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From: "Paul Phillips" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date sent: Mon, 30 Apr 2001 22:44:09 -0500
Subject: (Fwd) Fwd: No Subject
Priority: norma
>Bush should pull troops from Balkans
>
>By Marjorie Cohn
>
>Despite President George W, Bush’Äôs rhetoric about withdrawing our forces
>from
>the Balkans, we can expect a strong U.S presence there.
> Why? It’Äôs all about the transportation of massive oil resources from
>the
>Caspian Sea through the Balkans, maintaining U.S. hegemony in the region.
> Although NATO ostensibly bombed Yugoslavia to stop ethnic cleansing, the
>bombing was actually part of a strategic containment, to keep the region safe
>for the Trans-Balkan oil pipeline that will transport Caspian Sea oil through
>Macedonia and Albania. The pipeline is slated to carry 750,000 barrels a day,
>worth about $600 million at the current prices.
> Cooperation of the Albanians with the pipeline project was likely
>contingent on the U.S. helping them wrest control of Kosovo from the Serbs.
>The U.S. seeks to contain Macedonia as well supporting both sides in the
>conflagration there.
> Military Professional Resources International, a mercenary company on
>contract to the Pentagon, has trained both the Kosovo Liberation Army and the
>Macedonian army. MPRI also supplied and trained the Croatian army in 1994 and
>1995 before the Croatians cleansed more than 100,000 Serbs from Krajina
>region.
> The bombing was not aimed at ethnic cleansing. It was part of U.S-run
>NATO’Äôs eastward expansion as a counterweight to Russia, which wants the
>Caspian oil pipeline to run through its territory. NATO, created during the
>Cold War to protect Western Europe from the Soviets, should have disbanded
>after the breakup of the USSR.
> But a 1992 draft of the Pentagon’Äôs Defense Planning Guidance continued
>U.S. leadership in NATO by ’Äúdiscouraging the advanced industrialized
>nations
>from challenging our leadership or even aspiring to a larger regional or
>global role.’Äù
> Secretary of State Colin Powell recently said, if we decide to expand
>NATO, ’Äú we should not fear that Russia will object; we will do it
>because it
>is in our national interest’Äù.
> Bush is walking a delicate tightrope. He calls for Europe to do the
>grunt work in the Balkans, but also wants to prevent European Union to become
>more powerful than the U.S.-led NATO. A U.S. Army officer stationed in
>Bosnia, speaking anonymously to The Los Angeles Times, observed dryly, ’Äú
>The
>only thing the Europeans need us Americans is the leadership’Äù.
> The United States has invested too much into the region to pull out.
>After the NATO bombing campaign, The United States spent $36.6 million to
>build Camp Bondsteel in southern Kosovo.
> The largest military base constructed since the Vietnam, Bondsteel was
>built by the Brown & Root Division of Halliburton, the world biggest oil
>service corporation, which was run by Richard Cheney before he was tapped for
>vice president.
> NATO’Äôs bombs, never sanctioned by the United Nations, were not
>’Äúhumanitarian’Äù intervention. The alleged mass graves were never found
>by the
>FBI, and the 10,000 to 11,000 bodies NATO touted turned out to number about
>2,000 to 3,000 mostly ion KLA strongholds.
> Even the Marine Corps Gazette concluded after the bombing
>That the ’Äúresulting deaths of thousands of Serbian soldiers, civilians and
>Kosovar Albanians can hardly be viewed as humanitarianism.’Äù
>
> It is the purview of the United Nations, not the United States, to
>authorize humanitarian intervention. If the United States really wanted to
>provide humanitarian assistance to the people of Yugoslavia, it would
>encourage the International Monetary Fund to forgive $14 billion in loans
>from prior regimes, finance reparations to rebuild the infrastructure
>destroyed by its bombs, and remove U.S. troops from the region.
>
>
>Marjorie Cohn is the associate professor at the Thomas Jefferson School of
>Law in San Diego.
>
_________________________________________________________________________
Dr. Jovan Jovanovich, Professor of Physics (retired and adjunct)
Office: Physics Department, University of Manitoba,
Winnipeg, Man., Canada R3T 2N2
Phone: (204) 474-6201 Fax: (204) 474-7622
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Home: 66 Fordham Bay, Winnipeg, Man., Canada R3T 3B7
Phone/Fax: (204) 269-2255
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
_________________________________________________________________________
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