Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Over 40 Tajik soldiers killed in attack





Messages In This Digest (11 Messages)

Messages

1.

Report: U.S. Air Strike Kills 70 In Afghanistan

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com   rwrozoff

Sun Sep 19, 2010 7:57 pm (PDT)



http://en.apa.az/news.php?id=130159

Trend News Agency
September 18, 2010

US-led strike kills 70 in Afghanistan


Baku: A US airstrike has reportedly left 70 people dead in southeastern Afghanistan as the war-ravaged country votes to elect a new parliament, APA reports quoting Press TV.

According to Afghan officials, the incident took place in province of Paktia on Saturday when a Taliban convoy came under attack.

Provincial officials say the victims were all militants, however, locals and eyewitnesses say the attack claimed civilian casualties.

This is while Taliban militants have launched sporadic attacks to disrupt the parliamentary election, killing more than a dozen people.

Taliban militants and US officials have not commented on the attack so far.

The loss of civilian lives at the hand of foreign forces has dramatically increased anti-American sentiments in Afghanistan, causing thousands of Afghans to protest against US-led military presence in the country.

Since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, a considerable number of civilians have lost their lives in US-led air and ground operations.
===========================
Stop NATO
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato

Blog site:
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/

To subscribe, send an e-mail to:
rwrozoff@yahoo.com
or
stopnato-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Daily digest option available.
==============================

2a.

Five NATO Soldiers Killed In Afghanistan

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com   rwrozoff

Sun Sep 19, 2010 7:58 pm (PDT)



http://wireupdate.com/wires/9977/five-coalition-service-members-killed-in-afghanistan/

BNO News
September 20, 2010

Five coalition service members killed in Afghanistan
By Monica Lawrence

KABUL: Five coalition service members were killed in northern, eastern and southern Afghanistan on Saturday, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said on Sunday.

All except one of the casualties were killed as a result of three separate insurgent attacks. Two of the fatalities were identified as British soldiers, while the nationalities of the other casualties were not immediately released.

The British soldiers, from The Queen’s Royal Lancers and the Royal Engineers serving as part of Combined Force Lashkar Gah, were killed after an improvised explosive device (IED) struck their vehicle patrol in the Lashkar Gah District of Helmand Province, in southern Afghanistan.
....
ISAF said three other service members also died on Saturday. Two of the casualties were killed as a result of two separate insurgent attacks in northern and eastern Afghanistan, while a third died as a result of a non-battle injury in southern Afghanistan.

"It is ISAF policy to defer casualty identification procedures to the relevant national authorities," ISAF said in a statement.
===========================
Stop NATO
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato

Blog site:
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/

To subscribe, send an e-mail to:
rwrozoff@yahoo.com
or
stopnato-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Daily digest option available.
==============================

3.

Afghan People No Better Off Than They Were

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com   rwrozoff

Sun Sep 19, 2010 7:58 pm (PDT)



http://gulfnews.com/opinions/editorials/afghans-are-no-better-off-than-they-were-1.684351

Gulf News
September 20, 2010

Afghans are no better off than they were
Karzai, Nato and the US have collectively failed to improve the lot of the people

The low percentage of voters who chose to exercise their franchise in the parliamentary polls in Afghanistan offered an indication into the weary spirit of its people. Worn out by poverty, corruption and a constant threat from the Taliban to those who dared to turn out and vote, the natives of Kabul and its areas beyond chose to live another day in optimism.

As Nato, backed by the US, tries to portray progress measured by various yardsticks in this war-torn country, the elections in Afghanistan were supposed to be a sure-fire way of endorsing the will of its people. Time, coupled with numerous events, has, however, shown that this has failed. The paucity of voters is ample reflection of this fact.

Every government must have a certain legitimacy if it is to fulfil the aspirations of its people. While Hamid Karzai continues to lead the country, his own reputation and that of his Cabinet has been tainted by charges of corruption.

It can be argued that the Afghan people are no better off under the governance of Karzai and the protection of US-led Nato forces than they were under the Taliban from 1996 until 2001.

It is a Catch-22 situation. As a result, the low voter turnout has once again affected the credibility of these polls. To make matters worse, the country is witnessing a war which is being conducted to serve the interests of everyone but the Afghan people. To what extent will the Afghan people be served? The answer so far indicates that the dice have been heavily loaded against them.

The problem in Afghanistan lies within. With countless offensives having failed to rein in the Taliban, the government should now adopt the process of dialogue and confidence-building measures. Afghans must be given the chance to shape their own nation, but not until individuals, and especially politicians, are held accountable.
===========================
Stop NATO
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato

Blog site:
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/

To subscribe, send an e-mail to:
rwrozoff@yahoo.com
or
stopnato-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Daily digest option available.
==============================

4.

Fw: Heroes They Are Not: GI's Kill for Sport in Afghanistan

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com   rwrozoff

Sun Sep 19, 2010 7:58 pm (PDT)



From: Global Network <globalnet@mindspring.com>
Subject: Heroes They Are Not: GI's Kill for Sport in Afghanistan
To: "Peaceworks" <peaceworks@lists.riseup.net>
Date: Sunday, September 19, 2010, 8:23 AM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/18/AR2010091803935.html?hpid=topnews
 
Members of U.S. platoon in Afghanistan accused of killing civilians for sport

By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post
Saturday, September 18, 2010

