>Sounds there were three incidents yesterday in which Madeleine Albright
>will be able to congratulate NATO for showing its moral superiority to
>Milosevic by killing civilians by accident rather than on purpose. (!)
>NATO is giving its responses slowly no doubt at least partly to diffuse the
>news impact.
>It sounds as if a small bridge was targetted on market day in the middle of
>the day, instead of a larger bridge nearby. It was hit again after 15
>minutes by the time rescuers had arrived to help the earlier victims.
>Then there is the attack on the sanatorium in Surdelica, with another 11
>reported dead, and the attack on the convoy of journalists in Kosovo.
>All these may either build momentum for an early pause in the bombing or
>momentum for Carter's strategy of putting more emphasis on ground troops.
>Michale Pollak asked:-
>>Has there been any indication that Macedonia has shifted from the position
>>it has held since the beginning of the war, that it would not allow troops
>>to attack Serbia from its territory? Or that Greece has shifted from its
>>insistence that it will not allow Thessalonika to be used as a port of
>>invasion? My impression from Tariq Ali's most recent article in
>>Counterpunch is that both positions have if anything hardened. Without
>>changes in those positions, an invasion from Macedonia is a fantasy. The
>>only possible routes would be in from Albania, or attacking Montenegro and
>>going in through there, or attacking the rest of Yugoslavia first through
>>Hungary. In which case I wonder wonder what this targetting story
>>represents -- ignorance, wishful thinking, posturing or secret diplomacy.
>I would have thought that throughout, this war has developed through a
>process of movement in which NATO has not been united but Clinton and Blair
>have calculated at any one time how far the next move can go, and how to
>prepare for it.
>For example less than two weeks ago, Schroeder declared a ground invasion
>"unthinkable". Blair and Cook got people thinking about it by proposing the
>scenario of what would happen if the Serb troops were demoralised, lightly
>armed, but not surrendering. The question was also posed about the need to
>give a signal to Milosevic even if not acting upon it. Last week the troops
>were built up to 50,000.
>Although NATO continues to hold that the people of Kosovo should look only
>to them, as condescending saviours, and that the KLA should not be armed,
>the shelling by Serbs into Albania, has given an excuse for NATO planes to
>work in close coordination with KLA fighters on the ground in attacking
>Serb positions near the border. We could still see the scenario develop
>that if the KLA could secure some land with infantry then the Apache
>helicopters could move in behind this with safety from shoulder to air
>rockets.
>The Serb repetion of an agreement with the G8 principles today suggests the
>possibility of an end soon.
>All these different stories may contribute to NATO being able to shrug off
>a day of 20 or more civilian deaths without having to call a pause in its
>bombing.
>What is the peace platform for the demonstrations planned for Washington
>and London for 5th June? It will not be enough to have even a moderately
>large demonstration in both capitals expressing moral objection to the war,
>because that is counterbalanced by moral objection to what the Serbs have
>done to the Kosovans.
>Chris Burford
>London