Clinton's ticking time bomb in the Balkans

With all the talk about the Neocon's fabulously evil and incompetent foreign policy one might forget that it did not all begin with Dubya and his administration. The first elective war which was fought in blatant and clear violation of international law, the UN charter and even basic decency was the US-lead NATO aggression on Yugoslavia.

It all really began with the joint US-Croatian attack on the UN protection areas in Croatia (in which UNPROFOR forces were secretly ordered to stand down and let the attacking forces enter the UN protection areas) and it ended with the NATO air campaign in support of the KLA in Kosovo.

As usual in such cases, the aggression was described as a 'humanitarian operation' in defense of the Kosovo Albanians. A Serbian police operation against a KLA unit in the village of Racak was re-branded a 'massacre' (the EU investigation which had uncovered the truth about this event was immediately classified as 'secret' and quickly forgotten, just like the UNPROFOR investigation of the Markale bombing in Sarajevo). Finally, the panicked exile of thousands of Kosovo Albanians was deemed a 'genocide' and the full scale bombing of Yugoslavia could be veiled in a pious 'humanitarian' cloak.

That huge air campaign failed miserably, at least in Kosovo proper: only a couple of tanks and APCs were destroyed, but the rest of the Army Corps deployed in Kosovo was left unscathed. The Empire then used its favorite and time-tested method: it expanded its air strikes to the civil infrastructure of Serbia and even Montenegro (the tactic used by Israel in 2006 against Lebanon). But even that did not really do the trick. The Empire then played its strongest card: it promised Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic that he could stay in power as long as he agreed to betray his fellow Serbs in Kosovo.

Milosevic, who had already betrayed the Serbs in Bosnia and Croatia by supporting a NATO blockade against them and, even more crucially, by ordering the Yugoslav armored units to withdraw when the Croats attacked, could be counted on to also betray the Serbs in Kosovo. The Serb forces withdrew from Kosovo, the Albanian returned, the Serbs fled and the systematic destruction of Orthodox churches and ancient monasteries by KLA goons began under the indifferent eyes of the NATO occupying forces.

Still, the Empire needed one more lie to fully achieve its aims: a promise that a negotiated solution for Kosovo would be found within international law, meaning that Kosovo would not simply be allowed to unilaterally secede from Yugoslavia and declare independence. Milosevic did not care as long as he was allowed to remain in power, and Russia was too busy being sucked dry by the 'oligarchs' and their western patrons. The Empire had won: th KLA thugs, which the Empire used to brand as 'terrorists' only a few years ago, were now presented to the world as respectable politicians.

Predictably, the KLA thugs now in power in Pristina were told that if no negotiated agreement was found with Belgrade they could declare independence and that, regardless of what the UNSC would decide, their independence would be recognized. Unsurprisingly, these negotiations failed and now the KLA is about to declare independence without a UNSC Resolution, but with a vast majority of western countries supporting such a move. Their approach is simple: its not like the Albanians would accept anything else anyway and screw Serbia - who cares about what they have to say!

The problem with this 'easy' solution is that it overlooks a number of important issues.

1) Albanians are not only Serbia's problem. They are also Greece's and Macedonia's problem. Not only that, but the KLA ideology claims that a good chunk of Macedonia should be part of a greater 'historical' Albania. The reality is that an independent Kosovo would can exist as long as the Empire's forces are willing to prop it up. Should the Empire collapse, or its forces be withdrawn, the 'Kosova' statelet would immediately be taken over by its neighbors (I remember having a conversation with a Greek officer who told me: "you know what? the Serbs should send one battalion into Macedonia, we should send another and just get it over with". I can just imagine what he would say about Kosovo). While Greece is more than capable to deal with its Albanian problem, Macedonia is not, and Albanian terrorists and criminal gangs are regularly involved in clashes with the Macedonian police and military forces. A KLA-controlled Kosovo will make this situation infinitely worse.

2) the Serbs will *never* accept an Albanian-controlled Kosovo for the simply reason that Kosovo is the birthplace of the Serbian national identity. It is, in many ways, far more important to teh Serb nation that Belgrade or any other part of Serbia. Having lived under the brutal Ottoman occupation for many centuries the Serbs are used to waiting for a long time if needed before liberating themselves. The Empire thinks about as far as the next election. The Serbs will, if needed, wait for centuries before re-taking Kosovo. Only a person wholly ignorant of the Serb culture and history could think that they would ever accept to be booted out of Kosovo by a joint KLA-NATO occupation.

3) Kosovo is totally landlocked and economically under-developed, even by local standards. As soon as independence is declared, it will come under embargo from Serbia (and possibly, at a later time, from Macedonia and Montenego). Kosovo's only 'economy' will be the one of illegal trade and trafficking (an Albanian long time specialty anyway). The fact that it will be run by former KLA field commanders will only make things worse. Finally, Kosovo's only neighbor who will be generally sympathetic to its independence will be Albania proper - yet another hotbed of crime, corruption and trafficking. It would be laughable to assume that US or European forces could do anything to stop the inevitable descent of Kosovo and Albania even further into state of crime and lawlessness which will affect all its neighbors. Simply put - nobody in the Balkans can afford a KLA run Kosovo which will prove a crime-spreading tumor which will metastasize throughout the Balkans and the rest of Europe.

