BLOWBACK AND BODY BAGS:
Making Sense of "Balkan Policy" under George W,
Bush
R.K.Kent
"Blowback" is the CIA-coined term for an unpleasant reality. Foreign
mercenaries, trained to fight our wars so as to minimize or eliminate
American casualties, have a tendency to turn against us as political
situations change. While Afghanistan is often cited as the classic
example of this reality, it lies in the past. Yet, this experience has
started to dominate the thinking about the Albanian "Bastard Army"
created by the CIA and the Pentagon for the ground invasion of Serbia
under Milosevic This invasion did not materialize. The Serb Third Army
and; police left Kosovo to NATO troops and a United Nations
Administration without any real ground combat. One of the basic
provisions built into the Serb pull-out was the total and effective
disarmament of the so-called "Kosovo Liberation Army}" (KLA) . Ir was
not implemented.
The KLA "reprisals," against Serb civilians ar Kosovo were even
defined as "justifiable retribution" by the top UN Officer, Bernard
Kouchner. Through our diplomatic intervention at Rambouillet and an
"air war" against "the Serbs." Kosovo's moderate Albanians were
completely marginalized in favor of the KLA. This has made any future
co-habitation impossible and the KLA proved it via the ethnic cleansing
of all non-Albanians from Kosovo, some 300,000 all told, right under the
"watchful eye" of the 40,000 NATO troops suffering from self-induced
myopia. Over 1,000 Serbs were abducted in a relatively short time and
never found (but for one large mass grave). Kosovo became a paradise
for white slavers , drug dealers and all sorts of illegal activities.
The UN response was to draft the KLA fighters into its Constabulary and
they promptly used it for more of the same. It also became clear that
the more egregious "charges" against the Serbs at Kosovo could not be
substantiated. The Clinton Administration Officials and some very vocal
pro-Albanian Solons swept the Kosovo realities under the rug. This
seemed sufficient to avoid any serious questioning of inept and
capricious diplomacy at Rambouillet and the very need for an "air war"
against "Milosevic" (i.e. the Serbs). But, the Bastard Army was still
around, very much in-charge of Kosovo served to it on a silver plate.
Because the American People are overwhelmingly against our entry into
foreign shooting conflicts nothing frightens more the White House
occupants than the sudden arrival home of body bags containing oir GIs.
The Albanian "nationalists" are keeinly aware of this major U.S. ..fear
. The CIA at Kosovo and the Commanders at Camp Bondsteel readily
perceive this awareness. After making more than just perfunctory
noises in the Presidential race about disengagement at Kosovo.,
President Bush has made a volte face. His foreign policy advisers
have opted to disregard the failures and pitfalls of the Clintonian
legacy at Kosovo. More than that, they have decided to shore them up
instead. Bondsteel has a new lease of 99 years. It is now the real
commnd post for the Kosovo and Macedonian Liberation Armies. It has
dawned on the Bondsteel 's ?pace-setters" that Albanian traditional
culture is intertwined with an acephalous society dominated by the
Clans and their Caids . The only "promising" way to avoid body bags for
our dead GIs, in the not too distant a future, is to help create a
Greater Albania without seeming to be so doing.
Enters again the Orwellian Language. . In Macedonia, there is a
weapons" harvest," with the local Liberation Army Commander
transformed into a statesman, ready for a Parliament seat. In fact,
weapons can be easily re-supplied and local "Albanian revels" continue
to terrorize in myriad ways Macedonia's Slavic villagers so that a form
of indirect, less-then-armed violence prone ethnic cleansing is taking
hold. The main Orwellinslogan is "struggle for Human Rights." Macedonia
did not have a Milosevic. It did not even attempt to expel its Albanian
minority. Its basic human rights suffered no generalized violations
although it is true that this minority (about a third of Macedonia's
population) was not proportionally represented in the governing of
Macedonia. The same Orwellian slogan of Human Rights (for Albanians who
are denying them to all others at Kosovo) has predominated recently at
two secret meetings at Prizren and Piskopelica. This is where American
KFOR "specialists" laid out plans for all Albanian"iberation" Armie to
start terrorist activities inside Serbia (and not only southern Serbia
with an ethnic Albanian minority),to follow this up in Montenegro in
September and somewhat later in Greece as well. These meetings were
uncovered by a reporter from the Serb paper "Svedok" (Witness) who
apparently had direct Albanian contacts. It is most unlikely that
these meetings were simply "invented." By obvious inference, it would
be extremely unlikely that the Albanian Liberation Armues would kill
American soldiers at Kosovo under such a scenario and in even the longer
run.
To avoid the body bags, locally destabilizing and short-sighted
CIA-Pentagon "field-operations" are already on the way. For Serbia,
under some DOS leaders totally subservient to the U.S. desiderata, there
is a new Orwellian "Partnership for Peace." Under its cover, demands
have been made to cashier the top Serb Third Army Generals familiar
with Albanian tactics from Kosovo. It also hides the formula that the
"Serbs must remain calm" in their response to Albanian terrorism and
incursions. Then, Serb restraint will be praised. In simpler terms, one
way or another Albanians will have their Greater Albania. Peacefully
where possible, violently where necessary but a combination of the two.
NATO will piously mediate. It is headed by a new Statesman in uniform,
General Ralston.
In order to impose its will and punish defiant disobedience, the Clinton
Administration weakened badly a legitimate state fighting an internal
threat in favor of unsavory clan elements transformed into "fighters
for freedom and human rights." This is a most undeserved depiction
given their methods and the aftermath they have created at Kosovo.. No
sane person could argue that it was necessary to destroy Serbia's
infrastructure, poison its soil, water and air, kill some 3,000 Serb
civilians and maim three times that number in order to turn Kosovo over
to to the KLA.. The net result is that our current leaders are afraid of
Albanians and are prepared to compound the Clintonite lunacy. The lesser
evil would be to have the fortitude to take all of our troops out of
Kosovo, close Bondsteel down and save billions of dollars despite the
Europen complaints about the unilateral exit. Our involvement in the
Balkans has already exposed the U.S. as an Imperial State. It could turn
out in the long run that another empire, the U.S. Global one, will find
its graveyard in the Balkans if interventionist hawks prevail. Trading
support of a pivotal people in the Balkans, the Serbs, seeking to
suppress an externally- induced guerrilla war at Kosovo, for crime-prone
Albanian "Liberation Armies" was at best a stupid and venal foreign
policy "achievement." It cannot be washed away either by
Orwellian Language or Psy-op manipulations of the American People.
R.K.Kent, emeritus,
History Department,
University of California,
Berkeley, CA. 94720
510/742-1971
NSP Lista isprobava demokratiju u praksi
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