(5 May 1999) English/Nat
U-S President Bill Clinton toured Germany on Wednesday to rally American military troops entering the seventh week of a NATO air assault on Yugoslavia.
Accompanied by NATO leaders, he thanked U-S servicemen for the part they have played in the war effort against Yugoslavia.
But his visit coincided with the sobering news that the allied campaign in Yugoslavia had suffered its first U-S losses.
After six weeks of conflict it was time to rally the U-S troops operating out of Germany.
President Clinton and NATO's top brass flew into Spangdahlem Airbase as news emerged that the allied campaign in Yugoslavia had suffered its first U-S losses.
Two Americans were killed when their Apache helicopter crashed on a training mission in Albania.
Defence Secretary William Cohen, and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, joined Clinton in praising the troops and reiterating the aims of the conflict.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"What is at stake here is the principle that aggression does not pay. If the lesson Kosovo teaches us is that ethnic cleansing works and international humanitarian laws can be violated with impunity we will all pay the price. And we will see what is happening in Kosovo happen elsewhere over and over again."
SUPER CAPTION: Madeleine Albright, US Secretary of State
As military personnel and their families listened they hammered home the same message - Milosevic will be stopped.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"Message is very clear - he must stop the slaughter; he must pull his forces out; he must let the Kosovar people back in; he must allow for an international peacekeeping force with NATO at its core, and he must allow for a degree of autonomy to be restored that was taken from these people so long ago. Until that happens, we're going to look to you to continue to destroy and degrade his war machine in the Balkans."
SUPER CAPTION: William Cohen, US Defence Secretary
Clinton stressed that the NATO mission in Kosovo is to defeat ethnic hatred and intolerance.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"When people throw away that understanding of our common humanity and make differences, the only thing that matters and makes them so important that it justifies literally dehumanising other people so that their lives, their children, their property, their history, their culture even their faith in God doesn't not matter. That makes live unbearable and civilisation impossible - and that is what we're fighting against in Kosovo."
SUPER CAPTION: Bill Clinton, US President
He said American and allied armed forces are also fighting to prevent a future world war.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"If we want Europe to be undivided, democratic and at peace for the first time in history and if we don't want your successors to have to come to this continent and fight another bitter war, then we must stand in Kosovo for the elementary principle of a common humanity of every breathing living person on this continent."
SUPER CAPTION: Bill Clinton, US President
Clinton was earlier given a tour of the Spangdahlem airbase, home to the 52nd U-S Air Force Fighter Wing, whose F-16s, A-10s and F-117 "Nighthawk" stealth fighters fly NATO bombing raids over Yugoslavia.
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