Milutin wrote,


<snip>        It has now become clear that we are only few weeks, if
not days, away from
>the Nato ground attack on Yugoslavia. The public in the U.S. and
Europe has
>been kept in the dark about the real intentions of Western policy
makers.

<snip>

>        What appears that Nato (and "the rest of the civilized
world") is looking
>for, is a strong excuse to start the ground war.

As a preface to my remarks, let me say that I don't watch television
and that my main source of public media news is CBC Radio.

I have been puzzled by the many remarks I have seen on this list
referring to the supposed "humanitarian" goal of the NATO bombing.  My
impression of the official purpose of the bombing, gathered from CBC
Radio, is that the official purpose of the bombing has always been
stated to be to force Yugoslavia to sign the Ramboulet (sp?) agreement
and voluntarily remove it's military forces from Kosovo.  Then it
would be safer for NATO "peacekeeping" forces to enter Kosovo and
oversee the birth of a new independent Kosovar state.  Our (Canadian)
military
leaders (but not our political leaders) have publicly stated that it
is nonsense to suggest that NATO has no plans to send in military
troops to force the Yugoslav army out of Kosovo, but that they would
much prefer to accomplish that with bombing instead of ground warfare.

So it comes as no surprise to me that plans are now forming for an
invasion of ground forces in Kosovo, as this was part of the general
NATO plan all along and this was public knowledge.

The humanitarian part of NATO's action has been presented as the goal
of enforcing peace after the situation had stabilized to the point of
allowing a peacekeeping force to operate on the ground in Kosovo.  CBC
Radio hasn't really presented the bombing as being other than a
military means to achieve the safe insertion of a peacekeeping force
in Kosovo with a minimal threat to NATO personnel.

Do other media present the situation much differently?

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Larry Stamm                         Tel: (250) 569.3385
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McBride, BC V0J 2E0           Web: www.mcbridebc.com/luthier
Canada