and Cisco Systems would be the first to be affected. 

Cisco has long been the major lobbyist to shut the door on Huawei. After the case of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, Cisco sent an email to its staff, asking them to avoid non-essential travel to China. 

Besides, if Huawei enjoys open market and fair competition in the US, other US high-tech giants including Apple and Qualcomm will be affected. 

The major reason behind Huawei's sufferings is security and political interests. It is not that Huawei's products have security risks, but as Huawei rotating chairman Guo Ping said in an article in the Financial Times: "Huawei… hampers US efforts to spy on whomever it wants." This is the foremost reason for Washington suppressing Huawei.

By now it is clear that the US attacks Huawei for its own interests. But can Washington act unscrupulously for its interests? 

The US arrested Meng, filed criminal charges against Huawei, instigated the company's partners to defect, and even threatened allies. All such methods reflect the notorious FUD strategy in high-tech - fear, uncertainty and doubt. Industry monopolies such as IBM and Microsoft used FUD to deal with weak competitors. 

FUD intends to frighten competitors and their allies, and discourage people from buying competitors' products. Finally, FUD helps companies maintain their monopoly. 

The US government is using FUD because of its worldwide hegemony. Although it may violate law and ethics, Washington only needs to pay a little to win its interests. This is the driving force behind US suppression of Huawei.

Therefore, balancing costs and interests should be the right way to restrain the US government. The US' impact on Huawei is obvious. Washington is also hurting the industrial chain and consumers, and even sabotaging innovation in technology. The Chinese government has maintained a firm stand. After all, it is the government's responsibility to protect the basic rights of its citizens and enterprises. 

Being dragged into a whirlpool, Huawei needs to consider the law as its weapon, and more importantly, carry forward in the spirit of entrepreneurship. Fair competition is the main battlefield for enterprises. No one wants to oppose governments, especially the powerful US establishment. However, Huawei has to face the problem squarely. 

The root cause of Huawei's success is its outstanding entrepreneurship and spirit to turn risks into chances. The statements of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei and many other executives show the company's spirit in the face of challenges.

The US' moves run contrary to fair play and justice, and are doomed to fail. The European Commission ignored US calls to ban Huawei as it announced a series of 5G cybersecurity recommendations on Tuesday. 

Fair competition and innovation are the best ways to usher in the 5G era. The spirit of the times is driving the human race toward a better future; such spirit will overcome all interference and sabotage. The US government should immediately stop using dirty tricks to take on Huawei.

The author is director of the Center for Internet and Society at Zhejiang University of Media and Communications and founder of Beijing-based technology think tank ChinaLabs. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn

TRUMP LE APRETÓ LAS TUERCAS AL GOBIERNO MEXICANO

El 23 de octubre del año pasado afirmamos en este blog que el gobierno de Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) estaba en una encrucijada en materia migratoria pues por un lado, quería diferenciarse del de Peña y proponía (aún antes de tomar posesión), dejar pasar a los migrantes centroamericanos e incluso regularizar su situación para que pudieran trabajar en México y recibir educación y salud. Pero por el otro lado, tenía que convencer al gobierno de Trump de que esa política de fronteras abiertas no perjudicaría la seguridad del vecino del Norte, por lo que México se tendría que hacer cargo económicamente de las decenas de miles de migrantes que entrarían a su territorio buscando pasar de una u otra forma a los Estados Unidos.

Esta contradicción estallaría tarde o temprano, ya sea con la exasperación estadounidense al ver que la constante llegada de migrantes hasta su propia frontera crearía un caos y una situación inmanejable para la patrulla fronteriza (lo que ya está sucediendo) y/o, las exigencias económicas, sociales y de seguridad para las localidades fronterizas mexicanas sería de tal magnitud, que la población mexicana comenzaría a exigir al gobierno que detuviera el flujo migratorio (algo que también ya está sucediendo tanto en la frontera sur de Chiapas, como en la norte de Baja California, Sonora, Coahuila, Chihuahua y Tamaulipas).

En esencia, el gobierno de López Obrador (AMLO), tratando de quedar bien con todo el mundo (con los migrantes, dejándolos pasar libremente; y con el gobierno de Estados Unidos, aceptando hacerse cargo de ellos y de los deportados que envían las autoridades de ese país), acabó quedando mal con todos.

Por ello, Trump envió a Kushner a hablar con AMLO para advertirle que o detiene a los migrantes centroamericanos en su frontera sur, o el gobierno estadounidense ejercerá represalias sobre el mexicano, especialmente negándose a ratificar el T-MEC (el nuevo tratado de libre comercio), y dando por terminado el tratado actual (NAFTA por sus siglas en inglés).

La realidad es que el gobierno de AMLO no debería engancharse con ese nuevo tratado comercial, que es aún peor que el anterior, pues da más ventajas a Estados Unidos y se mantiene el bajo contenido nacional de las exportaciones a nuestro principal socio comercial, que llega tan sólo al 28%.[1] Pero como AMLO no puede zafarse de la política económica neoliberal (autonomía del Banco de México, acuerdos con los banqueros para que ellos sigan definiendo como y cuanto cobran en las comisiones; creación del Consejo Asesor Empresarial; política presupuestaria apegada a los principios del FMI, etc.), y una buena parte de su gabinete es pro estadounidense (Romo, Ebrard, Moctezuma, etc.), prefiere quedar bien con el gobierno de Trump y evitar, hasta donde sea posible, que lo etiqueten como un “chavista” o un “castrista”.