AT JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, WASH.
The U.S. soldiers hatched a plan as simple as it was savage: to randomly target and kill an Afghan civilian, and to get away with it.
For weeks, according to Army charging documents, rogue members of a platoon from the 5th Stryker Combat Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, floated the idea. Then, one day last winter, a solitary Afghan man approached them in the village of La Mohammed Kalay. The "kill team" activated the plan.
One soldier created a ruse that they were under attack, tossing a fragmentary grenade on the ground. Then others opened fire.
According to charging documents, the unprovoked, fatal attack on Jan. 15 was the start of a months-long shooting spree against Afghan civilians that resulted in some of the grisliest allegations against American soldiers since the U.S. invasion in 2001. Members of the platoon have been charged with dismembering and photographing corpses, as well as hoarding a skull and other human bones.
The subsequent investigation has raised accusations about whether the military ignored warnings that the out-of-control soldiers were committing atrocities. The father of one soldier said he repeatedly tried to alert the Army after his son told him about the first killing, only to be rebuffed.
Two more slayings would follow. Military documents allege that five members of the unit staged a total of three murders in Kandahar province between January and May. Seven other soldiers have been charged with crimes related to the case, including hashish use, attempts to impede the investigation and a retaliatory gang assault on a private who blew the whistle.
Army officials have not disclosed a motive for the killings and macabre behavior. Nor have they explained how the attacks could have persisted without attracting scrutiny. They declined to comment on the case beyond the charges that have been filed, citing the ongoing investigation.
But a review of military court documents and interviews with people familiar with the investigation suggest the killings were committed essentially for sport by soldiers who had a fondness for hashish and alcohol.
The accused soldiers, through attorneys and family members, deny wrongdoing. But the case has already been marked by a cycle of accusations and counter-accusations among the defendants as they seek to pin the blame on each other, according to documents and interviews.
The Army has scheduled pre-trial hearings in the case this fall at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, home of the Stryker brigade. (The unit was renamed the 2nd Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, when it returned from Afghanistan in July.) Military officials say privately that they worry the hearings will draw further attention to the case, with photos and other evidence prompting anger among the Afghan civilians whose support is critical to the fight against the Taliban.
The 'kill team'

According to statements given to investigators, members of the unit - 3rd Platoon, Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment - began talking about forming a "kill team" in December, shortly after the arrival of a new member, Staff Sgt. Calvin R. Gibbs, 25, of Billings, Mont.
Gibbs, whom some defendants have described as the ringleader, confided to his new mates that it had been easy for him to get away with "stuff" when he served in Iraq in 2004, according to the statements. It was his second tour in Afghanistan, having served there from January 2006 until May 2007.
The first opportunity presented itself Jan. 15 in the Maiwand district of Kandahar province. Members of the 3rd Platoon were providing perimeter security for a meeting between Army officers and tribal elders in the village of La Mohammed Kalay.
According to charging documents, an Afghan named Gul Mudin began walking toward the soldiers. As he approached, Cpl. Jeremy N. Morlock, 22, of Wasilla, Alaska, threw the grenade on the ground, records show, to create the illusion that the soldiers were under attack.
Pfc. Andrew H. Holmes, a 19-year-old from Boise, Idaho, saw the grenade and fired his weapon at Mudin, according to charging documents. The grenade exploded, prompting other soldiers to open fire on the villager as well, killing him.
In statements to investigators, the soldiers involved have given conflicting details. In one statement that his attorney has subsequently tried to suppress, Morlock said that Gibbs had given him the grenade and that others were also aware of the ruse beforehand. But Holmes and his attorney said he was in the dark and opened fire only because Morlock ordered him to do so.
"He was unwittingly used as the cover story," said Daniel Conway, a civilian defense attorney for Holmes. "He was in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Morlock, Holmes and Gibbs have each been charged with murder in the shooting. Attorneys for Morlock and Gibbs did not return phone calls seeking comment.
A father's warning

On Feb. 14, Christopher Winfield, a former Marine from Cape Coral, Fla., logged onto his Facebook account to chat with his son, Adam, a 3rd Platoon soldier who was up late in Afghanistan. Spec. Adam C. Winfield confided that he'd had a run-in with Gibbs, his squad leader. He also typed a mysterious note saying that some people get away with murder.
When his father pressed him to explain, Adam replied, "did you not understand what i just told you." He then referred to the slaying of the Afghan villager the month before, adding that other platoon members had threatened him because he did not approve. In addition, he said, they were bragging about how they wanted to find another victim.
"I was just shocked," Christopher Winfield said in a phone interview. "He was scared for his life at that point."
The father told his son that he would contact the Army to intervene and investigate. It was a Sunday, but he didn't wait. He called the Army inspector general's 24-hour hotline and left a voice mail. He called the office of Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), and left another message. He called a sergeant at Lewis-McChord who told him to call the Army's criminal investigations division. He left another message there.
Finally, he said, he called the Fort Lewis command center and spoke for 12 minutes to a sergeant on duty. He said the sergeant agreed that it sounded as if Adam was in potential danger but that, unless he was willing to report it to his superiors in Afghanistan, there was little the Army could do.
"He just kind of blew it off," Christopher Winfield said. "I was sitting there with my jaw on the ground."
Winfield said he doesn't recall the name of the sergeant he spoke with. Billing records that he kept confirm that he called Army officials; he also kept copies of transcripts of Facebook chats with this son. He said he specifically told the sergeant of his son's warning that more murders were in the works.
Army investigators have since taken a sworn statement from Christopher Winfield, as well as copies of his phone and Internet records.
Other killings

