The Incredibly Complex Kosovo Issue (Part I)

[WilliamPitt]

Going to do several of these over the course of the next few weeks as I do some heavy book research. This post does *not* address anything having to do with Wesley Clark. That comes later. Right now, I am focusing on the roots of the conflict. It's a lot more complicated than has been presented here or in the public prints.

First of all, how did it start? Why was Yugoslavia left to burn for so long? The answer lies in the last half of the first Bush administration, the stewards when this mess began to unravel. From David Halberstam's book 'War in a Time of Peace:'

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At a time when the first sure signs of the Yugoslav breakup became clear, and when American influence there might have been at its greatest, we were wedded to Gorbachev. The Soviet Union, and then eventually Russia, as far as Bush and the men around him were concerned, was like a baby in an oxygen tent, entering its new life tentatively and awkwardly. As that process took place, Yugoslavia was very much a peripheral issue in Washington. Already there were signs of the immense benefits to be derived from the change in Russian-American relations. Russia had been an invaluable ally in the Gulf War, with Gorbachev greatly angering his own military people, who were closely wedded to Saddam Hussein (Milosevic and much of the JNA were also pro-Saddam, and indeed the JNA flagrantly violated the United Nations arms embargo on Iraq). Moreover, with Gorbachev and Eduard Shevardnadze's uneasy a`ceptance, Germany was on its way to not merely unification, but unification within NATO, a geopolitical coup unimaginable a few years earlier.

Thus, in the eyes of the top Bush people, Gorbachev's political problems greatly outranked whatever signals were coming from Yugoslavia. Gorbachev feared the accelerating potential for breakaway provinces in his empire and the rage it would stir up among his more jingoistic enemies on the domestic right and in the military. That, too, had repercussions in our dealings with Yugoslavia. For America could not appear to back a breakaway province in Yugoslavia without setting a dangerous precedent for a Soviet Union and Russia that might also splinter apart.

- p. 33, paragraphs two and three (typed longhand, any mistakes are mine)

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Food for thought.

Part II will address what was happening in Yugoslavia during this time. Part III will address why the Clinton administration hesitated to act. Short answer: The much-respected (at the time) Colin Powell told Clinton's people pointedly that an intervention in Yugoslavia would require an investment of 400,000 troops.

[lindashaw]

1. I'm halfway through Halberstam's book. I don't know enough to have

an opinion, yet.

on edit: But what I'm learning so far is that there was a terrible struggle between the Army and Air Force that influenced the delay.

[AP]

2. The End of the American Era:

The End of the American Era: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Geopolitics of the Twenty-first Century by Charles A. Kupchan

This is an excellent book for people who want a little insight into some of the things that motivate American foreign policy.

It's not about Yugoslavia, but it does discuss it.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0375412158/qid=1066662159/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/102-6408311-1872146?v=glance&s=books&n=507846">Amazon Link to Book

[KittyWampus]

3. Damn Clark For Suceeding In Kosovo Under Clinton

Only Republicans are allowed military victories.

That said, thanks for information Mr. Will. Glad you're home safely.

[VelmaD]

4. Nice little history lesson...

Sometimes it seems like it has been forever since the old Eastern Bloc broke up and we forget what it was like and how US-Soviet relations impacted everything the US did in terms of foreign policy.

Also good to remember that the conflict in Yugoslavia didn't spring forth overnight fully formed. It simmered for a long time while the "Big Boys" were occupied with other things. It's easy to look back from the vantage point of the present and wonder what we could have done to nip it in the bud if we had been paying more attention.

[Armstead]

5. Glad you're doing this

Often issues and veents are presented as discreet and seperate, when in fact it is all a continuum and what happened then relates to what happens now.

[RichM]

6. You might consider reading some high-quality left sources, as well as

mainstream writers like Halberstam. You can choose to reject the left analysis, if you don't find it convincing, of course. But I think you'll see that much of what was written in 1999 anticipated the subsequent Afghanistan-Iraq developments with impressive accuracy.

I've read & appreciated several Halberstam books, though not the Kosovo one. I remember seeing him on TV a few months after the stolen election. He was directly asked whether he thought Bush stole the election, and he said, "Oh, no, of course not." I'd be very careful about uncritically accepting the viewpoint of anyone so inside the American propaganda system, that he'd come out with a remark like that.

If Halberstam accepts the basic premise that Kosovo was an attempt by the US to "prevent genocide" (and of course, I don't know if he accepts this, having not seen the book), I wouldn't put much stock in anything else he has to say.

A good place to start, if you want to read the left analysis, is:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/may1999/stat-m24.shtml

The WSWS did an extensive series of articles on the Balkan conflict; this is just an overview. A similar perspective is offered in a book by Michael Parenti, "To Kill a Nation."

[WilliamPitt]

7. I intend to

What is your opinion of the book 'A Problem from Hell'?

[RichM]

11. I haven't read it. I've seen some reviews - might be interesting -

I can't really tell. :shrug:

[WilliamPitt]

8. Kick

[WilliamPitt]

9. Kick

[maha]

10. Thank you for this. n/t

[bigtree]

12. I'm curious about

What role did Sovietologists like Condi Rice, Stephen Hadley, and Armitage play in Kosovo reconstruction?