De ahí que AMLO aceptó las exigencias de Trump, y por ello la secretaria de Gobernación, Olga Sánchez Cordero se reunió en Miami con la de Seguridad Interior de Estados Unidos, Krijsten Nielsen[2], con quien acordó detener a los migrantes centroamericanos en el Istmo de Tehuantepec, mediante un plan de contención que afirmó, no implicará la militarización, sino un mecanismo de selección más riguroso para dar permisos de ingreso al país. Al mismo tiempo, Estados Unidos proporcionará información de inteligencia para evitar la llegada de criminales y para “apresar” a los traficantes.

Es un cambio de 180 grados a la política con la que llegó AMLO en esta materia al poder; asimismo, la secretaria de Gobernación llamó a los gobiernos de Honduras, Guatemala y El Salvador a que también pongan de su parte para detener estas caravanas migrantes, pues informó que ya se prepara una llamada la “caravana madre”, hasta con 20 mil personas.

Lo que refleja estas declaraciones de la secretaria de Gobernación es que primero, fue a recibir órdenes de la secretaria de Seguridad Interior, que le dijo lo que le toca hacer a México, mientras ella le diría a los gobiernos de Centroamérica lo que tienen que realizar en la nueva estrategia.

Segundo, eso de que no se va a militarizar la frontera sur es una fantasía, pues no se ve la manera de detener caravanas de miles de personas, que están dispuestos a entrar como sea al país y llegar a la frontera norte, si no se usa la fuerza.

Los organizadores de estas caravanas van a a poner por delante a niños, mujeres y ancianos, para que cuando el gobierno mexicano no tenga otra opción que detenerlos por la fuerza, quede evidenciado ante el mundo como un violador de los derechos humanos y un gobierno hipócrita, que no ha dejado de ser el encargado de hacerle el trabajo sucio a los estadounidenses.

Y tercero, está claro que las agencias de inteligencia estadounidenses tienen infiltrados y con sus comunicaciones intervenidas, a los organizadores de estas caravanas (si no es que las alientan, con objeto de generar a propósito esta crisis, para así darle sustancia a la declaración de emergencia que emitió Donald Trump sobre la situación en la frontera con México), pues ofrecer con tanta seguridad esa información al gobierno mexicano, sólo revela que tienen muy bien diagnosticado desde dentro a este movimiento que continuamente organiza a las caravanas migrantes.

De ahí que pareciera que AMLO decidió lanzar un distractor de toda esta situación, y del hecho de que Estados Unidos ha doblado una vez más a un gobierno mexicano en el tema migratorio (en el de seguridad todo ha seguido igual con la Iniciativa Mérida, los centros de fusión de información de Estados Unidos en territorio mexicano y con la ley que permite a los agentes de seguridad estadounidense estar armados en el país), con el asunto del perdón por parte de España y el Vaticano a los pueblos originarios, que ha generado mucho ruido y la atención de los medios de comunicación, mientras que el verdadero cambio sustancial de una política importantísima, como la migratoria, se realizaba después de una reunión “privada”, con el enviado personal del presidente estadounidense.

Y si esto sucedió ya con la política migratoria, no sería difícil que se esté cocinando el que México comience a cambiar su posición respecto a Venezuela, para así seguir en “buenos términos” con la potencia hegemónica del hemisferio.

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[1] https://www.milenio.com/opinion/jesus-rangel/estira-afloja/el-contenido-nacional-en-exportaciones

[2] https://www.jornada.com.mx/2019/03/28/politica/005n1pol

The US playing a dangerous zero-sum game with China

By Li Qingqing Source: Global Times Published: 2019/3/27

A group of experts on China, national security practitioners, human rights and religious freedom activists and others launched the so-called Committee on the Present Danger: China (CPDC) on Monday. PresentDangerChina.org said that "Communist China represents an existential and ideological threat." It is wrong for the US to regard China as a major enemy. The US is unconsciously getting lost in its strategic maze.

The Committee on the Present Danger (CPD) was first formed in 1950 during the Cold War era to counter "the aggressive designs of the Soviet Union." In 2004, the CPD turned to address the US war on terrorism. Now, US policy advisers again revived it to target China, its so-called "aggressive totalitarian foe." Has the US never abandoned its Cold War mentality? 

As the US' current imaginary enemy, China is completely different from the previous two - the Soviet Union and terrorism. The Soviet Union was trapped in a vicious cycle of an arms race with the US. The situation involved a confrontation between two military groups and a balance in nuclear deterrence. China, however, focuses on its own path of development and has never declared it wanted to defeat the US. 

As for terrorism, China provided much support for the US fight against terrorism after the 9/11 attacks. China has also found an effective way to rid its soil of terrorism and extremism. Counter-terrorism is also a subject that Beijing and Washington can collaborate. How did China become the US' target? 

It seems that Washington has been keeping an eye on Beijing. For example, US Vice President Mike Pence on Tuesday announced the country's plans to return to the moon in five years, saying China and Russia's achievements in space are evidence that the US is in a "space race." The US regards China as a foe in many areas. Washington is setting up an imaginary enemy to encourage itself. It wants to win in the zero-sum game. This is the most dangerous part.

The real challenge for the US is not China, but labeling China as its foe. Ideology and competition have blinded the US. As Henry Kissinger declared in 1969, "We will judge other countries, including Communist countries… on the basis of their actions and not on the basis of their domestic ideology." China has never demanded that the US accept its ideology. The US, however, acts as a missionary to make China its ideological colony. There is a political force in Washington that tries to shape Beijing as an enemy. The US would be going astray if it follows that force.

