More on Yugoslavia: an ETS! friend who is in Kosovo contradicts last week's report that Kosovo Albanian moderate leader Ibrahim Rugova has called for a halt to bombing; however, the 4-17-99 Seattle Times reported a German paper quoting Rugova as agreeing that "a halt to bombings was essential before any political agreement could be worked out." Rugova, and other Kosovar Albanaian leaders, have been under house arrest since the bombing began.

One of the difficulties of this (as any) war is sorting out the self-serving and contradictory propaganda coming from both sides. NATO harps on the refugee crisis and attributes it to sinister plots by Milosevic, but ignores the effects of its Gulf War-style saturation bombing; Serbia plays up the civilian casualties from bombing, but ignores the refugees. The safest course is to attribute the worst to both sides: NATO is bombing civilians, and Milosovic's forces do have something to do with the massive outflow of refugees. But it's impossible to believe that the massive bombing of Serbia's poorest province, as terrifying as any Serb troops and making present and future livelihoods unthinkable, doesn't have something to do with that crisis, also. And then, of course, we bomb the refugee convoys (and blame Milosevic, natch.) It's hard to see how we're going to get out of this one without far more displacement and loss of civilian life. Overall, the conclusion remains: NATO is making any humanitarian crisis far worse, not better. --Geov Parrish

Reports range from speculation to confirmed that NATO forces are using depleted uranium weaponry in their bombing attacks on Belgrade and other targets, both urban and rural. DU is widely suspected of being one of the factors in Gulf War Syndrome, and that's just for the U.S. soldiers that handled it; impact on the civilian population down below the crosshairs has been impossible to separate out from among Iraq's many other public health crises. But it's another reminder that the U.S. military wouldn't know humanitarianism if it bit its ass. --G.P.

In case you're still confused about the nature of the NATO (i.e., U.S.) war in Kosovo, some recent developments should change your mind about it being a "good war." These were reported in the Sunday Seattle Times of April 18, buried deep inside the paper and presented as small, one-paragraph snippets that apparently need no elaboration (although many of us might disagree). Macedonia, a neighboring Yugoslav republic that has accepted an enormous influx of Kosovar Albanian refugees, is pissed off at the KLA and warning it to stop destabilizing the region. In the past few days, Macedonian officials have confiscated four tons of KLA weapons presumably being shipped to the KLA in Kosovo. At the same time, U.S. officials have been holding secret talks with the KLA about sending them European anti-tank weapons and "other support," according to U.S. News and World Report. Now who's right? Macedonia, who lives next door to the KLA and knows its extremist history, or the U.S., who is now violating an international ban on weapons shipments to the region? In the meantime, Hungary--the only NATO country that shares a border with Yugoslavia--has refused to be a staging area for any NATO troop incursions into Yugoslavia. Good for them.--Maria Tomchick

Meanwhile, here at home, media reports about Serbian atrocities and mass graves (people die from aerial bombing, too--especially when NATO planes drop anti-personnel cluster bombs on migrating refugees) has helped about 400 U.S. men and women decide to join the KLA as mercenaries and support personnel. They'll be joining about 10,000 other recruits from ethnic Albanian communities in Europe. At this rate, the KLA is quickly becoming NATO's troops on the ground--a situation far preferable to U.S. officials than sending in our own troops. While this is pretty disgusting, it pales in comparison to NATO's lame efforts to weasel out of responsibility for bombing Albanian refugees. Let's review them: first, there was the argument that "we didn't do it"; it was really Serbian troops taking revenge on nearby refugees after NATO had bombed their troop column. Yeah, right. Even before regrouping, tending to their wounded, burying their dead, calling in reinforcements, etc., those vile Serbs just had to run around looking for some Albanians to massacre. When that didn't hold up (because there were no Serbian troops anywhere in the vicinity) there was still this lie given by one NATO spokesperson regarding civilian Serb deaths from NATO bombing: Serb troops are butchering their own civilians to make it look like we did it. I can't express how appalling this whole exercise in denial is--from NATO's lies to the media's gullibility. From 15,000 feet NATO planes can't tell the difference between refugees and troops. Period. Here's what British Maj. Charles Heyman, editor of Jane's World Armies, says about the Serbian army: "I've seen photographs. Where their tanks and armored vehicles are properly camouflaged, it's difficult to see them even when you're standing on the ground 25 meters away." Surgical strikes, my ass.--M.T. For doubters: the Heyman quote comes from "Ground War? What NATO Would Face" by Michael Kilian, The Chicago Tribune, as reprinted in the Seattle Times, April 18, page 1.

Hey, there was a tremendous victory last week for anti-MAI organizing, not just in Seattle but around the world. The Seattle City Council voted on April 12 by an 8-0 margin to pass a strongly worded anti-MAI (Multilateral Agreement on Investments: the corporate uber alles WTO successor for the world of finance) resolution. That joins resolutions passed previously by unanimous margins in King and Snohomish counties. It's a powerful and useful statement, here and internationally, that the host city for the upcoming WTO talks doesn't want any part of the MAI. Good work, Sally Soriano and the other organizers who made it possible. --G.P.