The Black Birds of Kosova
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 12/27/2005
The real war over Kosovo hasn't even started yet. When NATO finishes coercing Yugoslavia into submission, when the smoke clears and the charred remains of corpses and houses cleared - then the real conflict will erupt. It will be a conflict between moderate Albanians (as represented by Ibrahim Rugova) and radical Albanians (the outlandish Maoist-Islamist admixture represented by the KLA). And it will be bloodier by far.
This is because this new type of war can never be decided, not even by way of weapons. It is a clash of cultures, a battle enjoined by civilizations. And it cuts across the Kosovars as sharply as it separates the West from Yugoslavia. Thus the Kosovo war will be continued by the Kosovar themselves because they, too, are culturally split along the same inflamed lines (Liberal versus Non-liberal). "But, surely" - you would say - "there is nothing new about THIS". But there is.
In the past, nations or clusters of nations or tribes went to war ONLY in order to protect national or tribal or group interests. More food, more space, control over important lines of transport and communications, access to markets, women (to ensure reproduction), the elimination of a foe or a potential foe, loot, weaponry - hard, cold interests underlied all armed conflicts.
Culture and religion were used as fig-leaves to disguise the true nature of wars. The colonial wars of the 18th and 19th century were ostensibly fought with the aim of educating the savages, converting them to the right religion and bestowing upon them the blessings of civilization. Mineral wealth, routes of transport, strategic vantage points - were all presented as secondary afterthoughts or side benefits. This is the way it was presented to the public. The truth, of course, was absolutely the opposite.
The Kosovo conflict is the first war in history where WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). Europe in general and NATO in particular have no interests in the godforsaken piece of land known as Kosovo and Metoxhia. It is not strategically located (it is all but inaccessible). It is poor (except some minerals of which there is a world glut). It is not strictly "European". It is partly Moslem and allied with the likes of Iran, Osama Bin Laden and Albania. It involves a small number of people (1.8 million). Operation Allied Force is NOT about the defence or furthering of self-interests. It is about conflicting cultures.
The West is trying to impose its culture - liberal and capitalist - upon other societies. Whenever popular opinion (even if expressed democratically and peacefully) does not conform to Western values - the West does its best to undermine the choice as well as the chosen. The West's definition of a legitimate regime is very peculiar and not very rigorous logically. A legitimate regime is one chosen by the people providing its values are Western values or closely conform to them. All other regimes - no matter how strongly upheld by free public opinion - are not legitimate, even illegal and can be deposed and disposed of with moral impunity. Khomeini came to power on the crest of a wave of unprecedented popular support and he supplanted a cruel and corrupt dictator. Milosevic was freely elected by a majority wider than Clinton's. In Algeria and Turkey freely elected Islamists governments were toppled (or prevented from taking office, in the case of Algeria) by the army with the West's enthusiastic though mute consent. This "Allende Syndrome" is in play now in Kosovo.
It is politically very incorrect, I am sure, to say that only a small minority of humans adhere to Western values (and most of the adherents only pay lip service to them). Human rights are an alien concept in Africa and the Balkans. Individualism is an alien - even repulsive - concept in China, Japan and most of South East Asia. Competition is a value derided in most parts of the world. Income disparity and the toleration of abject poverty as an inescapable consequence of capitalism (the "Anglo-Saxon Model") is rejected even in Continental Europe itself. Freedom of Speech is much more curtailed in France than in the USA. Privacy is less respected in the USA than in France. Western values are not universal even in the West.
The nations and societies of the Balkans are used to solving their problems by employing ethnic cleansing, armed brutality, suppression of civilian population and decimation of the elites of the enemy. This is not a value judgement. It is a statement of historical fact. Bulgaria has done it to its Turkish citizens as late as 1995. It used to be the same (and much worse) in Western Europe until 1945. Nations - like human beings - have a growth trajectory. It cannot be hastened or imported. It must grow from within, by integrating experiences, including painful and traumatic ones. Peaceful co-existence often follows and is the result of a devastation so great that no other alternative but peaceful co-existence is left. Any foreign intervention serves only to exacerbate the situation by increasing the number and intensity of inter-ethnic grudges. The seeds of the current conflict in Kosovo were sown by the Ottoman Turks as early as 1912. Foreign interventions tend to boomerang in the Balkans. Actually, they boomerang everywhere. Ask Israelis how they fared in the Lebanese quagmire.
The West should have respected the Balkanian way of conducting their affairs and resolving their differences. It should have left them to slaughter each other in peace. These are young nations (having been freed from all foreign occupation only as late as 1945 after centuries of subjugation). They need to learn from their OWN experiences. They need to reach the point of exhaustion beyond which there is only peaceful co-existence. Violence solves nothing, on the contrary, it just reinforces the Balkanian conviction that he who carries the big stick has justice on his side.
