America at War in FYROM

[Slayer]

It's a pretty long text but it is worth reading as it opens the mind to other reasons for George Bush's Support for FYROM in NATO. I would think twice if I was a Skopjian who believed that George Bush or the USA is this new found close friend, I am more inclined to think that he wants to tie up some loose ends for his business buddies before his presidency ends.

Link George Bush, Dick Cheny, Halliburton, Albania and FYROM and come to your own conclusions


America at War in Macedonia

The author, Michel Chossudovsky, is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa.

Washington's covert war in Macedonia purports to consolidate America's sphere of influence in southeastern Europe. At stake is the strategic Bulgaria-Macedonia-Albania transport, communications and oil pipeline "corridor" which links the Black Sea to the Adriatic coast. Macedonia stands at the strategic crossroads of the oil pipeline corridor. Michel Chossudovsky explains.

To protect these pipeline routes, Washington's goal is to install a "patchwork of protectorates" along strategic corridors in the Balkans. The promise of "Greater Albania" used by Washington to foment Albanian nationalism is part of the military-intelligence ploy. Amply documented, the latter consists in financing and equipping the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and its National Liberation Army (NLA) proxy to wage the terrorist assaults in Macedonia.

The development of America's sphere of influence in Southeastern Europe - in complicity with Britain - supports the interests of the oil giants, including BP-Amoco-ARCO, Chevron and Texaco. Securing control and "protecting" the pipeline routes is paramount to the success of these multi-billion dollar ventures:

A successful international oil regime is a combination of economic, political, and military arrangements to support oil production and transportation to markets. The Anglo-American consortium which controls the AMBO Trans-Balkan pipeline project linking the Bulgarian port of Burgas to Vlore on the Albanian Adriatic coastline largely excludes the participation of Europe's competing oil giant Total-Fina-Elf. In other words, US strategic control over the pipeline corridor is intent upon weakening the role of the European Union and keeping competing European business interests at arms' length.

Who is behind the Trans-Balkan Pipeline

The US based AMBO pipeline consortium is directly linked to the seat of political and military power in the United States and Vice President Dick Cheney's firm Halliburton Energy. The feasibility study for AMBO's Trans-Balkan Oil Pipeline, conducted by the international engineering company of Brown & Root Ltd. [Halliburton's British subsidiary] has determined that this pipeline will become a part of the region's critical East-West corridor infrastructure which includes highway, railway, gas and fibre optic telecommunications lines.

And upon completion of the feasibility study by Halliburton, a senior executive of Halliburton was appointed CEO of AMBO. Halliburton was also granted a contract to service US troops in the Balkans and build "Bondsteel" in Kosovo, which now constitutes "the largest American foreign military base constructed since Vietnam". (See Karen Talbot's incisive analysis: "Former Yugoslavia: The Name of the Game is Oil", People's Weekly World, May 2001. See also Marjorie Cohn, "Pacification for a pipeline: explaining the US Military presence in the Balkans", The Jurist, Legal Education Network, June 2001,

Coincidentally, White and Case LLT, the New York law firm that President William J. Clinton joined when he left the White House also has a stake in the AMBO pipeline deal.

Militarisation of the Pipeline Corridors

The AMBO Trans-Balkans pipeline project would link up with the pipeline corridors between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea basin, which lies at the hub of the World's largest unexplored oil reserves [See map ] The militarisation of these various corridors is an integral part of Washington's design.

The US policy of "protecting the pipeline routes" out of the Caspian Sea basin (and across the Balkans) was spelled out by Clinton's Energy Secretary Bill Richardson barely a few months prior to the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia:

"This is about America's energy security. It's also about preventing strategic inroads by those who don't share our values. We're trying to move these newly independent countries toward the west. We would like to see them reliant on western commercial and political interests rather than going another way. We've made a substantial political investment in the Caspian, and it's very important to us that both the pipeline map and the politics come out right." (quoted in George Monbiot, “A Discreet Deal in the Pipeline”, The Guardian, 15February 2001.)

The Anglo-American oil giants, including BP-Amoco-Arco, Texaco and Chevron - supported by US military might - are competing with Europe's oil giant Total-Fina-Elf (associated with Italy's ENI) which is a big player in Kazakhstan's wealthy North East Caspian Kashagan oil fields. The stakes are high: Kashagan is reported "so large as to even surpass the size of the North Sea oil reserves." [Richard Giragosian, "Massive Kashagan Oil Strike Renews Geopolitical Offensive In Caspian", The Analyst, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, Johns Hopkins University-Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, 7 June, 2000,]

The competing EU based consortium, however, lacks a significant stake and leverage in the main pipeline routes out of the Caspian Sea basin and back (via the Black Sea and through the Balkans) to Western Europe. The key pipeline corridor projects --including the AMBO project and the Baku-Cehyan project through Turkey to the Mediterranean-- are largely in the hands of their Anglo-American rivals, which rely heavily on US political and military presence in both the Caspian basin and the Balkans.