4) Kosovo's independence will have another dangerous consequence: it will set a precedent. First, it will show that international law doesn't matter any more. Second, it will lead the way for a number of other national and ethnic groups aspiring for their own state. All these groups will now need is a single powerful patron. Paradoxically, a lot of client states of the USA in the former Soviet Union are likely to suffer from this: Georgia, the Ukraine, Moldavia, Azerbaijan and many others are already involved in armed struggles against their own separatist groups. All Moscow will need to do is recognize them "as the USA did with Kosovo" and they will be able to secede and there will be exactly nothing which Washington will be able to do to help its distressed clients. More insidiously, Moscow will also be able to only *threaten* to recognized such states in order to pressure the former allies of the USA to bring them into Russia's sphere of influence (this is the scenario which I find most likely, in particular in Georgia).

The situation is Kosovo is nothing short of a complete disaster, and it is about the become worse. Under Clinton the Empire was already lead by clueless, ignorant and narrow-minded politicians whose only concern at the time was to look good politically, to show some muscle, and to beat up what they perceived as Russia's ally in the region (keep in mind that at the same time when the West supported Albanian terrorists in Kosovo it also supported them in Chechnia). As usual, such illiterate policies will result in many forms of blowback, not only in the Balkans but far beyond.

I do not predict that anything truly dramatic will happen right after Kosovo declares its independence. NATO forces will be on high alert, the Albanians on their best behavior, and the Balkan countries will be quiet. TV crews will report scenes of elation in Pristina, and some will even report from the small Serb controlled enclaves. Belgrade will protest, and so will Moscow. There will be a lot of back-slapping in Brussels and Washington. And then everybody will forget about this statelet and turn to other, more important, issues. Then, and only slowly and gradually, will the tumor created by the Empire begin to spread throughout the Balkans and the first instances of blowback begin to strike back at the Empire.

