REGARDS FROM SERBIA
The pen stands up to the sword
Comix artist Aleksandar Zograf has been in Serbia since NATO bombs started dropping. Here are his strips on life during wartime that Newcity.com is presenting for the first time on the Web.

HOT ZONE
While NATO forces hammer Yugoslavia with depleted uranium shells, Gulf War vets battle the effects of radioactive munitions exposure
"'Depleted uranium weapons are extremely effective,' insists a Pentagon spokesperson. 'They protected our troops and took out Iraqi tanks. It's a good weapon.' But opponents call the use of radioactive shells 'a war crime.'"

DEAD MAN TELLS LAST TALE
The sad email comes: An anti-Milosevic Serb journalist has been murdered
"He wrote some very compromising and raw articles about Milosevic and his lunatic acts. This was one of the few but brave people who stood up and fought. I guess this will get your sympathy, being a journalist yourself. This is terrible."

ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT
An ambivalent public remains noticeably silent over the airstrikes in Yugoslavia
"Many people feel that if they're speaking out against the bombings, then they're speaking for genocide."

NOT WITH MY MONEY
Tax resisters make a statement about the Yugoslav conflict
"We don't feel that we ourselves would pick up weapons, so we don't feel as though we can pay for other people to do that."

LETTERS FROM THE FRONT
A plea for peace from Belgrade, plus online resources for war news and views
"While President Clinton frames the NATO assault in terms of human rights, the bombing of the factories may be a truer guide to its intentions. Yugoslavia has remained the pariah of U.S. policy in the Balkans since the secession of Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. While these states have carried out the kinds of economic reforms mandated by the International Monetary Fund in countries around the world, Yugoslavia has not."

ARMED RESOURCES
As bombs fall on Kosovo, the weekend warriors of the National Guard swing into action
"When asked about the prospect of going to war, Hartman the gunner starts laughing and says, 'I'm wearing my invisible green suit. No one is going to kill me.'"

ALTERNATIVE BACKGROUNDERS
Disinformation collections on Yugoslavia, Kosovo, Serbia and NATO

WAR MACHINE
With enormous help from mass media, the White House has been able to marginalize the public on matters of war and peace
"When military action is on the agenda in Washington, public opinion can be troublesome, even obstructionist. That's one of the hazards of democracy--or at least it should be."

WORLD WIDE WAR RESISTANCE
Where to find unfiltered, unfettered, unadulterated antiwar info and rhetoric online
"The Stop-NATO Web ring is the first Web ring that has become relevant in the larger context of world events. It may be the largest international conglomeration of noncommercial sites organized around an international crisis: the war in Yugoslavia."

STOP THE BOMBING NOW
Give peace negotiations a real chance in Kosovo
"It's time to focus on real negotiations that involve the United Nations (not just NATO, a military alliance) and the greatly reduced democratic Yugoslav opposition. Real negotiations don't take place when civilians are dying. President Clinton is violating the War Powers Act, and Congress needs to call him on it."

UNDECLARED INTENTIONS
Why have we lost the will to actually call a war a war?
"Since WWII, no U.S. armed conflict--spent shells and shattered lives notwithstanding--has been a war, one officially declared by Congress. What we are fighting for, in something called a war, seems easier to figure out than what we are fighting for in something that is not."

MUNITIONS MOUTHFUL
A cluster bomb speaks out about its lack of coverage in the U.S. press
"This month, I have gotten to do my stuff in Yugoslavia. One of my memorable performances came at around noon on a Friday. Some people in the city of Nis were shopping at a vegetable market when--boom--I arrived! It was dramatic as hell."

INTO THE BADLANDS
Greg Campbell steers a rental car through war-torn Europe in "The Road to Kosovo: A Balkan Diary"
"The freelance journalist braved snipers, Serb checkpoints, Kosovo Liberation Army guerrillas and miscellaneous well-armed lunatics to get a close look at the uneasy peace imposed by the Dayton Accords and the new conflict building in Kosovo."

THE BOOMER WAR
Relying on video-game technology and low-risk, high-altitude combat, Bill Clinton makes war under the Ford Doctrine--the Harrison Ford Doctrine
"After liberal humanitarian concerns driven by heart-rending pictures led him to a small disaster with ground troops in Somalia and incomplete success in Haiti, he pulled back to the push-button war of air strikes and cruise missiles, taking pleasure in the Tom Clancy-ish feel and PR success of technowar, believing that new 'smart weapons' could reverse the truism that bombing alone can't win a war."

GOOD, BAD AND UGLY
Our war coverage depends on whether the U.S. thinks the victims are worthy
"While American television lenses focused on the anguish of Albanian refugees and the carnage at a high school in Colorado, less worthy victims remained out of media sight and out of public mind."