Washington's design is to eventually distance all three AMBO countries, namely Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania from German-EU influence through the installation of full-fledged US protectorates. In other words, US militarisation and geopolitical control over the projected pipeline linking Burgas in Bulgaria to the Adriatic port of Vlore in Albania is intent upon undermining EU influence as well as weakening competing Franco-Belgian-Italian oil interests.

Negotiations concerning the AMBO pipeline have been supported by US government officials through the Trade and Development Agency's (TDA) South Balkan Development Initiative (SBDI) "designed to help Albania, Bulgaria and FYR Macedonia further develop and integrate their transportation infrastructure along the east-west corridor that connects them." [See the Trade and Development (TDA) by Region ]

The TDA points to the need for the three countries to "use regional synergies to leverage new public and private capital [from US companies]" while underscoring the responsibility of the US government "for implementing the initiative." With regard to the AMBO pipeline, it would appear that the EU has largely been excluded from the planning and negotiations. "Memoranda of understanding" (MOU) have already been signed with the governments of Albania, Bulgaria and Macedonia which strip the countries' national sovereignty over both the pipeline and the transport corridors by providing "exclusive rights" to the Anglo-American consortium:

"[The] MOU states that AMBO will be the only party allowed to build the planned Burgas-Vlore oil pipeline. More specifically, it gives AMBO the exclusive right to negotiate with investors in and creditors of the project. It also obligates [the governments of Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania] not to disclose certain confidential information on the pipeline project.” [Alexander Gas and Oil Connections October 2000]

“East-West Corridor 8”

The AMBO pipeline project is linked up with another strategic project entitled "Corridor 8", initially proposed by the Clinton Administration in the context of the "Balkans Stability Pact". Of strategic importance to both the US and the European Union, "Corridor 8" includes highway, railway, electricity and telecommunications infrastructure. In turn, the existing infrastructure in these sectors is slated for deregulation and privatisation (at rock bottom prices) under IMF-World Bank supervision.

Although rubber-stamped by EU transport ministers as part of the process of European economic integration, "Corridor 8" feasibility studies were conducted by US companies financed directly by the TDA. In other words, Washington seems to have set the stage for the takeover of the countries' transport and communications infrastructure. American corporations including Bechtel, Enron and General Electric (with financial backing from the US government) are competing with companies from the European Union.

Washington's design is to open up the entire corridor to US multinationals in a region situated in the European Union's "economic backyard", where the power of the Deutschmark tends to dominate over that of the US dollar.

“EU Enlargement”

In early 2000, the European Commission began negotiations on EU associate membership status with Macedonia, Bulgaria and Albania. And in April 2001, at the height of the terrorist assaults, Macedonia became the first country in the Balkans to sign a so-called "stabilisation and association agreement" (SAA) constituting an important step towards full EU membership. The agreement provides the basis for "trade liberalisation, political co-operation, economic and institutional reform and transplantation of EU legislation." Under the SAA, Macedonia would (de facto) be integrated into the European monetary system, with full access to the EU market.

The terrorist assaults coincided chronologically with the process of "EU enlargement", gaining momentum barely a few weeks before the signing of the historic "association agreement" with Macedonia. Amply documented, the US has military advisers working with the terrorists. Was this a mere coincidence?

Also, Robert Frowick, "a former US diplomat", was appointed to head the OSCE mission in Macedonia in mid-March, again barely a few weeks before the signing of the "association agreement." In close liaison with Washington and the US embassy in Skopje, Frowick initiated a "dialogue" with NLA rebel leader Ali Ahmeti. He was also instrumental in brokering an agreement between Ahmeti and the leaders of the Albanian parties, which form part of the government coalition.

This agreement negotiated by Frowick has largely contributed to destabilising political institutions, while at the same time jeopardising the process of EU enlargement.11 Moreover, the deteriorating security situation in Macedonia has provided a pretext for increased US political, "humanitarian" and military interference, while contributing to weakening Skopje's economic and political ties to Germany and the EU. In this regard, one of the "binding conditions" of the "association agreement" is that Macedonia conform to "EU standards on democracy". Needless to say, without a "functioning government" in Macedonia, the EU association process with Brussels cannot proceed.

