[TENC] NATO Stages a War Provocation in the Balkans
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NATO Stages a War Provocation in the Balkans by Jared Israel.
Research by Jared Israel and Samantha Criscione
[Oct. 11, 2007]
=============================================
As you probably are not aware, on October 1st NATO began twelve-days
of special forces maneuvers on land and in the air and sea, on the
Yugoslav side of the Adriatic. Thirteen countries are participating,
including twelve NATO members plus Croatia, which is hosting the
maneuvers even though it is not a member - a first. Albania and
Montenegro, also not members, are observing. Serbia is not.
These military maneuvers, positioning Croatia as NATO's command
center in the Adriatic Sea area, with coastal states Albania and
Montenegro as deputies (see map at
http://www.tenc.net/analysis/441px-Adriatic_Sea_map.png ), are being
held after a year of escalating clerical-fascist activity in Croatia,
activity to which NATO, by presenting Croatia as a model Adriatic
state, has given its blessing.
Croatia's year of clerical-fascism was:
A) Set up in October 2006 by the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs
with an international display of Balkans Holocaust denial and mockery
of Serbian victims of the Holocaust in the 'Independent' State of
Croatia;
B) Advised, steered, prodded and mis-described by the US State
Department, through various operatives, and the New York Times;
C) Aggressively promoted by the Croatian Catholic hierarchy and by
the Vatican itself, which, despite its posture of other-worldliness,
is a very powerful - if not the most powerful - single political
force in the earthly region of Europe, East and West.
If you don't know about the maneuvers it is because your local
media, at least if it is French, English, Italian, German, Spanish
or Dutch, has been nearly silent. The BBC Monitoring service has
been sending Croatian news agency dispatches on the maneuvers to
its many thousands of media customers. (We have set up a page so
you can see three of the BBC Monitoring dispatches [1].) But besides
military websites, all we can find as of today (October 10th) are
a photo with caption in US News and World Report [2] and a brief
mention in the newspaper La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno in Puglia,
Italy, and on a Puglia TV news program [3]. Other than that,
nothing.
And yet, the maneuvers are manifestly important.
First of all, they are big, involving:
"8,000 [special - J.I.] troops, 40 ships, six submarines, 40 aircraft,
and a dozen helicopters..."
-- US News and World Reports, Oct.. 7, 2007 See footnote [2]
Second of all, somebody got shot. Croatia's HINA news agency reported:
"An Italian Marine suffered gunshot injuries to the lower legs in
an accident that occurred on Monday afternoon during mobile target
practice as part of the NATO exercise "Noble Midas 07" on the
Croatian Army training ground at Slunj... An investigation was under
way."
-- "Italian soldier wounded in NATO exercise in Croatia," BBC
Monitoring Europe, Oct. 2, 2007 [4]
We could find only one report of the shooting in the Italian media.
And nobody anywhere has reported the outcome of the investigation.
[5]
Third of all, NATO is not holding the maneuvers in some neutral
location but in the battlegrounds of the war-plagued Balkans: the
Dalmatian coast, an area that host-Croatia seized during the 1990s,
and a few inland locations. One is the city of Knin [6], formerly
capital of the Krajina Serbian Republic (RSK). Croatia drove the
RSK's entire population of more than 250,000 from their homes into
refugee status, or killed them, in 1995. By approving Knin as a
location for Croatian-hosted maneuvers, NATO legitimizes this
genocide.
NATO describes the maneuvers as preparation for "Peace Enforcement"
[7] but they seem more like 'rubbing salt in a wound' to me.
==============================================
Peace is War
==============================================
Which brings us to the fourth point.
The media is supposed to draw the public's attention to important
connections between events. Reporters and editors may recall a
recent decade of war in the Balkans - clue: it was called 'the 90s'
- that began with Croatia's violent 1991 secession from Yugoslavia.
They may recall that NATO massively bombed the Bosnian Serbs in the
fall of 1995 and Serbia proper in 1999. Why hasn't the media reported
that the same Croatia is hosting military maneuvers for the same
NATO in the identical Balkans, pointing out the most obvious
connection, that this is either preparation for war or a provocation
that could lead to war.