But how did this apparent transition from interest-wars to culture-wars transpire?
Indeed, the transition is only apparent. The key is the transformation of culture from something ethereal and transcendent - to a strong self-interest as any other. Once culture became an asset to protect, cultural wars were certain to erupt. Thus, it is still self-interest at the basis of it all but this time the self-interest protected and furthered is cultural dominance and hegemony.
It started rather innocuously and inadvertently. The Americanization of the world was perceived to be the historical equivalent of the Pax Romana. This was a false analogy. The Pax Romana was rampant pluralism. The Pax Americana is rampant homogeneity.
Then the West (notably America) suddenly realized the economic dividends on cultural homogeneity (for instance as evident in various forms of intellectual property - movies, music, software, TV, internet). Culture - the oft neglected step-sister of economics - became an INDUSTRY. A money spinner. It was well worth the West's while not only to sell mass produces culture to homogenized markets - but to make sure that these markets were peaceful, stable, accessible and free. If necessary, this was to be secured by force.
Paradoxically, in this age of moral relativity and political correctness - the West is ASHAMED to admit that this is a cultural war where one of the parties is trying to impose its cultural values on the other for utterly utilitarian reasons. Instead, the war is presented as a matter of national interest of the OLD TYPE.
But then what IS the OLD TYPE of the national interest of the USA, Europe, EU and NATO?
Isn't it the preservation and immutability of existing borders?
The suppression of irredentist and separatist movements?
The abolition of terror?
The prevention of large scale dislocations of endemic populations?
And if so, wasn't the best way to ensure all the above - to allow Milosevic to cruelly and ruthlessly eradicate the KLA and intimidate the local population into submission?
Hasn't the West adopted these very tactics (of encouraging local bullies to suppress and even eliminate local restive populations) in Latin America in the 70's and 80's and in Africa in the 60's and 70's?
Didn't the West (wisely) turn a blind eye on China, Russia, Israel, Iraq (prior to 1990) and others only recently when they did to their population what Milosevic did not dare to do to his?
The Kosovo war - it is clear - is contrary to any conceivable OLD TYPE self-interest of the West. It costs the West dearly and will cost it even more - and not only in monetary terms. The loss of prestige, moral standing, world support, economic resources, world trade (the blocking of the Danube) far outweighs any possible rendition of the old school "national interest". It is the protection and propagation of the West's culture that is at stake, replete with human rights, civil rights, capitalism, individualism and liberalism. It is a defining war - not only militarily (the future of NATO) but also culturally (the identity of the future global market). Poor Milosevic, look what he got himself into.
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. is the author of Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain - How the West Lost the East. He served as a columnist for Central Europe Review, PopMatters, Bellaonline, and eBookWeb, a United Press International (UPI) Senior Business Correspondent, and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory and Suite101.
Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government of Macedonia. Sam Vaknin's Web site is at http://samvak.tripod.com
You can download 22 of his free ebooks in our bookstore
http://www.globalpolitician.com/articleshow.asp?ID=1513&cid=3
December 28, 2005
The Black Birds of Kosova
Balkans Paradise for Al Qaeda
HoustonChronicle.com -- http://www.HoustonChronicle.com | Section: World
Dec. 27, 2005, 9:33AM
Terrorists said to be getting aid in Balkans
Crime gangs that control the smuggling routes are making their infiltration easier
By GREGORY KATZ
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Foreign ServiceBELGRADE, SERBIA - A hidden alliance between terror networks and organized crime gangs that control heavily used smuggling routes in the Balkans is making it easier for terrorists to infiltrate Western Europe, according to law enforcement officials and intelligence experts.
In addition, prosecutors in Serbia believe that in some cases the money earned by people traffickers is used to support terrorist activities in Europe, which has been hit by several major terrorist attacks in the last two years, with many others prevented by police raids.
A key problem is lax border controls throughout the region. Many borders, such as the one between Romania and Serbia, are wide open to gangs that smuggle people, heroin and goods.
Europe's battle to contain the spread of international terrorism has been hobbled by such porous borders, which each year allow tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants to enter. So many people are sneaking into Europe that authorities admit they do not know exactly who resides in their countries, complicating the effort to prevent more terrorist attacks.
"This is a paradise for al-Qaida," said Marko Nicovic, former police chief in the Serbian capital Belgrade and a director of the International Narcotic Enforcement Officers Association. "For Europe, it can be a disaster at any time because the authorities don't know who is there and they don't know who is who. The attacks in Madrid and London showed that."
Traveling freely
Once illegal migrants reach Serbia overland from Eastern Europe, police say they can easily cross into Bosnia and then Slovenia, thus entering the European Union. At that point, they can take advantage of weak or nonexistent border controls to travel freely to France, Spain, Germany and other countries on the continent.Police officials believe that most of the migrants are law-abiding people looking for work, but they caution that the migration gives terrorist gangs a way to move sleeper cells into the West while also fueling tensions between Western Europe's Muslims, the fastest growing minority on the continent, and the rest of society.