Eight days after Winfield tried to warn the Army, according to charging documents, members of the 3rd Platoon murdered someone else.
On Feb. 22, Marach Agha, an Afghan civilian, was killed by rifle fire near Forward Operating Base Ramrod in Kandahar province, where the 3rd Platoon was stationed. The Army has released few details about the slaying but has charged Gibbs, Morlock and Spec. Michael S. Wagnon II of Las Vegas with murder.
Wagnon has also been charged with possessing "a skull taken from an Afghan person's corpse." He allegedly took the head sometime during January or February 2010, but court documents do not specify whether it belonged to the Afghan he is charged with killing.
An attorney for Wagnon, who was on his second tour in Afghanistan and also served in Iraq, did not return a call seeking comment.
More mayhem followed in March, when Gibbs, Wagnon and three other soldiers - Staff Sgt. Robert G. Stevens, Sgt. Darren N. Jones and Pfc. Ashton A. Moore - opened fire on three Afghan men, according to charging documents. The documents do not provide basic details, such as the precise date of the shooting, the identities of the victims or whether they were wounded.
Members of the 3rd Platoon found their next victim on May 2, documents show. Gibbs, Morlock and Adam Winfield - the son of the former Marine who said he tried to alert the Army three months earlier - are accused of tossing a grenade and fatally shooting an Afghan cleric, Mullah Adahdad, near Forward Operating Base Ramrod.
Winfield's attorney, Eric S. Montalvo, said his client was ordered to shoot but fired high and missed. He and Winfield's parents say they can't understand why the Army has charged their son, given that his father tried to warn officials about the platoon.
Military police caught wind of the final killing a few days later, but only by happenstance. Records show they were coincidentally investigating reports of hashish use by members of the 3rd Platoon.
After word leaked that one soldier had spoken to military police, several platoon members retaliated, records show. They confronted the informant and beat him severely - punching, kicking and choking the soldier, then dragging him across the ground. As a last warning, the documents state, Gibbs menacingly waved finger bones he had collected from Afghan corpses.
However, the informant talked to the MPs again and told them what he had heard about the slayings, according to court documents.
Some members of his unit, he said in a statement, "when they are out at a village, wander off and kill someone and every time they say the same thing, about a guy throwing a grenade, but there is never proof."
This time, the Army acted quickly and made arrests.
Staff researcher Julie Tate in Washington contributed to this report.
 
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 652
Brunswick, ME 04011
(207) 443-9502
globalnet@mindspring.com
www.space4peace.org
http://space4peace.blogspot.com/  (blog)

5.

Over 40 Tajik Soldiers Killed In Attack

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com   rwrozoff

Sun Sep 19, 2010 7:59 pm (PDT)



http://en.rian.ru/world/20100920/160645744.html

Tussian Information Agency
September 20, 2010

Death toll in attack on Tajik servicemen rises to 40 - source

At least 40 servicemen of the Tajik Defense Ministry died in an attack on government troops in the Central Asian country's east, the Asia-Plus news agency quoted a law enforcement source as saying.

The troops were searching for criminals who had escaped from a pre-trial detention center in August.

Earlier the Defense Ministry said 23 were killed.

Ten servicemen were also wounded as the 75-strong military column came under fire from grenade launchers and machineguns on Sunday.

The ministry said the column was attacked by the gang led by Mullo Abdullo, one of the uncompromising opposition leaders in the region since late 1990s.

There were five officers among the killed servicemen, the source said.
==========================
Stop NATO
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato

Blog site:
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/

To subscribe, send an e-mail to:
rwrozoff@yahoo.com
or
stopnato-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Daily digest option available.
==============================

6.

Serbia Surrenders Kosovo To The EU

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com   rwrozoff

Sun Sep 19, 2010 7:59 pm (PDT)



http://www.counterpunch.org/johnstone09172010.html

CounterPunch
September 17-19, 2010

Nothing to Gain, More to Lose
Serbia Surrenders Kosovo to the EU
By DIANA JOHNSTONE

On September 10, at the UN General Assembly, Serbia abruptly surrendered its claim to the breakaway province of Kosovo to the European Union.  Serbian leaders described this surrender as a “compromise†. But for Serbia, it was all give and no take.

In its dealings with the Western powers, recent Serbian diplomacy has displayed all the perspicacity of a rabbit cornered by a rattlesnake.  After some helpless spasms of movement, the poor creature lets itself be eaten.

The surrender has been implicit all along in President Boris Tadic’s two proclaimed foreign policy goals: deny Kosovo’s independence and join the European Union.  These two were always mutually incompatible. Recognition of Kosovo’s independence is clearly one of the many conditions â€" and the most crucial â€" set by the Euroclub for Serbia to be considered for membership.  Sacrificing Kosovo for “Europe†has always been the obvious outcome of this contradictory policy.

However, his government, and notably his foreign minister Vuk Jeremic, have tried to conceal this reality from the Serbian public by gestures meant to make it seem that they were doing everything possible to retain Kosovo.

Thus in October 2008, six months after U.S.-backed Kosovo leaders unilaterally declared that the province was an independent State, Serbia persuaded the UN General Assembly to submit the following question to the International Court of Justice for an (unbinding) advisory opinion: “Is the unilateral declaration of independence by the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government of Kosovo in accordance with international law?’â€

This was risky at best, because Serbia had more to lose by an unfavorable opinion than it had to gain by a favorable one.  After all, most of the UN member states were already refusing to recognize Kosovo’s independence, for perfectly solid reasons of legality and self-interest.  At best, a favorable ICJ opinion would merely confirm this, but would not in itself lead to any positive action. Serbia could only hope to use such a favorable opinion to ask to open genuine negotiations on the status of the province, but the Kosovo Albanian separatists and their United States backers could not be forced to do so.

One must stop here to point out that there are two major issues involved in all this: one is the status and future of Kosovo, and the other is the larger issue of national sovereignty and self-determination within the context of international law.  If so many UN member states supported Serbia, it was certainly not because of Kosovo itself but because of the larger implications. Nobody objected to the splitting of Czechoslovakia, because the Czechs and the Slovaks negotiated the terms of separation. The issue is the method.  There are literally hundreds, perhaps thousands, of potential ethnic secessionist movements within existing countries around the world.  Kosovo sets an ominous precedent.  An armed separatist movement, with heavy support from the United States, where an ethnic Albanian lobby had secured important political backing, notably from former Senator and Republican Presidential candidate Bob Dole, carried out a campaign of assassinations
in
1998 in order to trigger a repression which it could then describe as “ethnic cleansing†and “genocide†as a pretext for NATO intervention.

