I read recently in the Washington Times (7/5-11/99) that, "President Clinton has authorized the CIA to conduct a covert action campaign to unseat Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic." The article, penned by intrepid reporter Bill Gertz, then goes on to say, "The secret plan was outlined in a presidential ‘finding’ that states…" etc. etc.

The article explains the basic details of this "covert" plan: secret operations to back anti-Serb rebels; funneling money to opposition groups; electronically breaking in to Milosevic’s foreign bank accounts and draining money out of them, and so on.

I have to ask the question, "How can this be a ‘covert’ plan if everyone, including me, knows about it?"

I also have to ask a second question, "If computer hackers can so easily break into a dictator’s bank accounts and drain them of money, how much easier would it be for them to do the same thing to any one of us?" What if our Gov’mint decided to do it? What if our enemies decided to do it? What if any competent hacker decided to do it?

While the bombing of Milosevic’s tanks and his tank decoys was going on, we the people were told in advance of raids, where they were going to be, how many sorties, etc. etc. CNN was right on top of it. (PS: Now that we’ve got the Fox News Channel, I don’t watch the Clinton News Network – CNN – any more.)

If we knew all this, Milosevic knew it. If he knew it, he took precautions. If he knows the US Gov’mint is going to try to drain his bank accounts, he’s going to take steps to protect his money.

Am I missing something here? Maybe it’s all smoke & mirrors? Perhaps it’s just a smoke screen to throw Milosevic off, and we’re really doing something quite different behind the scenes?

If it’s not smoke & mirrors, then we’re telling the truth when we shouldn’t be saying anything. What leader in his right mind tells his enemies his plans before he implements them? Why does the US tell the world what it’s going to do next in its various military exploits?

By the way, the world’s dictators learned something from their modern archetype, Adolph Hitler – they learned the value of bunkers. Saddam has them all over Iraq. Yasser Arafat has them in Gaza. Milosevic also has them – in fact, much of his military has long been protected underground. Israel even has an underground airfield!

North Korea is currently building missile installations in mountainsides – on the sides facing China so that our missiles would have to overfly Chinese territory to reach Korean missile sites. Think of the implications of that one. Maybe someone will invent some bombs that drill holes, then explode underground. Of course once we learn how to do that, the Chinese will have the technology within weeks…

Waging war in the last decade of the 20^th century isn’t what it once was. Military strategy has changed too. Now, instead of hiding our strategic plans from our enemies, we trumpet them to the whole world. I guess it’s what’s called "openness." It should be called "silliness." I’m sure the tyrants of the world are incredulous at American naiveté. While we’re disarming and dismantling our military, sharing nuclear secrets with potential enemies, and trumpeting our plans to unseat dictators the world, the tyrants are secretly arming, secretly planning, and secretly forming strategies for wars of conquest, expansion, revenge, and the like. Only their secrets really are secrets. Even our vaunted CIA often doesn’t seem to know what’s going on until after the fact.

While other’s missiles and missile delivery systems proliferate, we expend our stock of missiles without replacing it, and fail to develop an adequate defense system against incoming missiles from any source. Is this military strategy at its finest, or what?

We also invite Russian generals to visit and inspect our military bases, and observe the destruction of missiles and their silos. We seek to maintain a treaty made with a now non-existent political entity, the USSR.

Then there’s this thing of "collateral" damage, or "friendly fire." We are getting better at killing our own people than theirs, or so it seems. There must be a strategy in that somewhere too…

Before I completely lose my military marbles, I think I’ll stop writing this article.