The Anti-Empire Report

September 29th, 2009
by William Blum
www.killinghope.org

Ridding the world of the sickness of pacifism

 

Picture the scene: Afghanistan, two hijacked tankers filled with highly inflammable fuel, surrounded by a crowd of Afghans eager to syphon off some for free ... What's the last thing you want to do? Right — drop bombs on the tankers. That's what a German military commander signaled an American drone airplane to do September 4. Kaboom!! At least 100 human beings incinerated. This incident has led to a lot of controversy in Germany, for Article 26 of Germany's post-war Grundgesetz (Basic Law/Constitution) states: "Acts tending to and undertaken with intent to disturb the peaceful relations between nations, especially to prepare for a war of aggression, shall be unconstitutional. They shall be made a criminal offense."

But NATO (aka the United States) can take satisfaction in the fact that the Germans have put their silly pacifism aside and acted like real men, trained military killers; although prior to this incident the Germans had engaged in some aerial and ground combat, there hadn't been such a dramatic and publicized taking of civilian lives. Deutschland now has more than 4,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, the third largest contingent in the country after the US and Britain, and at home they've just finished building a monument to fallen members of the Bundeswehr (Federal Armed Forces), founded in 1955; 38 members (so far) have surrendered their young lives in Afghanistan.

In January 2007 I wrote in this report about how the US was pushing Germany in this direction; that circumstances at that time indicated that Washington might be losing patience with the pace of Germany's submission to the empire's needs. Germany declined to send troops to Iraq and sent only non-combat forces to Afghanistan, not quite good enough for the Pentagon warriors and their NATO allies. Germany's leading news magazine, Der Spiegel, reported the following:

At a meeting in Washington, Bush administration officials, speaking in the context of Afghanistan, berated Karsten Voigt, German government representative for German-American relations: "You concentrate on rebuilding and peacekeeping, but the unpleasant things you leave to us." ... "The Germans have to learn to kill."

A German officer at NATO headquarters was told by a British officer: "Every weekend we send home two metal coffins, while you Germans distribute crayons and woollen blankets." Bruce George, the head of the British Defence Committee, said "some drink tea and beer and others risk their lives."

A NATO colleague from Canada remarked that it was about time that "the Germans left their sleeping quarters and learned how to kill the Taliban."

And in Quebec, a Canadian official told a German official: "We have the dead, you drink beer." ¹

Ironically, in many other contexts since the end of World War II the Germans have been unable to disassociate themselves from the image of Nazi murderers and monsters.

Will there come the day when the Taliban and Iraqi insurgents will be mocked by "the Free World" for living in peace?

The United States has also engaged in a decades-long effort to wean Japan away from its post-WW2 pacifist constitution and foreign policy and set it back on the righteous path of again being a military power, only this time acting in coordination with US foreign policy needs.

"Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.

"In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized." — Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, 1947, words long cherished by a large majority of the Japanese people.

In the triumphalism of the end of the Second World War, the American occupation of Japan, in the person of General Douglas MacArthur, played a major role in the creation of this constitution. But after the communists came to power in China in 1949, the United States opted for a strong Japan safely ensconced in the anti-communist camp. It's been all downhill since then. Step by step ... MacArthur himself ordered the creation of a "national police reserve", which became the embryo of the future Japanese military ... Visiting Tokyo in 1956, US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles told Japanese officials: "In the past, Japan had demonstrated her superiority over the Russians and over China. It was time for Japan to think again of being and acting like a Great Power." ²... various US-Japanese security and defense cooperation treaties, which, for example, called on Japan to integrate its military technology with that of the US and NATO ... the US supplying new sophisticated military aircraft and destroyers ... all manner of Japanese logistical assistance to the US in its frequent military operations in Asia ... repeated US pressure on Japan to increase its military budget and the size of its armed forces ... more than a hundred US military bases in Japan, protected by Japanese armed forces ... US-Japanese joint military exercises and joint research on a missile defense system ... the US Ambassador to Japan, 2001: "I think the reality of circumstances in the world is going to suggest to the Japanese that they reinterpret or redefine Article 9." ³ ... under pressure from Washington, Japan sent several naval vessels to the Indian Ocean to refuel US and British warships as part of the Afghanistan campaign in 2002, then sent non-combat forces to Iraq to assist the American war as well as to East Timor, another made-in-America war scenario ... Secretary of State Colin Powell, 2004: "If Japan is going to play a full role on the world stage and become a full active participating member of the Security Council, and have the kind of obligations that it would pick up as a member of the Security Council, Article Nine would have to be examined in that light." ⁴...

One outcome or symptom of all this can perhaps be seen in the 2005 case of Kimiko Nezu, a 54-year-old Japanese teacher, who was punished by being transferred from school to school, by suspensions, salary cuts, and threats of dismissal because of her refusal to stand during the playing of the national anthem, a World War II song chosen as the anthem in 1999. She opposed the song because it was the same one sung as the Imperial Army set forth from Japan calling for an "eternal reign" of the emperor. At graduation ceremonies in 2004, 198 teachers refused to stand for the song. After a series of fines and disciplinary actions, Nezu and nine other teachers were the only protesters the following year. Nezu was then allowed to teach only when another teacher was present. ⁵

Which brings us to Italy, the remaining member of the World War Two Tripartite, or Axis. Article 11 of the 1948 Italian Constitution says in part: "Italy rejects war as a means for settling international controversies and as an instrument of aggression against the freedoms of others peoples." ⁶

But Washington laid claim early to Italy's post-war soul. In 1948 the United States all but took over the Italian election campaign to insure the Christian Democrats (CD) defeat of the Communist-Socialist candidate. (And the US remained an electoral force in Italy for the next three decades maintaining the CD in power. The Christian Democrats, in turn, were loyal Cold-War partners.) ⁷ In 1949, the US saw to it that Italy became a founding member of NATO. This was not seen as a threat to Article 11 because NATO has always painted itself as a "defensive" organization, even in 1999 when it carried out a 78-day bombing of Yugoslavia as both Italy and Germany supplied military aircraft and a NATO air base at Aviano, Italy served as the main hub for the daily bombing runs. For decades, Italy has been the home of US military bases and airfields used by Washington in one military adventure after another from Europe to Asia.

There are now some 3,000 Italian soldiers in Afghanistan performing a variety of services which enables the United States and NATO to engage in their bloody warfare. And 15 Italian soldiers have also lost their lives in that woeful land. The pressure on Italy, as on Germany, to become full-fledged combatants in Afghanistan and elsewhere is unrelenting from their NATO comrades. ⁸

The Berlin Wall — Another Cold War Myth

Within a few weeks many of the Western media can be expected to turn on their propaganda machines to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, November 9, 1989. All the Cold War clichés about The Free World vs. Communist Tyranny will be trotted out and the simple tale of how the wall came to be will be repeated: In 1961, the East Berlin communists built a wall to keep their oppressed citizens from escaping to West Berlin and freedom. Why? Because commies don't like people to be free, to learn the "truth". What other reason could there have been?