This worked, because US leaders saw “saving the Kosovars†as the easy way to save NATO from obsolescence by transforming it into a “humanitarian†global intervention force.  Bombing Serbia for two and a half months to “stop genocide†was a spectacle for public opinion.  The only people killed were Yugoslav citizens out of sight on the ground.  It was the lovely little war designed to rehabilitate military aggression as the proper way to settle conflicts.

The reality of this cynical manipulation has been assiduously hidden from Americans and most Europeans, but elsewhere, and in certain European countries such as Spain, Greece, Cyprus and Slovakia, the point has not been missed.  Separatist movements are dangerous, and whenever the United States wants to subvert an unfriendly government, it has only to incite mass media to portray the internal problems of the targeted government as potential “genocide†and all hell may break loose.

So Serbia did not really have to work very hard to convince other countries to support its position on Kosovo. They had their own motivations â€" which were perhaps stronger than those of the Serbian government  itself.

What did Serb leaders want?

The question put to the ICJ did not spell out what Serb leaders wanted.  But it had implications.  If the Kosovo declaration of independence was illegal, what was challenged was not so much independence itself as the procedure, the unilateral declaration.  And indeed, there is no reason to suppose that Serb leaders thought they could reintegrate the whole of Kosovo into Serbia.  It is even unlikely that they wanted to do so.

There are very mixed feelings about Kosovo within the Serb population.  It is hard to know how widespread is the sense of concern, or guilt, regarding the beleaguered Serb population still living there, vulnerable to attacks from racist Albanians eager to drive them out.  The sentimental attachment to “the cradle of the Serb nation†is very strong, but few Serbs would choose to go live there, even if the province were returned to them.  In former Yugoslavia, the province was a black hole that absorbed huge sums of development aid, and would certainly be a heavy economic burden to impoverished Serbia today.  Economically, Serbia is probably better off without Kosovo.  Nearly twenty years ago, the leading Serb author and patriot Dobrica Cosic was arguing in favor of dividing Kosovo along ethnic and historic lines with Albania.  Otherwise, he foresaw that the attempt to live with a hostile Albanian population would destroy Serbia itself.

Few would admit this, but the proposals of Cosic, echoed by some others, at least suggest that in a world with benevolent mediators, a compromise might have been worked out acceptable to most of the people directly involved.  But what made such a compromise impossible was precisely the US and NATO intervention on behalf of armed Albanian rebels.  Once the Albanian nationalists knew they had such support, they had no reason to agree to any compromise. And for the Serbs, the brutal method by which Kosovo was stolen by NATO was adding insult to injury â€" a humiliation that could not be accepted.

By taking the question to the UN General Assembly and the ICJ, Serbia sought endorsement of a reopening of negotiations that could lead to the sort of compromise that might have settled the issue had it been taken up in a world with benevolent mediators.

International Court of No Justice
On July 22, the ICJ issued its advisory opinion, concluding that Kosovo’s “declaration of independence was not illegal†. In some 21,600 words it evaded the main issues, refusing to state that the declaration meant that Kosovo was in fact properly independent.  The gist was simply that, well, anybody can declare anything, can’t they?

Of course, this was widely interpreted by Western governments and media, and most of all by the Kosovo Albanians, as endorsement of Kosovo’s independence, which it was not. 

Nevertheless, it was a shameful cop-out on the part of the ICJ, which marked further deterioration of the post-World War II efforts to establish some sort of international legal order.  Perhaps the most flagrant bit of sophistry in the lengthy opinion was the argument (in paragraphs 80 and 81) that the declaration was not a violation of the “territorial integrity†of Serbia, because “the illegality attached to [certain past] declarations of independence … stemmed not from the unilateral character of these declarations as such, but from the fact that they were, or would have been, connected with the unlawful use of force or other egregious violations of norms of general international law…â€

In short, the ICJ pretended to believe that there has been no illegal international military force used to detach Kosovo from Serbia, although this is precisely what happened as a result of the totally illegal NATO bombing campaign against Serbia.  Since then, the province has been occupied by foreign military forces, under NATO command, which both violated the international agreement under which they entered Kosovo and looked the other way as Albanian fanatics terrorized and drove out Serbs and Roma, occasionally murdering rival Albanians.

The ICJ judges who endorsed this scandalous opinion came from Japan, Jordan, the United States, Germany, France, New Zealand, Mexico, Brazil, Somalia and the United Kingdom.  The dissenters came from Slovakia, Sierra Leone, Morocco and Russia.  The lineup shows that the cards were stacked against Serbia from the start, unless one actually believes that the judges leave behind their national mind-set when they join the international court.

Digging Itself Deeper Into a Hole

Probably, the Tadic government had expected something better, and had planned to follow up a favorable ICJ opinion with an appeal to the General Assembly to endorse renewed negotiations over the status of Kosovo, perhaps enabling Serbia to recover at least the northern part of Kosovo whose population is solidly Serb. 

Oddly, despite the bad omen of the ICJ opinion, the Tadic government went right ahead with plans to introduce a resolution before the UN General Assembly.   The draft resolution asked the General Assembly to state the following:

Aware that an agreement has not been reached between the sides on the consequences of the unilaterally proclaimed independence of Kosovo from Serbia,

Taking into account the fact that one-sided secession cannot be an accepted way for resolving territorial issues,

1. Acknowledges the Advisory opinion of the ICJ passed on 22 July 2010 on whether the unilaterally proclaimed independence of Kosovo is in line with international law,

2. Calls on the sides to find a mutually acceptable solution for all disputed issues through peaceful dialogue, with the aim of achieving peace, security and cooperation in the region.

