The hypocrisy of US government officials is boundless. On
February 18, the US government inflamed Serbians by recognizing Muslim
separatists in Kosovo, a historic
province of Serbia, as an independent country. Two
hundred thousand Serbs marched in protest and the US embassy in Belgrade was
damaged. Is this surprising? No, not unless you are an official in the American
Empire. The notorious Empire Neocon Counsel, Azlmay Khalilzad, Bush�s
representative to the UN, declared, "I�m outraged
by the mob attack."
What�s an embassy building compared to a province of Serbia,
a province that stirs nationalist sentiments associated with the Serbs' long military
struggles with the Turks? Had it not been for the Serbs, Europeans would probably be Turks.
To neocon Khalilzad a province of Serbia is nothing. It is
merely real estate to be given away by US recognition bestowed on a breakaway
movement led by what some consider to be a gang of Muslim drug runners.
Secretary of State Condi Rice also found the Serbian
response to the US giving away part of their country to be "intolerable."
Former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke also
sees no reason for the Serbs to be upset that America gave away part of their
country. He explained away the Serbian protests by declaring,
"The Russians are behind this."
We can understand why US diplomacy is a failure when we see
our diplomats explaining that, had it not been for the Russians stirring them
up, Serbians wouldn�t have noticed the loss of a historic part of their
country.
Perhaps Kosovo should have its independence. However, the US
government could not have handled the issue in a more provocative way.
Washington has been interfering in Serbian internal affairs
since the Clinton administration. Told that Americans had to prevent genocide,
few paid enough attention to Washington�s facilitation of the breakup of the
Yugoslav state during the 1990s and to the Clinton administration�s bombing and
murder of Serbian civilians in order to support Muslim separatists in Kosovo in
1999. Clinton used NATO as cover, but the bombing campaign was not backed by
the UN Security Council. Bombs fell on Serbia for 78 days, taking out public
infrastructure, bridges, factories, power stations, petrochemical plants,
telecommunications facilities, markets, refugees, the Chinese Embassy and a
passenger train. "Sorry, honey, tell the kids I won�t be home tonight.
President Clinton decided to bomb my train." Cluster bombs and depleted
uranium were used. Clearly, the US government and its NATO puppets were guilty
of war crimes under the Nuremberg standard.
Americans were told by an obedient media that the bombings
were necessary in order to prevent Yugoslav leader, Slobodan Milosevic, from
committing war crimes against the separatists who were stealing part of his
country. After Clinton�s bombings intimidated the Serbian political
establishment, Milosevic was turned out of office and handed over to the
Americans for a payment of several hundred million dollars and delivered to the
Hague for trial as a war criminal.
Milosevic represented himself at his trial and was more than
a match for the trumped up charges. Unfortunately, he died in prison. Many
believe he was helped on his way by an embarrassed American Empire unable to
convict him.
What is the US government�s secret agenda in the Balkans?
Why is the US government on the side of Muslims intent on severing Kosovo from
Serbia? What is being served by creating a new Muslim state closer to Europe?
Whose interests are being served by Washington? Clearly, not
our own. Or Europe�s.
And, please, none of that BS about "building freedom
and democracy." As one of England�s most famous conservatives, Peregrine
Worsthorne, wrote on February 20, America�s reputation as the West�s conscience is
fatally weakened."
Supposedly our time is the era of globalism and one
worldism. Ancient European nationalities are dissolving into the European
Union, a new super state. US corporations now have transnational interests
devoid of any national loyalties. Yet, the US is hard at work dissolving a
small Balkan state into even smaller constituent parts. Why is this happening?
Why did Bush order US puppets in Britain, France and Germany to instantly
recognize the historic Serbian province as a new Muslim state?
Is the new state of Kosovo, as rumors would have it, Richard
Perle�s payoff to the Turks, or is the explanation that Serbia, like Palestine,
Iraq, and Iran, lacking any international media reach, was easy for Empire
Neocons to demonize in order to establish the precedent
that Washington decides what territory belongs to whom and who rules it. Clinton�s bombing of
Serbia was a precedent for Bush�s bombing of Afghanistan and Iraq and now
Africa and tomorrow Iran and Syria.
The day the Empire Crazies bomb Russia or China, we are all
fried.
Be a macho super patriot, believe your government, help to
fry the world. It�s the American way.
Paul
Craig Roberts [email him] was
Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan�s first term. He
was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has held numerous academic
appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic
and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow,
Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He was awarded the Legion of Honor by
French President Francois Mitterrand. He is the author of Supply-Side
Revolution : An Insider's Account of Policymaking in Washington; Alienation
and the Soviet Economy and Meltdown:
Inside the Soviet Economy, and is the co-author with Lawrence M. Stratton
of The
Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the
Constitution in the Name of Justice. Click here for Peter
Brimelow�s Forbes Magazine interview with Roberts about the recent epidemic of
prosecutorial misconduct.