The world order is completely different from the Cold War era, but Washington continues to stick to its outdated state of mind. China is not afraid of US competition, nor has the country ever thought of defeating the US as a major enemy. But if the US insists on playing such a game, China has the ability to fight to the end.

Estos 5 países han ofrecido disculpas por agravios en hechos históricos

Justin Trudeau, Emmanuel Macron y Theresa May son algunos de los líderes mundiales que se han disculpado con comunidades por agravios en el pasado.

25/03/2019

https://www.elfinanciero.com.mx/mundo/estos-5-paises-que-han-ofrecido-disculpas-por-hechos-historicos

El presidente de México, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, pidió este lunes a la Corona Española y a la iglesia católica que ofrezcan una disculpa al pueblo mexicano por los hechos de ocurridos durante el periodo de la Conquista. ¿Es eso posible? ¿Algún país ha ofrecido disculpas anteriormente por un hecho histórico?

Aquí te compartimos algunos ejemplos:

1. España y la comunidad sefardí

En octubre de 2015, como parte de una disculpa histórica con la comunidad sefardí que fue expulsada en 1492 del territorio que habitaban, España aprobó una ley para que dicho grupo pudiera acceder a la nacionalidad española.

De acuerdo con la BBC, los sefardíes habían vivido por mil 500 años en España (Sefarad en hebreo) y en 1492 la Corona Española los obligó a tomar una decisión: convertirse a la religión dominante o dejar el país.

La Real Academia Española define a los sefardíes como judíos originarios de España.

El plazo para que los sefardíes tramitaran la nacionalidad vencía en octubre de 2018. Sin embargo, el periodo fue extendido hasta el 1 de octubre de 2019.

2. Holanda y las víctimas de Srebrenica

El gobierno holandés ofreció de manera formal una disculpa a familiares de víctimas de la matanza en Srebrenica, una ciudad al este de Bosnia.

En esta matanza, 8 mil musulmanes de Bosnia fueron asesinados en la toma de Srebrenica en 1995. De acuerdo con El País, entre los muertos estuvieron el padre y el hermano de un traductor, quien sobrevivió a la matanza, así como un electricista. Estas personas contaban con un pase para transitar por la ciudad ocupada por soldados.

Husan Nuhanovic (el traductor) y la familia de Rizo Mustafic (el electricista) interpusieron una primera demanda contra dicho país en 2002. Aunque al principio Holanda sostuvo su versión de que los soldados habían actuado de manera correcta, en 2015, Jeanine Hennis, ministra de Defensa, ofreció una disculpa en nombre del gobierno holandés.

3. Canadá y los judíos

En 2018, el primer ministro canadiense, Justin Trudeau, ofreció una disculpa a la comunidad judía. En 1939, en el marco de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, Canadá rechazó un barco con 907 judíos que fueron considerados "indignos" de tener un hogar.

En esa época, el gobierno canadiense estaba a cargo del Partido Liberal, mismo que Trudeau representa.

4. Francia y Argelia

Emmanuel Macron, presidente de Francia, se disculpó en nombre del país por las torturas y desapariciones forzadas durante la guerra de Argelia.

Entre 1954 y 1962 la que fue la colonia de Francia se independizó. En 2018, Macron reconoció el asesinato de Maurice Audin, un profesor ayudante en la Universidad de Argel, y pidió perdón en nombre del país.

5. Reino Unido y los países caribeños

Theresa May, primera ministra británica, se disculpó con líderes y diplomáticos de 12 países caribeños en abril de 2018 por el duro trato propinado recientemente por funcionarios de inmigración a personas de esos países que emigraron a Gran Bretaña cuando eran niños después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial.

La “generación Windrush” fue invitada a Gran Bretaña para cubrir el déficit laboral entre 1948 y 1971, pero algunos de sus descendientes se han visto atrapados en un endurecimiento de las normas de inmigración supervisadas por May en 2012, cuando era ministra del Interior.

Con información de Reuters.

EU y el cambio de régimen en Venezuela

Carlos Fazio/I

https://www.jornada.com.mx/2019/03/25/opinion/016a1pol

En el marco de una guerra global de clases expansionista y agresiva, en los últimos 20 años, durante cuatro sucesivas presidencias de demócratas y republicanos en la Casa Blanca: William Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama y Donald Trump, la diplomacia de guerra de Estados Unidos ha venido impulsando una política de cambio de régimen en Venezuela contra los gobiernos constitucionales y legítimos de Hugo Chávez y Nicolás Maduro.

El accionar abierto y clandestino de Estados Unidos se inscribe en la dominación de espectro completo, noción diseñada por el Pentágono antes de los atentados terroristas del 11 de septiembre de 2001, que abarca una política combinada donde lo militar, lo político, lo económico, lo jurídico/para-institucional, lo mediático y lo cultural tienen objetivos comunes y complementarios. Dado que el espectro es geográfico, espacial, social y cultural, para imponer la dominación se necesita manufacturar el consentimiento. Es decir, colocar en la sociedad determinados sentidos comunes que de tanto repetirse se incorporan al imaginario colectivo e introducen, como única, la visión del mundo del poder hegemónico. Eso implica la formación y manipulación ideológica (adoctrinamiento) de un grupo y/o una opinión pública legitimadores del modelo.

Para la fabricación del consenso resultan clave las imágenes y la narrativa de los medios de difusión masiva, con sus mitos, medias verdades, mentiras y falsedades. Apelando a la sicología de masas y la propaganda negra se imponen a la sociedad la cultura del miedo. La fabricación social del temor incluye la construcción de enemigos internos.