The puppet governments installed in Tirana, Skopje and Sofia, while largely responding to US diktats, are currently being swayed in the direction of the European Union. Washington's intent is ultimately to curb Germany's "Lebensraum" into Southeastern Europe. While paying lip service to "EU enlargement", the US has consistently favoured "NATO enlargement" as a means to pursuing its strategic interests in Eastern Europe and the Balkans, while Germany and France have opposed it.

While the tone of international diplomacy remains mannerly and polite, US foreign policy under the Bush administration has become distinctly "anti-European". According to one observer:

"At the heart of the Bush team, Colin Powell is [considered] the friend of the Europeans, while the other ministers and advisers are considered arrogant, hard and indisposed to listen or to give the Europeans a place." (Pascal Boniface, director of the Paris Institute of International and Strategic Relations, UPI, 11 April 2001)

Germany and America

Amply documented, the CIA is behind the KLA and the NLA rebels, who are waging the terrorist assaults against the Macedonian security forces. While the CIA's German counterpart the Bundes Nachrichten Dienst (BND) collaborated with the CIA in overseeing and financing the KLA prior to the 1999 war, recent developments suggest that the BND is not involved in Washington's military-intelligence ploy in Macedonia.

Barely a few weeks before the signing of the "association agreement" with the European Union, German troops stationed in Macedonia in the Tetovo region were (mid March 2001) "accidentally" targeted by the NLA. While the Western media --echoing in chorus the official statements-- maintains that German troops were "caught in the cross-fire", reports from Tetovo suggest that the NLA shelling "was deliberate." In any event, the incident would not have occurred had Germany's BND been working with the rebel army:

"Up to 600 German troops were forced to leave Tetovo overnight after their barracks were caught in crossfire [They] were too lightly armed to defend themselves against the Albanians. The Germans will replace the departing troops with a Leopard tank squadron [belonging to the Panzer-Artillerie-Batterie division stationed in Nordrein-Westphalen]. [T]he new [German] firepower may be used to knock out Albanian positions now established around Tetovo.?" (Tom Walker, “NATO Troops caught in a Balkan Ulster”, Sunday Times, London, 18 March 2001)

In a bitter irony, two of the commanders responsible for the terrorist assaults in the Tetovo region had been trained by British Special Forces:

"Embarrassingly for KFOR, it emerged that two of the Kosovo-based commanders leading the Albanian push [into the Tetovo region] were trained by former British SAS and Parachute Regiment officers in the days when NATO was more comfortable with the fledgling Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). A former member of a European special forces unit who accompanied the KLA during the Kosovo conflict said that a commander with the nom de guerre of Bilal was organising the flow of arms and men into Macedonia, and that the veteran KLA commander Adem Bajrami was helping to co-ordinate the assault on Tetovo. Both were taught by British soldiers in the secretive training camps that operated above Bajram Curri in northern Albania during 1998 and 1999." ((Tom Walker, “NATO Troops caught in a Balkan Ulster”, Sunday Times, London, 18 March 2001)

These same British trained rebel commanders view Germany as the "enemy" because Bundeswehr troops stationed in Macedonia and Kosovo - rather than providing "protection" to NLA "freedom fighters" in the same way as their British and American KFOR counterparts - frequently detain "suspected terrorists" at the border:

"A spokesman for the Albanians' National Liberation Army (NLA) in Pristina warned the Bundeswehr its involvement would constitute 'a declaration of war by the Federal Republic of Germany'". (Tom Walker, “NATO Troops caught in a Balkan Ulster”, Sunday Times, London, 18 March 2001)

In response to NLA threats, the Bundeswehr sent in its own Special Forces, the Fallschirmjager (Parachutists) to work with its Panzer-Artillerie-Batterie squadron.18 German Defence Minister Rudolf Scharping confirmed that "he was ready to send more tanks and troops to bolster Bundeswehr forces".19 Yet in recent developments, Berlin has chosen to withdraw most of its troops from the Tetovo region and not in any way challenge the US military-intelligence ploy in support of the NLA rebels. Some of these German troops are now stationed on the Kosovo side of the border.