First of all, before the wall went up thousands of East Germans had been commuting to the West for jobs each day and then returned to the East in the evening. So they were clearly not being held in the East against their will. The wall was built primarily for two reasons:

1. The West was bedeviling the East with a vigorous campaign of recruiting East German professionals and skilled workers, who had been educated at the expense of the Communist government. This eventually led to a serious labor and production crisis in the East. As one indication of this, the New York Times reported in 1963: "West Berlin suffered economically from the wall by the loss of about 60,000 skilled workmen who had commuted daily from their homes in East Berlin to their places of work in West Berlin." ⁹
2. During the 1950s, American coldwarriors in West Germany instituted a crude campaign of sabotage and subversion against East Germany designed to throw that country's economic and administrative machinery out of gear. The CIA and other US intelligence and military services recruited, equipped, trained and financed German activist groups and individuals, of West and East, to carry out actions which ran the spectrum from terrorism to juvenile delinquency; anything to make life difficult for the East German people and weaken their support of the government; anything to make the commies look bad.

It was a remarkable undertaking. The United States and its agents used explosives, arson, short circuiting, and other methods to damage power stations, shipyards, canals, docks, public buildings, gas stations, public transportation, bridges, etc; they derailed freight trains, seriously injuring workers; burned 12 cars of a freight train and destroyed air pressure hoses of others; used acids to damage vital factory machinery; put sand in the turbine of a factory, bringing it to a standstill; set fire to a tile-producing factory; promoted work slow-downs in factories; killed 7,000 cows of a co-operative dairy through poisoning; added soap to powdered milk destined for East German schools; were in possession, when arrested, of a large quantity of the poison cantharidin with which it was planned to produce poisoned cigarettes to kill leading East Germans; set off stink bombs to disrupt political meetings; attempted to disrupt the World Youth Festival in East Berlin by sending out forged invitations, false promises of free bed and board, false notices of cancellations, etc.; carried out attacks on participants with explosives, firebombs, and tire-puncturing equipment; forged and distributed large quantities of food ration cards to cause confusion, shortages and resentment; sent out forged tax notices and other government directives and documents to foster disorganization and inefficiency within industry and unions ... all this and much more. ¹⁰

Throughout the 1950s, the East Germans and the Soviet Union repeatedly lodged complaints with the Soviets' erstwhile allies in the West and with the United Nations about specific sabotage and espionage activities and called for the closure of the offices in West Germany they claimed were responsible, and for which they provided names and addresses. Their complaints fell on deaf ears. Inevitably, the East Germans began to tighten up entry into the country from the West.

Let's not forget that Eastern Europe became communist because Hitler, with the approval of the West, used it as a highway to reach the Soviet Union and wipe out Bolshevism forever. After the war, the Soviets were determined to close down the highway.

In 1999, USA Today reported: "When the Berlin Wall crumbled, East Germans imagined a life of freedom where consumer goods were abundant and hardships would fade. Ten years later, a remarkable 51% say they were happier with communism." ¹¹

About the same time a new Russian proverb was born: "Everything the Communists said about Communism was a lie, but everything they said about capitalism turned out to be the truth."

Health care: ignoring the huge red elephant in the room

In the frenzied search of recent months for a better way of delivering health care to the American people, the American media has often discussed health-care systems in other countries, particularly Europe. Usually, little, if anything, is mentioned about Cuba's system, where everyone is covered, for everything, where pre-existing conditions do not matter, and no patient pays for anything; i.e., nothing at all. The reason the Cuban system is seldom mentioned in the mass media is probably that it's kind of embarrassing that this otherwise poor country, laboring under the awful yoke of (choke, gasp) socialism, can deliver health care that most Americans can only dream of.

Now we have a new book by T.R. Reid, former correspondent for the Washington Post and commentator for National Public Radio. It's called "The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care". Reid does not avoid giving some credit to the Cuban system, but he makes sure that the reader knows that he's not taken in by any commie propaganda. He refers to the Cuban government as "a totalitarian Communist fiefdom", and adds: "In every country (except, perhaps, a police state like Cuba) there is one group of citizens who are not bound by the unified health care system: the rich." ¹² Thus, the fact that Cuba has an egalitarian health care system is made to seem like something negative, something one could expect to find only in a police state.

In discussing the World Health Organization's giving Cuba high marks for fairness in its system, Reid points out: "Of course, fairness and equal treatment extend only so far; when Fidel Castro himself fell ill in 2007, medical experts were flown in from Europe to treat him." ¹³ Aha! I knew it! Americans, and not just the right-wing crazies, would never accept a medical system where everyone got completely free care for all ailments if the president ever got any kind of special treatment. Would they? We could at least ask them.

Speaking of the right-wing crazies, there was a report in the New York Times which said: "Tomorrow night, getting right into the thick of the battle," the president will "carry his message to the people in a nationwide television and radio speech" fighting for enactment of his health reform bill, which opponents tagged as "socialized medicine" and "an entering wedge for the takeover of private medicine by the federal government." The president was John F. Kennedy, the program was Medicare, the Times story was published on May 20, 1962. Despite the speech, the effort failed until passage in 1964. ¹⁴

And speaking of the totalitarian communist socialist fascist Cuban police-state dictatorship, Mr. Reid and others might be interested in an article I wrote which demonstrates that during the period of its revolution, Cuba has enjoyed one of the very best human-rights records in all of Latin America.

But how to get past a lifetime of conditioning and reach the American mind with that message? At the recent convention of the AFL-CIO, the country's leading labor organization, there was a very progressive resolution put forth calling for the right of all Americans to travel to Cuba and for an end to the US embargo against the island nation. But at the end of the resolution the authors reminded us that they're Americans, calling upon Cuba "to release all political prisoners". ¹⁵

To appreciate what's wrong with that resolution one must understand the following: The United States is to the Cuban government like al Qaeda is to Washington, only much more powerful and much closer. Since the Cuban revolution, the United States and anti-Castro Cuban exiles in the US have inflicted upon Cuba greater damage and greater loss of life than what happened in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001. Cuban dissidents typically have had very close, indeed intimate, political and financial connections to American government officials, particularly in Havana through the United States Interests Section. Would the US government ignore a group of Americans receiving funds from al Qaeda and/or engaging in repeated meetings with known leaders of that organization? In the past few years, the American government has arrested a great many people in the US and abroad solely on the basis of alleged ties to al Qaeda, with a lot less evidence to go by than Cuba has had with its dissidents' ties to the United States, evidence gathered by Cuban double agents. Virtually all of Cuba's "political prisoners" are such dissidents.