A week before the maneuvers started, NATO put out a press release
with the headline:
"NATO NRF Exercises Peace Enforcement In Adriatic Sea"
-- NATO press release, September 25, 2007 See footnote [7]
The press release stated that:
"This live [? - J.I.] maritime and amphibious exercise will focus
on NATO RESPONSE FORCE (NRF) operations supported from the sea."
-- See footnote [7]
The NRF is a new creation. According to NATO, the maneuvers are
being held in order to prepare for the NRF's use:
"where NATO is appointed by the UN to build up an immediate reaction
in a fictitious country on the brink of civil war."
-- See footnote [7]
Ah. "Peace enforcement" in a "ficticitous country" in the Adriatic
region "on the brink of civil war." Let's consider this.
First, there is no way to 'enforce peace' in a country supposedly
on the verge of civil war without boosting some forces and hurting
(or crushing) others. And indeed, no power would get involved in
such a quagmire unless it was allied with - or sponsoring - one
side.
Second, even if there is no real "brink," big powers can always
manufacture the appearance of one using false media reports and/or
incidents staged by local proxies, of which the NATO countries have
plenty in the Adriatic region.
And third, if NATO were really worried about avoiding civil strife,
why provoke it by showcasing Croatia, Albania and Montenegro, which
are governed by forces that promote anti-Serb racism, celebrate the
breakup of Yugoslavia and advocate further attacks on the Serbs and
consolidation of the breakup?
Croatia, most powerful of the anti-Serbian states, covets all of
Bosnia. Albania covets Kosovo. And as for Montenegro, the greatly
respected, independent Magistrates of Italy are likely, according
to the Montenegrin media, soon to indict former Prime Minister Milo
Djukanovic and twelve associates from the Democratic Party of
Socialists (DPS), which still rules and which Djukanovic still
leads. The charge: massive, mafia-linked [8] cigarette smuggling.
To give you an idea of the scale of the smuggling, the Montenegrin
newspaper Vijesti reports that:
"Italian prosecutors say that they discovered a secret [Djukanovic-linked
- J.I.] account in a Cyprus bank with 500m euros and that that money
was reinvested in Montenegro."
-- "Montenegrin officials reject Italian prosecutors' tobacco-smuggling
accusations," Vijesti, June 24, 2007 (For full text see footnote
[9])
So, spitting in the face of the Italian judiciary, NATO has invited
a government accused of mafia-linked, Adriatic smuggling to observe
Adriatic military maneuvers. Why? So that the Montenegrin leaders
can learn new tricks about evading capture? Or perhaps they will
patrol the coast?
Politically, Montenegro is sharply divided; its government would
like to suppress the large part of the population that wishes to
return to close relations with Serbia and believes in Yugoslav
unity.
By inviting Montenegro and Albania to maneuvers hosted by Croatia,
NATO is in effect assembling a NATO-backed local alliance under
Croatian leadership against Serbia and in control of the coast.
In the '90s, when NATO intervened to support - and sponsor - military
action against Serbia and the Bosnian and Krajina Serb states, NATO
justified it on the grounds that they were just trying to preserve
the peace in the face of supposedly power-hungry, expansionist
Serbian leaders.
To gauge the credibility of that claim, consider that in holding
the current, provocatively anti-Serb maneuvers, NATO is likewise
claiming they are intended to preserve the peace. Consider that
today most of the top leaders of the Bosnian Serbs, and of their
Bosnian Muslim and Krajina Serb allies, are dead, in jail or in
hiding. 500,000 or more Serbs have been driven from Croatia and
adjacent areas. Serbia's former ally, Montenegro, has split away
from Serbia and is run by Serb-baiters. Republika Srpska is part
of a Bosnian 'state,' which it shares with the same Muslim-Croat
federation the Serbs and their Muslim allies once fought, a state
dictatorially controlled by the NATO powers. In Serbia itself,
Milosevic is dead. The top political parties (both in power and in
the opposition) passively supported or participated in the NATO-directed
coup of March 2000. While the charge that under Milosevic Serbia
was a violently expansionist state was always a lie - Milosevic was
in f!
act an appeaser, although he fooled many people, including me, with
his rhetoric, and as for the Bosnian and Krajina Serb Republics,
they always had defensive strategies - the charge that Serbia is
an aggressive threat today is simply preposterous.