Manuales del Pentágono dan gran importancia a la lucha ideológica en el campo de la información y al papel de los medios y las redes sociales (Internet y teléfonos móviles) como armas estratégicas y políticas para generar violencia y caos planificado. Uno de esos documentos señala que las guerras modernas tienen lugar en espacios más allá de simplemente los elementos físicos del campo de batalla. Uno de los más importantes son los medios en los cuales ocurrirá la contienda de la narrativa. La percepción es tan importante para su éxito como el evento mismo. Al final del día, la percepción de qué ocurrió importa más que lo que pasó realmente.

La percepción puede ser creada con base en una noticia falsa y ser impuesta a las masas mediante campañas de operaciones sicológicas en los medios y/o en las redes de Internet (guerra social en red), o mediante tanques de pensamiento(thinktank), centros académicos, fundaciones, ONG e intelectuales orgánicos, a partir de matrices de opinión elaboradas por expertos de inteligencia y militares. Las campañas de intoxicación (des)informativas explotan los prejuicios y las vulnerabilidades sicológicas, económicas y políticas de la población de un país objetivo, y manejan un guion propagandístico desestabilizador, con eje en denuncias de corrupción y represión, etiquetando al régimen de turno como dictadura, y agitando como banderas la defensa de los derechos humanos, la libertad de prensa y la ayuda humanitaria.

Antes de que Hugo Chávez llegara al gobierno el 2 de febrero de 1999 ya se había comenzado a construir su leyenda negra y en los medios hegemónicos clasistas y racistas venezolanos se referían a él como El Mono Chávez, Gorila rojo, un negro en Miraflores, y a sus seguidores los llamaron hordas chavistas.

Luego, y a la par que la Agencia Central de Inteligencia (CIA) creaba la organización serbia Otpor (Resistencia) y entrenaba a sus miembros en las técnicas del golpe suave con el objetivo de derrocar a Slobodan Milosevic en la ex Yugoslavia, se fue fraguando el golpe de Estado de 2002 en Venezuela, que como parte de una guerra no convencional y asimétrica de cuarta generación, utilizó al Internet y a los medios masivos (Venevisión, Globovisión, Radio Caracas Televisión y entre otros a los periódicos Tal Cual, El Nacional y El Universal), para promover matrices de opinión antichavistas y proyectar información manipulada, distorsionada y falsificada, con la intención de desacreditar al gobierno bolivariano.

Fracasados el golpe, el lockout (cierre patronal) de las corporaciones empresariales de Venezuela agrupadas en Fedecámaras y Conindustria, y el sabotaje de la gerontocracia de PDVSA (el ente petrolero estatal), el 24 de marzo del 2004, al rendir testimonio ante el Comité de Servicios Armados de la Cámara de Representantes estadunidense, el general James T. Hill, jefe del Comando Sur del Pentágono, acuñó la denominación populismo radical en clara referencia a Hugo Chávez. Pronto el término se usó con fines de propaganda masiva y se adaptó en México a Andrés Manuel López Obrador, el mesías tropical (E. Krauze dixit).

En diciembre siguiente triunfaba la revolución naranja de factura estadunidense en Ucrania, y en 2005, con financiamiento de Washington, eran enviados al Centro de Acción y Estrategias No Violentas Aplicadas (Canvas), de la Universidad de Belgrado, en Serbia, cinco líderes estudiantiles venezolanos para entrenarse en las políticas de cambio de régimen según las técnicas insurreccionales de las revoluciones de colores y los golpes suaves de Gene Sharp. Entre ellos figuraban Yon Goicochea, Freddy Guevara y Juan Guaidó.

Las acciones israelíes durante La Marcha del Retorno palestina pueden constituir crímenes de guerra

28 Febrero 2019

Derechos humanos

https://news.un.org/es/story/2019/02/1452022

Una comisión de investigación tiene en cuenta las alegaciones israelíes de que las protestas en la valla de separación encubrían actividades terroristas de los grupos armados palestinos. Sin embargo, constata que, pese a algunos actos de violencia significativa, las manifestaciones eran de carácter civil y con objetivos políticos claramente definidos.

La Comisión Independiente de las Naciones Unidas encargada de investigar las protestas en territorio palestino acontecidas durante el año pasado, concluyó que “tiene motivos razonables” para creer que los soldados israelíes “cometieron violaciones de las normas internacionales de derechos humanos” que pueden llegar a constituir crímenes de guerra.

Así se manifestaba este jueves en Ginebra el presidente de la Comisión de Investigación, el argentino Santiago Cantón, sobre los acontecimientos iniciados el 30 de marzo, cuando los líderes palestinos convocaron una serie de protestas contra la ocupación israelí conocida popularmente como La Gran Marcha del Retorno.

“Lo principal que encontramos en esta investigación es que hay razones suficientes para establecer que hubo violaciones a los derechos humanos o al derecho internacional humanitario; y que estos hechos pueden constituir, para una corte, crímenes de lesa humanidad o crímenes de guerra, pero para eso hace falta una mayor investigación por parte de una corte criminal”, destacó Cantón.

Cantón señaló que Israel tiene la responsabilidad de investigar con la máxima celeridad los crímenes relacionados con las protestas, de forma “imparcial e independiente” y de acuerdo a las normas internacionales, para establecer si se cometieron crímenes de guerra o de lesa humanidad.

La investigación fue solicitada por el Consejo de Derechos Humanos mediante una resolución adoptada el pasado 18 de mayo, y abarcó un periodo de tiempo comprendido desde el inicio de las protestas el 30 de marzo hasta el 31 de diciembre de 2018.