While the NLA received a shipment of brand new advanced weaponry "made in America", Germany donated (mid-June) to the Macedonian Security forces all-terrain vehicles as well as weapons "for sophisticated infrared tracing in the battlefield." According to a report from Macedonia, the small contingent of German troops which still remains in the Tetovo region "was under heavy attack from the terrorists who attacked them with mortar from the mountains above Tetovo. That is probably the response of yesterday's [14 June 2001] donation to our army made by the German government". (Information transmitted to the author from Skopje, June 2001)

While divisions between "NATO allies" are never made public, Germany's Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer - in a strongly worded statement to the Bundestag directed against "the Albanian extremists in Macedonia" – has called for "a long-term arrangement, aimed to make the whole region closer to Europe." (i.e. free of US encroachment). The German position is in marked contrast to that put forth by the US, which requires the Skopje government to grant amnesty to the terrorists, modify the country's constitution and incorporate the NLA rebels in civilian politics:

"The pact reportedly called for the rebels to stop their fight in exchange for amnesty guarantees. The rebels would also have the right to veto future political decisions regarding ethnic Albanian rights. The accord was reportedly mediated by Robert Frowick, a former U.S. envoy who currently served as a Balkan representative for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe." Facts on File, World News Digest, 30 May 2001.

The Anglo-American Axis

The clash between Germany and America in the Balkans is part of a much broader process which affects the heart of the Western military-industrial complex and defence establishment.

From the early 1990s, the US and Germany have acted jointly as NATO partners in the Balkans, co-ordinating their respective military, intelligence and foreign policy initiatives. While maintaining in their public statements a semblance of political unity, serious divisions started to emerge in the wake of the Dayton Accords (1995), as German banks scrambled to impose the Deutschmark and take over the monetary system of Yugoslavia's successor states.

Moreover, in the wake of the 1999 war in Yugoslavia, the US has reinforced its strategic, military and intelligence ties with Britain, while Britain has severed many of its ties (particularly in the area of defence and aerospace production) with Germany and France.

Launched in early 2000, U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen and his British counterpart, Geoff Hoon, signed a "Declaration of Principles for Defense Equipment and Industrial Cooperation''. Washington's objective was to encourage the formation of a "transatlantic bridge across which the DoD [US Department of Defense] can take its globalization policy to Europe." (The agreement was signed - according to a Pentagon official quoted in Muradian - shortly after the creation of British Aerospace Systems resulting from the merger of BAe with GEC Marconi. British Aerospace (Bae) was already firmly allied to America's largest defense contractors Lockheed Martin and Boeing. For further details see Vago Muradian, “Pentagon Sees Bridge to Europe”, Defense Daily, Vol. 204, No. 40 Dec. 01, 1999)

The US defence industry - which now includes British Aerospace Systems (BaeS) - is clashing with the Franco-German defence consortium EADS - a conglomerate composed of France's Aerospatiale Matra, Deutsche Aerospace, which is part of the powerful Daimler group, and Spain's CASA. In other words, a major split in the Western military-industrial complex has occurred with the US and Britain on one side and Germany and France on the other.

Oil, guns and the Western military alliance are intimately related processes. Washington's design is to eventually ensure the dominance of the US military-industrial complex in alliance with the Anglo-American oil giants and Britain's major defence contractors. These developments evidently also have a bearing on the control over strategic pipelines, transport and communications corridors in the Balkans, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

In turn, this Anglo-American axis is also matched by increased cooperation between the CIA and Britain's MI5 in the sphere of intelligence and covert operations as evidenced by the role played by British SAS Special Forces in training KLA rebels.

War, “Dollarisation” and the New World Order

"Protection" of the pipelines, covert activities and the recycling of drug money in support of armed insurgencies, militarisation of strategic corridors, defence procurement to "Partnership for Peace" (PfP) countries are all an integral part of the Anglo-American axis and its quest to dominate oil and gas routes and transport corridors out of the Caspian sea basin and from the Black sea across the Balkans.

More generally, what is happening in the broader region linking Eastern Europe and the Balkans to the former Soviet republics is a relentless scramble for control over national economies by competing business conglomerates. And behind this process is the quest by Wall Street's financial establishment --in alliance with the defence and oil giants-- to destabilise and discredit the Deutschmark (and the Euro) with a view to imposing the US dollar as the sole currency for the region.

Control over "money creation" --imposing the rule of the US Federal Reserve system throughout the World-- has become a central feature of US expansionism. In this regard, Washington's military-intelligence ploy not only consists in undermining "EU enlargement", it is also intent upon weakening and displacing the dominion of Germany's largest banking institutions (e.g. Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank and WestDeutsche Landesbank) throughout the Balkans.

In other words, the New World Order is marked by the clash between Europe and America for "colonial control" over national currencies. And this conflict between "competing capitalist blocks" will become increasingly acute when several hundred million people from Eastern Europe and the Balkans to Central Asia start using the Euro as their "de facto" national currency on January 1st 2002.