3. Decides to include in the interim agenda of the 66th session an item namely: "Further activities following the passing of the advisory opinion of the ICJ on whether the unilaterally proclaimed independence of Kosovo is in line with international law.â€

The key statement here was “the fact that one-sided secession cannot be an accepted way for resolving territorial issues†. This was the point on which the greatest agreement could be attained. The United States made it known that it was totally unacceptable for the General Assembly to hold a debate on such a resolution.  The main Belgrade daily Politika published an interview with Ted Carpenter of the Cato Institute in Washington saying that the Serbian draft resolution on Kosovo was "irritating America and the EU's leading countries".  American diplomats were “working overtime†to thwart the resolution, he said.  Carpenter said that the Serbian resolution was seen in Washington as an unfriendly act that would lead to a further deterioration in relations, and that as a result of its Kosovo policy, Serbia’s EU ambition could suffer setbacks that would have negative consequences for the Serbian government "and the Serb people".

Carpenter conceded that this time around, the country would not be threatened militarily, but noted that the United States was influential enough to "make life very difficult" for any country that stood up against its policies. He concluded that Serbia would "have to accept the reality of an independent Kosovo", and that Washington would thereupon leave it to Brussels to deal with the remaining problems.

The American stick was accompanied by a dangling EU carrot. Carpenter expressed his hope that the EU would consider various measures, "including adjustment of borders, regarding Kosovo, and the rest of Serbia", but also, he noted, Bosnia-Herzegovina, suggesting that Serbs could be satisfied if a loss of Kosovo were compensated by a unification with Bosnia's Serb entity, the Republika Srpska. Giving his own opinion, Carpenter said such a solution would at least be much better than the current U.S. and EU policy, “which seems to be that everyone in the region of the former Yugoslavia, except Serbs, has a right to secede†.

Carpenter, who was a sharp critic of the 1999 NATO bombing of Serbia, and who warned that secessionist movements around the world could use the Kosovo precedent for their own purposes, said that such a solution was possible “in the coming decades†… a fairly distant prospect.

The decisive arm twisting was perhaps administered by German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle on a visit to Belgrade.  Whatever threats or promises he made were not disclosed, but on the eve of the scheduled UN General Assembly debate, the Tadic government caved in entirely and allowed the EU to rewrite the resolution.

The resolution dictated by the EU made no mention of Kosovo other than to “take note†of the ICJ advisory opinion, and concluded by welcoming “the readiness of the EU to facilitate the process of dialogue between the parties.â€

According to this text of the resolution, which UN General Assembly adopted by consensus; “The process of dialogue by itself would be a factor of peace, security and stability in the region. This dialogue would be aimed to promote cooperation, make progress on the path towards the EU and improve people's lives.â€

By accepting this text, the Serbian government abandoned all effort to gain international support from the many nations hostile to unilateral secession, and threw itself on the mercy of the European Union. 

Still More to Lose

In a TV interview, I was asked by Russia Today, “What does Serbia stand to gain?†  My immediate answer was, “nothing†.  Serbia implicitly abandoned its claim to Kosovo in return for nothing but vague suggestions of “dialogue†. 

A usual aim of all policy is to keep options open, but Serbia has now put all its eggs in the EU basket, in effect rebuffing all the member states of the UN General Assembly which were ready to support Belgrade as a matter of principle on the issue of unnegotiated unilateral secession.

Rather than gain anything, the Tadic government has apparently chosen to try to avoid losing still more than it has lost already.  After the violent breakup of Yugoslavia along ethnic lines, Serbia remains the most multiethnic state in the region, which means that it includes minorities which can be incited to demand further secessions.  There is a secession movement in the ethnically very mixed northern province of Voivodina, which could be more or less covertly encouraged by neighboring Hungary, an increasingly nationalist EU member attentive to the Hungarian minority in Voivodina.  There is another, more rabid separatist movement in the southwestern region of Raska/Sanjak led by Muslims with links to Bosnian Islamists.  Surrounded by NATO members and wide open to NATO agents, Serbia risks being destabilized by the rise of such secession movements, which Western media, firmly attached to the stereotypes established in the 1990s, could easily
present as
persecuted victims of potential Serb genocide.

Moreover, no matter how the Serbs vote, the US and UK embassies dictate the policies.  This has been demonstrated several times.  Little Serbia is actually in a position very like the Pétain government in 1940 to 1942, when it governed a part of France not yet occupied but totally surrounded by the conquering Nazis. 

It would take political genius to steer little Serbia through this geopolitical swamp, infested with snakes and crocodiles, and political genius is rare these days, in Serbia as elsewhere.

EU to the rescue?

Under these grim circumstances, the Tadic government has in effect abandoned all attempt at independence and entrusted the future of Serbia to the European Union.  Serb patriots quite naturally decry this as a sell-out.  Indeed it is, but Russia and China are far away, and could not be counted on to do anything for Serbia that would seriously annoy Washington.  The fact is that much of the younger generation of Serbs is alienated from the past and dreams only of being in the EU, which means being treated as “normal†.

How will the EU reward these expectations?

Up to now, the EU has responded to each new Serb concession by asking for more and giving very little in return.  At a time when many in the core EU countries feel that accepting Rumania and Bulgaria has brought more trouble than it was worth, enlargement to include Serbia, with its unfairly bad reputation, looks remote indeed. 

In reality, the most Belgrade can hope for from the EU is that it will muster the courage to take its own policy line on the Balkans, separate from that of the United States.

Given the subservience of current EU leaders to Washington, this is a long shot.  But it has a certain basis in reality.

