Michael Moore [ Mike's Message of the Day] (fwd)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 16 Apr 1999 12:09:35 -0500
From: Sam Webb <swebb@cpusa.org>
To: USLIST@rednet.org
Subject: Michael Moore [ Mike's Message of the Day]

The Bombing of Kosovo

4/15/99

Dear friends,

As we file our taxes today (procrastinators, all of
us), and we sign our names on the bottom line of
our 1040 tax forms, perhaps we should ask
ourselves if what we are doing is signing a death
warrant for people we don't even know. Because
each night, for the past three weeks, millions of
dollars of bombs and missiles -- that you and I
paid for -- are being used to kill people in the
former Yugoslavia. That makes you and I
culpable in their execution.

Did you personally know any of the people who
were killed in the village of Pristina (capitol of
Kosovo) last week? Had they ever done anything
to harm you? How about the children who were
blown to bits in the building in Prizren? Had they
ever threatened you in any way to cause you to
have to kill them in self-defense? Perhaps you
had met the people who were incinerated by us
on the train to Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Can you
tell me why you would want to take their
lives?

I'm sorry to personalize it in this way, but this
slaughter is being conducted in your name and
mine, and I'll tell you, this is blood I don't want on
my hands. We will all have to answer for this
some day, and  Iwould like to be able to say that
I did not sit by silently while this wasbeing done,
and that I did whatever I could to stop it as soon
as possible.

Right about now, some of you, with all good
intentions, are saying, "But, Mike, this Milosevic
guy is a madman. He's committing genocide.
We should not ignore this as we did the
Holocaust in the early days of World War II.
He must be stopped by any means necessary."

Yes, he must be stopped. But bombing the
people of his country is exactly the wrong way to
stop him. In fact, it has only strengthened him.
There was a growing dissident movement in
Yugoslavia before the war, and every letter I
get from these brave souls tells me that the
bombing has set back their struggle so incredibly
far that they worry they will now be stuck with
Milosevic for a long time. They are pleading
with us to stop it. The bombing has made him a
hero at a time when nearly half of the country
was very unhappy with his leadership. We did
not consult the anti-Milosevic movement in
advance to see if they would like our help in
the form of 10,000 bombing sorties. We just
went off half-cocked on our own, and started
killing the very people we were claiming to save.
Anyone who remembers Vietnam knows that
sordid logic and insanity. We have strengthened
>>>Milosevic and destroyed his opposition. Happy
now?

Friends, Milosevic must be stopped, BUT
BOMBING DOES NOT WORK. It has never
worked. It didn't work in Iraq -- Sadaam is still in
charge no matter how many bombs we have
dropped. It didn't work in Vietnam. During the
Christmas week of 1972, the amount of bombs
we dropped on North Vietnam was equal to half
the tonnage of bombs dropped on England during
World War II.That didn't work, so one month later,
we gave in and announced our complete pull-out.

What a sad, pathetic man Bill Clinton is. Though
many have criticized him for dodging the draft, I
actually admired the fact that he refused to go and
kill Vietnamese. Not all of us from the working
class had that luxury, and tens of thousands of
our brothers died for absolutely no damn reason.
For this "anti-war" President to order such a
misguided, ruthless -- and, yes, cowardly --
attack from the air is a disappointment of massive
proportions.

Bombing didn't work for either side in World War II.
Hitler bombed Britain mercilessly for years, but it
didn't work. Our bombing did nothing to save the
lives of 6 million Jews, 4 million Catholics, Gypsies
and other "undesirables," and 20 million Russians.
Our bombs couldn't even take out one German
machine-gun on top of the cliffs overlooking the
beaches of Normandy. World War II was won
because my father and uncles and your fathers
and grandfathers risked their lives pouring out of
amphibious carriers like sitting ducks on a beach,
crawling through the dead bodies of their friends
and fellow soldiers, and climbing up those cliffs
in France and Italy and the South Pacific. Over a
quarter of a million of them, including my uncle,
died doing this.