Niños, médicos y periodistas entre los muertos

La Comisión investigó todos los asesinatos cometidos en la valla de separación entre Gaza e Israel durante las protestas y estableció que fallecieron 189 palestinos durante este período, 183 de ellos por las fuerzas de seguridad israelíes con munición real.

Entre las víctimas mortales 35 eran niños, 3 eran paramédicos claramente identificados y otras 2 fueron periodistas también explícitamente expuestos.

Otras de las integrantes de la Comisión, Sara Hossain, indicó que no hay ningún tipo de justificación “para matar y herir a periodistas, médicos y personas que no representan una amenaza inminente de muerte o lesiones graves para quienes están alrededor de ellas” y calificó como alarmante “el hecho de que niños, niñas y personas discapacitadas sean blanco de ataques”.

Asimismo, 6106 palestinos resultaron heridos con munición real por las fuerzas del orden israelíes. Otros 3098 palestinos fueron lesionados por pedazos de balas, balas de metal recubiertas de goma o por los golpes causados por las latas de gases lacrimógenos.

Uso de cometas y globos incendiarios

Por el lado israelí resultaron heridos cuatro soldados y uno de ellos falleció, pero fuera de los lugares de protesta.

La Comisión tuvo en cuenta la alegación israelí de que las protestas en la valla de separación encubrían "actividades terroristas" de los grupos armados palestinos. Sin embargo, constató que, pese a algunos actos de violencia significativa, “las manifestaciones eran de carácter civil y con objetivos políticos claramente definidos”.

Igualmente, descubrió que algunos miembros del Comité organizador de las protestas, que incluye a representantes de Hamás, alentaron a los manifestantes “al uso indiscriminado de cometas y globos incendiarios”, una situación que “causó temor entre la población civil y daños materiales significativos en el sur de Israel”.

Hamas, la autoridad de facto en Gaza, no pudo impedir esos actos, destacó la Comisión.

Rendición de cuentas y responsables

El Consejo de Derechos Humanos también pidió a la Comisión que centrara su investigación en la rendición de cuentas y la identificación de los responsables de las violaciones y los presuntos crímenes internacionales.

En relación a este apartado, "la Comisión depositará la información pertinente en un archivo confidencial que se entregará a la Alta Comisionada de las Naciones Unidas para los Derechos Humanos, a fin de facilitar el acceso a esa información a los mecanismos de justicia nacionales e internacionales.

La Corte Penal Internacional ya está interesada en este caso", según indicó Betty Muringui, la tercera integrante del Comité.

Recomendaciones a Israel, Hamás y la Autoridad Palestina

Entre las recomendaciones del informe se incluye a todas las partes “con algún tipo de responsabilidad”, indicó Santiago Cantón al incluir a Israel, Hamás y la Autoridad Palestina.

Cantón espera que Israel acepte las recomendaciones y “que revise las reglas de combate que tienen, que están aplicando y la manera en qué se aplican” y pidió que “las adecúen a los estándares internacionales que nosotros como Comisión recomendamos y aplicamos en este informe”.

La presentación ante el Consejo, el 18 de marzo

La redacción del informe se basó en 325 entrevistas con víctimas, testigos y fuentes, y recopiló más de 8000 documentos. Una parte esencial de la investigación se realizó en el análisis exhaustivo de redes sociales y grandes cantidades de material audiovisual.

El próximo 18 de marzo se publicará y presentará ante el Consejo de Derechos Humanos un informe más completo, que contendrá información detallada sobre los hechos y el contexto, así como análisis jurídicos. 

La Comisión Independiente de las Naciones Unidas está integrada por el argentino Santiago Cantón como presidente, Sara Hossain de Bangladesh y Betty Murungi de Kenya.

Killing for Credibility: A Look Back at the 1999 NATO Air War on Serbia

by Brett Wilkins Posted on March 23, 2019

https://original.antiwar.com/Brett_Wilkins/2019/03/22/killing-for-credibility-a-look-back-at-the-1999-nato-air-war-on-serbia/

This month marks the 20th anniversary of Operation Allied Force, NATO’s 78-day air war against Yugoslavia. It was a war waged as much against Serbian civilians – hundreds of whom perished – as it was against Slobodan Milošević’s forces, and it was a campaign of breathtaking hypocrisy and selective outrage. More than anything, it was a war that by President Bill Clinton’s own admission was fought for the sake of NATO’s credibility.

One Man’s Terrorist…

Our story begins not in the war-torn Balkans of the 1990s but rather in the howling wilderness of Afghanistan at the end of the 1980s as defeated Soviet invaders withdrew from a decade of guerrilla warfare into the twilight of a once-mighty empire. The United States, which had provided arms, funding, and training for the mujahideen fighters who had so bravely resisted the Soviet occupation, stopped supporting the jihadis as soon as the last Red Army units rolled across the Hairatan Bridge and back into the USSR. Afghanistan descended deeper into civil war.

The popular narrative posits that Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network, Washington’s former mujahideen allies, turned on the West after the US stationed hundreds of thousands of infidel troops in Saudi Arabia – home to two out of three of Sunni Islam’s holiest sites – during Operation Desert Shield in 1990. Since then, the story goes, the relationship between the jihadists and their former benefactors has been one of enmity, characterized by sporadic terror attacks and fierce US retribution. The real story, however, is something altogether different.

