THE
"BALKAN CURSE"
Like
some cynical Hollywood hack writer churning out formulaic
scripts, the authors of the Macedonia scenario are sticking
with what has worked in the past. It worked in Kosovo,
where Albanians (who always seem to have only one name)
told the tallest tales with the straightest of faces.
The American and European audience fell for it, at least
for as long as it took to reduce Yugoslavia to rubble
and conquer Kosovo. Let's call this one "The Balkan Curse"
– a nice touch of sumptuous vulgarity, Hollywood-style
– and people it with all the by-now-familiar stock characters.
The Bad Guys are, of course, the evil racist Macedonian
"paramilitaries," whose shadowy "death squads" have targeted
the Muslim heroes of this docudrama – the poor, downtrodden,
eternally victimized Albanians. You can tell the Macedonians
are the bad guys because, not only do they threaten their
enemies with death, but they also use racist language:
"'It
is ordered that all shiptars [a derogatory word
for Albanians] who have businesses in and around Kvantashki
Market relocate within three days and those shiptars
who are from Aracinovo within 24 hours. After this deadline
all stores will be set on fire and if anyone puts up a
defense they will be shot without warning,' the notice
said. 'We put shiptars in the Republic of Macedonia
on notice that for every policeman or soldier killed,
100 shiptars, who are not Macedonian citizens since 1994,
will be killed.'"
MADE
IN USA
No
doubt they fly the Confederate flag, too. "Macedonia Paramilitary
2000"? If you believe that one, then you'll believe anything.
If the "2000" is supposed to mean that the group was founded
last year, then it's not too convincing, especially since
no one ever heard of it before. You would think that a
Macedonian paramilitary organization with ultra-nationalist
sympathies would have a distinctively Macedonian name:
perhaps it would even be in the Macedonian language. Whatever
spook thought that one up ought to be demoted. "Macedonia
Paramilitary 2000" is the product of some government employee's
parched imagination – and while I'm not saying which
government (although you would think that the Europeans
would be a little more sophisticated about these things),
in its stupidity and crudity "Macedonia Paramilitary 2000"
has "Made in USA" written all over it. Besides, it seems
the Americans are the ones doing all the heavy lifting
in this little operation, while the EU does the "negotiating."
BLACKMAIL
This
division of labor has been underscored by the events of
the past few days. EU "external affairs coordinator" Chris
Patten made the Eurocrats' position all too clear, threatening
to freeze the next two aid payments to the Macedonian
government unless and until Skopje caved in to the demands
of the Albanian guerrilla fighters:
"There
is little we can do in terms of financial support until
there's a political settlement. It is difficult to build
people's confidence when money, which is clearly in very
short supply, is being spent on bombs and rockets. The
sooner there can be a ceasefire, permanently, and the
sooner there can be a political settlement, the sooner
we can discuss investing."
UNDERMINING
MACEDONIA
How
dare the Macedonians respond to the invasion of
their territory and the initiation of terrorist activities
inside their own borders by fighting back! One can only
marvel at the brazen arrogance of the Eurocrats as they
speak of "building confidence" – even as
NATO troops (Americans) escort armed Albanian guerrillas
in US military vehicles to NLA-held villages, returning
weapons to the guerrillas at journey's end. This is supposed
to build "confidence" all right – the confidence of the
Albanians, emboldening them to press their attack.
SHOCKED
AND NOT-SO-SILENT
One
Agence France Presse account of the NATO operation is
headlined "Macedonian government in disarray as rebels
chalk up victory" – a victory won for them by US troops
acting at NATO's behest. "Ethnic Albanian rebels claimed
a major success Tuesday," the AFP article continues,
"after they were escorted, with their weapons, by
US troops to the Black Mountain, north of Skopje, leaving
Macedonian authorities shocked and silent." The compliant
government may have been silent, but the Macedonian people
were roaring their defiance: their response to this monstrous
sell-out was to overrun the Parliament building, tear
down the flag, and replace it with "a more nationalist
one" as one news account put it: whereas the old flag
is a red-and-yellow sunburst, the new one features a lion
roaring beneath the stylized rays of the Macedonian sun.
President Boris Trajkovski was upstairs at the time, negotiating
his country's existence away to its Albanian would-be
conquerors, but the whole cabal was forced to flee out
the back door. Whether Macedonia's President will escape
the wrath of a people betrayed is up in the air as of
this moment, but there can be no doubt that the power
vacuum will be filled soon enough by NATO troops and EU/UN
overlords.
AN
ARMY WITHOUT WEAPONS
During
the war for Kosovo, NATO warplanes functioned as the Albanian
air force, clearing the way for the KLA to inherit the
rubble: in Macedonia, the idea is to use NATO ground troops
to clear out whatever opposition should arise – and they
obviously don't expect much. After all, the commander
of the Macedonian army bailed out last week: what's the
use of having an army, even one as ill-equipped as Macedonia's,
if it is not allowed to fight? And I wouldn't worry too
much about the Macedonian air force, which consists of
two rather wilted-looking helicopters. Under the pretext
of "disarming" the Albanian insurgents, NATO is now escorting
their protégés to safety, helping them consolidate
their newly-won territory while the Eurocrats use the
traitorous Trajkovski to legitimize the de facto partition
of the country.