Notes

1. Der Spiegel (Germany), November 20, 2006, p.24 ^↩
2. Los Angeles Times, September 23, 1994 ^↩
3. Washington Post, July 18, 2001 ^↩
4. BBC, August 14, 2004 ^↩
5. Washington Post, August 30, 2005 ^↩
6. Wikipedia: "Article 11 of Italian Constitution" ^↩
7. William Blum, "Killing Hope", chapters 2 and 18 ^↩
8. For further discussion of US opposition to Post-WW2 Axis pacifism, see "Former Axis Nations Abandon Post-World War II Military Restrictions" ^↩
9. New York Times, June 27, 1963, p.12 ^↩
10. See Killing Hope, p.400, note 8, for a list of sources for the details of the sabotage and subversion ^↩
11. USA Today, October 11, 1999, p.1 ^↩
12. p.234 of Reid's book ^↩
13. Ibid., p.150-1 ^↩
14. Washington Post, September 9, 2009 ^↩
15. PDF of resolution ^↩

–

William Blum is the author of:

• Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2
• Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower
• West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir
• Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire

Portions of the books can be read, and signed copies purchased, at www.killinghope.org

Previous Anti-Empire Reports can be read at this website.

To add yourself to this mailing list simply send an email to bblum6 [at] aol.com with "add" in the subject line. I'd like your name and city in the message, but that's optional. I ask for your city only in case I'll be speaking in your area.

(Or put "remove" in the subject line to do the opposite.)

Any part of this report may be disseminated without permission. I'd appreciate it if the website were mentioned.

http://killinghope.org/bblum6/aer74.html#note-1

Irrefutable Proof ICTY Is Corrupt Court / Irrefutable Proof the Hague Court Cannot, Legitimately Prosecute Karadzic Case

4Vote!

Serbia To Shortly Ascend to the EU Says SPAIN.

 

Irrefutable Proof ICTY Is Corrupt Court/Irrefutable Proof the Hague Court Cannot Legitimately Prosecute Karadzic Case

 

Jill Starr | 09/25/2009

http://lpcyu.instablogs.com/entry/nato-says-the-hague-tribunal-or-icty-belongs-to-nato-truth-bites-for-te-hague-lately/

This legal technicality indicates the Hague must dismiss charges against Dr karadzic and others awaiting trials in the Hague jail; like it or not.

Unfortunately for the Signatures Of the Rome Statute United Nations member states instituting the ICC & ICTY housed at the Hague, insofar as the, Radovan Karadzic, as with the other Hague cases awaiting trial there, I personally witnessed these United Nations member states openly speaking about trading judicial appointments and verdicts for financial funding when I attended the 2001 ICC Preparatory Meetings at the UN in Manhattan making the iCTY and ICC morally incapable trying Radovan Karazdic and others.

I witnessed with my own eyes and ears when attending the 2001 Preparatory Meetings to establish an newly emergent International Criminal Court, the exact caliber of criminal corruption running so very deeply at the Hague, that it was a perfectly viable topic of legitimate conversation in those meetings I attended to debate trading verdicts AND judicial appointments, for monetary funding.

Jilly wrote:*The rep from Spain became distraught and when her country's proposal was not taken to well by the chair of the meeting , then Spain argued in a particularly loud and noticably strongly vocal manner, "Spain (my country) strongly believes if we contribute most financial support to the Hague's highest court, that ought to give us and other countries feeding it financially MORE direct power over its decisions."

((((((((((((((((((((((((( ((((((((((((((((((((((((( Instead of censoring the country representative from Spain for even bringing up this unjust, illegal and unfair judicial idea of bribery for international judicial verdicts and judicial appointments, all country representatives present in the meeting that day all treated the Spain proposition as a "totally legitimate topic" discussed and debated it between each other for some time. I was quite shocked!  The idea was "let's discuss it." "It's a great topic to discuss."

Some countries agreed with Spain's propositions while others did not. The point here is, bribery for judicial verdicts and judicial appointments was treated as a totally legitimate topic instead of an illegitimate toic which it is in the meeting that I attended in 2001 that day to establish the ground work for a newly emergent international criminal court.))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

In particular., since "Spain" was so overtly unafraid in bringing up this topic of trading financial funding the ICC for influence over its future judicial appointments and verdicts in front of every other UN member state present that day at the UN, "Spain" must have already known by previous experience the topic of bribery was "socially acceptable" for conversation that day. They must have previously spoke about bribing the ICTY and ICC before in meetings; this is my take an international sociological honor student.

SPAIN's diplomatic gesture of international justice insofar as, Serbia, in all of this is, disgusting morally!

SPAIN HAS TAUGHT THE WORLD THE TRUE DEFINITION OF AN "INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT."

I remind everyone, when I attended those ICC Preparatory Meetings in 2001, witnessing first hand the country plenipotentiary representatives present with me discussing so openly, trading judicial funding of a new international criminal court, for its direct judicial appointments and judicial verdicts, those same state powers were concurrently,

those same countries and people were already simultaneously, funding the already established ICTY which was issuing at that time, arrest warrants for Bosnian Serbs (primarily) under false diplomatic pretenses.

The ICTY and ICC is just where it should be for once. Cornered and backed into and an international wall, scared like a corned animal (and I bet it reacts in the same way a rabid cornered animal does too in such circumstances). (ICTY associates) murdered former Serb President, Slobodan Milosevic, tried to murder me, as well and other Serbs prisoners and presently places , Doctor Radovan Karadzic's life in direct danger as well as Ratko Mladic's life in danger should he be brought there.

The ICTY has no other choice than to halt all further court proceedings against, Doctor Radovan Karadzic, and others there both serving sentences and awaiting trials. Miss JIll Louise Starr (The UN Security Council has no choice but to act on this now).

I represented the state interests' of the Former Yugoslavia, in Darko Trifunovic's absence in those meetings and I am proud to undertake this effort on Serbia's behalf.

 

http://www.wikio.com/article/128621065

Osservatorio Balcani: Filling the gaps between Albania and Kosovo

Recent statements by Sali Berisha on the strengthening cooperation between Albania and Kosovo have stirred a lively debate over the notion of "Greater Albania". Political considerations notwithstanding, relationships between the two states have been intensifying.  ...

 

...  Statements from Albanian government officials supporting the union of Albania and Kosovo are not something new.  ...

 

...  the most important element bringing closer the two capitals is construction of a new highway that makes Kosovo's border only a two-hour drive from the Adriatic Sea. ...