The War Empire Forgot

by Nebojsa Malic The September morning six years ago that saw three hijacked jetliners slam into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon has often been called "the day everything changed." What really changed was Americans’ skepticism of their own government – a fact that has been abused ever since. The man from Crawford who campaigned on the promise of a "more humble foreign policy" and against Clintonian "nation-building" quickly became Emperor George, launching two foreign wars in rapid succession and asserting the right to attack anyone, anywhere, for any reason. The rest of the world was either "with us or against us," and the same stark choice was given to the American people. All of this was justified by a perpetual "war on terrorism." That war, it turned out, was against many things – but terrorism was not one of them. These Are Not The Jihadists You Are Looking For Once it was established that Islamic militants were behind 9/11, many analysts believed that Emperor Bush would start paying attention to the Balkans. The presence of mujahedin – "holy warriors" engaged in jihad for Islam – in Bosnia has been one of the best-known secrets of the 1992-95 war. Not only did the regime of Islamic fundamentalist Alija Izetbegovic welcome thousands of "Afghans" and other jihadist volunteers, it established domestic mujahedin units and encouraged the foreigners to settle in Bosnia after the war. Izetbegovic’s government also designated all Bosnian Muslim soldiers who died in the war as shaheed, "martyrs for the faith." The U.S. not only knew about this, but also actively aided the Bosnian regime, turning a blind eye to illegal arms shipments from Iran. Several Clinton administration officials got a slap on the wrist during the 1996 Congressional investigations, but nothing more. Bush’s "War on terror" never came to Bosnia, though. Evidence of terrorist activities, connections, training camps, financing and recruitment was handled quietly, swept under a rug, or simply ignored. In August 2005, Bosnian Muslim weekly Slobodna Bosna quoted Jacques-Paul Klein, a senior U.S. official in Bosnia, "as having confirmed to the Security Council that Islamic terrorists were active in Bosnia, but added that it was good they were concentrated in one place, because ‘the rest of the world would be safe.’" Emboldened by this neglect, the radical Islamist elements in Bosnia have grown stronger over time. Last month, U.S. deputy viceroy Raffi Gregorian met with a hailstorm of protest from the Muslim community for even suggesting there were terrorist sympathizers in Bosnia. Meanwhile, Bosnian Muslim "political scientists" have developed a new definition of terrorism, according to which Islamic terrorism cannot – and therefore, does not – exist! Keys To Understanding Jihad Two recently published books argue that Bosnia – and the Balkans in general – is crucial to understanding modern jihad. Similar works in the past – Evan Kohlmann’s Al-Qaeda’s Jihad in Europe was published in 2004 – met with wall of silence, and the mainstream media is certainly treating John R. Schindler’s Unholy Terror and Chris Deliso’s The Coming Balkan Caliphate the same way. Schindler used to be an NSA analyst and counterintelligence officer, and now teaches at the Naval War College. His Unholy Terror: Bosnia, Al-Qaeda and the Rise of the Global Jihad argues that Bosnia "played the same role for al-Qaeda in the 1990s that Afghanistan did in the 1980s," providing a training ground for a generation of jihadists. Deliso, who runs Balkanalysis.com and has been a columnist for Antiwar.com as well, goes beyond al-Qaeda and Islamic terrorism, examining the penetration of radical Islam throughout the Balkans, from Bosnia and Kosovo, the Serbian province of Raska, as well as Bulgaria and Macedonia. His work also quotes testimonies from UN and NATO insiders, showing that the West has deliberately turned a blind eye to Islamic activities in the Balkans, as Muslim radical have been considered allies against the evil Serbs. This perception of Islamic radicals as allies of the U.S. in the geopolitical sense cannot be stressed enough. Recall that Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter’s National Security Advisor, boasted of his brilliant idea to support a fanatical Islamic movement in Afghanistan in the 1970s as a way to hurt the Soviet Union. Afghanistan did hurt the Soviets, but it also gave birth to the Taliban and al-Qaeda. U.S. policy in the Balkans – on the surface absurd and arbitrary – begins making a twisted sort of sense if Bosnia and Kosovo are seen as the modern Afghanistan, and Serbs as the surrogate Russians… Further food for thought along these lines can be found in "The Bosnian Connection" by UK journalist Brendan O’Neill, which argues that both modern liberal imperialism and al-Qaeda’s jihad were forged in the fires of Bosnia, with each side manipulating the facts of the war to bolster their own narrative. This explains both why liberal-imperialists like Tom Lantos (D-Ca.) believe they can purchase the friendship of the Muslim world by holding forth Bosnia and Kosovo as examples where America "saved Muslims from genocide," and why the jihadists just don’t care. Interventionists in the West, knowing little or nothing about Islam, assumed the Islamic world would react to their support of Izetbegovic and the KLA as they would have reacted. Instead, Islamic militants saw Bosnia and Kosovo as instances of the "Crusaders" standing idly by while Muslims were slaughtered wholesale – an idea, ironically enough, bolstered by the hysterical propaganda and "advocacy journalism" of mainstream news outlets in the West. The 'War' at Home Even as Emperor Bush and his supporters have argued that "we’re fighting terrorists over there so we don’t have to fight them over here," jihad has already arrived on American shores. Last week, the Salt Lake City police closed their investigation of Sulejman Talovic’s February 2007 rampage, without establishing a motive for the attack. The Deseret Morning News quoted Chris Burbank, SLC police chief, as saying that the motive "may have died" with Talovic. This is the same Burbank who said, back in February, that he had ruled out jihad as the motive, considered that notion "hate speech," and intended to fire anyone who dared investigate along those lines. On Valentine’s Day, Talovic shot nine people at the Trolley Square mall, five of them fatally, before getting killed by an off-duty police officer that happened to be on the scene. As soon as it was established that the shooter was a Bosnian Muslim refugee, the media went into overdrive – while information about the victims was virtually nonexistent, Talovic himself was subject of many three-handkerchief pieces about his suffering at the hands of evil Serbs in Bosnia, fully exploiting the fact that his family passed through Srebrenica (in 1993) on its way to the US. This Stockholm syndrome went so far that citizens of Salt Lake City took up donations for Talovic’s family, which paid for Talovic to be flown to Bosnia and buried in a splendid Islamic ceremony. Detective Burbank’s determination to see no jihad was rewarded with a promotion. The massacre was ruled a "mystery" – to anyone who refuses to see the obvious, anyway. In May 2007, six men were arrested in a FBI sting on charges of plotting a terror attack on Fort Dix, New Jersey. Four of them were ethnic Albanians – a fact that emerged only after several days of media obfuscation, in which they were called "Yugoslavs" or even "Serbian citizens." One of the suspects was a member of the KLA, while the other three were illegal immigrants from western Macedonia. These are all examples of non-Arab terrorists, the "white al-Qaeda" of which Balkans sources have warned for years. But because such facts do not fit the official narrative – namely, that Muslims (Bosnian, Albanian, etc.) are solely the innocent victims of evil Serbs – the warnings have fallen on deaf ears. Self-Deception Could the reason for this be what Chris Deliso says is "Serbian lobby’s tendency to sensationalize and even provide false information incriminating the Albanians"? A handful of blogs that wax hyperbolic does not a lobby make, though. And either way, the Serbs’ propensity to see jihad everywhere certainly doesn’t excuse the tendency of Western media to see no jihad at all. In the aftermath of the Fort Dix arrests, a rare voice of protest arose from the Washington Times, where an editorial (no longer accessible online) fired a broadside at American journalists: "But when a fact – ‘Albanian’ – emerges, report it. The public has a right to know. The sanitization of language is at war with the public’s right to an understanding of the facts. […] ‘Yugoslav’ is a sanitizer. […] As long as our news organizations fail to report the facts they know to be true, they are failing to do their job. They should not engage in ‘perception management’." In this day and age this comes across as quaint. The media have done nothing but "perception management," particularly when it came to jihad, or the Balkans.