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Friday, May21,1999



Stop This Horrible Slaughter- now!

 Frank Scott



"Women and children were killed and scalped,babies killed at their mothers' breasts, and all the corpses were most horribly mutilated… The women's corpses were profaned in a way that makes you sick in the telling, and throughout, Colonel Chivington was inciting his troops to commit their diabolical outrages."

This is not testimony from Kosovo ; it is from a report on  the slaughter of American Indians by the First Cavalry of Colorado. We would do well to learn our  own history of mass murder  before labeling other people as genocidal ,  especially while we are in the process of  destroying   another nation of innocent people .


In a deadly blend of immorality, arrogance and breathtaking stupidity, the U.S. has inflicted  mayhem on  Yugoslavians  who have done nothing to hurt any Americans. A murderous  air campaign is being rationalized as a “humanitarian” response to the ethnic cleansing which has actually increased in intensity and violence because  of this assault.

A little understood crisis in the Balkans, much of it provoked by western powers, finds many politicians using the weapon of nationalism to gain power, with Milosevic of Serbia being the main proponent. But It was the Serbians who  first suffered ethnic cleansing at the hands of Croatia, which was aided by the US. The Serbians then began their dreadful treatment of the Kosovar Albanians. Now, we are to believe that  the suffering which was experienced before March 24  is somehow  corrected by the  horrible slaughter that has taken place since .

Americans have been confused by an endless flow of slanted, one-sided reporting, and the ridiculous use of words like genocide , holocaust and extermination. Media mind managers simply repeat what they are told by the U.S. military and its NATO spear carriers. Brain-dead commentators and pundits offer analysis designed  to reduce our minds to mush .The public has suffered  a propaganda barrage that may be the closest thing to  genocide - the  attempted extermination of an entire people’s  ability to think.

Bloody human limbs scattered among fruits and vegetables from a bombed market in Serbia is reported - for Americans - as “collateral damage” . Stories of bombed stores, public transit, refugee convoys, embassies and other targets not even remotely military, are first called  enemy lies, then excused as mistakes which must be expected in war. But there has been no declaration of war, and this is not war; it is a slaughter.

Slobodan Milosevic is a political  opportunist of the type who might be quite successful in America. Likening him to Hitler is an abuse of language and logic. Serbia has not invaded other countries or even threatened to do so, and it has no plan to exterminate any populations. It s policy of ethnic cleansing is wicked , and some of its attacks on Kosovar Albanians are terrible. But calling this a holocaust or genocide is a travesty that degrades those who have suffered  real  genocide, like the Jews of Europe, or the native people and African slaves of the Americas.

The  ethically challenged president and his cronies bear major responsibility for this carnage, but it is  sustained by morally bankrupt bipartisan  support. It demands the opposition of all Americans who are  still able to think for themselves, and  who haven’t been reduced to being obedient zombies, obeying  party bosses and toeing  a party line. Too many have  already died, and too many are still being killed. It is time for the silent majority of citizens to speak up, and demand  that their representatives, whether liberal or conservative, end  this murderous campaign. Now!


Frank Scott, who lives in San Rafael, is a freelance political columnist and is president of the Marin Democratic Club

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