 

[ If it looks like a Greater Albania, if it sounds like a Greater Albania, if it acts like a Greater Albania,  it must be a Greater Albania. ]

 

 

http://www.osservatoriobalcani.org/article/articleview/11831/1/407/

 

Filling the gaps

 

Osservatorio Balcani   |   23.09.2009   |   From Pristina, V. Kasapolli

[Italiano]

New highway linking Kosovo and Albania (olsib/flickr)

 

 

Recent statements by Sali Berisha on the strengthening cooperation between Albania and Kosovo have stirred a lively debate over the notion of "Greater Albania". Political considerations notwithstanding, relationships between the two states have been intensifying.

 

Discussions on the 'Greater Albania' notion have been provoked by a statement in late August from the Albanian prime minister, Sali Berisha, who suggested increased cooperation between Albania and Kosovo. The Albanian prime minister said that "the idea of national unity is based on European ideals", meaning that much work needs to be done to achieve EU-like standards of cooperation. Serbia, as the strongest opponent of Kosovo's statehood, immediately expressed its opposition to the idea and warned officials in Tirana that regional cooperation is at risk when such ideas float in the air (despite Berisha's statement excluding discussions on sovereignty).

Statements from Albanian government officials supporting the union of Albania and Kosovo are not something new. In 2001, when the Albanian socialists held office, the justice minister, Arben Imami, stated that Albania and Kosovo should have a high priority of unifying their territories into a single state. Imami's statement attracted enormous media attention at that time and political concern because Kosovo had just come out of the war and was under strong international supervision, with independence nowhere in the sight. Serbia was struggling in an internal conflict with Albanians seeking more rights in the south of the country (Presevo valley), while Macedonia was close to a civil war between Macedonians and ethnic Albanians.

Over the past 20 years, unification ideas have not found wide-scale support in Kosovo. In 1998, the current Kosovar assembly speaker, Jakup Krasniqi, claimed that the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) would fight for unification of Albanian territories in the Balkans. However, after the war, the former KLA spokesperson Krasniqi aligned with other leaders in Pristina to make careful statements. Apparently, he knew that any reference to unification with Albania would hinder the process of determining Kosovo's status and establishing the new state.

Not by chance, the new Kosovar constitution states that "Republic of Kosovo shall have no territorial claims against, and shall seek no union with, any state or part of any state". Furthermore, Kosovo's general attitude on the issue may be reflected by pro-union political parties inability to win more than a couple percent of the electorate.
Opponents to Berisha's statements have suggested that "pan-nationalist projects are harmful and don't enjoy support from the international community". However, others see the statement as urging the two states to unify through a EU model. Intensified communication after the war in Kosovo has changed the situation on the ground and has brought Kosovo and Albania closer than ever to each other.

Tourism figures show that, in the 2009 season, about 70 % of all tourists visiting the Albanian coast came from Kosovo. According to the latest data provided by the Kosovo police, during July and August 2009 as many as 528,000 Kosovar tourists entered Albania.

At the heavily trafficked Vermice/Morine border-crossing, both Kosovar and Albanian police officers simply waved on all vehicles with Kosovar car plates. Drivers did not need to show personal or car documents or even stop with the customs officers for a routine, "Nothing to declare, neighbour." When entering Albania or returning to Kosovo, a police officer's simple gesture was the only sign of a border, while another police officer counted the number of vehicles for tourism records.

Privileges for Kosovar drivers do not end there. Kosovar drivers apparently enjoy general immunity from routine traffic checks by the Albanian police; even when a violation is at stake. This may be because, since 2000, Kosovars make up a large part of all tourists visiting the Albanian Riviera.
Unsurprisingly, tourists visiting the Albanian coasts end up in apartments owned by Kosovars, whether it is in Durres, Vlora or Saranda. Albania's property boom in the last 15 years has inspired Kosovar Albanians to invest in property and secure themselves a spot by the sea. As far as Saranda in southern Albania, tourists stopping for a cool beer to defy the Mediterranean summer temperatures might pick up a "Peja" beer, produced in the namesake city in northwest Kosovo and with a price similar to any bar in Kosovo.

In culture, Tirana and Pristina hold very few events independent of each other. The two capitals smoothly synchronise film festivals, song festivals, beauty pageant contests, Big Brother reality shows, and, of course, language seminars . For example, this year, an Albanian artist won the most important video event in Pristina (Video Fest), while a Kosovar singer won the most important competition for Albanian modern music in Tirana (Top Fest). A lack of quality TV broadcasters in Kosovo has benefited Tirana-based media firms that have 'conquered' Kosovar houses through cable TV programming that ranges from children shows to political and lifestyle debates.

In sports, seven Kosovar athletes play regularly for Albania's national football team. A frequent captain for Albania's national team is Kosovo-born Lorik Cana, a former player for Marseille and current captain of the Sunderland team in the English Premier league, . The 26-year-old is following the success of another Kosovo-born player who has retired from the international level, Besnik Hasi. As an experienced player in the Belgian football league and at the level of the Champions League, Hasi has frequently led the Albanian national team. Furthermore, a few players in almost every sport compete for national teams of Albania because of the lack of international recognition of Kosovo.

Since the war ended in 1999, the private sector has explored market possibilities on both sides of the border. Albanian-based companies play a crucial role in the rapid development of the construction sector in Kosovo. Meanwhile, the government in Tirana has regularly sent experts to assist the new Kosovar institutions in creating laws compatible with the EU standards.

Lately, Konfindustria Shqiptare, an Albanian organisation promoting domestic industrial production, has suggested targeting economic policies towards a market of about six million consumers predominately governed by ethnic Albanians. The organisation claims that this is the way to establish good products and prepare for a greater market such as CEFTA (Central European Free Trade Agreement), an association including both Albania and Kosovo and representing a market of more than 20 million consumers.

However, the most important element bringing closer the two capitals is construction of a new highway that makes Kosovo's border only a two-hour drive from the Adriatic Sea. As a result, without the obstacle of a minimum of six-hours travel on rough mountain roads, Albanians have visited Kosovo in large numbers.

Berisha's statement that Tirana and Pristina should not look at each other as foreign countries apparently has been endorsed by the actions of citizens. In early September, the new Albanian government has made Kosovo its main foreign-policy priority and has pledged to support Kosovo's efforts to add to the current 62 international recognitions of its independence.

In the region, Croatia has had a long-standing policy of granting passports to Croatians in Bosnia-Herzegovina and other countries in the region. Serbia has started to extend its welcome to the Serbians in Bosnia & Herzegovina, and has issued Serbian passports with which they would, most probably, travel without visas in EU countries beginning next year. The Albanians in the Balkans have not had a similar cooperation. Neither the Kosovar Albanians nor other ethnic Albanians living outside the Albanian state have been granted a passport by authorities in Tirana; except, of course, football captain Cana and friends.