These tensions surface in a number of ways: the deadly attacks on transit systems in Madrid and London, intense rioting in France, death threats against secular politicians in the Netherlands, and legal battles over the right to wear Muslim scarves and headgear to public schools.
While smuggling gangs are using Serbia as a transit point, some Muslim militants seems to have established a base in neighboring Bosnia.
Officials warn that several hundred militants who came to Bosnia to fight on behalf of Muslims there during the war in the 1990s have remained in the country to attack the West.
In October, police in Bosnia uncovered an apparent plot to blow up the British Embassy and found a large cache of weapons and explosives along with propaganda vowing to retaliate for the U.S.-and-British-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.
A Swede and a Dane were also arrested in that raid, and there were follow-up arrests in Sweden that suggested the Bosnian extremists had operational ties to Western Europe, investigators said.
Disturbing pairing
Magnus Ranstorp, a specialist at the Swedish National Defense College who testified before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, said the presence of Islamic militants inside Bosnia makes it an attractive gateway into Europe for terrorists.
"They came in ten years ago, that was the first warning signal, it was the embryo of what became al-Qaida in Europe," he said. "The Iranians are supporting activity there, and the Balkans have become the crossroads where we see the merger of Islamic extremist groups who reach out to organized crime groups."
Ranstorp said well-established organized crime networks in the region provide the terrorist gangs with routes for people smuggling and with phony identification documents.
"People being smuggled in add to the security threat," he said. "Most are economic migrants but hand-in-hand with that are people in organized crime who allow terrorism to be possible. They move in the same circles and need the same things. If you want to tackle terrorists, you have to tackle the supporting environment, the organized crime rings and the human trafficking rings."
The migrants enter Europe in many ways. Some travel on land through Serbia and the other countries of the former Yugoslavia.
Others take trawlers or dilapidated fishing boats across the Mediterranean bound for southern Spain or Italy. Still others simply fly into the continent's many hub airports.
'New generation of jihadis'
A large number of immigrants formally apply for political asylum in their new countries, giving them the right to a legal review that can take years. Others destroy their identity documents, making it difficult for authorities to determine their nationality.Many come from predominantly Muslim countries like Morocco, Pakistan and Afghanistan where jihadis committed to waging holy war against the West are active. This sentiment has grown in ferocity since the United States and Britain invaded Iraq two years ago, according to analysts and enforcement agents.
"There is clear, unmistakable evidence that the level of terrorist activity that has killed and injured people has soared to unprecedented levels since we invaded Iraq," said Larry Johnson, a former CIA agent and State Department counter-terrorism specialist now working in the private sector.
"Iraq is creating a new generation of jihadis looking for places to live in Europe," Johnson said, "and they have this festering resentment that is usually at the core of terrorism. They will take up residence with existing communities or form new ones in Europe.
"It doesn't augur for a great future."
Serbian investigators maintain they have uncovered a prime example of the cozy relationship between terrorism and people smugglers. It involves a Bangladeshi suspect believed by prosecutors to be making more than $150,000 per week bringing people into Western Europe through clandestine routes.
Training camps in Bosnia
Mioljub Vitorovic, the Serbian special prosecutor for organized crime cases, said he believes, but cannot prove, that some of this money was being paid to support the families of suicide bombers who have carried out attacks in Europe. He also believes a number of jihadis from Bangladesh have gathered at training camps inside Bosnia.The prosecutor complained that the suspect, whom he declined to name, appears to have some high-level protection because he has been able to flee whenever police are closing in.
Prosecutors in several countries are gathering evidence about the gang, he said.
"This is a huge case involving Sri Lankans, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, and the whole region is looking for the leader of the operation, who is this Bangladeshi," Vitorovic said. "He was involved during the Bosnian war and he's using his connections to bring people across the borders. We have information about the money he is making. This is from listening to his mobile phone conversations."
He said he had warned intelligence officials in Western Europe about the threat posed by this people-smuggling operation but was ignored.
That changed, he said, after the July 7 suicide attacks on London's transit system, carried out by British Muslims linked to overseas groups, revealed how dangerous the situation had become.
"Now they are paying much more attention to the situation here," he said.
'Using all channels'
Serbian Border Police concede they are outmanned and outgunned in the losing battle against well-organized smugglers.
"It's very easy for them to cross the Danube," said Col. Dusan Zlokas, chief of the Serbian Border Police. "We need more boats, we need radar, we need thermal imaging, we need binoculars with night vision, we need everything. We don't have the technical capacity to provide border security."
