By Franz Schurmann

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Prediction #12 for Tuesday, May 4th,1999

Clinton Could Be Mulling Dramtic Offer to Serbs: Kill Milosevic and We'll Make You Rich

• Introduction:
  

  This column's Introduction normally provides the background for today's prediction. But today three evaluations came due. Since two of them are identical in fact there are only two. In the case of one of them the evaluation is definite. In the case of the other it is not.

  The first predicted: by the time of the WTO's next meeting on November 30 in Seattle, China will be a full member. The evaluation is: all signs indicate a hit on target (see that prediction).

  The second predicted: The world will know by the beginning of May whether or not it will be setting off on a road leading to world peace or on another leading to world war.

  The evaluation is: the odds favor the former, namely the road towards world peace. But this outcome is not so clear-cut as the first.

  The second prediction as well as today's both deal with the Kosovo war. I thought a more coherent picture would emerge if I put some of the evaluation analysis in this introduction.

  The second evaluation suggests three factors favoring a turn in the road towards world peace:

  (1) Russia's decision not to get involved in the NATO war against Yugoslavia.

  (2) Yugoslavia's isolation not only from the world and European scenes but also from its Balkan neighbors --- Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Greece --- with whom it shares a common religion.

  (3) Despite stresses and strains the NATO countries remain unified in regard to Kosovo, including its three new members --- Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland.

  Nevertheless there is another factor which could yet lead the world to take the other turn in the road. It's quite possible that Miloshevich (I write this and other Serbian names written in Cyrillic script as they are pronounced) will not quit, that the Serbian people will stand behind him to the end and that NATO could become a huge warship which, as a result of inability to win, crashes on the rocks.

  There are plenty of signs --- well reflected in the international media --- that Miloshevich is the main stumbling bloc to an end of the war. The Wall Street Journal of April 29 carried a long piece entitled "the Miloshevich problem." The Arabic-language London-based "Ash-Sharq al-Ausat" on April 26 carried a long interview with Prince Alexander, claimant to the Yugoslav throne, who said Miloshevich is above all else determined to stay in power. On May 2 the same paper carried a piece datelined Belgrade in which liberal nationalist Vuk Drashkovich, just recently fired from the prime-ministership by Miloshevich, said "Miloshevich's main aim is to stay in power." Significantly this statement was carried by the controlled Serbian media.

  Officially NATO's war aims remain those agreed on at the Rambouillet conference by the Albanian, NATO and, initially, Serbian delegates. But Miloshevich suddenly rejected them. Those aims call for all Yugoslav armed forces and paramilitary units to be withdrawn from Kosovo, an armed NATO force to be sent in, and all Albanian refugees to be repatriated.

  Yet since NATO is American dominated, its real aims are those of the Clinton White House. Clinton's rock-bottom aim is to get rid of Miloshevich whom he calls "Europe's last dictator." In an earlier prediction I wrote that Clinton sees Miloshevich as a reincarnation of Hitler.

  If Miloshevich succeeds in holding on to his power the bombings will get worse and worse --- as they did less than 24 hours after the three captured American soldiers were released.

  This pattern is similar to what happened in 1945. Hitler was still frantically scheming to make peace with the Western Allies while presenting himself as a defender of Western Civilization against "Asiatic Russian barbarians." President Roosevelt, however, stuck with his "unconditional surrender" demands.

  In the late winter and spring of 1945 the US and Britain undertook the most massive bombing of German cities in WW II. That culminated in the bombing of the open city Dresden only a short time before Germany's surrender which, according to some estimates, killed and injured some two hundred thousand people. V. E. Day didn't come until Hitler had himself killed in his Berlin bunker. Within hours of his demise the vast Nazi state with its huge armies disintegrated.

  Will history repeat itself? Or will the old adage that history never repeats itself this time come true?

  This suggests that Prediction #12 must again deal with the Kosovo war.

• Prediction:
  President Clinton will soon make an offer to the Serbian people. He will guarantee Yugoslavia's unity including Kosovo and offer them a generous Marshall plan to rebuild Yugoslavia with the hope that some day they can be integrated into a united Europe. This offer will have one main condition: that the Serbian people get rid of Slobodan Miloshevich --- and possibly, some other prominent war criminals --- either by overthrowing him, delivering him to the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague or killing him. Once this condition is fulfilled the war will immediately end.

• Outcome:
  Prediction #12 will be evaluated on Tuesday, June 22, 1999

Bill Clinton is a very well read man. He knows that in 1945 a triumphant America handled its two great but beaten enemies in different ways. Towards Germany Roosevelt had only one demand: unconditional surrender. As a result the German state disintegrated and the country was dismembered. FDR died only weeks before V.E. Day.

In the Potsdam summit conference of July 1945 President Truman convinced Stalin and Churchill's successor Clement Attlee to accept a different approach for Japan. While they called for war criminals to be tried they agreed to leave the emperor untouched. As a result the Japanese state did not disintegrate nor was Japan dismembered.

I predict that Clinton is contemplating a Japan-style surrender by Yugoslavia. Make no mistake about it. Unless there is a surprise --- and nothing points to one today --- NATO's and the White House's aims call for Yugoslavia to accept the Rambouillet proposals. That means surrender --- but not unconditional.

Two reasons can be mentioned why Truman deviated from unconditional surrender in the case of Japan. One is that it, along with the atomic bomb, spared America from committing ground forces to an invasion of Japan proper. The second is that Japan had a long history of civil war which the destruction of the imperial institutions could have rekindled.

Conditional surrender for Japan worked beautifully. Even today Japanese, regardless of political inclination, are thankful for the American occupation. Soon enough America realized in 1946 that it had to change post-war policy towards Germany. The eventual result was that Truman, through his "MacArthur" in Germany, General Lucius Clay, started implementing a policy towards Germany similar to that in Japan.

Nationalist Serbs have concerns similar to those of the Japanese in 1945. They do not want to see their state dismantled and they are afraid that if defeated by NATO civil strife could erupt among Serbs. That would mean not only that the Serbian/Yugoslav state would disappear but the Serbian nation as well. That happened to them after the fateful battle of Kosovo Polye, "field of blackbirds," in 1389.

If the bombing goes on much longer Serbia runs the risk of being bombed back into the Stone Age. Vietnam, threatened with the same fate three decades ago, never succumbed to American bombing because it was --- and still is --- so rural. Serbia is different. It's cities, life-styles and many towns as well are Western. Even if they should defeat America their victory will be hollow. They are going to live like stone-age people for a long time to come --- as in the film "Road Warriors." If they are forced to accept unconditional surrender, Germany-style, then civil war could easily break out.

On the other hand if Clinton offers a Japan 1945-style surrender then it will be easier for them to surrender. And if he also offers a Marshall Plan then many Serbs may come to realize that it's time to get rid of a leader who never enjoyed much respect from his own people.