Link from Drudge site:

http://news.stocksmartpro.com/ss-news/CX1604853.html

Text:

Friday March 26, 10:25 PM (EST)

Russia will render humanitarian aid to Yugoslavia.

MOSCOW, March 27 (Itar-Tass) - The Russian leadership "has decided to render humanitarian aid to Yugoslavia and its deliveries can be expected to begin shorly," Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov stated here on Friday.

He noted that peaceful civilians were suffering from the NATO missile strikes and bombing raids on Yugoslavia, that hospitals were being destroyed and many people were wounded. All this calls for large quantities of medicines, field hospitals, and other aid.

"As to the problem of flying to Yugoslavia, we believe that there will be no country in Europe that will prevent aircraft with humanitarian aid on board from flying over its territory," the minister stated.

"I think," Ivanov added, "that it would be right if the other European countries and international organisation were to join this initiative to render such humanitarian aid. The Yugoslavian people are in plight, and we must help them.".

Question: Can other types of intervention be far behind?

-- Greybear (greybear@home.com), March 27, 1999

Answers

The Serbian War (Since everyone else is taking unilateral action, I've unilaterally decided to officially name this event: The Serbian War).

The Serbian War has already been deemed a succes by the administration. Not one guest on any nationally televised Sunday talk show scheduled for this weekend will discuss y2k.

-- PNG (png@gol.com), March 27, 1999.

Greybear..

Only comment appropriate at this time is OH, S**T!!!

I guess Billy and his worldbuilders have seriously stepped in it this time. One thing about bears and wolves...don't wake them up unless you have a death wish (or good food). I guess this could apply to the Russian Bear as well.

You know...the Russian leaders also need something to divert the masses' attention from the floundering economy over there. Syncronicity???

-- Lobo (Hiding@woods.co), March 27, 1999.

I think that old saying "Hell aint half full" is about to become obsolete.

-- Nikoli Krushev (doomsday@y2000.com), March 27, 1999.

Where is that space/time twister of Mr. Heinlein's when you desperately need it??

Damn fools!! ALL of them!!

-- Lobo (Hiding@woods.com), March 27, 1999.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!!!

-- KoFE (Up@thecrackofd.awn), March 27, 1999.

Yup PNG, nothing like a couple of wars to distract J. Q. Public. It's even got this forum distracted! <:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), March 27, 1999.

Compared to the spectre of thermonuclear war, Y2K is positively CHEERFUL!

-- Spidey (in@jam.com), March 27, 1999.

Knowing the Russians, "humanitarian" items won't be the only thing those planes will be carrying.

-- sparks (wireless@home.com), March 27, 1999.

I agree that Y2K pales in comparison to nuclear, biological and chemical war - which I fear the Liar in Chief is heading us towards. However, this is a Y2K forum. Is a new forum ("Surviving WWIII?") in order? Perhaps there is already a USENET group discussing this?

-- Anonymous99 (Anonymous99@Anonymous.com), March 27, 1999.

Good morning, everyone. What a weird ride we're on, eh?

Bill has had good distracting luck with bombings before. Now he's trying to distract from Monica's book tour? No, really, I think he's on a residual distraction kick here -- just proving that he can bomb post-impeachment as well as pre- , therefore he's not really a doggie- waggin' type guy.

(Hey! wasn't it ALBANIA in WTD? ~~~"C'mon Jor, can't be THAT close; yer still jus' wakin' up, huh?~~~ Help me here, anyone?)

Pretty close, anyway.

The trouble with being Prez in the media soundbyte age is you don't get the Bang For Your Bombs you used to. It passes right through the headlines -- not even the staying power of a good "L.A. Law"-style O.J. trial. I doubt it's good for very much y2k distraction.

He may also be just a bit tipped in the t^ete after what he's been through the past year -- wouldn't you? I mean, this bombing may have looked logical and unavoidable from the other side, but now... damn! you're tilting with some awful unstable forces.

The only out that's occurred to me is he should have put himself on the line, Gandhi-like (not _our_ Billy, no) and gone to Belgrade or Kosovo, and brought the cameras and put Milosevic (sp?) on the spot of world shame (as if....). Anyway, that's all I could think of.