THE
YANKS AREN'T COMING – THEY'RE HERE
While
the Europeans are playing the most visible role, clearly
the Americans provided the TNT that sparked the Macedonian
implosion. It was US diplomat Robert Frowick – currently
on "loan" to the OSCE – who hammered out a joint statement
by the Albanian political parties and the supposedly "indigenous"
National Liberation Army rebels just as the negotiations
were reaching a crucial stage. This agreement hardened
the Albanian side, and brought the negotiating process
to a standstill. It was US troops who escorted the armed
NLA fighters back to their lair and then politely returned
their weapons. The
New York Times reports that the Macedonian
bus companies that originally contracted for the job all
flaked out at the last minute, and only the US Army had
the means to pull it off with "15 buses, 3 trucks, 3 ambulances
and 16 Humvees" along with an unknown number of American
soldiers. It isn't a question of sending US troops into
the country: they're already there. At least 500 G.I.'s
have been stationed in Macedonia since before the start
of the Kosovo war – Michael New, the soldier who wouldn't
wear the blue beret of the UN, was one of them – and it
is merely a question of utilizing them to the Albanians'
best advantage, without being too obvious about it.
A
LITTLE TOO MUCH
This
latest maneuver, however, was really too much,
and is bound to excite some interest in the US Congress,
where resentment over George W. Bush's abandonment of
his promise to get us out of the Balkans is bound to reach
the boiling point. One day NATO chieftain George Robertson
is denouncing the NLA as "terrorists" and "murderous thugs"
with whom he will have no truck, and the next day NATO
troops are escorting these terrorists down the road like
beloved children on their first day of school. Conservative
Republicans are bound to start asking questions, and one
can only hope that they do so loudly and even rudely.
For what is happening in the Balkans is a crime not only
against the Slavs in the region, but also against the
national security of the US: America has no national interest
in turning Macedonia into another EU/UN protectorate.
COLD
WAR WITH EUROPE
Regular
readers of this column need no reminder that I consider
the EU to be the reincarnation of the old Soviet Union,
a socialist Frankenstein monster raised from the dead
by the "ex"-Commies of Europe and their left-wing friends
in the US. For the past year, Antiwar.com has been warning
that the consolidation of a European socialist super-state
is a deadly threat to the peace of the world and the liberties
of us all, and now it appears that some American conservatives
are waking up. A
recent editorial in National Review opined
that, in view of the reception afforded George W. Bush
on his European sojourn, it appears that we are in a state
of "cold war" with Europe:
"The
noise that can be heard is the sundering of old ties and
old assumptions. For about a decade now, it has been evident
that the EU is projecting itself as a bloc in rivalry
with America. 'Whole and free' in this view means centralized
government, common foreign and defense policies, a single
currency, and a leadership willing to entertain a new,
supposedly more benign, cold war. Already well on the
way to militarization, the EU ideology is divisive and
dangerous because it is anti-American – and in the last
resort antidemocratic."
THE
COMING GROUND WAR
If
so, then why is a Republican administration placing American
troops at the Europeans' disposal, using American brawn
(and tax dollars) to establish another EU beachhead in
the Balkans? If it's been ten years since the general
outlines of the rising US-EU rivalry have been apparent,
then during that same decade the destruction of the Balkan
states has been an ongoing project of those same Europeans,
who (along with John McCain) were so insistent during
the Kosovo war that the Americans launch a ground war.
Well, now they might have their ground war, for that is
what may very well develop as events unfold in Macedonia.
There is bound to be resistance to the NATO-Albanian takeover,
and you can bet that US troops will be in the thick of
it.
ON
TO SOFIA!
From
Macedonia, it's on to Bulgaria – which recently placed
the party of King Simeon II in power, a would-be monarch
who may or may not be amenable to the EU-Albanian agenda.
The Slavs of the Balkans have always been an ungovernable
and prickly lot, stubbornly insisting on their independence,
and the would-be colonizers of the West have traditionally
used the Albanians as their cat's-paw: the Austro-Hungarian
empire employed their services in an earlier time, and
now that a new European empire is on the horizon the Albanians
are again on the Western payroll. This time, they have
little or no opposition: with Russia in decline, and the
Slavic states of the region weakened by communism and
the resultant economic malaise, the conquest of the Balkans
promises to be a cakewalk. First Bosnia, then Kosovo,
and now Macedonia – it won't be long before the EU's Albanian
proxy army makes it all the way to the Black Sea. If I
lived in Romania or Bulgaria I would start making plans.
WHOLE
AND FREE
I
note, in passing, that the methods of the Eurocrats and
their American allies follow a similar pattern. In the
former Yugoslavia, where the market nationalism of President
Vojislav Kostunica poses a threat to EU expansion, the
US is blackmailing Belgrade into handing over Slobodan
Milosevic by threatening to cut off the aid spigot – a
ploy designed to bring down the Yugoslav federal government.
In Macedonia, the EU pulls the rug out from under Trajkovski's
coalition government and threatens the withdrawal of aid
unless he hands over the country to the Albanians. Working
in tandem, the US and the Eurocrats are building a Europe
"whole and free" – free of the last traces of liberty,
that is, as well as bereft of whatever restraining influence
the US might once have had.
TAKING
THE FUN OUT OF GLOATING
The
Balkan policy of the Bush administration is not one whit
different from that of its predecessor: this is what we
might have expected to occur if not for a few hanging
chads in Florida. To all those conservative Republicans
who chastised me for supporting Patrick J. Buchanan's
Reform party campaign, and who insisted that things were
going to be different once the "adults" got into the White
House, I can safely say: I told you so. As much
as I enjoy gloating, however, there is no real joy in
it this time. As I witness the dismemberment of Macedonia
by the West's Albanian pit-bulls, I cannot help but reflect
on the sad fate of a brave people, who foolishly trusted
the West – and deserved better.
DO
I HEAR THE LION'S ROAR?
Of
course, this obituary for Macedonia is not necessarily
the final word. Perhaps some real resistance will arise,
an authentic Macedonian "paramilitary" army that
will take up arms against NATO and their Albanian proxies.
Perhaps the Macedonian lion will awaken, and, once roused,
not only roar his defiance but fight tooth and claw: a
few American casualties should make the Bush administration
think twice before they lead us into this briar patch.
