How To Dismember A Country

American Terrorism in the Balkans

by Ares Demertzis (Sept. 2008)

 

Americans are a unique and privileged people. As a multi-cultural entity comprised of immigrants from every corner of the globe, they have resolved to obliterate memory. They are extraordinarily bereft of that significant capacity firmly established and carefully nurtured in other societies to consider as essential to their survival the sharing of a proudly remembered collective history; a past that one is born into from generation to generation and with which one persistently cohabits through an ongoing process of shared recollection. Criticism of that heroic past in what are sometimes referred to as “developing” societies is energetically discouraged as blatantly suicidal. I imagine that “developing” refers to those countries whose inhabitants still consider nationalism and ethnic distinctiveness as positive values to be defended; countries that have yet to accept the Orwellian future of one world people, one world government.

Those who tie an infant’s shoelaces and teach youngsters to ride a bicycle also imbue them with unsolicited commitments to a religion and an obligation to the homeland; right or wrong, it’s my country. The perceived unforgivable trespasses of long-ago by foreign groups against respected, albeit unknown ancestors are learned perched as a child on a fathers knee; relentlessly repeated as a Homerian Tragodia of a time long past. It is an essential ritual practiced to preserve the continuation of the society. 

For modern Americans the atrocities of the Hun and the Gooks are forgotten; they are simply reference points for the obscure interest of historians in evolving their academic hypotheses, with no relevance to a contemporary reality. What are currently considered ethnic slurs, that language traditionally designed for the identification of a suspect foreigner, as well as those groups at present designated as enemies engaging in combat with American military forces, have been eliminated from the nation´s terminology. There is reluctance to name the adversary and by so doing risk the disparagement of an entire ethnic group.

The United States is relentlessly occupied with the future, regardless of consequences, notwithstanding it is surrounded by homogeneous millenarian cultures that are obsessed by their past. The United States harbors a conceit born of an overwhelming financially viable success, achieved primarily through rapacious taxation, that the world wants to live in societies that mirror theirs: “get over it” is the remarkable American government´s advice freely dispensed by Condoleeza Rice to other nations mired in their historical quagmire, although conspicuously her people of color apparently haven´t been able to overcome their own past humiliation. An angry Black Liberation Theology would be satisfied with nothing less than blood running down the asphalt streets of America, were that a viable scenario.

During America´s relentless campaign to extend a “new world order” into the Balkans, Donald Rumsfeld would complain (I paraphrase): “Every time I go there (Serbia), they want to talk history. I just want the ethnic cleansing to stop!” I am confident that this statement was fashioned exclusively for public consumption by the “ruthless little bastard,” as President Nixon is alleged to have referred to him; the product of an intricately designed, insincere and calculated political machination. Notwithstanding the lamentable state of American education, it strains credulity to assume that a twice serving Secretary of Defense would unintentionally exhibit such an acute level of appalling ignorance. 

For some time it has been an open secret that the American government planned and initiated a confrontational strategy aimed at dismembering Yugoslavia, the only state in the Balkans that had failed to acquiesce to United States pressure in the headlong rush to extend Western domination to the borders of Russia. Americans are feared because of their military power, and disliked for that flaunted supercilious indifference to the world around them. Something akin to the boorish relative one is obligated to invite to a family dinner who thunderously blows his nose into the linen napkin at the table.

During the Second World War, in a land then called Yugoslavia, Orthodox Christians had the thumb and first two fingers of their right hands, which for them designate the Trinity in making the sign of the cross, severed. The Catholic Pope, Pius XII, Giovanni Pacelli, who is frequently referred to as “Hitler´s Pope,” is suspected of having instigated the Catholic clergy to take advantage of the international conflict which aligned Catholic Croatia to the Nazi Axis, in order to forcibly convert the Orthodox Christian population. Those who accepted conversion were protected by the Latin Church, those who refused were exterminated with the most appalling torture and physical mutilation witnessed in modern history, or sent to perish in Jasenovac by the Croatian Ustasi. These monstrosities were carried out with the full and open participation of the Catholic priesthood, which assured the practitioners of forgiveness by the Church, and by extension even God Himself. Indeed, this persecution has been termed unprecedented in the history of Christianity since the first centuries of the founding of this faith.
Ante Starcevic, graduate of the Catholic Senj Seminary, who had contemplated the priesthood and is considered the father of Croatia, claimed that “the Serbs are a breed of filthy spawn, horrible slaves, people only fit for the axe.”