Kosovo and Ongoing De-Christianization

Europe

Letters from Tokyo

Kosovo and Ongoing De-Christianization

By Lee Jay Walker
Tokyo Correspondent

The ongoing de-Christianization of Kosovo continues and unlike the past frenzy of the anti-Serbian mass media in the West, we mainly have a deadly silence about the reality of Kosovo and the continuing Albanianization of this land. However, how is it "just" and "moral" to persecute minorities and to alienate them from mainstream society; and then to illegally recognize this land without the full consensus of the international community?

How ironic it is that the same United States of America and the United Kingdom, two nations who were in the forefront of covertly manipulating the mass media; remain mainly silent about the destruction of Orthodox Christian churches, Serbian architecture, and of course the past killings of Serbians and other minorities in Kosovo.

After all, according to America and the United Kingdom the initial conflict was about human rights, democracy, and liberty. However, what about the liberty and freedom of Orthodox Christian Serbs, Gypsies, and other minorities in Kosovo? Are these minorities free in modern day Kosovo and can they move around without the fear of discrimination, persecution or death?

Obviously, vast parts of Kosovo are out of bounds for the majority of minorities in Kosovo, therefore, the answer is no and many areas which were cleansed of Serbians and other minorities remain cleansed.

According to Minority Rights Group International (MRG) which is based in the United Kingdom, it is apparent that exclusion and discrimination is rife. Therefore, minorities face a bleak future and Serbians, Bosniaks, Roma, Croats, Turks, Gorani and Ashkali Egyptians are either being forced out because of alienation or because of limited economic opportunities.

The MRG is not alone in thinking that minorities have been badly betrayed because it is clear that Kosovo remains in limbo and minorities will continue to leave because of the ongoing situation.

Patriarch Pavle　(His Holiness the Archbishop of Pec, Metropolitan of Belgrade and Karlovci, Patriarch of Serbs) is highly respected and a man of reason. He stated the following many years ago ( http://kosovo.net ):

"This humble publication is our cry and appeal to the Christian and civilized world. It is distressing to learn that in the year of the greatest Christian Jubilee, at the end of two millenniums of Christianity, Christian churches are still being destroyed, not in a war but in the time of peace guaranteed by the international community. We hope that these photos of the destroyed and desecrated Orthodox shrines will awaken the conscience of those who are able to stop the crimes and believe that they who already stood up against one evil will not remain just passive witnesses of another evil happening now in their presence."
"We also make our appeal to all Kosovo Albanians, who reasonably see their future in their joint life with Serbs, to resist and prevent the acts of insanity."
"In Kosovo and Metohija there will be no victory of humanity and justice while revenge and disorder prevail. No one has the moral right to celebrate the victory complacently, as long as one evil is being replaced with another and the freedom of one people is becoming the slavery of another."
Patriarch Pavle stated this many years ago and sadly his words of wisdom have been ignored and instead America and the United Kingdom decided to create a new world order; this new world order was to carve up Serbia and to break international law. This breach of ignoring international law ultimately had greater repercussions because the Russian Federation would support Abkhazia and South Ossetia after conflict erupted in Georgia.

Therefore, a "new can of worms was opened" and the "Kosovo model" could inspire future mayhem because it is clear that international law was rendered to be unimportant.

Like I stressed in my last article about Kosovo (Kosovo and Systematic Persecution by KLA) it is clear that all sides committed atrocities, just like what happens in all wars. Pain can be felt on all sides and sadly many innocents were killed during the various civil wars which engulfed the former Yugoslavia.

However, the Serbian story war largely untold and the same can be said about the persecution of other minorities in Kosovo. Yet what is clear is that the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was involved in running brutal death camps and this even applies to the killing of people for organs.

At the same time the KLA supported the ethnic cleansing of Serbians and other minorities, and the same applies to the destruction of Christian churches, monasteries, and other historical architecture which was a clear reminder of the roots of Kosovo.

Also, the hard sell by America, the United Kingdom, and other nations who support independence, is that independence was justified on the grounds of Serbian atrocities. Yet if the KLA was found to be involved in killing civilians for organs then "the spin machine" collapses and "democracy" rings hollow.

Therefore, in one part of Europe we are a seeing the silent destruction of Serbian Orthodox Christianity and the ongoing persecution and alienation of minorities in Kosovo.

It would appear that the violation of international law is deemed to be a viable policy for both America and the United Kingdom. Therefore, important questions, for example the role of the KLA in killing innocents for organs, the rise of the KLA in such a short space of time and a host of other vital questions remain unanswered.

However, it is vital to counter this cover-up and blatant violation of international law because it is clear that murky covert acts have been implemented by higher powers. Also, the world is still divided about the future of Kosovo but why did some nations behave so hastily without the full facts, and without taking into consideration the ongoing persecution and alienation of minorities in Kosovo?

http://theseoultimes.com/ST/?url=/ST/db/read.php?idx=8734&PHPSESSID=7d5deb16625f8643fb56cd985a170603

Kosovo war not justified, U. Arizona professor argues in new book

Kosovo war not justified, U. Arizona professor argues in new book

By Justyn Dillingham

September 21, 2009

Source: Arizona Daily Wildcat, U. Arizona

 

For most University of Arizona students today, the 1999 Kosovo War may be a distant memory. For David N. Gibbs, it's all too relevant.

Gibbs, an associate professor of history and political science, has published a new book, "First Do No Wrong: Humanitarian Intervention and the Destruction of Yugoslavia," which contends that the United States' intervention into the Balkan wars of the 1990s was not only wrong, but actually made the situation worse.

For Gibbs, President Bill Clinton's decision to intervene in Kosovo marked the beginning of a new era of "humanitarian intervention," supported by leftists and conservatives alike.

Gibbs cites President George W. Bush's decision to invade Iraq and President Barack Obama's commitment to "winning the war" in Afghanistan as a continuation of that trend.

"To the political left, intervention had been seen as a predatory activity," Gibbs said. That changed, he said, with the interventions of the 1990s, beginning with the 1991 Persian Gulf War and continuing under the Clinton administration. He found himself at odds with liberal friends who argued that military action was sometimes necessary to prevent genocide or liberate countries from dictatorships.

"A large number of people I know advocated more intervention," Gibbs said. "They dropped their anti-militarism. Increasingly, you had liberals and even socialists supporting neoconservatives like (former U.S. deputy secretary of defense) Paul Wolfowitz."

Gibbs said he found these pro-intervention arguments "naïve and misguided." He contends in his book that the real motivation for intervention into the Kosovo conflict lay in the U.S. government's wish to strengthen its sway over international affairs in the face of an "independent" European Union. He also argues that "a certain sense of regret" at the passing of the Cold War, and a desire to create new enemies to take the place of the Soviet threat, lay behind the intervention.