Armitage, as an ambassador funneled U.S. dollars to the newly independent states, as well as to the European community as Coordinator for Emergency Humanitarian Assistance '92-'93

[bigtree]

13. This is the kind of trail that I'm looking for

War On Terrorism Skipped The KLA
http://www.network54.com/Hide/Forum/thread?forumid=68071&messageid=1005736507&lp=1005736507


U.S. President George W. Bush has made it clear the war against terrorists will be unremitting and relentless. Even those countries affording shelter to terrorists will not be spared. These words come too late for the Serbs, Gypsies, Jews, Turks and other non-Albanians who have been driven from their ancestral homes in Kosovo by the terrorist Kosovo Liberation Army. It is too late as well for Macedonia, which has been forced by the United States, the European Union and NATO to yield to all the demands of the Albanian terrorists in that country.

The bombing of Yugoslavia in the spring of 1999 allegedly to stop ethnic cleansing and prevent the Balkans from becoming once again the powder keg of Europe has backfired. Kosovo has become exclusively an Albanian province with the exception of a few stalwart Serbians in the Mitrovica area who live surrounded by barbed wire and are threatened daily with murder and mayhem by their Albanian neighbours. The Balkans, since the end of the bombing, have been in constant turmoil caused by the KLA terrorist activities.

NATO allowed the KLA, which under the terms of United Nations Resolution 1244 was to be disarmed after the end of the bombing, to keep its weapons. As early as 1998, the U.S. State Department listed the KLA as a terrorist organization financing its operations with money from the international heroin trade and funds supplied from Islamic countries and individuals, including Osama bin Laden. This did not stop the United States from arming and training KLA members in Albania and in the summer of 1998 sending them back into Kosovo to assassinate Serbian mayors, ambush Serbian policemen and intimidate hesitant Kosovo Albanians. The aim was to destabilize Kosovo and overthrow Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic.

In August, fearing the Macedonian forces might be able to defeat the KLA, U.S. Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice flew to Kiev and ordered the Ukrainian government to stop sending further military equipment to Macedonia. Since Ukraine was the only country supplying Macedonia with military assistance, the Macedonians realized continued resistance against the KLA terrorists, the EU and NATO was futile. Macedonia was forced to concede defeat and obliged to accept all the terrorist demands. When the peace treaty was signed, Lord Robertson proclaimed, "This day marks the entry of Macedonia into modern, mainstream Europe ... a very proud day for their country."


What about the Kosovo Liberation Army? What is their connection to Armitage? Did he influence Bush administration policy to protect the KLA? Did the Bush cabal know about the KLA's drug trading? Did they know that bin Laden was funding the KLA?

[legin]

14. slightly off topic

and apologies if i am teaching your grandmother how to suck eggs, but if you are interested in the breakup of Yugoslavia then you ought to read up on Croatian Ustache (sp?) under Ante Pavolich (sp?) during WWII. Rather nasty slice of history.

They are on the internet too, there are Ustache sort of talk boards (chilren, grandchildren of Ustache). You have an Archbishop Stepanic school in the u.s. if I remember rightly.

The Croatian Ustache need better publicity, there are quite a nasty lot and they really don't get the recognition that they are due.

[WilliamPitt]

15. "teaching your grandmother how to suck eggs"

??

I don't get the reference. Thanks for the tip, though. I will look into it.

[legin]

16. sorry must be a british saying

meaning: telling you something that you alredy know. (roughly need a better explanation.)
Trying to teach you something that you have done all your life (better a bit)

I suppose grandmothers are supposed to have lost all their teeth by the time they reach their age and the only way they can eat is by 'sucking eggs'. Possibly.

[WilliamPitt]

17. Heh

Gotcha. :)

[legin]

18. It's good juicy history

no problem with keeping the readers attention.

From memory (and that has proved to be exceedingly bad in the past) and from what was probably a biased book.

Ante Pavlovitch was a member of a party in the Yugoslavia government whose leader was actually 'wacked' in the parliamentary chamber. This must have slightly disillusioned the guy because when Hitler rose to power Pavlovitch presented his credentials, and when Hitler invaded Yugoslavia and broke it up, Pavlovitch was given control of the new state of Croatia.

Unfortunately it wasn't all Croatians who lived there, there were about 500,000(?) Serbs.

The fairly publicly stated policy for the Serbs by the Ustasche government was "forcibly catholicise one third, deport one third, and shoot one third." Which they did.

The brutality with which this was done even managed to upset their Nazi overlords, as well as starting up a resistance movement.

The Catholic Church under Pope Pius XII were worried about 'Godless Communism' taking over the region as well as interested in sticking one to the Greek Orthodox Church so they supported the Ustasche. A Catholic priest ran the main concentration camp in Croatia apparently.

After a nice lot a bloodletting, ethnic cleansing, theft and general all around nastiness by the Ustasche, the resistance movement overthrew them. Pavlovitch escaped via Claus Barbie's ratline with the help of the u.s and a department of the Vatican (run by Msgn. Dragonovitch (sp?) to Argentina (the resistance movement was Communist so the u.s. wanted assets inside Yugoslavia).

Ante Pavolitch finally died in a Catholic monastery in Spain.

At a war crime trial after the end of the war, the Ustasche were considered to have murdered a higher percentage of their own population than Hitler.


(You might want to be a little careful of this post)

[legin]

19. When I say u.s. help

there is a u.s government report on line about reclaiming stolen money by the fascist regeimes, that says that when Pavlovitch was holed in a safe house in Rome the CIA found out where he was, but made a decision not to pick him up, posibly from advice from the british (maybe).

The Ustasche emptied the treasurey and I have seen references to 'pensions' for ex-Ustasche people living in exile.

A Ustache guy was a temporary advisor on Yugoslavia to Bush I possibly (something like that).

[legin]

20. Favoured method of execution

was a small scythe the handle of which was strapped to the arm and the people being executed had their throats cut. There is even a story about a competition to see who could dispatch the most Serbs in one day by this method.