: Americans are in danger of succumbing to the fatal sins of
: empires-arrogance and ignorance.
: We should not overestimate ourselves or underestimate those
: who may become our enemies.
: It's very important to understand what happened with the USS
: Cole. Two men in a small boat with a few hundred bucks
: worth of explosives took out a tremendously expensive,
: tremendously sophisticated and hightech warship.
: Except for the heroic, almost superhuman efforts of the
: surviving crew members, that ship would have gone to the

: bottom. As it is, the ship will be out of service, I would
: guess, for at least two years, Taxpayers will have to shell
: out a minimum of $150 million to get her seaworthy again.
: There are lots of men with powerful convictions. There are
: lots of small boats and secondhand trucks. The world is
: awash in cheap explosives.
: The disadvantages of high-tech weapons systems is that they
: are designed to fight conventional wars. They can be
: vulnerable to low-tech attack. They can also prove to be
: ineffective on the offense. Think back to the high-tech
: bombing campaign against Yugoslavia.
: Despite the heifer-dust from the administration, the campaign
: was militarily ineffective. Robert Fisk, a great reporter
: with the British Independent, observed that the serb forces
: in Kosovo came out intact, with nearly all of their armor
: and artillery. we had, in addition to civilian targets,
: bombed a lot of plywood tanks and bridges painted on
: canvas.
: Thats what can happen when the world's largest superpower,
: attacking a nation of 10 million people, is afraid to let
: its pilots fly lower than 15,000 feet. The agreement
: Yogoslav President Slobodan Milosevic signed was one he
: would have signed before the bombing. It took the
: jurisdiction away from the North Atlantic Treaty
: Organizaation and put it into the United Nations, and it
: guarantees that Kosovo will remain part of Yugoslavia.
: In the meantime, the super-sophisticated and expensive Apache
: anti-tank hekicopters needed a month to get from Germany to
: the Balkans, a trip of just a few hours.They never flew
: combat missions, and two were lost to accidents.
: The American Revolution succeeded because the British were
: arrogant and contemptous of "colonials" whom they
: considered inferior.
: What scares me most is that the elites who run the federal
: government show all the traits of the British in 1776. They
: are arrogant They consider the rest of the world-including
: their fellow Americans-to be their inferioors, And they are
: grossly ignorant.
: Madeleine Albright, so typical of the Clinton administration,
: said on television that the embargo against Saddam Hussein
: was worth the lives of 500,000 Iraqi children. Now, that
: shows, of course, her own immorality and callous
: indifference to other people's suffering. But it is a.also
: stupid diplomacy.
: Her statement has been broadcast far and wide in the Arab
: world. It sends an unmistakable message: "You people
: simply don't count, as far as we are concerned."
: That's how you make enemies, it is not the job of a secretary
: of state to make enemies.
: If George Bush wins, he's going to have his hands full, not
: only fumigating the White House but routing out the
: incompetents the Clinton administration brought to power,
: reshaping American foreign policy and rebuilding the armed
: forces.
: Most of all we need a change of attitude and recognition that
: our jurisdiction stops at our own borders. Nobody appointed
: us lord and emperor of the world. Trust me. The decline of
: an empire is bad enough. You surely don't want to be around
: for the fall.
:
: _______________________________________________________________
: Edited by Hannibal: Americans are in a bad situation due to
: decades of brainwashing. They have been told they have no
: national identity, their sole purpose for living and the
: thrust of their taxation and foreign policy is to ensure
: the survival of Israel. They may well experience a similiar
: incineration along with the state of Israel as a result of
: their ignorance.
: Americans have tolerated the likes of Madeleine Albright as
: Secretary of State, a woman who just recently discovered
: she was Jewish, (I realized this ten years ago, she should
: have asked me)
: .Ms. Albright, is not concerned about the 500,000 dead Iraqi
: children. I can assure you it is highly likely that Arab
: nations who are now receiving some of the most
: sophisticated weaponry will not be concerned about 500,000
: American children either. That is the way the world works.
: My advice to Americans is to awaken from their slumber. One
: cannot remain both free and ignorant for a long period of
: time.

Absolutely. Arrogance blinds you to your own shortcomings and obscures the strengths of others. So like they say: Pride comes before a fall. In this regard it is worth considering the following:
Recent reports from Russia would seem to indicate that NATO forces sustained far heavier losses in the Balkans campaign than was publicly acknowledged. A steady stream of factual information from the Russian media, mostly based on official Russian military sources - who were in a position to know, Russia having had two ships in the Adriatic during the Balkans campaign, which monitored the fighting through electronic surveillance - would seem to indicate that NATO suffered some significant losses. Amongst these were nearly 60 aircraft, including 3 F-117A Stealth fighters, helicopters and an RAF C-130 Hercules which crashed on June 11 in Albania. At the time, according to Tass, the Hercules was transporting a British SAS unit who were trying to beat Russian paratroopers in the race to the Slatina base.
These figures are close to the figure of 68 NATO planes and helicopters downed by the Yugoslavs, a claim made by Gen. Spasoje Smiljanic, the then commander of Yugoslav Air Force and Air Defence.

According ITAR-TASS the reason the US did not use its Apache helicopters in Kosova was not technical problems or insufficient training, as was claimed by NATO spokesmen at the time. In fact, the article says, the real reason was a daring ground attack carried out by Yugoslav "Galeb" fighters against the "Rinas" airport in Albania, where the helicopters were based; as a result many of the helicopters were either damaged or destroyed. A similar operation was carried out on April 18 against the Tuzla airport in Bosnia, used as an emergency landing site for NATO aircraft, and in this attack some 15 NATO aircraft were destroyed on the ground.

In short NATO air power suffered some considerable battle damage and this has been partially corroborated by an article published in London's Observer, earlier this year. In an investigative report writer Anthony Barnet discovered that:

124 of the RAF's fleet of 186 Tornado bombers are grounded.

Fewer than 40% of other frontline aircraft, including Harriers and Jaguars, are ready to fly at short notice.

In addition low morale has become something of a problem and the RAF is having severe problems retaining trained pilots.

Any guesses as to why? Source: truthinmedia.org
First published in the Seeker no 5.
Available from: PO Box 458, Devizes, Wiltshire, SN10 1UL, UK.
£3.00 p&p inclusive UK & Europe
£3.50 p&p inclusive rest of the world