This article originally appeared on the website of the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research.

http://www.spectrezine.org/war/Macedonia.htm

[Slayer]

Kosovo's declaration of independence

is a cover for colonialism

America's biggest foreign military base since

the Vietnam War - Camp Bondsteel - is there

A $1.1 billion pipeline will get oil from

the Caspian Sea to ship to refineries in the US

American Neocolonialism
The unilateral independence of Kosovo has nothing to do with "democracy". But then what's the point of this North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) provocation towards Vladimir Putin's Russia - a historic ally of Serbia?

The ongoing saga revolves around two crucial, interrelated facts on the ground: Pipelineistan and the empire of 737 (and counting) US military bases in 130 countries operated by 350,000-plus Americans.

In short: it revolves around the trans-Balkan AMBO pipeline and Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo, the the largest US base built in Europe in a generation.

It also lays bare continuity from the Bill Clinton to the George W Bush administrations - the US dictating the rules of the game as if in a one-party state.

Yugoslavia and Iraq also "taught" the world two lessons. From Clinton's humanitarian imperialism to Bush's "war on terror", it's all a matter of exclusive Washington prerogative. Blowback, of course, as Putin has warned, will be inevitable.

Albright's Serpent

The 78-day, 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia, allegedly to dislodge a "new Hitler" (Slobodan Milosevic) was mirrored by the 2003 "shock and awe" bombing of Iraq, to dislodge another "new Hitler" (Saddam Hussein).

Clinton, demonizing the Serbs, used NATO to sidestep the lack of a United Nations mandate; Bush, also without a UN mandate, demonized Iraqis and went all the way with just an authorization by the US Congress.

Clinton attacked the former Yugoslavia to expand the post-Cold War NATO right up to the borders of the former Soviet Union. Bush attacked Iraq to seize the "big prize" in terms of energy resources.

Militarization and hegemonic control were at the heart of both operations. Yugoslavia was devastated, fragmented, balkanized and ethnically cleansed into mini-countries.

Iraq was devastated, fragmented, pushed towards balkanization and towards ethnic cleansing along sectarian and religious lines.

Senator Hillary Clinton considered Yugoslavia's balkanization and now Kosovo's independence (amputation of Serbia, rather) as "democracy" and a "successful" accomplishment of US foreign policy.

This "model" new independent state saluted by the US, Germany, France and Britain - and virtually no one else - is, according to Vladimir Ovtchinky, a criminologist and former head of Interpol's Russia bureau during the 1990s, "a mafia state in the heart of Europe".

It's basically run by Hashim Thaci, a former Marxist who then embraced a nationalist socialism with criminal overtones as one of the youngest chiefs of the UCK (the Kosovo Liberation Army), operating under the codename "The Serpent".

Madeleine Albright, then US secretary of state, pushed "The Serpent" into the limelight when she attributed to him "the brightest future" among those Kosovars who were "fighting for democracy".

Albright is nowadays one of Hillary Clintons' top foreign policy advisers.

The UCK was roughly a sort of Balkan al-Qaeda on heavy drugs - propped up enthusiastically by US and British intelligence.

British special forces trained the UCK in northern Albania while Turkish and Afghan military instructors taught them guerrilla tactics.

Even Osama bin Laden had been in Albania, in 1994; al-Qaeda had a solid UCK connection.

Writing in the Russian daily Ogoniok, Ovtchinky describes how Albanian Kosovar clans always controlled opium and then heroin trafficking from Afghanistan and Pakistan through the Balkans towards Western Europe.

then during the late 1990s a 3% tax started to finance all UCK operations. The UCK benefited from more than 750 million euros (US$1.1 billion) in drug money to buy weapons, he wrote.

According to Interpol and Europol, just in 1999 and 2000, these Kosovar mafias made no less than 7.5 billion euros - also by diversifying from narco-smuggling into human trafficking and large-scale prostitution.

In Germany, they made a killing in Kalashnikov trafficking and fake euro banknotes. And as late as in 2007, Italy's top three mafias - the Cosa Nostra, the Camorra and "Ndrangheta" - were seriously thinking of creating a unified cartel to face the ultra-heavy Albanian Kosovar mafia.

Get Me to My Pipeline on Time

Washington and the three European Union heavyweights (France, Germany and Britain) have applauded Kosovo's independence.

But this core of the self-described "international community" is caught in silent scream mode when confronted with the possibility of independence for Flanders in Belgium, northern Cyprus, the Serbian Republic of Bosnia, the Basque country in Spain, Gibraltar.

Not to mention Indian Kashmir (the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, JKLF, is already making some rumblings), Tibet, Taiwan, Abkahzia and South Ossetia (both in Georgia and both Russia-friendly), Palestine and Kurdistan.