From 1992 to 1995, the Pentagon flew thousands of al-Qaeda mujahideen, often accompanied by US Special Forces, from Central Asia to Europe to reinforce Bosnian Muslims as they fought Serbs to gain their independence from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The Clinton administration armed and trained these fighters in flagrant violation of United Nations accords; weapons purchased by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran were secretly shipped to the jihadists via Croatia, which netted a hefty profit from each transaction. The official Dutch inquiry into the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, in which thousands of Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) men and boys were slaughtered by Bosnian Serb and Serbian paramilitary forces, concluded that the United States was "very closely involved" in these arms transfers.

When the Bosnian war ended in 1995 the United States was faced with the problem of thousands of Islamist warriors on European soil. Many of them joined the burgeoning Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which mainly consisted of ethnic Albanian Kosovars from what was still southwestern Yugoslavia. Emboldened by the success of the Slovenes, Croats, Macedonians, and Bosnians who had won their independence from Belgrade as Yugoslavia literally balkanized, KLA fighters began to violently expel as many non-Albanians from Kosovo as they could. Roma, Jews, Turks and, above all, Serbs were all victims of Albanian ethnic cleansing.

The United States was initially very honest in its assessment of the KLA. Robert Gelbard, the US special envoy to Bosnia, called it "without any question a terrorist group." KLA backers allegedly included Osama bin Laden and other Islamic radicals; the group largely bankrolled its activities by trafficking heroin and sex slaves. The State Department accordingly added the KLA to its list of terrorist organizations in 1998.

However, despite all its nastiness, the KLA endeared itself to Washington by fighting the defiant Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milošević. By this time Yugoslavia, once composed of eight nominally autonomous republics, had been reduced by years of bloody civil war to a rump of Serbia, Montenegro, and Kosovo. To Serbs, the dominant ethnic group in what remained of the country, Kosovo is regarded as the very birthplace of their nation. Belgrade wasn’t about to let it go without a fight and everyone knew it, especially the Clinton administration. Clinton’s hypocrisy was immediately evident; when Chechnya fought for its independence from Moscow and Russian forces committed horrific atrocities in response, the American president called the war an internal Russian affair and barely criticized Russian President Boris Yeltsin. But when Milošević resorted to brute force in an attempt to prevent Yugoslavia from further fracturing, he soon found himself a marked man.

Although NATO called the KLA "the main initiator of the violence" in Kosovo and blasted “what appears to be a deliberate campaign of provocation” against the Serbs, the Clinton administration was nevertheless determined to attack the Milošević regime. US intelligence confirmed that the KLA was indeed provoking harsh retaliatory strikes by Serb forces in a bid to draw the United States and NATO into the conflict. President Clinton, however, apparently wasn’t listening. The NATO powers, led by the United States, issued Milošević an ultimatum they knew he could never accept: allow NATO to occupy all of Kosovo and have free reign in Serbia as well. Assistant US Secretary of State James Rubin later admitted that "publicly we had to make clear we were seeking an agreement but privately we knew the chances of the Serbs agreeing were quite small."

Wagging the Dog?

In 1997 the film Wag the Dog debuted to rave reviews. The dark comedy concerns a Washington, DC spin doctor and a Hollywood producer who fabricate a fictional war in Albania to distract American voters from a presidential sex scandal. Many observers couldn’t help but draw parallels between the film and the real-life events of 1998-99, which included the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Clinton’s impeachment, and a very real war brewing in the Balkans. As in Wag the Dog, there were exaggerated or completely fabricated tales of atrocities, and as in the film, the US and NATO powers tried to sell their war as a humanitarian intervention. An attack on Yugoslavia, we were told, was needed to avert Serb ethnic cleansing of Albanians.

There were two main problems with this. First, there was no Serb ethnic cleansing of Albanian Kosovars until after NATO began mercilessly bombing Yugoslavia. The German government issued several reports confirming this. One, from October 1998, reads, in part:

The violent actions of the Yugoslav military and police since February 1998 were aimed at separatist activities and are no proof of persecution of the whole Albanian ethnic group in Kosovo or a part of it. What was involved in the Yugoslav violent actions and excesses since February 1998 was a selective forcible action against the military underground movement (especially the KLA)… A state program or persecution aimed at the whole ethnic group of Albanians exists neither now nor earlier.

Subsequent German government reports issued through the winter of 1999 tell a similar story. "Events since February and March 1998 do not evidence a persecution program based on Albanian ethnicity," stated one report released exactly one month before the NATO bombing started. "The measures taken by the armed Serbian forces are in the first instance directed toward combating the KLA and its supposed adherents and supporters."

While Serbs certainly did commit atrocities (especially after the ferocious NATO air campaign began), these were often greatly exaggerated by the Clinton administration and the US corporate mainstream media. Clinton claimed – and the media dutifully parroted – that 600,000 Albanians were "trapped within Kosovo… lacking shelter, short of food, afraid to go home or buried in mass graves." This was completely false. US diplomat David Scheffer claimed that "225,000 ethnic Albanian men… are missing, presumed dead." Again, a total fabrication. The FBI, International War Crimes Tribunal and global forensics experts flocked to Kosovo in droves after the NATO bombs stopped falling; the total number of victims they found was around 1 percent of the figure claimed by the United States.

However, once NATO attacked, the Serb response was predictably furious. Shockingly, NATO commander Gen. Wesley Clark declared that the ensuing Serbian atrocities against the Albanian Kosovar population had been "fully anticipated" and were apparently of little concern to Washington. Not only did NATO and the KLA provoke a war with Yugoslavia, but they did so know that many innocent civilians would be killed, maimed or displaced by the certain and severe reprisals carried out by enraged Serb forces. Michael McGwire, a former top NATO planner, acknowledged that "to describe the bombing as a humanitarian intervention is really grotesque."