United States policy toward the region has been heavily influenced by ethnic lobbies that have pledged allegiance to Washington in return for unconditional support of their nationalist aims.  This is particularly the case of the rag-tag Albanian lobby in the United States, an odd mixture of dull-witted politicians and gun-running pizza parlor owners who flattered the Clinton administration into promising them their own statelet carved out of historic Serbia.  The result has been “independent†Kosovo, in reality occupied by a major US military base, Camp Bondsteel, NATO-commanded pacifiers and an EU mission theoretically trying to introduce a modicum of legal order into what amounts to a failing state run by clans and living off various criminal activities.  Since Camp Bondsteel is untouchable, and the grateful hoodlums have erected a giant statue to their hero, Bill Clinton, in their capital, Pristina, Washington is content with this situation.

But many in Europe are not.  It is Europe, not the United States, that has to deal with violent Kosovo gangsters peddling dope and women in its cities.  It is Europe, not the United States, that has this mess on its doorstep.

The media continue to peddle the 1999 fairy tale in which heroic NATO rescued the defenseless “Kosovars†from a hypothetical “genocide†(which never took place and never would have taken place), but European governments are in a position to know better.

As evidence of this is a letter written to German Chancellor Angela Merkel on October 26, 2007 by Dietmar Hartwig, who had been head of the EU (then EC) mission in Kosovo just prior to the NATO bombing in March 1999, when the mission was withdrawn. In describing the situation in Kosovo at a time when the NATO aggression was being prepared on the pretext of “saving the Kosovars†, Hartwig wrote:

“Not a single report submitted in the period from late November 1998 up to the evacuation on the eve of the war mentioned that Serbs had committed any major or systematic crimes against Albanians, nor there was a single case referring to genocide or genocide-like incidents or crimes. Quite the opposite, in my reports I have repeatedly informed that, considering the increasingly more frequent KLA attacks against the Serbian executive, their law enforcement demonstrated remarkable restraint and discipline. The clear and often cited goal of the Serbian administration was to observe the Milosevic-Holbrooke Agreement to the letter so not to provide any excuse to the international community to intervene. … There were huge ‘discrepancies in perception’ between what the missions in Kosovo have been reporting to their respective governments and capitals, and what the latter thereafter released to the media and the public. This discrepancy can only be
viewed as input to long-term preparation for war against Yugoslavia. Until the time I left Kosovo, there never happened what the media and, with no less intensity the politicians, were relentlessly claiming. Accordingly, until 20 March 1999 there was no reason for military intervention, which renders illegitimate measures undertaken thereafter by the international community. The collective behavior of EU Member States prior to, and after the war broke out, gives rise to serious concerns, because the truth was killed, and the EU lost reliability.â€

Other official European observers said the same at the time, and in 2000, retired German general Heinz Loquai wrote a whole book, based especially on OSCE documents, showing that accusations against Serbia were false propaganda.  While the public was fooled, government leaders have access to the truth.

In short, EU governments lied then, for the sake of NATO solidarity, and have been lying ever since.

Now as then, there are insiders who complain that the situation in reality is very different from the official version. Voices are raised pointing out that Republika Srpska is the only part of Bosnia that is succeeding, while the Muslim leadership in Sarajevo continues to count on largesse due to its proclaimed victim status.  There seems to be a growing feeling in some leadership circles that in demonizing the Serbs, the EU has bet on the wrong horse.  But that does not mean they will have the courage to confront the United States.  In Kosovo itself, the most radical Albanian nationalists are ready to oppose the EU presence, by arms if necessary, while feeling confident of eternal support from their U.S. sponsors.

The Betrayal of Serbia
If the latest self-defeat at the UN General Assembly can be denounced as a betrayal, the betrayal began nearly ten years ago.  On October 5, 2000, the regular presidential election process in Yugoslavia was boisterously interrupted by what the West described as a “democratic revolution†against the “dictator†, president Slobodan Milosevic.  In reality, the “dictator†was about to enter the run-off round of the Yugoslav presidential election in which he seemed likely to lose to the main opposition candidate, Vojislav Kostunica.  But the United States trained and incited the athletically inclined youth organization, Otpor (“resistance†), to take to the streets and set fire to the parliament in front of international television, to give the impression of a popular uprising.  Probably, the scenarists modeled this show on the equally stage-managed overthrow of the Ceaucescu couple in Rumania at Christmas 1989, which ended in their murder
following one of the shortest kangaroo court trials in history. For the generally ignorant world at large, being overthrown would be proof that Milosevic was really a “dictator†like Ceaucescu, whereas being defeated in an election would have tended to prove the opposite.

Proclaimed president, Kostunica intervened to save Milosevic, but not having been allowed to actually win the election, his position was undermined from the start, and all power was given to the Serbian prime minister, Zoran Djindjic, a favorite of the West who was too unpopular to have won an election in Serbia.  Shortly thereafter, Djindjic violated the Serbian constitution by turning Milosevic over to the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague â€" for one of the longest kangaroo court trials in history.

Pro-Western politicians in Belgrade labored under the illusion that throwing Milosevic to the ICTY wolves would be enough to ensure the good graces of the “International Community†. But in reality, the prosecution of Milosevic was used to publicize the trumped up “joint criminal enterprise†theory which blamed every aspect of the breakup of Yugoslavia on an imaginary Serbian conspiracy.  The scapegoat turned out to be not just Milosevic, but Serbia itself.  Serbia’s guilt for everything that went wrong in the Balkans was the essential propaganda line used to justify the 1999 NATO aggression, and by going along with it, the “democratic†Serbian leaders undermined their own moral claim to Kosovo.