Northern Kosovo itself - totally Serbian-populated - and western Macedonia also don't qualify to become independent. So why Kosovo? Enter the AMBO pipeline and Camp Bondsteel.

AMBO is short for Albanian Macedonian Bulgarian Oil Corp, an entity registered in the US.

The $1.1 billion AMBO pipeline (also known as the Trans-Balkan), supposed to be finished by 2011, will get oil brought from the Caspian Sea to a terminal in Georgia and then by tanker through the Black Sea to the Bulgarian port of Burgas, and relay it through Macedonia to the Albanian port of Vlora.

Clinton's NATO war against Yugoslavia and pro-Albania was thus crucial to secure Vlora's strategic location.

The oil will then be shipped to Rotterdam in the Netherlands and refineries on the US West Coast, thus bypassing the ultra-congested Bosphorus Strait and the Aegean and the Mediterranean seas.

The original AMBO feasibility study, as early as 1995, and then updated in 1999, is by a British subsidiary of Halliburton, Brown and Root Energy Services. AMBO fits into Vice President Dick Cheney's (and before him, Clinton's energy secretary Bill Richardson's) US energy security grid.

It's all about go-for-broke militarization of the crucial energy corridor from the Caspian through the Balkans, and about trying to isolate or sabotage both Russia and Iran.

Halliburton had to have a deeper hand in the whole scheme, and that's where Camp Bondsteel fits in - the largest overseas US military base built since the Vietnam War.

Bondsteel, built by Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root on 400 hectares of farmland near the Macedonian border in southern Kosovo, is a sort of smaller - and friendlier - five-star Guantanamo, with perks like Thai massage and loads of junk food.

According to Chalmers Johnson in The Sorrows of Empire, "army wags say facetiously that there are only two man-made objects that can be seen from outer space - the Great Wall of China and Camp Bondsteel".

Bondsteel will also double as Kosovo's Abu Ghraib - the largest prison in the independent entity, where prisoners can be held indefinitely without charges pressed and without defense attorneys.

Taxi to the Dark Side, which has just won an Oscar for best documentary, applies not only to Bagram in Afghanistan but also to Bondsteel in Kosovo.

Protection Racket

Kosovo's "independence" has been brewing since 1999. A single 1999 photo tells the whole story - establishing beyond doubt those elusive "international community" ties.

The photo unites Hashim Thaci, then head of terrorist outfit UCK and current prime minister of Kosovo;

Bernard Kouchner, then UN administrator of Kosovo and current French foreign minister in the Nicolas Sarkozy administration;

Sir Mike Jackson, then commander of NATO's occupying force and current consultant for a Blackwater-style mercenary outfit;

And general Wesley Clark, then NATO supreme commander and now military adviser to Hillary Clinton.

Kosovo's "internationally supervised independence", which was due to be outlined in a meeting in Vienna this Thursday, has nothing to do with autonomy. Exit the UN, enter the European Union.

Amputated from Serbia, Kosovo will be no more than an EU (and NATO) protectorate. EU officials in Brussels confirm that thousands of bureaucrats, along with police officers, will be deployed to Kosovo, to live alongside more than 17,000 NATO military personnel already in place.

Neo-colonialism is alive and well in "liberated" Kosovo - which will have to put up with a viceroy and will have no say whatsoever in foreign policy. Think of "liberated" Iraq under the infamous Coalition Provisional Authority run by viceroy L Paul Bremer.

An array of European analysts, not to mention Russians, has compared the current, dangerous state of play in the Balkans to Sarajevo in 1914 that led to the outbreak of World War II.

Blowback, in the short term, will include Serbs refusing to be part of this "independent" state and Albania not recognizing the current Albania/Serbia/Macedonia borders.

Just like a century ago, Central Europe, Russia and the Muslim world are clashing in the Balkans, but this time subjected to a US screenplay.

Bush and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in tandem, gave the go-ahead to the Kosovo declaration of independence weeks before the fact.

Small, contrarian EU countries like Slovakia, Romania and Cyprus were imperially overlooked.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has characterized Kosovo's independence as the beginning of the end of contemporary Europe.

As British journalist John Laughland, manager of the British Helsinki Human Rights Group stresses, "The current status of the province is established by UN Security Council resolution 1244," which determines that Kosovo is part of Serbia.

Thus the US and the EU have - once again - made minced meat of international law.

http://www.radicalleft.net/blog/_arc...3/3552711.html

[Slayer]

Federal Spending Surges for Iraq, Afghanistan; Halliburton Profits Soar

President George W Bush asked for federal spending cuts in Medicare, education, environmental programs, NOAA, Department of the Interior, agriculture, and transportation funding for fiscal year 2007. The White House will submit spending increases for key military advancement initiatives in Iraq and for Afghanistan, according to a Pentagon leaked memo.