Bloody Hypocrites

The other big problem with the US claiming it was attacking Yugoslavia on humanitarian grounds was that the Clinton administration had recently allowed – and was at the time allowing – far worse humanitarian catastrophes to rage without American intervention. More than 800,000 men, women, and children were slaughtered while Clinton and other world leaders stood idly by during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The US also courted the medievally brutal Taliban regime in hopes of achieving stability in Afghanistan and with an eye toward building a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan. Clinton also did nothing to stop Russian forces from viciously crushing nationalist uprisings in the Caucuses, where Chechen rebels were fighting for their independence much the same as Albanian Kosovars were fighting the Serbs.

Colombia, the Western Hemisphere’s leading recipient of US military and economic aid, was waging a fierce, decades-long campaign of terror against leftist insurgents and long-suffering indigenous peoples. Despite horrific brutality and pervasive human rights violations, US aid to Bogotá increased year after year. In Turkey, not only did Clinton do nothing to prevent government forces from committing widespread atrocities against Kurdish separatists, the administration positively encouraged its NATO ally with billions of dollars in loans and arms sales. Saudi Arabia, home to the most repressive fundamentalist regime this side of Afghanistan, was – and remains – a favored US ally despite having one of the world’s worst human rights records. The list goes on and on.

Much closer to the conflict at hand, the United States tacitly approved the largest ethnic cleansing campaign in Europe since the Holocaust when as many as 200,000 Serbs were forcibly expelled from the Krajina region of Croatia by that country’s US-trained military during Operation Storm in August 1995. Krajina Serbs had purged the region of its Croat minority four years earlier in their own ethnic cleansing campaign; now it was the Serbs’ turn to be on the receiving end of the horror. Croatian forces stormed through Krajina, shelling towns and slaughtering innocent civilians. The sick and the elderly who couldn’t escape were executed or burned alive in their homes as Croatian soldiers machine-gunned convoys of fleeing refugees.

"Painful for the Serbs"

Washington’s selective indignation at Serb crimes both real and imagined is utterly inexcusable when held up to the horrific and seemingly indiscriminate atrocities committed during the NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia. The prominent Australian journalist John Pilger noted that "in the attack on Serbia, 2 percent of NATO’s missiles hit military targets, the rest hit hospitals, schools, factories, churches and broadcast studios." There is little doubt that US and allied warplanes and missiles were targeting the Serbian people as much as, or even more than, Serb forces. The bombing knocked out electricity in 70 percent of the country as well as much of its water supply.

NATO warplanes also deliberately bombed a building containing the headquarters of Serbian state television and radio in the middle of densely populated central Belgrade. The April 23, 1999 attack occurred without warning while 200 employees were at work in the building. Among the 16 people killed were a makeup artist, a cameraman, a program director, an editor, and three security guards. There is no doubt that the attack was meant to demoralize the Serbian people. There is also no doubt that those who ordered the bombing knew exactly what outcome to expect: a NATO planning document viewed by Bill Clinton, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President Jacques Chirac forecast as many as 350 deaths in the event of such an attack, with as many as 250 of the victims expected to be innocent civilians living in nearby apartments.

Allied commanders wanted to fight a "zero casualty war" in Yugoslavia. As in zero casualties for NATO forces, not the people they were bombing. "This will be painful for the Serbs," Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon sadistically predicted. It sure was. NATO warplanes flew sorties at 15,000 feet (4,500 meters), a safe height for the pilots. But this decreased accuracy and increased civilian casualties on the ground. One attack on central Belgrade mistakenly hit Dragiša Mišović hospital with a laser-guided “precision” bomb, obliterating an intensive care unit and destroying a children’s ward while wounding several pregnant women who had the misfortune of being in labor at the time of the attack. Dragana Krstić, age 23, was recovering from cancer surgery – she just had a 10-pound (4.5 kg) tumor removed from her stomach – when the bombs blew jagged shards of glass into her neck and shoulders. "I don’t know which hurts more," she lamented, "my stomach, my shoulder or my heart."

Dragiša Mišović wasn’t the only hospital bombed by NATO. Cluster bombs dropped by fighter jets of the Royal Netherlands Air Force struck a hospital and a market in the city of Niš on May 7, killing 15 people and wounding 60 more. An emergency clinic and medical dispensary were also bombed in the mining town of Aleksinac on April 6, killing at least five people and wounding dozens more.

Bridges were favorite targets of NATO bombing. An international passenger train traveling from Belgrade to Thessaloniki, Greece was blown apart by two missiles as it crossed over Grdelica gorge on April 12. Children and a pregnant woman were among the 15 people killed in the attack; 16 other passengers were wounded. Allied commander Gen. Wesley Clark claimed the train, which had been damaged by the first missile, had been traveling too rapidly for the pilot to abort the second strike on the bridge. He then offered up a doctored video that was sped up more than three times so that the pilot’s behavior would appear acceptable.

On May 1, at least 24 civilians, many of them children, were killed when NATO warplanes bombed a bridge in Lužane just as a bus was crossing. An ambulance rushing to the scene of the carnage was struck by a second bomb. On the sunny spring afternoon of May 30, a bridge over the Velika Morava River in the small town of Vavarin was bombed by low-flying German Air Force F-16 fighters while hundreds of local residents gathered nearby to celebrate an Orthodox Christian holiday. Eleven people died, most of them when the warplanes returned and bombed the people who rushed to the bridge to help those wounded in the first strike.

