THE ATLANTIC
BRIGADE
It is the
story of the "Atlantic
Brigade," a shadowy unit organized and trained in the
US, which fought in the Kosovo war at the side of the Kosovo
Liberation Army (KLA), numbering some 400 armed fighters.
There seems little doubt that these "internationalists" were
armed and trained by the US government and its intelligence
services. Clinton had, after all, vowed to undermine the government
in Belgrade, and the Brigadeers didn't shy away from publicity:
they were given a big sendoff in New York City (the center
of Albanian-American activity) and were much
celebrated in left-liberal venues such as Salon.com as
well as the New York media. Now
they are joining the "National Liberation Army" –
another name for the KLA – in Macedonia, where Albanian
ultra-nationalists are undermining Skopje just as they subverted
the authority of Belgrade. Their goal is to create a crisis
so that NATO will intervene on (what else?) "humanitarian"
grounds.
COVERT ASSAULT
ON SERBIA
The three
Albanian-Americans were found with their identity papers –
rather odd, but we'll let that pass for the moment –
and had apparently been blindfolded and bound with their hands
behind their backs, then shot at close range. According to
the article, they were also found with Serbian court papers
on them (!) indicating that they had been arrested and jailed
on June 27 – seventeen days after the Kosovo war
officially ended – for entering Serbia illegally. The
bombing of Yugoslavia had stopped, but the covert military
assault on the former Yugoslavia continued, unabated, with
the US-trained-and-financed "Atlantic Brigade" in the front
lines of the battle. And that assault continues to this day,
with guerrillas on the Serbian-Kosovo border making regular
incursions into the alleged "neutral zone" separating Serbia
from its amputated province.
SUMMARY JUSTICE
The New
York Daily News quotes Isa Kodra, a 20-year old Brooklynite
who served with the three men: "When NATO said disarm, these
three brothers insisted on hiding [their weapons]." The tone
of the
Daily News piece valorizes the fallen Bytyqi brothers
– Agron, Mehmet,
and Yli – and we are clearly supposed to admire these
Albanian "daredevils." But they were, in reality, little more
than devils of a different kind: terrorists who were violating
the terms of the ceasefire signed by the US and carrying out
acts of violence on sovereign Serbian territory. They were
engaged in a campaign in Serbia along the same lines as the
one now being carried out by the NLA in Macedonia: attacks
on civilians (including Albanian "collaborators"), summary
executions, and the ethnic cleansing of NLA-controlled towns.
The Bytyqi brothers met a well-deserved fate: their deaths
were not a "war crime," but just retaliation for their
crimes.
A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT
Let's conduct
a little thought experiment. What if there was a terrorist
outfit operating, say, in the border region between the US
and Mexico: the Mexican Liberation Army (MLA)? Launching attacks
on American towns and cities in the American Southwest, the
MLA demands the reunion of the lost provinces of Texas, New
Mexico, Arizona, and California with their long-estranged
brothers in Mexico. Would the US government make any bones
about hunting these terrorists down and killing them? Of course
not. Would this be considered a "war crime" by any rational
human being? Again, the answer is no. In executing the Bytyqi
brothers, the Serbs were acting in self-defense – and
this is precisely why the ICTFY will no doubt prosecute this
as a "war crime."
TO RESIST IS
FUTILE
Since the
Albanians are, according to
the "human rights" crowd, always the victims –
and, therefore, by definition always the good guys –
in the Balkans, to raise a hand against them is a "war crime."
The idea of the show trial now unfolding in The Hague is not
just to demonize the Serbs: it is meant as a warning to the
Macedonians and any others who dare resist the rise of Greater
Albania: resistance is not only futile, it is forbidden
on pain of the ICTFY's indictment.
FOLLOWING THE
MONEY
Although
it is against US law for private citizens to raise money for
or aid any sort of overseas military action, the Atlantic
Brigade had no trouble organizing and recruiting in the US.
The whole thing was funded
by the "Homeland Calling" operation, which has pumped
a lot of money from the Albanian "diaspora" into the insurgency.
Analysts
speculate that much of the money coming in from overseas
Kosovars stems from their near-monopoly
on the European heroin trade. It is only just now –
now that the US has to keep up a false front of evenhandedness
in Macedonia – that President George W. Bush thought
to issue an executive order forbidding the financial activities
of some (but not all) organizations linked to the KLA. It
is, alas, too little too late. The point is that all this
activity couldn't have ocurred in the US without the complicity
of the US government – and, don't worry, they'll find
a way around Bush's purely pro forma executive order.