INDIFFERENT DRUMMER
When will the pursuit of peace replace the pursuit of war in the press?
"Sleek B-2 stealth bombers and F-117A jets appear in file footage on TV networks. Journalists talk with keen anticipation about Apache AH-64 attack helicopters on the way. Military analysts tell us about the great things such aircraft can do. Reverence for the latest weaponry is acute. More than just enthusiasm, it approaches idolatry."

WHAT THE HELL ARE WE DOING?
Nobody voted to bomb Yugoslavia
"Do you realize what is happening? While you are reading these words, intelligent, highly trained Americans are deliberately bombing a small nation in Europe, killing and maiming thousands of people."

RITES OF WAR
Barbara Ehrenreich, author of "Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War," finds the Balkans crisis too familiar
"There's a tremendous surge of nationalism that we're seeing. Rather than being demoralized by the bombing, which I suppose was what NATO expected, they have rallied to Milosevic."

KOSOVO CAUSES
Three books dig up seeds of the Yugoslav conflict
"When ordinary Serbs learn to think more rationally and humanely about Kosovo, and more critically about some of their national myths, all the people of Kosovo and Serbia will benefit--not least the Serbs themselves."

HARM'S WAY
The "free press" marches off to war and leaves a trail of propaganda in its wake
"To depart from their own propaganda functions, major U.S. media outlets could insist on pursuing tough questions. Such as: If humanitarian concerns are high on Washington's agenda, why drop bombs on Yugoslavia and give aid to Turkey?"

DIALING UP DISSENT
Veran Matic, editor-in-chief of Belgrade's banned Radio B92, speaks out
"The bombing has jeopardized the lives of 10.5 million people and unleashed an attack on the fledgling forces of democracy in Kosovo and Serbia. It has undermined the work of reformists in Montenegro and the Serbian entity of Bosnia-Herzegovina and their efforts to promote peace."

SEX DURING WARTIME
Intimacy was the first casualty in Kosovo
"This might sound weird, but the thing that actually started bugging me, along with my friends here is that we all fall into some sort of depression and after a while, we all experience something that we don't deal with in the usual: a tremendous lack of sex."

NO EASY ANSWERS
A 600-year history of hate becomes a recipe for horror in Kosovo
"There are nearly 2 million ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, and at least that many Serbs who won't be happy until the last Albanian is killed. That's the simple part."

A VOTE AGAINST WAR
A few Congressmen stand against Yugoslavian intervention
"Faced with a hasty vote on whether to authorize U.S. participation in the Yugoslavian civil war, Sen. Russ Feingold stood on the side of both common sense and Wisconsin's historic skepticism about ill-conceived military endeavors."

TRUTH BE TOLD
Are email dispatches from Kosovo compromising war coverage?
"Because we have no truly reliable sources of news on Kosovo, responsible journalists are looking to the Net to recruit Yugoslavs as amateur correspondents. These people have no ethical mandate to be unbiased any more than the government of Yugoslavia or the U.S. Defense Department does."

ILLUSIONS OF WAR
As the bombing continues, the media fails to reveal the tragic realities of the Yugoslavian conflict
"The real war has little to do with the images presented on our television sets. On the ground, in Yugoslavia, the situation is all about terror, anguish, and death. On the screen, the coverage is far from traumatic for the viewing public--despite the myth that television brings the horrors of war into our living rooms."

OFF WITH HIS HEAD
Making the overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic the thrust of American policy in the Balkans is the best idea Jesse Helms has had in years
"Sub the job to the Israelis and their Mossad, or offer a billion bucks for the head of Milosevic (and the same for Saddam, or three for the pair) to anyone with the wit and the will to deliver."

VIETNAM: THE SEQUEL
How far are we willing to stop the genocide in Yugoslavia?
"The thought that we had a new chance to become a patriotically united nation of self-destructive idiots swept me with a wave of nostalgia I haven't felt since Vietnam."

CLINTON GETS HIS NAM
If U.S. ground troops invade Yugoslavia, a few downed jets won't seem so bad
"Nothing excites the citizenry quite like war. So, while the bombings in Yugoslavia seem cool now--all that precision stuff--wait until our boys start dying and everyone figures out that the Serbs, like the North Vietnamese, aren't going to roll over like the Iraqis did."

WARRING TRIBE
The war against Yugoslavia is off to a fine start, thanks to the media
"Going to war is not simply a matter of ordering soldiers to fire missiles and drop bombs. There's a lot more involved. The public must be induced to accept and even cheer the bloodshed. That requires some careful preparation."

WHEN IN DOUBT, FIND A TARGET
We need to reconsider the popular presidential practice of bombing for peace
"There's something fundamentally flawed in the idea that a foreign leader who has absolutely no respect for human life will change his vile ways if we just drop enough bombs on his people."

BOMBING FAQ
A Kosovo Q&A
"The vote in the House of Representatives was 434 to 1 to support the bombing. Who was the 1 and why? Democrat Barbara Lee of California. She thought we were bombing Costco."