Maybe this'll be The Year of Wishing I Had Been Impeached AND Removed From Office Anyway.

-- jor-el (jor-el@krypton.com), March 27, 1999.

Well,

Y2K, Russia and war is still linked, whatever our attention span.

Always thought a 10 was global thermonuclear war.

Diane, shakey 5 still

*Sigh*

More ...

Kosovo conflict prompts Russia to end cooperation with U.S. on Y2K < br> CHRIS ALLBRITTON, AP Cyberspace Writer
Saturday, March 27, 1999

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/ article.cgi?file=/news/archive/1999/03/27/national0337EST0459.DTL

(03-27) 00:37 PST NEW YORK (AP) -- In another show of protest over the fighting in Kosovo, Russia's Defense Ministry said it will stop cooperating with the United States on the Y2K computer problem.

A ministry spokesman made the announcement Friday to a government committee that is tackling the problem, the Interfax news agency said.

In Washington, Sen. Robert F. Bennett, chairman of the Senate Special Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem, urged Russia to reconsider.

``I think it's very shortsighted and potentially dangerous,'' he said. ``It doesn't mean something bad is going to happen. But it means that our chances of preventing something bad from happening just went down.''

Western defense officials have been working with Russia on upgrading its computers for fear that the cash-starved country has not done enough to tackle the millennium bug. Some fear that faulty computers could trigger false alarms on Russia's nuclear early warning systems.

Accidental launches of nuclear missiles are highly unlikely, experts in both countries said, but they urged extra precautions until the computer problem is fixed.

``The potential for nuclear accident is very small, but the thing we're finding here is that Y2K problems can kick off human errors,'' Bennett said. ``The best way to make sure some human doesn't make a mistake because of Y2K is mutual and open dialogue.''

As part of the effort, the two countries had planned to station experts in each other's nuclear facilities in the months before and after Jan. 1, 2000. The program was to be mostly U.S.-funded.

The Y2K bug occurs because many computers programmed to recognize only the last two digits of a year won't work properly beginning Jan. 1, 2000, when machines will assume it is 1900. Some computers can be reprogrammed, but many devices have embedded microchips that must be replaced.

And for additional perspective ...

E-mail messages from Kosovo bring home horror of war
WILLIAM SCHIFFMANN, Associated Press Writer
Saturday, March 27, 1999

(03-27) 02:07 EST SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Her face is a mystery, but the e-mailed words of a16-year-old girl struggling to survive in Kosovo paint a stark picture of life in a land torn by war. ...

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/ article.cgi?file=/news/archive/1999/03/27/national0207EST0451.DTL

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), March 27, 1999.

Oh my...this is serious. What the heck are we going to do if we accidentally shoot down one of these Russian aid planes? Accidents in the "fog of war" are almost a certainty. Who's to say that the Russians won't be part of the "collateral damage?" Who's to say that certain cynical generals wouldn't "sacrifice" a plane in order to make a big issue out of this? I think I'm gonna be sick again.

-- coprolith (coprolith@rocketship.com), March 27, 1999.

Anon.. Although the Russians 'helping' the Slob doesn't seem to be y2k related, the diversion of attention from the y2k remediation efforts does have severe impact. If the efforts of the DOD are essentially refocused toward making war, then the net effect is to decrease the efforts toward making sure the DOD works on 1/1/2000. They are already the worst prepared agency except USAID.

Of course, then we have the information posted by Diane above about the Russians stopping cooperation with the Western countries relating to y2k. Given the level to which the Russians were preparing before (with US providing the cash) what makes anyone think that they will do as well or better on their own?

Can you say Chernobyl??? six times fast??

Regarding Yugoslavia...can you say Vietnam??? or Afganistan?? Gee, I knew you could.

Brother Bill has bit off something he will not be able to lie out of or spin into oblivion. I'm thinking we probably need some blic outrage directed at our Congressional representatives (the louder, the better. Sometimes they can't hear because the walls of their anal canal blocks the sounds of the public).

-- Lobo (Hiding@woods.com), March 27, 1999.