No One Is Safe

The horrors suffered by the villagers of Surdulica shows that no one in Serbia was safe from NATO’s fury. They endured some 175 bombardments during one three-week period alone, with 50 houses destroyed and 600 others damaged in a town with only around 10,000 residents. On April 27, 20 civilians, including 12 children, died when bombs meant to destroy an army barracks slammed into a residential neighborhood. As many as 100 others were wounded in the incident. Tragedy befell the tiny town again on May 31 when NATO warplanes returned to bomb an ammunition depot but instead hit an old people’s home; 23 civilians, most of them helpless elderly men and women, were blown to pieces. Dozens more were wounded. The US military initially said "there were no errant weapons" in the attack. However, Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre later testified before Congress that it "was a case of the pilot getting confused."

The CIA was also apparently confused when it relied on what it claimed was an outdated map to approve a Stealth Bomber strike on what turned out to be the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. Three Chinese journalists were killed and 27 other people were wounded. Some people aren’t so sure the attack was an accident – Britain’s Observer later reported that the US deliberately bombed the embassy after discovering it was being used to transmit Yugoslav army communications.

There were plenty of other accidents, some of them horrifically tragic and others just downright bizarre. Two separate attacks on the very Albanians NATO was claiming to help killed 160 people, many of them women and children. On April 14, NATO warplanes bombed refugees along with a 12-mile (19-km) stretch of road between the towns of Gjakova and Deçan in western Kosovo, killing 73 people including 16 children and wounding 36 more. Journalists reported a grisly scene of “bodies charred or blown to pieces, tractors reduced to twisted wreckage and houses in ruins." Exactly one month later, another column of refugees was bombed near Koriša, killing 87 – mostly women, children and the elderly – and wounding 60 others. In the downright bizarre category, a wildly errant NATO missile struck a residential neighborhood in the Bulgarian capital Sofia, some 40 miles (64 km) outside of Serbia. The American AGM-88 HARM missile blew the roof off of a man’s house while he was shaving in his bathroom.

NATO’s "Murderous Thugs"

As the people of Yugoslavia were being terrorized by NATO’s air war, the terrorists of the Kosovo Liberation Army stepped up their atrocities against Serbs and Roma in Kosovo. NATO troops deployed there to keep the peace often failed to protect these people from the KLA’s brutal campaign. More than 164,000 Serbs fled or were forcibly driven from the Albanian-dominated province and by the summer of 2001 KLA ethnic cleansing had rendered Kosovo almost entirely Albanian, with just a few die-hard Serb holdouts living in fear and surrounded by barbed wire.

The KLA soon expanded its war into neighboring Macedonia. Although NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson called the terror group "murderous thugs," the United States – now with George W. Bush as president – continued to offer its invaluable support. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice personally intervened in an attempt to persuade Ukraine to halt arms sales to the Macedonian army and when a group of 400 KLA fighters was surrounded at Aracinovo in June 2001, NATO ordered Macedonian forces to hold off their attack while a convoy of US Army vehicles rescued the besieged militants. It later emerged that 17 American military advisers were embedded with the KLA at Aracinovo.

Credibility Conundrum

The bombing of Yugoslavia was really about preserving the credibility of the United States and NATO. The alliance’s saber-rattling toward Belgrade had painted it into a corner from which the only way out was with guns blazing. Failure to follow threats with deadly action said President Clinton, "would discredit NATO." Clinton added that "our mission is clear, to demonstrate the seriousness of NATO’s purpose." The president seemed willfully ignorant of NATO’s real purpose, which is to defend member states from outside attack. British Prime Minister Tony Blair agreed with Clinton, declaring on the eve of the war that "to walk away now would… destroy NATO’s credibility." Gary Dempsey, a foreign policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute, wrote that the Clinton administration "transformed a conflict that posed no threat to the territorial integrity, national sovereignty or general welfare of the United States into a major test of American resolve."

Waging or prolonging the war for credibility’s sake is always dangerous and seems always to yield disastrous results. Tens of thousands of US troops and many times as many Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian soldiers and civilians died while Richard Nixon sought an "honorable" way out of Vietnam. Ronald Reagan’s dogged defense of US credibility cost the lives of 299 American and French troops killed in Hezbollah’s 1983 Beirut barracks bombing. This time, ensuring American credibility meant backing the vicious KLA – some of whose fighters had trained at Osama bin Laden’s terror camps in Afghanistan. This, despite the fact that al-Qaeda had already been responsible for deadly attacks against the United States, including the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

It is highly questionable whether bombing Yugoslavia affirmed NATO’s credibility in the short term. In the long term, it certainly did not. The war marked the first and only time NATO had ever attacked a sovereign state. It did so unilaterally, absent any threat to any member nation, and without the approval of the United Nations Security Council. "If NATO can go for military action without international blessing, it calls into question the reliability of NATO as a security partner," Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, then Moscow’s ambassador to NATO, told me at a San Francisco reception.

Twenty years later, Operation Allied force has been all but forgotten in the United States. In a country that has been waging nonstop war on terrorism for almost the entire 21st century, the 1999 NATO air war is but a footnote in modern American history. Serbs, however, still seething at the injustice and hypocrisy of it all. The bombed-out ruins of the old Yugoslav Ministry of Defense, Radio Television of Serbia headquarters and other buildings serve as constant, painful reminders of the horrors endured by the Serbian people in service of NATO’s credibility.

Brett Wilkins is a San Francisco-based author and activist. His work, which focuses on issues of war and peace and human rights, is archived atwww.brettwilkins.com