SOCIALIZED
COSTS, PRIVATIZED PROFITS
On
June 2 the US Trade and Development Agency announced a grant
of $588,000 to Bulgaria to study the feasibility of running
a pipeline through the southern Balkans. Advocates of the
new route cite the costs of the Turkish option – $4 billion
and rising – and estimate the Balkan alternative at $1
billion max. But the winning argument seems to be that the
US taxpayers would not only pick up the tab for security but
also provide financial guarantees. Western investors, who
have long been licking their chops over the prospect of the
Caspian Sea oil project, are once again employing their favorite
financial strategy of socializing the costs and "privatizing"
the profits.
WHOSE
NATIONAL INTEREST?
The
"humanitarian" war has a payoff, it seems, but this
is just a side issue. The point is that the builders of this
pipeline will have answered those critics of the Kosovo war,
many of them on the Right – the so-called foreign policy
realists – who said that the US has no discernible national
interests in the Balkans. Once this conduit of Caspian oil
wealth starts to flow into the region, the interventionists
will retort: Well, now we do!
FRONTIER
OF EMPIRE
The
new plan is to ship Caspian crude from Armenia, via the port
of Supsa on the Black Sea, and also through Novorossiysk,
in Russia, to be pumped across Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania
on its way to the West. This way, everyone gets to feed off
the gravy train: not only the big oil companies and investment
bankers, but the bit players in this mercantilist scenario,
most importantly Russia. Boris Yeltsin is not about to block
this killing by the very investment bankers he must petition
to keep his ship of state afloat. But he needs to be bribed
on occasion, and this is but a mild sweetener when mixed with
the bitter brew of NATO's Transcaucasian triumph. The Balkan
pipeline will define the Eastern frontier of NATO's Holy Roman
Empire, to be guarded unto eternity by American centurions
– who will be handy in case there are any "humanitarian"
missions to carry out further East.
THE
SNAKE
Speaking
of Turks, the truth about Hacim Thraci, the little Stalin
of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), is finally beginning
to come out. Chris
Hedge's excellent piece in the New York Times is
the journalistic complement to his pioneering work in Foreign
Affairs, which exposed the origins of the KLA in an exotic
blend of fascist antecedents, neo-Maoist ideology, Muslim
fundamentalism, and drug-running. Just as the NATO-crats put
their imprimatur on the separatist group, and the newspapers
were full of stories about the sleek, slick, "new"
KLA whose pro-Western face is the sternly handsome Mr. Thraci,
Hedges has revealed that Thraci's opponents in the KLA have
been executed, or have mysteriously turned up dead on several
occasions. Not only that, but Thraci himself has issued threats
– which seem always to be carried out. Now we know why
they call him "the Snake." One press account has
it that he earned his nickname because of his slender figure
and "triangular face," but somehow I don't think
that is the real reason, do you?
A
TWO-BIT THUG
As
James Rubin travels to Kosovo to have his picture taken with
the Snake, and Thraci's handshake with General Michael Jackson,
Kosovo Allied Commander, sealing the "demilitarization"
agreement, is broadcast worldwide, it turns out that this
paragon of Western "values" is nothing but a two-bit
thug. All during the war, by the way, and its ebullient aftermath,
Madeleine Albright seemed positively entranced by the Snake,
as did Rubin: both bragged of talking to Thraci by cell phone
and receiving regular reports from him on the situation on
the ground. Now we know that, in between chats with Rubin
and Albright, the thug Thraci busied himself with purging
and murdering his own comrades. While the State Department
is issuing a steady stream of denials, and seems to be sticking
by their man, at least for the moment, as the real story of
the KLA atrocities – including their war against the
guerrilla forces loyal to Kosovar President Ibrahim Rugova
– comes out, it is fair to ask how much they knew about
their young pupil's extracurricular activities.
BUILDING A GREATER ALBANIA
If this fails to discredit the
KLA in the halls of Congress, then what will? We are told
that Senator Mitch McConnell's amendment to the defense appropriations
bill – which
we warned you about – has been put "on hold."
But the truth is that the powerful Albanian lobby, flush with
drug money, is already navigating a "security package"
through the Senate: the bill specifies that out of a total
of $150 million in aid to Kosovo, "$20 million shall
be available for training and equipping a Kosova security
force." With British Prime Minister Tony Blair refusing
to rule out independence for Kosovo, and the KLA in position
as the de facto armed forces and police of the newly separated
province, there is only one possible recipient of this money,
and that is the Snake and his fellow vipers. Let the call
go out to opponents of this mad Balkan adventure: not one
penny of US tax dollars to the KLA!
SNAPSHOTS
OF THE WAR PARTY: SOROS AND HIS VASSALS
A
letter to your representatives in Congress, and perhaps a
phone call to their district office, will help to counteract
the pervasive influence of the enormously powerful Albanian
lobby. This lobby consists of not only celebrity airheads
like Bianca Jagger but celebrity billionaires such as George
Soros. The Soros philanthropic empire has funneled moral and
journalistic (if not material) support to the KLA lobby in
America, and was a key player in its precursors, the Balkan
Institute and the American Committee to Save Bosnia. Wednesday's
Lehrer News Hour featured a panel discussion of the
KLA featuring the estimable Christopher Layne and an "independent"
journalist associated with the George Soros Foundation, whose
last name was Nazi – I kid you not-sie! – and who
solemnly declared that the KLA was founded "about a year
ago." When the announcer gave his brief biography at
the beginning of the show, he visibly blushed and rolled his
eyes at the mention of Soros's name. As well he might.
REVISIONISM
Western
shills for the KLA naturally want to rewrite the history of
the KLA, and this involves pretending that it is a completely
new movement that was sprung from Albanian soil like a Myrmidon
fully armed. Hedges exposes the key role played by the Albanian
Communist dictator Enver Hoxha, who funded the Kosovo Popular
Movement, a Marxist-Leninist organization inspired by Tirana
and directly aided by Hoxha's secret political police, the
much-feared Sigurimi. With Hoxha's death, in 1985, and the
fall of Communism in Europe, the Sigurimi did not disappear,
but instead turned to drug smuggling and other clandestine
activities, continuing its operations in Kosovo, reportedly
with German and Croatian help.
TO
MY FANS IN HIGH PLACES
Oh,
the wonders of technology! Our old ISP catalogued our hits
by server, and during the war I could see an unusually large
number of hits coming from government (.gov) servers. With
our new ISP (Eagle Net,
who has graciously donated our Web space), however, these
statistics are much more accessible – and revealing.
It seems we have at least one fan at the Pentagon, and we
also have a loyal cadre of readers among some aides in the
US Senate. Maybe it is only a few interns goofing off on the
computers, but assuming I have your ear, gentlemen, I have
a simple request: Why not conduct a thorough investigation
of the KLA? As long as our tax money is going to subsidize
their thuggery, at least let us in on the extent of their
crimes – after all, we're paying for it.
INVESTIGATE
THE KLA
Together
with the public relations consulting firm of Ruder-Finn, and
the "Fatherland Fund" run by the overseas branch
of the KLA, the War Party has launched a largely successful
two-pronged attack: the media is fed a constant diet of pro-KLA
stories, and friendly congressmen, such as loudmouth warmonger
Rep. Tom Lantos (D-California), are fed thousands of dollars
in campaign contributions
OH
PLEASE, LOUISE
Gee,
how come the executions carried out at the behest of the Snake
don't rate as "war crimes" – or has Louise
Arbour let her New York Times subscription lapse?
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