[PEN-L:6578] Fwd: RE: Was it a mistake?

[Robert Naiman <naimanr@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>From: "Craven, Jim" <jcraven@xxxxxxxxx>
>To: "'naimanr@xxxxxxxxxxxx'" <naimanr@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: RE: [PEN-L:6554] Was it a mistake?
>Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 07:31:40 -0700
>X-RCPT-TO: <naimanr@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
>Robert:
>
>I was on the phone last night with someone who was 25 years in intelligence
>work and who maintains contacts inside the intelligence community. This is
>someone who is well published and well known for this person's background as
>a deep cover agent. This person told me that the CIA got stung and that the
>Serbs gave out disinformation to a known agent that the building housing the
>Chinese embassy was a logistics center for the Serb Army. The intent and
>results were obvious: Chinese, who opposed the bombing and have veto power
>in the UN are pissed off and the riff widens. Now this may be some more
>disinformation but it does not make the CIA look good and it does not get
>the US off the hook and it is unlikely to make the Chinese pissed off at the
>Serbs.
>
>You can pass this on to pen-l as I cannot access from this computer only
>receive for some reason.
>
>Jim Craven
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Robert Naiman [mailto:naimanr@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
>Sent: Sunday, May 09, 1999 5:31 PM
>To: jcraven@xxxxxxxxx
>Subject: [PEN-L:6554] Was it a mistake?
>
>
>One does have to wonder if the bombing of the Chinese Embassy was a mistake.
>It it quite a coincidence.
>We'll probably never know, and the accusation that they did it on purpose is
>hard to prove.
>But there is a pattern of U.S. hits on certain civilian targets that were
>claimed to be mistakes at the time, which were accepted to be mistakes in
>the United States, but were not interpreted as mistakes by the target
>country.
>
>For example, there was the downing of the Iranian Airbus. The U.S. claimed
>it was a mistake. If memory serves, the Iranians thought it was intentional,
>and this was a key factor in Khomeini's decision to make peace with Iraq
>(which he described as drinking poison) on the grounds that the U.S. had
>signaled that it was ready to intervene massively and brutally on the Iraqi
>side.
>
>Again, if memory serves, in a bombing of Libya the U.S. hit an embassy of a
>country that had been critical of U.S. policy. It was France or the S.U., I
>think.
>
>Considering the pattern of recent bombings, U.S./NATO seems to have thrown
>aside the pretense of avoiding civilian targets. We seem to be witnessing
>"total war" with the idea that it is perfectly acceptable and strategic to
>target the civilian population as a way of pressuring the regime, as in
>Iraq, combined perhaps with a sort of Nixonian "mad dog" approach that the
>target regime should be convinced that the U.S./NATO is totally nuts, ready
>to kill anyone.
>
>I hadn't been following reports from China, but the things that I have read
>and heard in the last couple of days suggest that government, media, and
>public opinion have been very anti-NATO for some time. And that the Chinese
>government was prepared to oppose the U.S. in the Security Council on the
>war. The Chinese government and the Chinese public seem to believe that the
>bombing was intentional, perhaps to send a signal to China that the U.S. is
>prepared to punish them for resisting U.S. policy.
>
>The current story is that they bombed the building on purpose (hence the 3
>missiles), based on "intelligence" that it was something else, intelligence
>that was "several years old."
>
>Is this really credible, that they would be so sloppy? We always knew that
>"pinpoint" bombing was a fraud, but how hard is it to avoid bombing the
>embassies of other countries? Surely they have a list of buildings to avoid.
>When Israel was bombing Lebanon in 1996, they had a list from the UN of UN
>sites, in order not to bomb them (a key reason that UN personnel were
>suspicious when Israel bombed Qana "by mistake" -Qana was on the list).
>
>Either it was intentional, or they are totally incompetent, or totally
>callous. Or some combination thereof.
>-------------------------------
>Robert Naiman <naimanr@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Preamble Center
>1737 21st NW
>Washington, DC 20009
>phone: 202-265-3263
>fax:   202-265-3647
>http://www.preamble.org/
>-------------------------------

-------------------------------
Robert Naiman <naimanr@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Preamble Center
1737 21st NW
Washington, DC 20009
phone: 202-265-3263
fax:   202-265-3647
http://www.preamble.org/
-------------------------------