Comment Re:One journalist's perspective. (Score 1) 426
mrkurt,
Your reply is in essence, a thinly disguised 'official denial' -- thereby proving not only that such denials exist, but also that said denial require virtually no effort, research or intelligence to utter or publish; and further, that any efforts undertaken to 'disprove' them are in vain and are actually part of a much larger tactic of obfuscation and denial.
At the forum like this you should know better then to keep repeating AP's (Agit-Prop) official line (propaganda) about our involvement in the Balkans. ... , unless you get pay for doing that. A very high percentage of Americans have already gobbled it all ... hook, line and sinker. Even if they lead relatively decent lives they are total fools for the professionally crafted propaganda that saturates the corporate mass media. So, let's be serious.
Since late 70s, as a part of a wider Cold War, Yugoslavia has been the target of a covert policy waged by Germany, the United States, Britain, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia, as well as by Iran, to divide Yugoslavia into its ethnic components, dismantle it, and eventually recolonize it. Not that, given hundreds of years of hatred and tension, that is a particularly difficult job.
In September 1982, when the region seemed stable and the Berlin Wall had seven years to stand, the U.S. drew up National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 54, "United States Policy toward Eastern Europe." Labeled SECRET and declassified with light censorship in 1990, it called for greatly expanded efforts to promote a "quiet revolution" to overthrow Communist governments and parties. While naming all the countries of Eastern Europe, it omitted mention of Yugoslavia.
In March 1984, a separate document, NSDD 133, "United States Policy toward Yugoslavia," was adopted and given the even more restricted classification: SECRET SENSITIVE. When finally declassified in 1990, NSDD 133 was still highly censored, with less than two-thirds of the original text remaining. Nonetheless, taken together, the two documents reveal a consistent policy logic.
Everything after that has been "windows dressing" by "the best money can buy" at Foggy Bottom. In the meantime, our objectives widened and included our concerns for security of energy corridor between Caspian Basin and Western Europe. That's where Kosovo came into the picture. I'm going to paraphrase Michael Ignatieff's "The problem with proxies" in order to reveal our strategy in Kosovo.
"Principal agents ("west democracies") rely on proxies (Muslim fundamentalists) to carry out their own plans (control of energy corridor) and hope to control them by means of the Special Forces and "advisors" (MPRI) working on the ground. The legitimacy of the proxies (KLA) to an unsuspecting observer (general population) depends on their appearing to be independent of the principal agent (NATO) and not a stooge. The legitimacy of the principal agent also depends on not looking like an imperialist. That's where demonization of a target (Serbs, Milosevic) and false pretext (genocide) for a war come into a play.
Proxy wars -- and the problems that accompany them -- are hardly new. America fought most of its wars against Communism through proxies. Among others, it also funded Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia.
Proxies have a nasty way either of disgracing principal agents or turning against them (9-11-2001).
Proxies may not define victory as the principal agent does: a Kosovo rebuilt on solid political foundations ("friendly" dictator firmly in charge) and free of terror (got rid of all opposition). For the KLA's warlords in American pay, victory looks like secure control of heroin production and distribution, prostitution, tobacco and gasoline smuggling, etc.
The revenge killings of Christian population by Kosovo Albanians that followed NATO's "victory" in June 1999 have revealed the false pretext of the war itself.
Ever since, Kosovo has been the test of this kind of war: whether a criminal culture can be turned into a political one, and whether proxies can gradually become principal agents in their own right, rebuilding a country they once devastated and stole from others."
All countries or regions which happen to be an impediment to oil transportation routes from Caspian Basin and Central Asia towards the East and West have been subjected either to US military's direct or indirect interference or to an all-out war: Chechnya, Georgia, Kurdistan, Yugoslavia, Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia and Afghanistan. Result: US military bases in the Persian Gulf, Bosnia, Kosovo, Croatia, Macedonia, Albania, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. In 1996, the US Trade and Development Agency granted permission for the initial feasibility study for AMBO project to the US firm Brown & Root Services and funded the project in March 2001. Brown & Root had built military base Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo, located very near the pipeline route. AMBO pipeline is scheduled to be operational by 2005.
Since 1997 the Kosovo Liberation Army had conducted attacks on Serbian police and other officials. Their emphasis was on ambushes of police patrols and attacks on Albanians who collaborated with Serbian authorities.
Now, were the Serbs wrong to call the KLA a terrorist group - when its mission was to kill the police and others who refused to support them?
Didn't we consider the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building or Twin Towers in NY, the acts of terrorism?
How come that is terrorism if it occurs in America, but "freedom fighting" when it occurs in Yugoslavia?
And, note, the reason why Milosevic brought in the army was to protect his own people in Kosovo from being murdered by the KLA. Bush has gone to the other side of the world to bomb Afghanistan in order to protect Americans at home. No spin in the world can hide the fact that our military has caused a massive refugee crisis in Afghanistan and killed scores of innocent civilians.