American foreign policy is "a self-sustaining machine," Gibbs said. "Many liberal intellectuals foolishly sign up for the enterprise of justifying it."

Gibbs describes himself as "a man of the left," but his argument has found favor with many conservatives "despite this unfortunate deficiency," as he jokingly put it. His book has received positive reviews in the right-leaning Washington Times from a former Reagan administration official, and from the World Socialist Web site.

Gibbs spent ten years working on the book, which marked a new direction for him after his first book, about the Congo crisis of the 1960s.

"It was a totally new field for me," Gibbs said. "I was trying to gain an understanding of the basic change that had occurred with the end of the Cold War.

"I was trained as a political scientist during the Cold War. It took a while for me and others to get a handle on that."

Despite his disdain for most military interventions, Gibbs is careful to disassociate himself from paleoconservatives like Pat Buchanan, who has gone so far as to allege that America's entrance into World War II was unnecessary. Gibbs said he thinks that some of America's past wars, such as World War II and the Civil War, have been justified.

He also said he "probably would not have opposed intervention" to stop the Rwanda genocide in 1994. But he added that even justified wars create a dangerous precedent.

"Each intervention increases the likelihood of further intervention," Gibbs said

 

http://wildcat.arizona.edu/news/kosovo-war-not-justified-prof-argues-in-new-book-1.524321

 

Comments

 

 

W.Dorich

Mon Sep 21 2009 14:41

The argument here should not be about the number of victims but how conveniently the West, especially the Clinton Administration, lied to the American taxpayers. He took us to war without an Act of Congress, a vote at the UN, in violation of the Helsinki Final Act, the UN Charter and in violation of the NATO treaty which was a defensive treaty and the Serbs did not attack any NATO country. We now know the hideous lies and distortions that were used in this process. The so called rape of "60,000 Bosnian women," the "Markale Market bombing" where we now know the Muslims killed their own citizens to gain international sympathy for their Jihad, the so called "destruction of Dubrovnik," and the "Racak massacre," used as the pretext to bomb Serbia, all stage managed events in which the American public was hoodwinked. Today Hashim Tachi the PM of Kosovo and a former KLA "terrorists" admitted that Racak was stage managed. The bodies were moved to the alleged crime scene, the clothes of the victims were changed from military to civilian and according to forensic experts from 4 countries the bodies were mutilated after they were killed in battle with Serbian forces.The lack of morality in this alleged "humanitarianism" is exposed by the US bombing of 200 Serbian schools, 178 Serbian hospitals and nursing homes who clearly had the Red Cross painted on their roofs, the destruction of 66 bridges, 75 industrial complexes, 62 agricultural sites, and the bombing of entire Serbian villages like Aleksinac on April 6, 1999 where Gen. Wesley Clark gave orders to level more than 450 Serbian home that were 5 miles from any military or industrial complex. He even bombed 23 Serbian cemeteries to erase the history in those regions. He bombed trains, buses and even passenger cars and the General even resorted to using illegal cluster bombs on civilian populations, a war crime. He then refused for 8 years to release the maps of those cluster bombs to stop people from being killed and dismembered. These were all clearly civilian targets in order to inflict pain on the Serbian population, all war crimes.The immoral Vice President Al Gore, the "chicken little the sky is falling" VP in command when the oil refineries and chemical plants along the Danube River were bombed, polluting that river for 2,000 miles through 9 countries. Gore is such a hypocrite these days earning millions of dollars a year spouting ecological bull crap about the environment when he showed no conscience whatsoever about doing this to Serbia.Since this hideous 78 days of bombing, cancer has risen 40% and birth defects are up 3,000%. Something the talented omission journalists will not talk about. We have literally destroyed the water table in Belgrade and surrounding areas for the next 100 years without a second thought. We now know that Gen. Clark thought that the bombing of Belgrade might kill 500,000 and the bombing of the oil stock piles would bring Milosevich to his knees, instead we contaminated the air around Belgrade with VCMs 10,600 times above acceptable levels and that pollution hovered over the city for more than a week.And what was accomplished in this "humanitarian war"... Serbia, Bosnia and Kosovo have more than 40% unemployment. Those who did $90 billion in infrastructure damage are now refusing to pay to rebuild the industrial base in Serbia. We have created the single largest criminal enterprise on the continent in Kosovo where drug lords and pimps have created a network of prostitution and human trafficking in addition to weapons smuggling. Kosovo has become the gateway for 70% of the illegal drugs flowing into Europe. I am beginning to believe that there was so much money at stake that the human tragedy that was created is merely a byproduct of our own greed. Too many people on all sides have enriched themselves at the public trough stuffing tens of millions into their pockets as they preach human rights and equal justice as the Serbs are denied any legal redress because the "partisan press" condemned them to Collective Guilt.Where was Clinton's humanitarian concerns when it came to the Serbian people who have been ethnically cleansed from Croatia creating a religious and ethnically pure state? Or in Kosovo which has the greatest level of genocide including the destruction of 151 ancient Serbian churches and the near complete elimination of all the Serbs who for a thousand years were the majority population until 1941 when tens of thousands were liquidated by Albanian Nazis. After that war, Tito forbade their return guaranteeing that the population would swing in favor of the Albanians. No mention is EVER made by dishonest journalists that today 40% of the Albanians in Kosovo are illegal aliens who cross the border from Albania into Serbia as easily as Mexicans who cross our border each night in San Diego. There is so much shame to go around that this argument about the body count seems trivial when compared to the losses that...

 