WHOSE SIDE
ARE WE ON?
The "Atlantic
Brigade" is not the only evidence of a longstanding US plan
to destabilize the Balkans. Colonel
David H. Hackworth had an interesting column the other
day that raised the interesting question: whose side are we
on in Macedonia? Astonished by the "rescue" of the NLA at
Aracinovo, a town near the capital city of Skopje, Hackworth
writes:
"I couldn't
stop asking myself why NATO brass would risk the lives of
80 American paratroopers to save a band of heavily armed cutthroats
bent on overthrowing the established government of a country
that our president and State Department have repeatedly stated
they are committed to save. My first thought was, Whose side
are we really on? My second was, What's the objective here
– stabilizing or destabilizing Macedonia?"
THE LINK
I have been
maintaining
all along in this space that the US has teamed up with
the EU to partition if not destroy Macedonia and further empower
the Albanian nationalist project, the ultimate goal being
the Turkification of the southern Balkans. Now Hackworth provides
the evidence for an indirect but unmistakable link between
the US national security bureaucracy and the NLA: his revelation
is a blockbuster for those who have been following the story
of the KLA-NLA-US government connection. According to Hackworth,
"Sources in the U.S. Army in Kosovo familiar with
the 3/502nd Airborne Battalion's rescue operation confirm
that the mission was all about saving the 17 'instructors'
among the withdrawing rebels – former US officers, who
were providing the rebels with continued military education."
A POLICY OF
DUPLICITY
Wow! So,
it turns out that the reason we had to go to the unusual lengths
of "rescuing" the NLA was because their American trainers
and advisors were also in jeopardy! Here we have the US government,
supposedly acting as an "honest broker" in Macedonia,
stoking the fires of ethnic conflict even as we proclaim that
our goal is "peace" through a "political solution." We pose
as the "objective" enforcer of "human rights," deploring
violence – while covertly supporting and training an
Albanian terrorist outfit. We are, in short, "mediating" a
battle in which we are secretly supporting one side over the
other. Is there any limit to the dishonesty and treachery
of US policy in this part of the world?
'PRIVATIZING'
INTERVENTION
The plot
thickens, however, when we get into the details of this shady
operation. According to Hackworth:
"Other
sources say the '17 instructors' were members of a high-ticket
Rent-a-Soldier outfit called MPRI – Military Professional
Resources Incorporated – that operates in
the shadow of the Pentagon and has been hired by the CIA and
our State Department for ops in ex-Yugoslavia. The company,
headed up by former
US Army Chief of Staff Gen. Carl E. Vuono, is filled
with former US Army personnel, from generals to senior sergeants,
all of whom draw handsome wages on top of their Army retired
salaries."
'FREE MARKET'
TERRORISM
Here we
have the modern, "free market" path to plausible deniability:
"privatize" the covert operations arm of the US government,
once centered in the CIA, and thus get around bothersome laws
passed by Congress to rein in just this sort of shenanigans.
No doubt this was thought up by some government analyst who
likes to think of himself as a "libertarian" because he subscribes
to Reason magazine – failing to understand that
some functions of government, like training terrorist
groups and causing political instability abroad, ought not
to be privatized, because they are inherently objectionable
and impermissible in a free society. Hackworth points out
that MPRI is the same outfit that carried out "Operation Storm,"
resulting in the ethnic cleansing of over 200,000 Serbs from
the Krajina region – and the ensconcement of Agim
Ceku, a Croatian general of Albanian descent, as head
of the KLA General Staff.
THE MERCENARY
BOOM
Hackworth
reports that "dozens of ex-Army pals are presently working
for the ever-expanding MPRI or other such military contractors
in places like Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, ex-Yugoslavia and Colombia.
We're talking booming business here," and ex-military officers
are under increasing pressure from these mercenary operations
to sign up. Colonel Hackworth bewails "an unfortunate tradition
of hired guns sticking our nation into one minefield after
another," and writes: "There are laws on the books that
prevent American citizens from serving foreign governments.
It's about time Congress did its duty and enforced them."
INVESTIGATE THE
NLA-MPRI CONNECTION
What is
needed is not only congressional enforcement of existing statutes,
but also a congressional investigation of our disastrous Balkan
policy, and, specifically, of the US government's connection
to the NLA. Hackworth's revelation that "retired" American
four-star generals are directing the movements and tactics
of Albanian terrorists suggests that not only the Macedonians
but also the American people are being lied to about what
is really going on in the Balkans.
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