NATO's real policy was never directed against supposedly aggressive
Serbian leaders; it was directed against the Serbs as a people
because:
A) The Serbs were the keystone of Yugoslavia;
B) For nearly a hundred years the Serbs have resisted German and
Vatican attempts to keep the Balkans divided into tiny states, have
resisted the fomenting of divide-and-conquer racism and religious
fanaticism and, starting in the 1930s, resisted the fusion of racism
and religious fanaticism known as 'clerical-fascism.' That is a
major reason why, in the first half of the twentieth century (that
is, until the end of World War II) and starting again in the 1980s
and 1990s, Germany and the Vatican made crushing the Serbs and other
pro-Yugoslav forces (e.g., in the 1990s, the Bosnian Muslims under
Fikret Abdic [10]) their practical goal in the Balkans.
Since Germany and the Vatican are the US establishment's primary
allies in Europe, this anti-Serbian goal became US policy as well.
Became, and still is. Because even today, after all that has happened,
the Serbs remain a substantial presence in the Balkans, and are not
politically broken. Most have been driven from their homes in Kosovo
and the Krajina, but large Serbian populations remain in Bosnia and
of course Serbia. The bombed, terrorized, whittled down and betrayed
'entity' that is the remains of Republika Srpska (in Bosnia) still
holds government-authorized conferences defending the truth about
the Jasenovac death camp complex, speaking the unspeakable, that
is, linking the Holocaust to German and Vatican policies past and
present.
As a group, the Serbs have refused to forget, to give up. (This
despite great effort to 'turn' them, such as: 1) Since the coup in
October 2000, local Serbian media have deluged ordinary people with
propaganda blaming the Balkans war on the Serbs; and 2) starting
in 1992 there has been a carefully crafted effort to sell all Slavs
the lie that the Jewish people are supposedly the cause of Western
military and media attacks on the Serbs. Despite some ideal conditions
for the development of antisemitic fascist ideology - including two
decades of seemingly inexplicable attacks causing immense suffering
- the Serbs have not succumbed to fascism.)
The Serbs' remarkable stubbornness of principle is a large part of
the reason for the Austro-Hungarian slogan of ninety years ago,
"Serbia must die." A large part of the reason why, after Germany
invaded Yugoslavia in April 1941, a German officer told the New
York Times, concerning the Serbs, who were the only ones in Europe
who dared to overthrow a pro-Nazi German government in March 1941,
when Hitler seemed to be sweeping all the world before him:
"'They must be taught a lesson they will never forget,' said a
German Oberlieutenant, who outlined the German program for defeated
Serbians. ...'We shall deal with the Serbs as Nordic conquerors
must deal with vain inferiors who opposed them.'"
-- "Nazis Held Ready to Crush Serb Guerrillas and Jews," New York
Times, May 11, 1941 [11]
(Notice that the New York Times headline refers to crushing Serbian
guerrillas. However, the article itself makes clear that Germany's
target was the Serbs as a people. See footnote [11]. - J.I.)
The Serbs' stubborn adherence to principle is a large part of the
reason why the German leadership did not stop the attempt by the
Croatian Ustasha fascists, from 1941 to 1945, to eliminate the
Serbs, even though the Ustashe's unspeakably brutal mass murder
drove tens of thousands of Serbs to join the Partisans and the
Cetnik guerrillas, and therefore was, from a purely military point
of view, a big problem for Germany.
It is a large part of the reason why, according to the Manchester
Guardian, in August 1992 German Minister of Foreign Affairs Klaus
Kinkel felt:
"helpless rage at the inability of the EC to undertake concrete
measures to 'force Serbia to its knees.'"
-- "Germany Seeks to Assert Itself," by David Gow, Manchester
Guardian Weekly; August 2, 1992
And it is a large part of the reason why NATO is holding these
maneuvers today.
Because the Serbs, not some government or political party, but the
Serbs as a people, pose, by their very existence as a political
force, the possibility of Slavic unity against Germany and the
Vatican and other predators in the Balkans.
However, there is more involved in the attack on the Serbs and
others who uphold Yugoslavia. It is not simply a practical measure,
instigated by Germany and the Roman Catholic church, to crush those
who embody the threat of creating Yugoslav unity and who oppose
racism. It is a means to a more ambitious end. What end do they
have in mind? To help us understand that question we will need to
examine what has been happening in recent times - we will focus on
the past twelve months - in Croatia.