In 1944 a Berlin newspaper wrote: “An extraordinary ecclesiastical struggle is going on in Croatia. The Ustasi government is persecuting the Orthodox Church and is trying to convert as many Orthodox people as possible to Catholicism by means of intimidation and all kinds of devices.”

The Serbian Orthodox Christian church estimates that three quarters of a million of its most devout followers were martyred for repudiating conversion to Catholicism; Serbians today resolutely believe the Vatican is covertly involved in the current dismemberment of their country as well. Their history is one of perpetual invasion by those who would obliterate their culture. It is proudly articulated amongst themselves that having endured the barbarian Muslim horde, they know they will also survive their current subjugation to the new conquerors who will ultimately prove to be nothing more than a historically transient moment. Once again in the interest of ethnic survival, they assume a humble posture, for there is no viable alternative; until that moment, on another day, when vengeance can be satisfied.

Let me for a moment return to America´s Negro population. The designated racist word for Black Americans was “nigger,” just as the bigoted Croatian expression for the Serbian “horrible slaves” was “filthy spawn.” Americans were persuaded, in the name of cultural sensitivity, to eliminate this deprecating word from the collective lexicon, notwithstanding its acceptably robust use within the Black community as a term alternately of affection or scorn, thereby creating a de facto apartheid vocabulary among the general populace. The offensive word was unfortunately replaced by the embarrassingly infantile terminology expected of a scolded child, employed by purportedly intelligent individuals during public discourse: “the n word.” However, not to digress from the current paper´s topic, given this singular American cultural achievement, it is deplorable that Rumsfeld, in exploring viable political consequences, refused to recognize the pain of Serbians whose entire families were tortured, mutilated and murdered a scant two generations ago. How is it they are expected to simply “get over it”? We all want the ethnic cleansing to stop, but how is justice to be served? How are the Furies to be assuaged? Along with other voices raised in lamentation, I judge that the millenarian tragedy of the Balkans has not been resolved, rather it is once again positioned on a course for future carnage and devastation.

After lunch, sitting on the terrace of a monastery on a Greek island, overlooking a tranquil, azure sea with the Archimandrite (abbot), I put into his hand a small gold pendant representing a dove, the symbol of peace, that my Catholic wife had removed from her necklace and asked me to give to him. “Graciela would like you to have this,” I said to him in Greek, “it has been blessed by the Pope.”

His features darkened, and there was a very long silence as he held the ornament between his thumb and forefinger. Finally, with a poignant sigh, he responded. “Tell Graciela that I thank her very much for this gift which I will always treasure as a reminder of our afternoon together. However, I will have to remove from it the curse of Satan.” He was obviously referring to the Papacy as the institution held accountable for the schism of Western Christianity from the orthodoxy of the Original Church, the covetous betrayal of Byzantium, and the Croatian massacre of the Serbs. Memory is eternal in that part of the world; one does not forget, one seldom forgives.

There is a definite relationship between the Balkans and the Caucasus; South Ossetia and Abkhazia provide a mirror image to the West for their clandestine aggression and subsequent usurpation of an historical Russian political ally and devotee of an identical religion. It´s the mendacious purveyors of agenda-driven disguised fiction, the mainstream media who in recognizing the relationship – not out of intelligence, but because the Russians told them so – that refuse to report it. 

The following material was culled from the internet with links to the originals.

 

“In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.” President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

 

International Media Corporation Defense and Strategy Policy, US Commits Forces, Weapons to Bosnia, London, 31 October 1994:

“Reliable sources report that the United States is now [1994] actively participating in the arming and training of the Muslim forces of Bosnia-Herzegovina in direct contravention of the United Nations accords … It was [also] reported that 400 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (Pasdaran) arrived in Bosnia with a large supply of arms and ammunition.