During the week ahead President George W Bush will seek $129 billion in additional financing for ongoing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The new spending request covers expenses for calendar year 2006. The additional request is the third interim request for dollars following the United States' invasion of Iraq in March 2003, which is not included in fiscal budget requests.

In addition to military maintenance costs, President Bush will request additional money to finance long-term operations in the Middle East; figures of which cover contractor labor and Halliburton-subsidiary KBR Inc.'s maintenance expenses. Those figures have not yet been disclosed, however Halliburton reported $2 billion in profits for fiscal year 2005 -- a triple recovery from its more than $1 billion reported loss for 2004.

President Bush plans to propose a 5 percent across the board increase for defense spending for the 2007 fiscal year. The White House plans to submit a $439.3 billion spending bill.

For White House known expenses, $84 billion is earmarked for weapons programs, representing an 8 percent increase from fiscal year 2006. President Bush has ordered new fighter jets, Navy ships, helicopters, and unmanned aircraft.

The Army will get $5 billion extra for fiscal year 2006 for weapons spending. The White House earmarked $16.8 billion for 2007 for the Army.

The House of Representatives passed student loan cuts of $13 billion in the week ahead of President Bush's increased military spending bills. Proponents of the bill say cuts hold lenders responsible for student loans and end high yields on returns. Proponents of the bill say the cuts will in no way prohibit students from seeking loans. The provisions reduce the amount of award or freeze the amounts at 2003 levels.

Halliburton holds exclusive military contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Halliburton released its fiscal results for 2005, showing profits rose up from a loss of $1.1 billion in 2004 to net profit of $2.4 billion in 2005. Halliburton's KBR revenue for fourth quarter of 2005 decreased 3 percent o $3 billion.

KBR has been awarded a contract by the United States Department of State to design and build a new embassy in Skopje, Macedonia. KBR was also awarded a contract announced by the Department of Homeland Security for indefinite delivery and quality control for emergency influx of immigration into the United States.

http://www.thinkandask.com/2006/020406-spend.html

[Truth Bearer]

By the time those fyromians realise what their getting themselves in they will trully become a banana republic just like the yanks had those sth & latin american countries under control back in the 60's & 70's......

[Slayer]

Lets go back in time a few years, yep this is from the communist party in the USA

so in 2004 we have Bush recognise FYROM as the republic of macedonia, almost as one of his first acts in his second term, could it be his way of rewarding FYROM? they have his support for FYROM entry into NATO as ROM, could it be his way of guaranteeing the security of big American business in the region such as Halliburton?

Yugoslavia: The name of the game is OIL!

by Karen Talbot

The Bush administration, with its spectacular connections to oil and energy
corporations, is telling the US people they need more oil, gas and nuclear
power to meet the so-called "energy crisis". It is becoming unmistakable
that events in the Balkans, including the recent terrorist attacks in
Macedonia, are directly related to the drive for ever-greater sources of
oil and profits.

Terrorist assaults in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) by
the so-called "National Liberation Army" (NLA) have resumed and greatly
escalated in recent days with major ambushes including against Macedonian
security forces.

The FYROM government troops have responded with a major offensive to
counter the terrorists. The ethnic Albanian terrorists have been engaging
in fierce attacks in the rugged mountains of Macedonia, not only targeting
Serbs and Macedonians, but also Albanians who oppose them.

Their actions have been criticised by Western powers as threatening to
ignite a wider Balkan conflict. But is there a hidden agenda?

Although the US administration says it opposes the recent terrorism in this
region, it has not stopped these attacks which are initiated from the
Serbian province of Kosovo. This, despite the overwhelming KFOR presence,
including US forces based at the huge military base, Camp Bondsteel in
Kosovo, conveniently located in this vital area.

It is curious, therefore, that NATO Secretary-General George Robertson
described the ethnic Albanian NLA fighters as "a bunch of murderous thugs
whose objective is to destroy a democratic Macedonia and who are using
civilians as human shields." Are they not thugs when engaged in similar
behaviour in Kosovo?

Trans-Balkan oil pipeline

It is now becoming clearer than ever that one primary reason the US has
been so involved in Kosovo, Bosnia, and throughout Yugoslavia, has much to
do with the immense wealth to be gleaned from oil.

Construction of a major "Trans-Balkan" pipeline is underway from Burgas in
Bulgaria on the Black Sea, through Macedonia, to the Albanian Adriatic port
of Vlore. It is being built by the US-owned Albanian-Macedonia-Bulgarian
company (AMBO) and is scheduled to be operational by 2005.