==============================================
To understand NATO better, examine Croatia
==============================================
Announcing the upcoming maneuvers, the Croatian weekly Nacional,
which I am told is close to Croatian President Mesić, wrote:
"Indicative of just how important this exercise is, [is] the fact
that it will, for the first time in NATO history, be held in a
non-member country, a precedent for the alliance and which on the
other hand speaks volumes of how strategically vital Croatia's
maritime position is and of its future role in preserving security
on the Mediterranean [of which the Adriatic Sea is a section -
J.I.]."
-- Nacional, May 9, 2007 [12]
When institutions have been around a long time, people begin to
think of them as inevitable parts of the social landscape. But there
is nothing inevitable about NATO, a military machine created by
allies in a clear-cut conflict: the cold war.
The cold war is over, so why does NATO still exist? Why is it
expanding?
Alliances are formed to a purpose. What is the goal of this one
now that there is no Soviet bloc? To achieve security? How has the
destruction of Yugoslavia increased security? How do the current
maneuvers, not just showcasing the Serbs' regional enemies but
including in the itinerary the city of Knin, site of a terrible
tragedy for the Serbian people - how can this possibly increase
security? Surely 'security' is a euphemism, but for what?
By choosing to break precedent to allow Croatia to host these
maneuvers; by holding them in prime criminal locations of Croatia's
1990s "Homeland war"; and by giving Croatia the appearance of
guarantor of Adriatic security - NATO has boosted Croatia's world
standing and its ability to politically influence and menace others
in the Adriatic in pursuit of what Croatia wants.
Therefore, if we examine what the dominant forces in and around
NATO have been molding Croatia to want, it may help us understand
what these forces are trying to secure and how they plan to secure
it, especially as regards the countries that resisted Germany and
the Vatican in the past - the countries that formed the now-defunct
Socialist bloc and/or those that have a tradition of massive
democratic and/or anti-fascist movements, such as Yugoslavia and
Italy.
Let's look at what has been happening in Croatia.
_To be continued._
Jared Israel Editor, Emperor's Clothes
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Footnotes and Further Reading
[1] For BBC Monitoring dispatches on the maneuvers go to
http://tenc.net/a/oct10.htm
[2] U.S. News and World Report, "The Day in Photos," Oct. 5, 2007,
at http://tinyurl.com/2jqfel
[3] La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno, 25 Sept. 2007, "Nato-games in
Adriatico," at http://tinyurl.com/25n3am and "Marina Militare:
Fuciliere Pugliese Ferito in Croazia, Buone Condizioni," Telenorba,
Oct. 2, 2007, at http://tinyurl.com/2xnw44
[4] "Italian soldier wounded in NATO exercise in Croatia," BBC
Monitoring Europe, Oct. 2, 2007 at http://tenc.net/a/oct10.htm#wound
[5] "Marina Militare," see footnote [3], above.
[6] See http://tenc.net/a/oct10.htm#knin
[7] "NATO NRF Exercises Peace Enforcement In Adriatic Sea," NATO
press release, September 25, 2007 At http://tinyurl.com/2am7ss
Archived at http://www.tenc.net/a/pr-midas.htm
[8] See "In Dec. 2004, Italy's Supreme Court Ruled: Jail Prime
Minister Djukanovic," including 'Summary and background information
on Supreme Court ruling, explanation of legal terms, notes on Italian
judicial system and English translation of ANSA's report,' by
Samantha Criscione http://emperors-clothes.com/yr/ansa070105.htm
[9] "Montenegrin officials reject Italian prosecutors' tobacco-smuggling
accusations" can be read in full at http://tenc.net/a/oct10.htm#vij
[10] Regarding Fikret Abdic, see "Pro-Yugoslav Muslim Leader Put
on Trial" at http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/abdic.htm
[11] A longer excerpt from the 1942 Times article with my comment
about whether the Germans were threatening to attack Serbian
guerrillas, or the Serbian population as whole is posted at
http://tenc.net/a/oct10.htm#brock
[12] "9,000 NATO Commandos in Adriatic Operation," Nacional, May
9, 2007, at http://www.nacional.hr/en/articles/view/34257/18/
Archived at http://www.tenc.net/a/9000.htm
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