It was alleged that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had full knowledge of the operation and that the CIA believed that some of the 400 had been detached for future terrorist operations in Western Europe.

During September and October [1994], there has been a stream of “Afghan” Mujahedin … covertly landed in Ploce, Croatia (South-West of Mostar) from where they have traveled with false papers … before deploying with the Bosnian Muslim forces in the Kupres, Zenica and Banja Luka areas.

These forces have recently [late 1994] experienced a significant degree of military success. They have, according to sources in Sarajevo, been aided by the UNPROFOR Bangladesh battalion, which took over from a French battalion early in September [1994].

The Mujahedin landing at Ploce are reported to have been accompanied by US Special Forces equipped with high-tech communications equipment, … The sources said that the mission of the US troops was to establish a command, control, communications and intelligence network to coordinate and support Bosnian Muslim offensives — in concert with Mujahideen and Bosnian Croat forces — in Kupres, Zenica and Banja Luka. Some offensives have recently been conducted from within the UN-established safe-havens in the Zenica and Banja Luka regions. 

The US Administration has not restricted its involvement to the clandestine contravention of the UN arms embargo on the region … It [also] committed three high-ranking delegations over the past two years [prior to 1994] in failed attempts to bring the Yugoslav Government into line with US policy. Yugoslavia is the only state in the region to have failed to acquiesce to US pressure.

  

A Congressional report by the Republican Party Committee (RPC) published in 1997, largely confirms the International Media Corporation report quoted above:

The RPC Congressional report accuses the Clinton administration of having “helped turn Bosnia into a militant Islamic base” leading to the recruitment through the so-called “Militant Islamic Network,” of thousands of Mujahideen from the Muslim world:

Perhaps most threatening to the SFOR mission – and more importantly, to the safety of the American personnel serving in Bosnia – is the unwillingness of the Clinton Administration to come clean with the Congress and with the American people about its complicity in the delivery of weapons from Iran to the Muslim government in Sarajevo.That policy, personally approved by Bill Clinton in April 1994 at the urging of CIA Director-designate (and then-NSC chief) Anthony Lake and the U.S. ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith, has, according to the Los Angeles Times (citing classified intelligence community sources), “played a central role in the dramatic increase in Iranian influence in Bosnia.” 

Along with the weapons, Iranian Revolutionary Guards and VEVAK intelligence operatives entered Bosnia in large numbers, along with thousands of mujahedin (“holy warriors”) from across the Muslim world. Also engaged in the effort were several other Muslim countries (including Brunei, Malaysia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Turkey) and a number of radical Muslim organizations.

For example, the role of one Sudan-based “humanitarian organization,” called the Third World Relief Agency, has been well documented. The Clinton Administration’s “hands-on” involvement with the Islamic network’s arms pipeline included inspections of missiles from Iran by U.S. government officials… the Third World Relief Agency (TWRA), a Sudan-based, phoney humanitarian organization … has been a major link in the arms pipeline to Bosnia. … TWRA is believed to be connected with such fixtures of the Islamic terror network as Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman (the convicted mastermind behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing) and Osama Bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi émigré believed to bankroll numerous militant groups. [Washington Post, 9/22/96] (Congressional Press Release, Republican Party Committee (RPC), US Congress, Clinton-Approved Iranian Arms Transfers Help Turn Bosnia into Militant Islamic Base, 16 January 1997, available on the website of the Centre of Research on Globalisation (CRG) here. The original document is on the website of the US Senate Republican Party Committee (Senator Larry Craig) here.

In other words, the Republican Party Committee report confirms unequivocally the complicity of the Clinton Administration with several Islamic fundamentalist organisations including Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda.

 

The “Bosnian pattern” described in the 1997 Congressional RPC report was replicated in Kosovo.

With the complicity of NATO and the US State Department. Mujahideen mercenaries from the Middle East and Central Asia were recruited to fight in the ranks of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in 1998-99, largely supporting NATO’s war effort.

