By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Original Sources, (www.originalsources.com)
February 22, 1999
Imagine Kentucky becoming an nation with a troublesome county, about half the size of Jersey, composed of two groups of people in which minority in a previous war had helped an invading army slaughter most of the landowners in the county. With the landowners conveniently dead, the minority invited their family and friends from a crowded nearby state to come occupy the land and the houses.
Fifty years later, after almost 40 years of a dictatorship in Kentucky, run by the group that killed off the majority group in the county, friends and family members of those killed in the war managed to get control of much of the State and wanted the land back.
However, the county residents had some powerful friends in another country who secretly sent sophisticated weapons that enabled it to out shoot Kentucky's National Guard. They demand that the State withdraw the National Guard from the county and let the county be independent, perhaps even join another country or it will start bombing the Capitol of Kentucky, the city for Frankfort.
What, do you suppose, the other States in America would think about all that? This is about what is going on in Kosovo - which is about half the size of New Jersey. Yugoslavia is about the size of the State of Kentucky. Last week Clinton threatened to start bombing Yugoslavia if it didn't give up its attempt to stop the armed conflict, which it has helped foster by secretly arming the so-called "Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). And just who IS the KLA? According to an article that appeared in the April 13, 1998 US News and World Report:
"A VILLAGE NEAR KUKES, ALBANIA--The smuggling operation began one day last week at dawn. A middle-aged man in civilian clothes directed as recruits stacked wooden crates onto two 10-ton trucks. Each of the green crates was roughly the size of a coffin. From here, the leader explained, the trucks would take back roads to the Yugoslav border. Then the cargo would be strapped onto mules for a 10-mile trek across the mountainous border into the embattled province of Kosovo. And there, deep in the woods, guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation Army would open the crates and collect their prize: shoulder-fired, heat-seeking missiles capable of bringing down Serbian Army helicopters--or civilian airliners."
"If the delivery was successful, the KLA is now equipped--for the first time, as far as Western governments are aware--with surface-to-air missiles."
WHO'S surface to air missiles? Quite possibly US Surface to Air Missiles, although most of the weapons at the time were thought to have come from the chaotic Albania itself. Who is paying for all these sophisticated weapons? Quite possibly, you, the American taxpayer.
The Clinton Administration, in what appears to be an effort to do something dramatic and military, in order to look "presidential" had given the Serbs an ultimatum to agree to the Clinton notion of "peace in Kosovo" or be bombed back to the stone age. This, in Clinton jargon, is called peacemaking.
There appears, however, to be a problem or two. The Albanians in Kosovo don't just want to LIVE in Kosovo - they want it annexed to Albania at some time in the future. Only, the Serbs, who had lived in the land - and OWNED the land for centuries, don't want to give it up - and the European nations, especially the Russians, don't want to force them to give it up.
However, Clinton is in a very big hurry to get this thing over with before the first of the month. Why? Because China will assume the chairmanship of the United Nations Security Council on March 1, and the Clinton Administration knows that, with China in the chairmanship, Russia angry over the US determination to Bomb the Serbs again, and even the some of the European countries becoming increasingly worried over what will happen to NATO if it continues to follow the erratic Clinton policy, time is of the essence.
Of course, that's not what you learn if you read today's Washington Post. "If the Kosovo peace talks collapse and blame is pinned on the Serbs, the scenario for the first direct assault in NATO's history against the territory of a sovereign nation has already been written."
As of this writing, that's a big "if." So far the Albanians won't sign, because they want total control of the land and Clinton knows that the NATO partners won't support that particular land grab by Albania. However, some of the NATO countries are getting cold feet: "Beneath a veneer of consensus, several NATO governments remain troubled by the prospect of seeing a powerful military alliance - founded on principles of self-defense - lash out against a country that, for all its excess brutality, has not attacked a NATO member.
"As the Rambouillet peace talks lurch toward a new Tuesday deadline, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is awakening to the fact that regardless of the outcome, the alliance will be crossing an important threshold that is fraught with perilous consequences for its future as a pan-European security guarantor. "If the Serbs and ethnic Albanians agree to an interim peace deal, NATO will embark on a sensitive peacekeeping job in Kosovo that may prove riskier than the casualty-free mission it has carried out for three years in Bosnia. Senior NATO commanders say they are confident a vanguard force of 6,000 to 10,000 troops from Macedonia could rush in to pacify the environment and lay the foundations for a 28,000-strong peacekeeping mission that could be fully operational within 45 days.