I have written to my congressman and my senators begging them to do something to stop this madness. Twice.

I urge everyone else to lambast their representatives on this subject.

Perhaps if they know the American people are against this illegal action, they will *do something*? Doubtful but at least you can say you did something too.

Frustrating.....

-- Bobbi (bobbia@slic.com), March 27, 1999.

``I think it's very shortsighted and potentially dangerous,'' he said. ``It doesn't mean something bad is going to happen. But it means that our chances of preventing something bad from happening just went down.'' -- Sen. Robert F. Bennett

Sorta just goes to show Y2K impact is (almost) all local. As are the mop up crews.

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), March 27, 1999.

One phone call to your congressman/woman supposedly represents 100 people. One letter supposedly represents 1000.

And personally--I suspect "public opinion polls" can be manipulated. I even suspect that "pollsters in charge" of public opinion polls can be bought.

Direct contact from voters is the only way.

-- FM (vidprof@aol.com), March 27, 1999.

It's Y2K-driven. "Use it or lose it." They just can't stand seeing all those $$$$$$$ weapons going garble-trash in 9 months. FWIW, it *is* horrible to watch/know about the genocide. We read about some weird bio-lab where scientists were determining race factors from DNA and concocting/targeting lethal viruses per race. Sounds like even genocide is going to go high-tech. Let me out!

xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxx

-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), March 27, 1999.

FM, Just a tidbit. Saw an interesting interview with a pollster a few days ago and he said that currently 50% of the people reached for a phone- based poll refuse to participate. He said that this surely skews the result somewhat but that he would would not be overly concerned until the refusal rate reaches 60%.

-- No No (nono@nogo.com), March 27, 1999.

Greybear, (and all) WWIII anyone?

Link

Nationalist leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, wearing an army colonel's uniform, told the Duma, ``The Third World War started on March 24.''

-- Deborah (infowars@yahoo.com), March 27, 1999.

FM -

Ever wonder where they got the 60%+ people who didn't want him impeached? Certainly didn't represent a single person I know...not one.

-- Valkyrie (anon@please.net), March 27, 1999.

The Russians do not have to send in their military to cause a catastrophe. They could simply cut off the natural gas deliveries to Europe. Of course, we would cut off our food exports to the Russians and many would starve.

-- Angry at Clinton (Angry@clinton.com), March 27, 1999.

I think it says something about the deterioration of the American political system (and the west in general) that a politico-military ploy by a hack politician in the whitehouse could end up being responsible for starting WWW III...essentially by mistake...

Arlin

[who isn't a great believer in conspiracy theories, but knows how to spot a fool when he sees one...]

-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), March 27, 1999.

So ends this dark century. As it begun with a Serbian inspired War. we most all now pray Russia acts rationally. If not; just remember it only takes a few minutes for the Russians to re-target all those missles we refused to buy in the early 90's. Bill Clinton is once again showing his love of living on the edge. Unfortunately, this time we're all being dragged there with him.

-- Glenn L. Klotz (lee00@earthlink.net), March 27, 1999.

Arlin -- I agree. As I said on another, related thread, Occam's Razor suggests that the scariest thing about this is simply that Slick is out of his league and in way over his head, as are the mediocrities around him. Rightly understood, that is more terrifying than ascribing conspiratorial motives.

I'm counting on Slick's fundamental passivity to weave us out of here in the short run (with the usual declaration of victory), but not before there has been a PERMANENT ratcheting up of tension and risk. That's just an opinion, I'm not a prophet. But I don't believe we (that is, Slick) actually wants a head-on confrontation with Russia and I don't believe Russia is quite ready to confront us either. Yet.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), March 27, 1999.

Well the Yugoslavs have taken down one of our F-117 stealth fighters. Since this plane is invisible to radar and normally attacks from altitudes too high for anti-aircraft fire I think it was probably shot down by cannon fire from one of the new Russian Stealth fighters. This is the only stealth ever lost in combat. None were lost over Iraq. If I am correct the Russians are using their few Stealths to ambush NATO planes over Yugoslavia, and that aint good.

-- Nikoli Krushev (doomsday@y2000.com), March 27, 1999.