 

The Scotsman, Glasgow, 29 August 1999:

Confirmed by British military sources, the task of arming and training of the KLA had been entrusted in 1998 to the US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) and Britain’s Secret Intelligence Services MI6, together with “former and serving members of 22 SAS [Britain’s 22nd Special Air Services Regiment], as well as three British and American private security companies”.

The US DIA approached MI6 to arrange a training programme for the KLA, said a senior British military source. `MI6 then sub-contracted the operation to two British security companies, who in turn approached a number of former members of the (22 SAS) regiment. Lists were then drawn up of weapons and equipment needed by the KLA.’

While these covert operations were continuing, serving members of 22 SAS Regiment, mostly from the unit’s D Squadron, were first deployed in Kosovo before the beginning of the bombing campaign in March.  

 

Truth in Media, Kosovo in Crisis, Phoenix, Arizona, 2 April 1999:

While British SAS Special Forces in bases in Northern Albania were training the KLA, military instructors from Turkey and Afghanistan financed by the “Islamic jihad” were collaborating in training the KLA in guerilla and diversion tactics.

 

Sunday Times, London, 29 November 1998:

Bin Laden had visited Albania himself. He was one of several fundamentalist groups that had sent units to fight in Kosovo, … Bin Laden is believed to have established an operation in Albania in 1994 … Albanian sources say Sali Berisha, who was then president, had links with some groups that later proved to be extreme fundamentalists

 

US Congress, Testimony of Frank J. Cilluffo , Deputy Director, Global Organized Crime, Program director to the House Judiciary Committee, 13 December 2000:.

What was largely hidden from public view was the fact that the KLA raise part of their funds from the sale of narcotics. Albania and Kosovo lie at the heart of the “Balkan Route” that links the “Golden Crescent” of Afghanistan and Pakistan to the drug markets of Europe. This route is worth an estimated $400 billion a year and handles 80 percent of heroin destined for Europe.

 

US Congress, Testimony of Ralf Mutschke of Interpol’s Criminal Intelligence Division, to the House Judicial Committee, 13 December 2000:

The U.S. State Department listed the KLA as a terrorist organization, indicating that it was financing its operations with money from the international heroin trade and loans from Islamic countries and individuals, among them allegedly Usama bin Laden.” Another link to bin Laden is the fact that the brother of a leader in an Egyptian Jihad organization and also a military commander of Usama bin Laden, was leading an elite KLA unit during the Kosovo conflict

 

US Congress, Transcripts of the House Armed Services Committee, 5 October 1999:.

These KLA links to international terrorism and organised crime documented by the US Congress were totally ignored by the Clinton Administration.

In fact, in the months preceding the bombing of Yugoslavia, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was busy building a “political legitimacy” for the KLA. The paramilitary army had –from one day to the next– been elevated to the status of a bona fide “democratic” force in Kosovo. In turn, Madeleine Albright has forced the pace of international diplomacy: the KLA had been spearheaded into playing a central role in the failed “peace negotiations” at Rambouiillet in early 1999.

 

US Congress, Transcripts of the House Armed Services Committee, 5 October 1999:

While the various Congressional reports confirmed that the US government had been working hand in glove with Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda, this did not prevent the Clinton and later the Bush Administration from arming and equipping the KLA. The Congressional documents also confirm that members of the Senate and the House knew the relationship of the Administration to international terrorism. To quote the statement of Rep. John Kasich of the House Armed Services Committee: “We connected ourselves [in 1998-99] with the KLA, which was the staging point for bin Laden…”

 

In 1999, Senator Joe Lieberman had stated authoritatively that “Fighting for the KLA is fighting for human rights and American values.”

In the hours following the October 7 missile attacks on Afghanistan, the same Joe Lieberman called for punitive air strikes against Iraq: “We’re in a war against terrorism… We can’t stop with bin Laden and the Taliban.” Yet Senator Joe Lieberman, as member of the Armed Services Committee of the Senate had access to all the Congressional documents pertaining to “KLA-Osama” links. In making this statement, he was fully aware that that agencies of the US government as well as NATO were supporting international terrorism.