All of this has to do with the enormously rich petroleum fields of the
Caspian Sea basin. In order to get that oil to market, one of the best
routes is to pipe it to the Black Sea, ship it in tankers across the Black
Sea, and then pipe it again across the Balkans to the Adriatic Sea.

This by-passes the treacherous narrow Bosporous Straits near Istanbul,
which Turkey claims could not safely accommodate the heavy tanker traffic
from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean.

The AMBO Trans-Balkan pipeline "will make all countries from the Caspian
Sea to the Balkans politically and economically dependent on the US",
writes "Global Intelligence Updates" (Jan 14, 2001).

Journalist Richard Norton-Taylor, writing in the [London] "Guardian" (March
5, 2001), put it this way: "While the US and NATO — and now the EU — hold
out the prospect of untold wealth for the Caucasian states of the former
Soviet Union, the West will also have an important economic stake in
Albania and Macedonia ...

"The implications for Kosovo, a Serbian province with an overwhelming
ethnic Albanian population, and for Macedonia, with armed groups from
Kosovo stirring up trouble among the ethnic Albanian population, are
potentially immense."

General Michael Jackson, who eventually took over command of KFOR in
Kosovo, when speaking of Macedonia, said: "[We] will certainly remain here
a long time so that we can also guarantee the security of the energy
corridors which traverse this country."

Bush administration ties

It comes as no surprise that the AMBO pipeline is being built by
Halliburton — Bush's Vice President, Dick Cheney's old company!

The oil giants already moving into place to operate under the umbrella of
AMBO are Texaco, Chevron, Exxon, Mobil, BP, Amoco, Agip and TotalElFina.

Interestingly, the gargantuan Camp Bondsteel, was also built by
Halliburton. It is the largest US military base constructed since Vietnam.
Furthermore, the troops stationed in the Balkans are being serviced by
Halliburton.

Such a massive project as the Trans-Balkan pipeline requires enormous
amounts of US government money in the form of investment guarantees from
the Export-Import Bank, loans from the World Bank, and other backing.

It needs the sword to march along with the dollar, even if that sword is
wielded by surrogate forces. It needs NATO troops and the massive US "Fort"
Bondsteel in the "frontier" outpost of Kosovo, to protect the investments.

Europe-US rivalry

The European Union, with Germany leading the way, since the early 1990s has
been projecting several corridors not only as energy corridors, but to
provide a vast complex of communications — highways, railroads, airports,
maritime ports and rivers — critical to the economy and European corporate
profits.

These plans have created one of a number of substantial rivalries between
the US and the EU with the US balking at several of the pipeline and
corridor plans that would carry oil from the Caspian and Russia, (including
through Ukraine) into Europe.

This competition has been reflected in recent years in differences over
Kosovo, Bosnia, and Macedonia, among other disputes. However, it appears
that the AMBO pipeline will give the US control over a considerable amount
of the oil coming into Europe from the Caspian basin.

Greater Albania

The goal of the ongoing terrorism led by the KLA has been, and now is
openly proclaimed to be, the establishment of a "Greater Albania". The only
time such an entity ever existed was under fascist rule during World War
II. This objective is again being espoused by the neo-fascists of today.

The agony of the people of Yugoslavia who were steadily bombed by the US
and NATO for 78 days and were hard hit by the most severe economic
sanctions for years, coupled with the fragmenting of the former Yugoslavia,
has to be viewed against the backdrop of corporate profits, particularly
oil profits.

The giant oil companies continue to be deeply involved in most of the
conflicts in the world including in efforts to destroy national
sovereignty, break up nations, Balkanise and create tiny "emirates" and
"banana republics".

More often than not, the US Government and its military policies back them
up. In the case of the southern Balkans, the intent may be to establish a
"Greater Albania" to advance the interests of the oil conglomerates.

* * *


Abridged from the People's Weekly World newspaper of the
Communist Party USA.

http://www.cpa.org.au/garchve4/1045oil.html

[Slayer]

Both Halliburton, and its subsidiary Brown & Root, have deep ties to the CIA and the military. The company has been involved in US military conflicts in Vietnam, Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Chechnya, Pakistan, Colombia and Rwanda. Brown & Root builds oil rigs, pipelines, wells, and nuclear reactors.

There is a lot of talk of big business running America, well American foreign policy arguably can be seen to dictate its actions and relations with the Former Yugoslav Republics and the new banana republics that have emerged with America's blessing.


http://aangirfan.blogspot.com/2006/0...yle-theft.html