"The task of disarming Kosovo rebels and supervising a Serb withdrawal would undoubtedly prove tricky. But senior alliance diplomats say the costs and headaches of deploying a NATO-led force on the ground are far more desirable than dealing with consequences of a breakdown and the need for NATO to make good on its threat to bomb Yugoslavia.
'' 'From the military point of view, the air strikes should be a piece of cake,' a NATO ambassador said. 'But when you start to calculate the political impact and what might come after the bombing, things start to get messy.'' Although NATO Secretary General Javier Solana was given sole authority last month by NATO governments to approve air strikes largely to avoid any prolonged debate, he has promised to consult with the allies before triggering air strikes against Serb targets.
"But NATO diplomats say what is provoking consternation within the alliance is the anguished matter of what would follow the bombing. The United States has argued that hitting the Serbs hard with bombs and missiles that destroy their prized air defenses could drive a wedge between President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia and the senior military commanders who represent a cornerstone of his shrunken power base.
"But NATO military sources with first-hand knowledge of the Serbian hierarchy say there is no guarantee that such logic will hold. Besides the risk of alienating the Serb population, the military elite may not turn on their patron. 'Their top military people may not be happy about getting hit, but believe me, there is not a lot of coup material among those in charge of the Yugoslav armed forces,' a senior NATO officer said."
The Clinton Administration rejected arguments of Euopean allies who wanted a longer postponement. Clinton is determined to start the bombing before China begins chairing the Security Council. European Allies have growing doubts about the wisdom of waging a bombing campaign based on Clinton's questionable leadership. Even Britain, Clinton's staunchest defender, questions the wisdom of such unilateral bombing if the Albanians continue demanding that the UN in effect hand over to them the real estate around Kosovo. Robin Cook said Sunday that "'air strikes on Belgrade are not going to help,'' if there is no agreement reached between the Albanians and the Serbs.
A German cabinet minister raised still another concern: In the wake of angry protests across Europe by Kurdish exiles, he fears if NATO went to war on behalf of autonomous rule in Kosovo, a public debate could erupt asking why NATO governments have been so tolerant of fellow ally Turkey's refusal to consider granting limited self-rule to the Kurds in southeastern Turkey.
''Any way you look at it, if NATO attacks a sovereign country it will create a historical precedent that will have unforeseen consequences for the alliance and all of its members,'' the German minister said. ''And I'm not sure NATO will be able to explain away those policy contradictions.''
Then, back at the negotiating table Secretary of State Madeleine Albright found that Clinton's apparent determination to bomb the Serbs lacking support when the international political blueprint for Kosovo, which is immediate local self-government but not independence, was accepted by Serbia's president, Milan Milutinovic, who is Mr. Milosevic's representative at the Rambouillet talks, and then the Albanians refused to sign the document.
Her lame response was: "If this fails because both parties say 'No,' there will not be bombing of Serbia," Albright said after spending more than three hours with the ethnic Albanians.
Except, it isn't the Serbs that said "No!" It was the Albanians - those very same Albanians who have long argued that airstrikes were the best way to end Serb control over Kosovo and to force them to a peace deal before Tuesday's deadline. If they don't get everything they want - and part of what they want is a Communist state - they will turn on their benefactor - Bill Clinton. Bill probably would give it to them - but the European Allies who would have to live with it aren't too sure about that.
Nothing better illustrates the one-sidedness of the Clinton Administration's position than the fact that no pressure has been threatened, no bombing of Albanians or even halting the arming and supplying of the KLA was suggested to whip the Communist, Muslim terrorists into shape and get them to sign the agreement.
If this whole thing blows up in America's face, and it very well may, it may be laid not only at the feet of Bill Clinton, but of the U.S. Senate, who had an opportunity to halt the craziness that is the Clinton White House - and didn't do it.
To comment: mmostert@originalsources.com