In the wake of the 1999 war in Yugoslavia, the terrorist activities of the KLA were extended into Southern Serbia and Macedonia. Meanwhile, the KLA –renamed the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC)– was elevated to United Nations status, implying the granting of “legitimate” sources of funding through United Nations as well as through bilateral channels, including direct US military aid.

And barely two months after the official inauguration of the KPC under UN auspices (September 1999), KPC-KLA commanders – using UN resources and equipment – were already preparing the assaults into Macedonia, as a logical follow-up to their terrorist activities in Kosovo. According to the Skopje daily Dnevnik, the KPC had established a “sixth operation zone” in Southern Serbia and Macedonia:

Sources, who insist on anonymity, claim that the headquarters of the Kosovo protection brigades [i.e. linked to the UN sponsored KPC] have [March 2000] already been formed in Tetovo, Gostivar and Skopje. They are being prepared in Debar and Struga [on the border with Albania] as well, and their members have defined codes. (BBC, 29 January 2001)

 

According to the BBC,“Western special forces were still training the guerrillas” meaning that they were assisting the KLA in opening up “a sixth operation zone”in Southern Serbia and Macedonia.

 

Scotland on Sunday, Glasgow, 15 June 2001:

Among the foreign mercenaries now fighting in Macedonia (October 2001) in the ranks of self-proclaimed National Liberation Army (NLA), are Mujahideen from the Middle East and the Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union. Also within the KLA’s proxy force in Macedonia are senior US military advisers from a private mercenary outfit on contract to the Pentagonas well as “soldiers of fortune” from Britain, Holland and Germany. Some of these Western mercenaries had previously fought with the KLA and the Bosnian Muslim Army. (See also UPI, 9 July 2001.)

 For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, Washington behind Terrorist Assaults in Macedonia, Centre for Research on Globalisation, August 2001, and here, see also UPI, 9 July 2001. For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, Washington behind Terrorist Assaults in Macedonia, Centre for Research on Globalisation, August 2001.

 
Macedonian Information Agency (MIA), 26 September 2001, available at the Centre for Research on Globalisation:

Extensively documented by the Macedonian press and statements of the Macedonian authorities, the US government and the “Islamic Militant Network” are working hand in glove in supporting and financing the self-proclaimed National Liberation Army (NLA), involved in the terrorist attacks in Macedonia. The NLA is a proxy of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). In turn the KLA and the UN sponsored Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC) are identical institutions with the same commanders and military personnel. KPC Commanders on UN salaries are fighting in the NLA together with the Mujahideen.
It is happening right now in Macedonia. And it is confirmed by numerous press reports, eyewitness accounts, photographic evidence as well as official statements by the Macedonian Prime Minister, who has accused the Western military alliance of supporting the terrorists. Moreover, the official Macedonian New Agency (MIA) has pointed to the complicity between Washington’s envoy Ambassador James Pardew and the NLA terrorists.

Pardew’s background is revealing in this regard. He started his Balkans career in 1993 as a senior intelligence officer for the Joint Chiefs of Staff responsible for channeling US aid to the Bosnian Muslim Army. Coronel Pardew had been put in charge of arranging the “air-drops” of supplies to Bosnian forces. At the time, these “air drops” were tagged as “civilian aid”. It later transpired –confirmed by the RPC Congressional report– that the US had violated the arms embargo. And James Pardew played an important role as part of the team of intelligence officials working closely with the Chairman of the National Security Council Anthony Lake.

Pardew was later involved in the Dayton negotiations (1995) on behalf of the US Defence Department. In 1999, prior to the bombing of Yugoslavia, he was appointed “Special Representative for Military Stabilisation and Kosovo Implementation” by President Clinton. One of his tasks was to channel support to the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which at the time was also being supported by Osama bin Laden. Pardew was in this regard instrumental in replicating the “Bosnian pattern” in Kosovo and subsequently in Macedonia.

 

Also recommended: Walid Phares, South Ossetia: The Perfect Wrong War 
 

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