In June 1999, Milosevic gave in and allowed NATO to occupy Kosovo under threat of carpet bombing that would destroy Serbia entirely.  His successors fled from a less perilous battle â€" the battle to inform world public opinion of the complex truth of the Balkans.  Having abandoned all attempt to assert its moral advantage, Serbia is counting solely on the kindness of strangers.

Diana Johnstone is author of Fools’ Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions (Monthly Review Press). She can be reached at diana.josto@yahoo.fr
===========================
Stop NATO
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato

Blog site:
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/

To subscribe, send an e-mail to:
rwrozoff@yahoo.com
or
stopnato-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Daily digest option available.
==============================

7.

Slovakia: NATO Military Chiefs Chart Strategy For 2020

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com   rwrozoff

Sun Sep 19, 2010 7:59 pm (PDT)



http://spectator.sme.sk/articles/view/40149/10/radicova_nato_meeting_in_tatras_important_in_drawing_up_2020_strategy.html

Slovak Spectator
September 19, 2010

RadiÄ ová: NATO meeting in Tatras important in drawing up 2020 strategy

-More than 450 major foreign visitors have converged on Vysoké Tatry. The conference requires the observance of stringent security measures.

The meeting of the NATO Military Committee in the High Tatra mountains is important in terms of drawing up the 2020 strategy, Prime Minister Iveta RadiÄ ová told the media after delivering a speech to the foreign guests.

“The work on this new strategy is coming to a close,†RadiÄ ová has said as quoted by TASR newswire....

RadiÄ ová said that the strategy is being drawn up with an eye to three issues: administrative changes within NATO, the change to the whole NATO agenda and the role of the organisation in the future. She also stressed the shift of NATO's role so that it not only carries out military operations but also provides humanitarian aid, maintains peace in various countries and provides aid to places struck by natural disasters. The prime minister pointed out that Slovakia has 676 soldiers deployed on missions, RadiÄ ová said.

“That's more than 5 percent of our professional army,†said RadiÄ ová....
....
Headed by Chairman of the NATO Military Committee Giampaolo di Paola, the chiefs-of-staff of 28 member countries are planning to discuss issues surrounding the Alliance's transformation, the future of operations conducted under its command and other major topics.

More than 450 major foreign visitors have converged on Vysoké Tatry. The conference requires the observance of stringent security measures. There will be no restrictions on traffic, however. The NATO military committee holds an away session once a year in one of the Alliance's member countries. The last such session was in Portugal, while Spain will take over from Slovakia in 2011, TASR wrote.
===========================
Stop NATO
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato

Blog site:
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/

To subscribe, send an e-mail to:
rwrozoff@yahoo.com
or
stopnato-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Daily digest option available.
==============================

8.

Bulgaria: Defense Subordinated To NATO. U.S. Missile Shield

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com   rwrozoff

Sun Sep 19, 2010 7:59 pm (PDT)



http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=120308

Sofia News Agency
September 19, 2010

Defense Chief: Bulgarian Army Can't Hold Ground without NATO

Bulgaria's draft National Security Strategy is in total harmony with the draft Strategic Concept of NATO, Defense Minister Anyu Angelov has assured.

Speaking on Sunday, two days after the National Security Council chaired by President Parvanov reached a much hailed political consensus on the draft document, Angelov praised the agreement among the major political forces, and declared that as soon as some corrections are added, the Strategy should be thrown in the hands of Parliament for debating and voting.

"The Strategy covers the period till 2020. We have achieved great harmony with the future Strategic Concept of NATO. This is the first document that provides a close to the optimal definition of 'national interests.' This definition could have been even more precise but a wider option has been selected in order to avoid political confrontation," Gen. Angelov explained.

"We should not make wrong conclusions from the contents of draft National Security Strategy â€" such as concluding that the Bulgarian armed forces can protect the country in a large-scale military conflict on their own, and without NATO's collective security system," he said.

In his words, the only time in the modern era when the Bulgarian armed forces managed to win a war on their own was the Serbian-Bulgarian War of 1885.

Angelov practically disputed the belief of President Georgi Parvanov that the Bulgarian armed forces must be able to defend the country's territorial integrity and sovereignty on their own.

“I personally think that Bulgaria must stick to the US missile shield in Europe because if there is any kind of realistic military threat for the country, it will come through air, not land or sea. It is a whole other topic if such a threat would translate into an actual attack or if somebody somewhere is just planning to strike strategic objects on Bulgarian territory,†explained the Minister.

"Our commitment to active participation in the missile defense of the US and NATO in Europe must be part of the Strategy. Bulgaria must indeed have strong defense within the limits of what it can actually afford," stated the Defense Minister.
....
===========================
Stop NATO
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato

Blog site:
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/

To subscribe, send an e-mail to:
rwrozoff@yahoo.com
or
stopnato-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Daily digest option available.
==============================

9.

U.S.-Backed Colombian Military Stage Attack Near Ecuador Border

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com   rwrozoff

Sun Sep 19, 2010 8:25 pm (PDT)



http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-09/20/c_13520660.htm

Xinhua News Agency
September 20, 2010

Colombia kills at least 22 rebels near border with Ecuador


BOGOTA: The Colombian authorities killed on Sunday at least 22 guerillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) during a raid carried out in Putumayo department, near the border with Ecuador.

Colombian Defense Minister Rodrigo Rivera confirmed the information and said the raid was carried out early Sunday morning joined by the Colombian Air Force, Army and National Police.
....

===========================
Stop NATO
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato

Blog site:
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/

To subscribe, send an e-mail to:
rwrozoff@yahoo.com
or
stopnato-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Daily digest option available.
==============================

10.

U.S. Missile Attack Kills Six In Pakistan

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com   rwrozoff

Sun Sep 19, 2010 8:25 pm (PDT)



http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90777/90851/7145567.html

Xinhua News Agency
September 20, 2010

6 killed in U.S. drone strike in NW Pakistan

At least six people were killed and three others injured during a U.S. drone strike launched Sunday night in Pakistan's northwest tribal area of North Waziristan, reported local media.