Will George W. Bush sit in the Hague kangaroo court with Slobodan Milosevic to answer charges of genocide and ethnic cleansing? Not very likely.
Bosnia,..., it's as bad as Kosovo. Let's not go there this time.
Your reply is in essence, a thinly disguised 'official denial' -- thereby proving not only that such denials exist, but also that said denial require virtually no effort, research or intelligence to utter or publish; and further, that any efforts undertaken to 'disprove' them are in vain and are actually part of a much larger tactic of obfuscation and denial.
At the forum like this you should know better then to keep repeating AP's (Agit-Prop) official line (propaganda) about our involvement in the Balkans.
Since late 70s, as a part of a wider Cold War, Yugoslavia has been the target of a covert policy waged by Germany, the United States, Britain, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia, as well as by Iran, to divide Yugoslavia into its ethnic components, dismantle it, and eventually recolonize it. Not that, given hundreds of years of hatred and tension, that is a particularly difficult job.
In September 1982, when the region seemed stable and the Berlin Wall had seven years to stand, the U.S. drew up National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 54, "United States Policy toward Eastern Europe." Labeled SECRET and declassified with light censorship in 1990, it called for greatly expanded efforts to promote a "quiet revolution" to overthrow Communist governments and parties. While naming all the countries of Eastern Europe, it omitted mention of Yugoslavia.
In March 1984, a separate document, NSDD 133, "United States Policy toward Yugoslavia," was adopted and given the even more restricted classification: SECRET SENSITIVE. When finally declassified in 1990, NSDD 133 was still highly censored, with less than two-thirds of the original text remaining. Nonetheless, taken together, the two documents reveal a consistent policy logic.
Everything after that has been "windows dressing" by "the best money can buy" at Foggy Bottom. In the meantime, our objectives widened and included our concerns for security of energy corridor between Caspian Basin and Western Europe. That's where Kosovo came into the picture. I'm going to paraphrase Michael Ignatieff's "The problem with proxies" in order to reveal our strategy in Kosovo.
"Principal agents ("west democracies") rely on proxies (Muslim fundamentalists) to carry out their own plans (control of energy corridor) and hope to control them by means of the Special Forces and "advisors" (MPRI) working on the ground. The legitimacy of the proxies (KLA) to an unsuspecting observer (general population) depends on their appearing to be independent of the principal agent (NATO) and not a stooge. The legitimacy of the principal agent also depends on not looking like an imperialist. That's where demonization of a target (Serbs, Milosevic) and false pretext (genocide) for a war come into a play.
Proxy wars -- and the problems that accompany them -- are hardly new. America fought most of its wars against Communism through proxies. Among others, it also funded Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia.
Proxies have a nasty way either of disgracing principal agents or turning against them (9-11-2001).
Proxies may not define victory as the principal agent does: a Kosovo rebuilt on solid political foundations ("friendly" dictator firmly in charge) and free of terror (got rid of all opposition). For the KLA's warlords in American pay, victory looks like secure control of heroin production and distribution, prostitution, tobacco and gasoline smuggling, etc.
The revenge killings of Christian population by Kosovo Albanians that followed NATO's "victory" in June 1999 have revealed the false pretext of the war itself.
Ever since, Kosovo has been the test of this kind of war: whether a criminal culture can be turned into a political one, and whether proxies can gradually become principal agents in their own right, rebuilding a country they once devastated and stole from others."
All countries or regions which happen to be an impediment to oil transportation routes from Caspian Basin and Central Asia towards the East and West have been subjected either to US military's direct or indirect interference or to an all-out war: Chechnya, Georgia, Kurdistan, Yugoslavia, Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia and Afghanistan. Result: US military bases in the Persian Gulf, Bosnia, Kosovo, Croatia, Macedonia, Albania, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. In 1996, the US Trade and Development Agency granted permission for the initial feasibility study for AMBO project to the US firm Brown & Root Services and funded the project in March 2001. Brown & Root had built military base Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo, located very near the pipeline route. AMBO pipeline is scheduled to be operational by 2005.
Since 1997 the Kosovo Liberation Army had conducted attacks on Serbian police and other officials. Their emphasis was on ambushes of police patrols and attacks on Albanians who collaborated with Serbian authorities.
Now, were the Serbs wrong to call the KLA a terrorist group - when its mission was to kill the police and others who refused to support them?
Didn't we consider the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building or Twin Towers in NY, the acts of terrorism?
How come that is terrorism if it occurs in America, but "freedom fighting" when it occurs in Yugoslavia?
And, note, the reason why Milosevic brought in the army was to protect his own people in Kosovo from being murdered by the KLA. Bush has gone to the other side of the world to bomb Afghanistan in order to protect Americans at home. No spin in the world can hide the fact that our military has caused a massive refugee crisis in Afghanistan and killed scores of innocent civilians.
Will George W. Bush sit in the Hague kangaroo court with Slobodan Milosevic to answer charges of genocide and ethnic cleansing? Not very likely.
Bosnia,..., it's as bad as Kosovo. Let's not go there this time.