He cited the arrest in Serbia in March of a Moroccan accused of taking part in the deadly 2004 attacks on the Madrid train system that killed nearly 200 people as proof that international terrorists are using Serbia as a transit point.
"The biggest number of recruited terrorists is coming from this illegal immigrants community," he said. "It is a very vulnerable society and easy to recruit in. For sure, this jeopardizes Western Europe and the U.S.
"This is the crossroads of the trade in illegal immigrants, weapons and drugs and no one can say terrorists cannot pass. They are using all channels."
HoustonChronicle.com -- http://www.HoustonChronicle.com | Section: World
This article is: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/3549171.html######
Outside the BeltwayTuesday, December 27, 2005Balkans Paradise for Al Qaeda
By James JoynerThe Houston Chronicle's Gregory Katz has a disturbing report from Belgrade that the combination of loose borders and powerful organized crime syndicates have made the Balkans "a paradise for al-Qaeda."
A hidden alliance between terror networks and organized crime gangs that control heavily used smuggling routes in the Balkans is making it easier for terrorists to infiltrate Western Europe, according to law enforcement officials and intelligence experts. In addition, prosecutors in Serbia believe that in some cases the money earned by people traffickers is used to support terrorist activities in Europe, which has been hit by several major terrorist attacks in the last two years, with many others prevented by police raids.
A key problem is lax border controls throughout the region. Many borders, such as the one between Romania and Serbia, are wide open to gangs that smuggle people, heroin and goods. Europe's battle to contain the spread of international terrorism has been hobbled by such porous borders, which each year allow tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants to enter. So many people are sneaking into Europe that authorities admit they do not know exactly who resides in their countries, complicating the effort to prevent more terrorist attacks. "This is a paradise for al-Qaida," said Marko Nicovic, former police chief in the Serbian capital Belgrade and a director of the International Narcotic Enforcement Officers Association. "For Europe, it can be a disaster at any time because the authorities don't know who is there and they don't know who is who. The attacks in Madrid and London showed that."
Once illegal migrants reach Serbia overland from Eastern Europe, police say they can easily cross into Bosnia and then Slovenia, thus entering the European Union. At that point, they can take advantage of weak or nonexistent border controls to travel freely to France, Spain, Germany and other countries on the continent.
Police officials believe that most of the migrants are law-abiding people looking for work, but they caution that the migration gives terrorist gangs a way to move sleeper cells into the West while also fueling tensions between Western Europe's Muslims, the fastest growing minority on the continent, and the rest of society. These tensions surface in a number of ways: the deadly attacks on transit systems in Madrid and London, intense rioting in France, death threats against secular politicians in the Netherlands, and legal battles over the right to wear Muslim scarves and headgear to public schools.
While smuggling gangs are using Serbia as a transit point, some Muslim militants seems to have established a base in neighboring Bosnia. Officials warn that several hundred militants who came to Bosnia to fight on behalf of Muslims there during the war in the 1990s have remained in the country to attack the West.
In October, police in Bosnia uncovered an apparent plot to blow up the British Embassy and found a large cache of weapons and explosives along with propaganda vowing to retaliate for the U.S.-and-British-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. A Swede and a Dane were also arrested in that raid, and there were follow-up arrests in Sweden that suggested the Bosnian extremists had operational ties to Western Europe, investigators said.
Magnus Ranstorp, a specialist at the Swedish National Defense College who testified before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, said the presence of Islamic militants inside Bosnia makes it an attractive gateway into Europe for terrorists. "They came in ten years ago, that was the first warning signal, it was the embryo of what became al-Qaida in Europe," he said. "The Iranians are supporting activity there, and the Balkans have become the crossroads where we see the merger of Islamic extremist groups who reach out to organized crime groups."
[...]
A large number of immigrants formally apply for political asylum in their new countries, giving them the right to a legal review that can take years. Others destroy their identity documents, making it difficult for authorities to determine their nationality. Many come from predominantly Muslim countries like Morocco, Pakistan and Afghanistan where jihadis committed to waging holy war against the West are active. This sentiment has grown in ferocity since the United States and Britain invaded Iraq two years ago, according to analysts and enforcement agents.
"There is clear, unmistakable evidence that the level of terrorist activity that has killed and injured people has soared to unprecedented levels since we invaded Iraq," said Larry Johnson, a former CIA agent and State Department counter-terrorism specialist now working in the private sector. "Iraq is creating a new generation of jihadis looking for places to live in Europe," Johnson said, "and they have this festering resentment that is usually at the core of terrorism. They will take up residence with existing communities or form new ones in Europe. "It doesn't augur for a great future."
Scary stuff. We've already seen some of the fruits of this, with the bombings in London and Madrid. As the piece makes clear, European leaders are finally awakening to the problem. It may, however, to be too late to undo the damage.
Related:
- "Please Appease Me," TCS, July 8, 2005.
