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Pastimes : WORLD WAR III -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: BillCh who wrote (520)	3/24/1999 4:49:00 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 765

BillCh, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR POSTING THIS THOUGHT-PROVOKING PIECE OF NEWS! Now, tell me Bill... How was funded the Afghan guerilla which successfully waged war against the Soviet Bear for so many years? Where did the CIA-supported Mujaheddins and Taleban militia find the money? Or should I say: where did the CIA itself get the $$$ necessary to pay for Sting surface-to-air rifles? The timing of such a ''controversial'' disclosure is all the more interesting... a few hours(?) before NATO starts the air-strike operation against Serbia. And where all this BS comes from? You bet --from xenophobic, nationalist-friendly, North European lobbies. And this is actually driving us back to what I told you a previous message on this thread: Europeans --Western and Eastern folks alike-- are resentful about ''humiliating'' the Serbs. Why? Because they simply share the same nationalistic, xenophobic mindset. The Serbian pride of defending one's own people, soil, and culture is appealing for a lot of European populaces --throughout the Continent. You can feel such a pro-Serb sympathy when watching the local media over here: West European TVs interview Serb passers-by in Belgrade and --were it not for the local lingo-- you would think of people from Frankfurt, Amsterdam or Brussels! They're so much alike! Just remember the diplomatic incident that occured a few months ago when Commandant Bunel, France's #2 official in NATO, was secretely briefing the Serbs with classified info on NATO air-strike operations! This shows you the duplicity of your so-called European allies... For Cdt. Bunel was not a young officer who fell in love with a pretty Serbian girl: he was complying with France's traditional sentimentalism toward Serbia. And it also hints to you about the chauvinistic mentality that prevails in France's military academies (Saint-Cyr, etc...). BTW: No, I don't sell candles --or whatever Muslim gear-- to mosques! Therefore the situation for the U.S. military is pretty much the same one that prevailed in the Gulf War: Gen. Schwartzkopf was surrounded by faithful Arab allied forces who would play by the U.S. rules as long as it didn't involve the storming of Baghdad. Today, NATO's European allies will similarly sit and watch the US air forces flying over Serbia... but they'll grudgingly welcome any victory for the KLA and the outcome of an autonomous Muslim province a few miles off the Vatican! So, beware yankees! Don't find yourselves holding the bag in the Balkans... with all your European friends scoffing at the ''usual'' US clumsiness. There was a simple method to deal with this Balkan mess: it would have been for the U.S. to support the KLA (Kosovar army) the same way it supported the Afghan Mujaheddins in the 1980s. Remember: the Mujaheddins were fighting the Soviet Union!! Elite ground forces, along with air support (combat helicopters, MIG-23s, Sukhoi,...) were employed by the USSR whose empire and prestige were still intact. Now tell me: are the Serbian forces more powerful than USSR tank divisions? Are the Albanians enrolled in the KLA less motivated than Afghan Mujaheddins? That leads me to propose a blunt U-turn for the US diplomacy: forget about NATO's massive, slouchy involvement in the Balkans! Instead, the US should use Albania in the same fashion it used Pakistan in the Afghan conflict, that is as a rear-base for supplying the KLA in its guerrilla strategy. The US should also supply the KLA with the necessary weaponry to secure itself: anti-tank bazookas, surface-to-air recoilless rifles and the like. Air strikes by the US Navy (Tomahawks) should be enough to neutralize Serbia's runways and other military facilities. Such an endorsement of the KLA will be of considerable consequence: it will question the role of NATO and it will implicitly call for a reunification of Kosovo with Albania. The role of NATO: people will ask what is NATO useful for if, faced with the most critical conflict in Europe since WWII, the only strategy the West has is to smuggle weapons to non-professional KLA-militia along with intelligence provided by the CIA. A covert operation instead of a full-fledged NATO show of force! A few days before NATO's 50th anniversary... Such a blaze of glory! Yet, when civilian lives are at stake, forget about grandeur and Realpolitik: the US must send a strong signal to the whole of Europe: Open Society must prevail over ''blood and soil'' barbarism, to put it short! Regards, Gustave.