U.S. Expands Global Missile Shield Into Middle East, Balkans

U.S. Expands Global Missile Shield Into Middle East, Balkans   by Rick Rozoff
	.
Global Research, September 11, 2009
Stop NATO
Email this article to a friend Print this article
Toward the latter half of last month, the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza, "citing officials and lobbyists in Washington," revealed that the Pentagon would reevaluate planned interceptor missile deployments in Poland and a complementary missile radar site in the Czech Republic and instead shift global missile shield plans to Israel, Turkey and the Balkans [1] "Washington is now looking for alternative locations including in the Balkans,Israel and Turkey...." [2] The news came a week after it was reported that at the annual Space and Missile Defense Conference hosted by the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency in Huntsville, Alabama the Chicago-based Boeing Company offered to construct a"47,500-pound interceptor that could be flown to NATO bases as needed on Boeing-built C-17 cargo planes," a "two-stage interceptor designed to be globally deployable within 24 hours...." [3] This initiative, much as with the reports of plans to expand the American worldwide interceptor missile system to the Middle East and Southeastern Europe,has been presented as a way of alleviating Russian concerns over anti-missile components being deployed near its borders. But on the same day that Boeing announced the project for a rapid deployable missile launcher for NATO bases in Europe the First Deputy Foreign Minister of the Czech Republic, Tomas Pojar, was quoted as asserting that a "possible U.S. mobile anti-missile shield does not threaten the U.S. plans to build a radar base on Czech soil because the system is to be a combination of fixed and mobile elements." [4] That is, what is being presented in both instances as substitutes for U.S. and NATO missile shield deployments in Eastern Europe may in fact be added to rather than replace plans for Poland and the Czech Republic. On September 11 the new Czech envoy to NATO, Martin Povejsil, reiterated that Washington's plans to forge ahead with the missile system deployments in his nation and in Poland will proceed unhampered, stating "NATO still expects the U.S. system to be the core of its missile-defence structures that have been worked on." [5] On the day after the Polish newspaper revealed that American interceptor missile system deployments could be extended to Israel, Turkey and the Balkans, U.S. State Department Spokesman P.J. Crowley said Washington's review of the missile defense strategy "is ongoing and has not reached completion yet. "Similarly, "Missile Defense Agency [Director] Patrick O'Reilly also denied the report of Polish newspapers. He supported the proposal to install SM-3 missile systems in Turkey and the Balkans." [6] The SM-3 - Standard Missile 3 - is a ship-based anti-ballistic missile used by the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System, and was used by the Pentagon to destroy an American satellite in orbit in February 2008 in what was seen by some observers, especially in Russia, as an experiment for future space warfare. So the surfacing of reports that the U.S. may base missile shield facilities south and east of the Czech Republic and Poland is more likely indicative of yet another plan to expand the global system - already in place and being worked on in Alaska, Japan, Australia, Taiwan, Norway, Britain, Greenland and Israel -into areas previously off limits to such deployments and not necessarily an abandonment of American missile and troop deployments in Poland and a missile radar site in the Czech Republic. In confirmation of this scenario, U.S. National Security Adviser and former U.S. European Command and NATO top military chief James Jones told Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski on September 1 "The United States is assuring Poland that it has not made a decision on where to deploy a European missile defense system but will keep Warsaw informed," and pledged "the United States' firm and unwavering commitment to Poland's security and defense." [7] To demonstrate how close the Pentagon is to completing plans for an international interceptor missile system that can be used for blackmailing other nations into submission and laying the groundwork for a "winnable" war against major powers like Russia and China - by being able to neutralize missiles surviving a first strike and so an adversary's ability to retaliate - the new head of the Missile Defense Agency, U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Patrick O'Reilly,recently boasted that his agency's missile interceptions have proven 86%successful and that "The Defense Department recently committed an additional$900 million toward fielding the Army's theater high-altitude-area defense mobile missile defense system. The agency has finished seven of eight required tests of the system." O'Reilly added that he "expects to see it in the field next year." [8] The tests he referred to employed Aegis class warships equipped with SM-3s,meaning destroyers and cruisers that can be deployed to any part of the planet in conjunction with land-based and sea-based X-band radar (SBX). The Missile Defense Agency has on several occasions deployed a 28-story SBX to Adak, Alaska,at the western-most end of the Aleutian island chain in the Bering Sea off Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula. The U.S. National Security Presidential Directive and Homeland Security Presidential Directive [9] of January 9, 2009 explicitly mentions using the Arctic Ocean for so-called missile defense purposes, which means against Russia's northern territories, in conjunction with facilities in Alaska and Greenland. Missile shield radar bases in Britain and Norway and projected missile deployments in Poland and an X-band radar site in the Czech Republic will cover Russia's west, and comparable sites in Alaska and Japan will confront Russia (as well as China) to its east. To date the only quadrant uncovered is Russia's south. And that is where proposed missile shield deployments in Turkey, Israel and the Balkans come into play. Last autumn the United States began the stationing of its Army Navy/Transportable Radar Surveillance (AN/TPY-2), formerly the Forward Based X-Band Transportable [FBX-T] Radar, to Israel. The AN/TPY-2 is part of the U.S. Army's Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptor missile system,one intermediate between the ground-based interceptor missiles planned for Poland and the recently developed PAC-3 Patriot theater missile defense, "one of the most comprehensive upgrade programs ever undertaken on an American weapon system." [10] The AN/TPY-2 "operates in the X-band frequency, and is capable of tracking and identifying small objects at long distance and at very high altitude, including space" and is a "high-power, transportable X-Band radar...designed to detect,track and discriminate ballistic missile threats." [11] The radar in Israel can be only the beginning of the development of the American anti-missile defense systems in the country, said a leading Russian analyst, Pavel Felgengauer, last September. [12] In July of 2008 the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, and his Israeli counterpart Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi approved the deployment and it was later confirmed by Pentagon chief Robert Gates and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, "marking the first permanent U.S. military presence on Israeli soil." [13] A year ago September the U.S. Senate passed an amendment allocating $89 million for the project. At the time Fox New reported that "About 120 American technicians and security guards will be stationed in Israel's southern Negev Desert to oversee the operation, the first time in the country's 60-year history that they've allowed a foreign military presence to be based here." [14] An Iranian news story shortly thereafter characterized the purpose and importance of the deployment by saying "The...most plausible scenario is that the U.S. intends to add one more strategic military base to the hundreds it operates around the world to contain and intimidate independent countries like Iran, Syria, and Lebanon." [15] Iran, Lebanon and Syria don't possess nuclear weapons or even long-range missiles that can deliver conventional warheads. Yet the Jerusalem Post wrote in November of 2008 that the X-band missile radar in Israel has a range of 4,300 kilometers (2,900 miles) and "is reported to be capable of tracking targets the size of a baseball from distances of close" to that range. The South Caucasus is only some 1,200 kilometers from Israel and the distance from Tel Aviv to Moscow is 2,641 kilometers. The U.S. missile radar in Israel, then, can monitor most of Southern and Western Russia. American-Israel missile radar and surveillance is being integrated with NATO-Israeli operations. A report of last December detailed: "Israel has reportedly provided NATO with intelligence on Iran amid US efforts to portray the country's military achievements as a threat. "Israeli diplomats said Sunday that Israel has contributed to the formation of two intelligence reports prepared by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization(NATO) on 'missile development' and 'the nuclear arms race in the Middle East.'"