Nikolai,

If the Serbs brought down that F-117, they got lucky and hit the plane with the "Golden BB", the one dollar anti-aircraft round that brings a return of tens of millions of dollars. I actually think that a malfunction with the aircraft or its weapons may have caused the plane to go down. With the aircraft coming down thirty miles west of Belgrade it's likely it was egressing its target area where it may have taken a light hit. Or it may have had a weapon explode shortly after release. That does happen from time to time when fuzes go bad.

Either way the plane got maybe thirty miles and looks to have come down relatively intact. If the F-117 had been knocked down by a hard hit, the crash site photos would have looked more the pictures of the F-117 crash at the Baltimore airshow. In that one there weren't as many recognizable pieces as I just saw on CNN.

No matter what brought down the F-117, this is not good news. We just handed a very advanced weapons system to the very good friends of our adversaries, the Russians. Who are going to be flying large cargo planes to Serbia and probably won't be flying home empty *now*.

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), March 27, 1999.

its strange over here, the public do not see Russian intervention as a potential danger (neither does the government)

-- dick of the dale (rdale@coynet.com), March 29, 1999.

No No and Valkyrie,

Interesting observations on who gets polled. Now think about this for a minute.

We live in a busy world. Phone rings. People who can afford it, have caller I.D. They don't know who's calling, they don't answer. 'Let the voice mail get it. Heck, some people even have "privacy manager" now which means unidentified callers hardly ever make the phone ring at all.

What's on the opposite end of the spectrum? People who have telephones and feel flattered that someone wants their opinion. The rest of us either don't have time or don't feel comfortable giving our opinion to a total stranger! (That's why we're allowed to cast our vote privately.)

So WHO GETS POLLED? Think about it!

One other item while I'm ranting. I read this morning that Primakov (I probably misspelled his name) is headed to Yugoslavia to try to negotiate an end to this mess. It that is indeed true, and his efforts are successful, that could be a good thing, because it would restore some pride to Russia. On the other hand, isn't he a communist? This whole thing is a mess. If so inclined, say prayers for the innocents on both sides. I am.

-- FM (vidprof@aol.com), March 29, 1999.

Perhaps, as the truth of the Kosovo situation leaks out, global opinion will shift and strengthen.

Well see. Meanwhile, its all a sad, sad mess.

Diane

Posted at 8:03 a.m. PST Monday, March 29, 1999

NATO says five Kosovo leaders executed

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO said Monday that five prominent Kosovo Albanians, including Fehmi Agani, a member of the delegation to peace talks in France, had been executed.

NATO military spokesman Air Commodore David Wilby told a news conference that reliable sources reported that, apart from Agani, four other prominent Albanians had been put to death on Sunday, including Baton Haxhiu, editor in chief of the main Kosovo Albanian newspaper, Koha Ditore. ...

http:/ /www.mercurycenter.com/breaking/docs/007749.htm

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), March 29, 1999.

WW... Just watched some more footage of the crashed F-117 on MSNBC, shot in the daylight. Close ups show what appear to be 20mm cannon holes across the TOP of the right wing. (Indented to show bullets were incoming from that side) According to History channel max range of a ground based 20 mm anti-aircraft gun is about twelve thousand feet.Using this as a base we can figure the plane was either flying upside down at low altitude or was dived on from above by a fighter which used cannon fire to knock it down being unable to establish a missile lock. If you think about it a minute, it was a cloudy night, and ground fires from the raids would have underlit the cloud banks causing them to flouresce. A high orbiting Russian stealth fighter would have been able to see the slow moving American steealth's black arrowhead shape superimposed on the glowing cloud surface, and simply dive in behind him with speed brakes deployed, then gun him out of the sky.

-- Nikoli Krushev (doomsday@y2000.com), March 29, 1999.

And now Milosevic's secretary is down at Lowe's with a paint chip: "can you match this?"......

CNN has some poll results: CNN

-- Lisa (man@oh.man), March 29, 1999.

There are a couple of good articles on www.jbs.org on Kosovo and Clinton's end run around the constitution.

-- Sharon (sking@drought-ridden.com), March 29, 1999.