And that, my friends, as some are known to say,
is the awful truth. If genocide is really taking place,
the only way to stop it militarily is to send our
children in there and accept the fact that thousands
upon thousands of them will be killed. Are you
willing to do that? Or better yet, this is the question
I always ask myself when confronted with whether
or not Ishould ever support a war: Do I believe
strongly enough in this cause that I MYSELF
would be willing to risk my life to go over there
and square it with my conscience to kill
Yugoslavians.

I have a feeling I know the answer most of you
would give. We know Clinton is lying to us. We
know there is no "Holocaust" taking place. What
IS happening is that two groups of people are
carrying on their centuries-old mission to
annihilate each other. The Kosovo Liberation
Army announced their intentions to rid Kosovo
of all Serbs (the Albanians are the majority in
Kosovo, the Serbs, a minority). That's all a
nutcase like Milosevic needed to justify his
campaign to rid Kosovo of all Albanians. This
is true madness and a lot of innocent people
are losing their lives in the process.

So here's my solution:
>>>
1) Stop the bombing immediately.

2) Get the Russians, whom the Serbs trust, in there
to be the peacekeepers and help resolved the situation.
No American or NATO forces on Kosovo soil.
Russia can do this in spite of the wanker in charge,
Mr. Yeltsin. The Serbs will let them in. Let's get them
on board instead of alienating the Russians even
further.
3) Let the Orthodox Church play a major role in
bringing about the peace. The Serbs are mostly
Orthodox and a strong move by its Patriarch could
do a lot to ending all the bloodshed.


Look, I'm not an expert on any of this. I'm mostly
busy getting my show on the air each week. But
as I sign my 1040 today, I must admit that I am
partly responsible, as an American citizen who
pays his t>>pays his taxes, for this war and I must encourage
whoever I can to join me in demanding an
end to this now.

Last fall, many of us participated in an incredible
act of protest by throwing a bunch of right-wingers
out of Congress. We believed that they were
trying to overturn an election on the basis of
someone's private sexual life and his lies about
it. We won, and the Republicans are now
chopped liver.  Good riddance.

Now, it is time for all of us to stop Clinton and
his disgusting, hypocritical fellow democrats
who support him in this war. It is amazing to
watch all these "liberal" congress members
line up behind the President.  In a way, I'm glad
it's happening, if only to show the American
people there is little difference between the
Democrats and the usually war-loving
Republicans. Aren't you getting a kick watching
the Pat Buchanans and the Henry Hydes sounding
like pacifists! These politicians can change stripes
at the drop of a hat (or bomb) because, ultimately,
they are the same animal, participants in a one-party
system that tries to fool the people by going by
two names ("Democrat" and "Republican").

Please call or write your member of Congress,
send a letter to the editor, let the Democrats know
we have had it with the whole lot of them. This
is OUR country, not theirs and the corporate
interests they really represent.  It's time to start
taking it back.

Each cruise missile that is launched could have
built a dozen schools or hired another hundred
teachers or provided health care to a thousand
people.  Those millions of dollars could have
been spent saving lives and educating children.
Every night, Clinton isn't just bombing Yugoslavia,
he's bombing you.

Yours,

Michael Moore



White House - "President Clinton announced
today an all out bombing offensive against
England will begin in two weeks, unless a peace
accord is ratifiedby England and its break-away
province of Northern  Ireland.


"Using the fine logic we crafted in the Kosovo
intervention, we have decided to add, incrementally,
to the list of peace initiatives around the world,"
he said in a prepared statement. A background
briefing indicated that on a weekly schedule, the
Clinton administration would intervene in the following
areas:

Week 1 - Bombing of England to free Northern Ireland
Week 2 - Bombing of Ankara, Baghdad and
Teheran to free Kurds.
Week 3 - Bombing of Africa to stop Hutus from
killing Tutsis.
Week 4 - Bombing of Istanbul and Athens to fix
the Cyprus problem
Week 5 - Bombing of Madrid to free the Basque
Country.
Week 6 - Bombing of Ottawa to free the
Qubeqcois.
Week 7 - Bombing of Jakarta to free the
Timor Islands
Week 8 - Bombing of New Delhi to free the
Tamils of Sri Lanka
Week 9 - Bombing of Paris to free Corsica
Week 10 Bombing of Washington, D.C. to free
he Confederate of Southern States, held captive
for 139 years.