[16] Before retiring as secretary general of NATO Jaap de Hoop Scheffer visited Israel this January and while there remarked that "Israel has been the first country to finalize with NATO, in October 2006, a very detailed individual cooperation program, which had been revised and upgraded last November." [17] In the same month the Israeli newspaper Haaretz provided more details on the increased cooperation between NATO and Israel in reporting that the latter was assigning a warship for NATO's almost eight-year-old Operation Active Endeavor naval surveillance and interdiction operation in the Mediterranean. "The request is another example of the increasing cooperation between Israel and NATO. Last week, Israeli Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi participated in a meeting of army heads at the organization's Brussels headquarters. "[A] liaison officer from the Israeli Navy has also been stationed at the NATO base in Naples, Italy....NATO ships arrived for maneuvers and visits at the ports of Haifa in April 2008 and Eilat April and October 2007. AWACs early warning planes used by the organization landed at an Israel Air Force base in Lod a year ago." [18] The September 7 edition of the Jerusalem Post in a feature called "IDF preparing for US missile systems" announced that the Pentagon and the Israeli Defense Forces are to conduct their regular joint Juniper Cobra military exercises next month and that this year's drills, "the most complex and extensive to date,"will include "the newly-developed Arrow 2 as well as America's THAAD (Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense) and the ship-based Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System." [19] The Arrow 2 is a theater anti-ballistic missile funded and produced in unison by the U.S. and Israel. The Jerusalem Post article added that "The Defense Ministry is preparing for the possibility that the United States will decide to leave missile defense systems in Israel following a joint missile defense exercise the two countries will hold next month," and that "the possibility is strong...particularly in light of reports that the Pentagon was conducting a review of its European missile shield and was leaning towards deploying the systems in Turkey. "According to various European news reports, Turkey, Israel and the Balkans are under evaluation as alternative sites for the systems....." [20] The already existing American missile tracking facility is in the Negev Desertnear Dimona where Israel is presumed to store its nuclear weapons. Almost a year ago a major Russian news source reported that "Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, [then] director of the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), has said more than once that Turkey, Georgia and even Ukraine could be future locations for ballistic missile defense systems. "[T]he Pentagon will most likely choose Turkey or, some Western analysts say,Israel or Japan." [21] A Turkish report of March of 2008 had already indicated what the Pentagon was planning: "Last March Pentagon chief Robert Gates visited Turkey to hold consultations on missile shield plans. "A powerful, 'forward based' X-band radar station could go in southeastern Europe, possibly in Turkey, the Caucasus or the Caspian Sea region, Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, head of the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency, told a defense conference in Washington on Feb. 12." [22] In May of 2008 a Russian newspaper revealed that "the United States may deploy a high-frequency X-band radar in Georgia." [23] More recently, last November the Turkish daily Hurriyet wrote that "Israel and the United States have...declared their desire to establish a one-billion-dollar missile system in Turkey." [24] The deployment of advanced missile tracking and interceptor missile facilities in Israel and Turkey along with others in the South Caucasus - the Gabala radar station in Azerbaijan, currently used by Russia but coveted by Washington, is another possible addition - would nearly complete the stationing of a missile shield ring around Russia. The third site of the expansion of U.S. and NATO missile interception plans is the Balkans. Russian political analyst Pyotr Iskenderov wrote on September 3 that a possible location for such a deployment could be in the international no man's land that is Kosovo. "In spring of 2009, Albanian Prime-Minister Sali Berisha proposed to the US to locate an anti-missile system in his country if US-Polish talks failed. In Serbia Defense Minister Dragan Sutanovac, who is close to Serbian president Boris Tadic, made scandalous statements in favor of Serbia's entry to NATO. In this respect the location of a US military base in Serbia could be regarded as a compensation to Belgrade for losing Kosovo. This will also help to drive Russia away from Serbia." [25] Iskenderov theorized that American missiles could be stationed in Camp Bondsteel, the largest overseas U.S. military installation built since the war in Vietnam. The author, in reference to the use of the base for so-called"extraordinary renditions," said "the main object of the military infrastructure of Kosovo will be the US base of Camp Bondsteel, which is subordinate neither to NATO, nor the UN nor the EU....Here we should recall an unsavory role of Kosovo in the scandal liked with the secret jails of the CIA in Europe. "If earlier the US managed to hide one of their CIA secret prisons in Kosovo,then it won't be a problem to install radar and interceptor missiles in Camp Bondsteel." [26] Early this month the U.S. guided-missile destroyer Stout arrived home after a mission in the Black Sea and visits to Georgia, Bulgaria and Romania. It also engaged in naval maneuvers with Israel and Turkey in the eastern Mediterranean in August. Regarding the Black Sea operation, a local American newspaper wrote,"This was the ship's first deployment with the ballistic missile defense system- a technology designed to track and destroy missiles that can travel more than600 miles...." [27] The extension of American global missile shield designs into the Middle East and Southeastern Europe is an integral part of global geostrategic plans which were summarized concisely and penetratingly by a Bangladeshi writer last November: "The current NMD [National Missile Defense] project involves using radars in Alaska and California in the US and at Fylingdales in the UK, and in Greenland. The latest plan of deploying a radar base in the Czech Republic is basically relocating the existing radar base at the Kwajalein Atoll [in the] Marshall Islands. Besides, the US plans to install 10 more interceptors in silos in Poland. "Even after 1991, [the U.S.] did not go for closing down its military bases scattered around the world, but rather continued expanding the network in many strategic positions. "In Eastern Europe it basically filled the vacuum created by the end of the Warsaw Pact. "Moreover, Central Asia, a very crucial passageway in the global oil supply chain, also came under the purview of US dominance. These deliberate moves created lots of irritation among regional powers like Russia and China. "Surely the proposed radar base in the Czech Republic and missile interceptors in Poland are not to protect the US from Iran or North Korea's missiles but are to ensure the US plan to establish and exercise stringent control over the world using its prevailing 725 military bases." [28] Notes  1) Agence France-Presse, August 27, 2009 2) United Press International, August 27, 2009 3) Reuters, August 20, 2009 4) Czech News Agency, August 20, 2009 5) Czech News Agency, September 11, 2009 6) Azeri Press Agency, August 28, 2009 7) Associated Press, September 2, 2009 8) Chosun Ilbo, September 3, 2009 9) National Security Presidential Directive and Homeland Security Presidential Directive http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nspd/nspd-66.htm 10) Wikipedia 11) Global Security, September 3, 2009 12) Trend News Agency, September 13, 2008 13) Defense News, September 27, 2008 14) Fox News, November 10, 2008 15) Tehran Times, October 14, 2008' 16) Press TV, December 7, 2008 17) Haaretz, January 10, 2009 18) Haaretz, November 27, 2008 19) Jerusalem Post, September 7, 2009 20) Ibid 21) Russian Information Agency Novosti, September 12, 2008 22) Turkish Daily News, March 12, 2008 23) Nezavisimaya Gazeta, May 14, 2008 24) Hurriyet, November 22, 2008 25) Strategic Culture Foundation, September 4, 2009 26) Ibid 27) Virginian-Pilot, September 5, 2009 28) Sultan Mohammed Zakaria, Global hegemony and the victims Daily Star, November 1, 2008

 

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15169