According to the report, the U.S. drone fired three missiles targeting at a house and a car in the Datta Khel area of North Waziristan, leaving the house and the car completely damaged.

Located along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area, North Waziristan is considered to be a major stronghold of militants in the country.

Despite the fact that the U.S. drone strike is mainly targeting at the militants active in the area, many innocent people have also been mistakenly killed in such strikes, causing a strong resentment against the United States among the local people.
===========================
Stop NATO
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato

Blog site:
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/

To subscribe, send an e-mail to:
rwrozoff@yahoo.com
or
stopnato-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Daily digest option available.
==============================

11.

Las bases para la agresión

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com   rwrozoff

Sun Sep 19, 2010 8:25 pm (PDT)



http://excelsior.com.mx/index.php?m=nota&id_nota=661743

Excelsior
19 de septiembre 2010

Las bases para la agresión
El Comando Sur está supuestamente activo en la lucha contra el narcotráfico; hay que considerar las previstas para México.
Luis Gutiérrez Esparza

Aun cuando Fernando Lugo había anunciado inicialmente que daría marcha atrás en el convenio de cooperación militar que gobiernos paraguayos anteriores habían negociado con Estados Unidos, su actitud de aceptación e incluso de subordinación ha sido cada vez más notoria y anunció hace unos días que está dispuesto a recibir ayuda estadunidense, incluso militar, para controlar el narcotráfico. Este puede ser un error decisivo.

Hasta donde se sabe, la pista de aterrizaje de Mariscal Estigarribia, incluida en las anteriores negociaciones paraguayo-estadunidenses, tendría tres mil 800 metros de largo, es decir, con capacidad para que operen aviones C-5 Galaxy con carga completa. Este tipo de instalaciones existió en Manta (Ecuador), desde donde fueron desplazadas a Colombia, luego de que el gobierno de Rafael Correa canceló todo acuerdo militar con Washington.

Pistas similares funcionan asimismo en Aruba y Curazao (Antillas Holandesas), Comalapsa (El Salvador) y Soto Cano (Honduras). En algunos casos, las bases no se encuentran operando, excepto por un personal mínimo para el mantenimiento de todos los sistemas y servicios y serían ocupadas cuando se las necesitara. Esta es una modalidad frecuente, como en el caso de Camp Bondsteel (Kosovo), Camp Eagle (Bosnia), Base Aérea de Incirlik (Turquía), así como otras instalaciones en Marruecos, Túnez, Bulgaria y Rumania.

Asimismo, se está considerando a Perú, en América Latina; y a Polonia y Hungría en Europa Oriental, para la creación o ampliación de pequeñas instalaciones y el incremento de tropas con presencia rotativa en bases aéreas, campos de entrenamiento y de tiro. Las existentes en los territorios polaco y húngaro fueron utilizadas en su momento durante la guerra de Bosnia.

Se cuenta adicionalmente con una lista de ubicaciones geográficas, donde en caso de ser necesaria su utilización, ha sido acordado previamente el acceso y uso de las instalaciones, con los gobiernos de las naciones anfitrionas. La clave de todo este plan es un oportuno posicionamiento previo.

Es posible que en el futuro surjan bases de esta naturaleza en otros lugares de Sudamérica. El Comando Sur está supuestamente activo en la lucha contra el narcotráfico, con seis radares de emplazamiento terrestre, tres en Perú (Iquitos, Andoas y Pucallpa) y tres en Colombia (San José del Guaviare, Marandúa y Leticia), éstos últimos independientes de las bases concedidas por el gobierno de Álvaro Uribe.

Habría que contabilizar las nueve bases antinarcotráfico previstas para México, de acuerdo con un memorando confidencial del Departamento de Estado al presidente Barack Obama, cuya existencia no ha sido negada por el gobierno mexicano y que siguen la lógica del Pentágono, en cuanto a la necesidad de una mayor interacción militar con México.

Adicionalmente, hay radares móviles en localizaciones secretas y otros que son parte de la Red de Radares de la Cuenca Caribeña. La seguridad está a cargo de personal militar y civil estadunidense.

La guerra de los Balcanes y la invasión a Irak comprobaron la total determinación de Washington en cuanto a involucrar a los países de las zonas de interés, a fin de que autoricen el emplazamiento de las bases que fueren necesarias en apoyo de las direcciones estratégicas.

Trazando un paralelo de semejanzas en América Latina, hay que recordar a los pequeños Estados que en 1983 apoyaron la acción contra Granada e integraron la fuerza de tareas combinada que invadió la isla: Dominica, San Kitts Nevis, San Vicente y las Granadinas, Santa Lucía y Antigua y Barbuda. A pesar de que no existe información oficial confirmada, por sus antecedentes y vinculaciones esos países, miembros de la Organización de Estados del Caribe Oriental (OECS, por sus siglas en inglés), podrían conceder irrestricta colaboración a Estados Unidos para operaciones desde sus territorios; y de hecho materializan una flecha que apunta geográficamente hacia Venezuela.
===========================
Stop NATO
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato

Blog site:
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/

To subscribe, send an e-mail to:
rwrozoff@yahoo.com
or
stopnato-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Daily digest option available.
==============================

Recent Activity
Visit Your Group
Y! Groups blog

the best source

for the latest

scoop on Groups.

Group Charity

i-SAFE

Keep your kids

safer online

Sitebuilder

Build a web site

quickly & easily

with Sitebuilder.

Need to Reply?

Click one of the "Reply" links to respond to a specific message in the Daily Digest.


at 9:33 PM

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)