nothing is what it seems in the Balkans. Never was. Probably never will be. At least not to the rational man. All views are partisan, including those of foreign diplomats. Which is why they are often diametrically opposed, depending on one's personal or national interests. And thus confusing to the average western citizen.

Take the current conflict in Kosovo, for example. According to the western establishment media, the situation is cut and dried, just as it was in Bosnia. Serbs (Orthodox Christians) are the local bogeys who carry out "ethnic cleansing" (another nouveau English word the Balkans has contributed to the English language). Muslims, including Albanian Muslims in Kosovo, and Catholics (Croats) are the "good guys." Consequently, such media ignore transgressions of the latter while overemphasizing those of the former.
For example, during the night of July 18-19, a group of several hundred heavily armed foreign mercenaries (mostly "mujahideens," Islamic "holy warriors") frontally attacked from Albania the Yugoslav Army border guards near the Djeravici mountain. The attack was repulsed by the Serbian troops, and the foreign assailants suffered heavy casualties. Among the dead were six mercenaries from Yemen, five from Saudi Arabia, four from Macedonia.
A short while later, Yugoslav authorities arrested Nuri Salip Muhamed, a Lieutenant Colonel in the Iraqi Army as he was trying to enter Yugoslavia illegally from Bulgaria. This Iraqi officer, who reportedly spoke perfect Serbian, was supposed to have commanded the July 18-19 terrorist attack from Albania. But lucky for him, he had not arrived there in time.
Yet not a word about any of this was ever reported by the establishment media. Just as in Bosnia in 1992-1995, Kosovo news is often manipulated by omission, not only by fabrication or exaggeration.
In the aftermath of the July 18-19 attack from Albania, the Yugoslav Army impounded 10 tons of various weapons and over 100,000 rounds of ammunition. Apart from 300 assault rifles, the assailants also left behind 60 heavy machine guns, 10 recoilless cannons, and 10 heavy mortars.
Nor was this an isolated incident. Between January and July, 1998, Serbian border patrols prevented 374 illegal crossings at the Kosovo border - 57 from Yugoslavia to Albania, and 317 from Albania to Yugoslavia. How many more they failed to prevent is anybody's guess. In 54 of the 72 recorded border incidents the Yugoslav Army border guards were fired upon.
"There is no question that tremendous amounts of weapons and other materials were being smuggled for years into Kosovo from Albania across a very porous border," said a senior western military source who spoke to me on condition of anonymity during my recent visit to Serbia. "And there is no doubt that Serbia (Yugoslavia) had legitimate reasons and right as a sovereign country to defend its territorial integrity in Kosovo against such onslaught."
But as you may be sensing, the proverbial "but" was coming up… "But they never even tried (to take out only the KLA terrorists)," our source continued. "They just leveled entire (Albanian) villages to the ground with artillery fire. I am sorry to have to use such an inflammatory term, but it was nothing short of 'ethnic cleansing'. I watched for four hours how they shelled Junik, for example" (a small town and a former KLA stronghold in Kosovo).
"So is it your opinion that the Serbs are using excessive force?" I asked.
"No question."
The western leaders who are now threatening to bomb Serbia certainly seem to agree. On the other hand, they seem to ignore other factors. My senior western military source also pointed out that some 40 or so Serb civilians had been massacred by the KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army). And that about 300 hundred are missing and should be presumed dead. He also said that he saw several bodies on this last trip to Kosovo (hours before we met) with evidence that they had been executed from close range.
"Close range?" I wondered. "How close?"
He made a motion with his hand depicting a gun firing upward through the mouth shattering the top of the skull. Again, not a word about that, either, in the western establishment media. No wonder that most Serbs and other experts not yet dumbed down by the globalist propaganda are seething. Already oppressed for 10 years by a communist turncoat dictator (Slobodan Milosevic), and having suffered nearly five years of genocidal sanctions (1992-1996) imposed by the New World Order cabal, a tiny European, predominantly Orthodox Christian nation of 10 million is now engaged in a deadly game of "eeney, meeney, miney, mo…" Will NATO bomb us, or won't it?
According to an Oct. 8 dispatch from a German source, the bombing of Serbia should have already started within 48 hours (which have now come and gone).
But a "usually reliable" Belgrade source suggested the whole thing is just a big NATO bluff, designed to make Milosevic's consent to deployment of foreign troops in Kosovo appear palatable to his own people.
Time will tell which alternative will end up being "it." But our Belgrade source seems closer to reality. That's because ever since the summer of 1994, Milosevic has been playing the role of a "designated bogey," thus facilitating the realization of the U.S. government's geopolitical aims in the Balkans, and the dismemberment of his own country. In return for Milosevic's being such a good "bad guy," Washington has repeatedly propped him up when the Serbian people rose up against this former communist.
But if, in the end, NATO does end up waging war against Serbia, even if only to absolve Milosevic from the responsibility of giving up Kosovo, the action will set a dangerous precedent. It will mean nothing less than the end of national sovereignty and all inherent rights which sovereign nations have enjoyed for centuries world over. As a result, any nation will now have reasons to fear the capricious wrath of the "world's only remaining superpower," the new neo-colonial Big Brother. Capricious, because the new Big Brother's power is only based on a "might makes right" legal principle.
For example, even if the Serbian government did do what the West is accusing it of having done, and even if the protection of supposedly endangered minorities is the overriding legal principle which outweighs the issues of national sovereignty, how can one explain the fact that this only applies to Serbia? The U.S./NATO never bombed Turkey over its atrocities against the Kurds; or China over Tibet; or Indonesia over East Timor; or Israel over its various enemies, including even extra-territorial military assaults on neighboring countries; or Russia over Chechnya; or Great Britain over Northern Ireland; or Spain over its treatment of the Basques; etc.
In short, NATO's involvement in the Balkans is NOT about protection of civilians - Albanian or any other kind. It is about projection of power into a political vacuum created by the end of the Cold War. And about connecting NATO East (Turkey) with NATO West (Bosnia) - over the backs of a small predominantly Orthodox Christian nation whose territory unfortunately happens to intersect these NATO strategic interests.
If the Serb leader had been smart, he would have realized all this, and would have worked for his country to become a part of NATO, just as the predominantly Orthodox Christian Greece is, for example. As it were, Milosevic totally misread the geopolitical tea leaves around the end of the Cold War. This former communist counted on the backing of the Soviet Union as he chose to snub the world's biggest superpower (in the 1989-1990 period). When the Evil Empire collapsed, Milosevic was left stark naked, without a friend in the world. And the Serbian people have been paying the price for his arrogance and stupidity ever since. In August 1994, Milosevic finally realized his error, turned coat, and turned on the Bosnian Serbs, too (whom he had been supporting prior to that). He became a western vassal, a "designated bogey," and a facilitator of the destruction of his own people. What followed was NATO's bombing of the Bosnian Serbs in August-September 1995; expulsion of some 250,000 Serbs from Croatia; the Dayton "Peace Accords" - actually the terms of surrender which Milosevic had signed in November 1995; and NATO's occupation of the Serbian territories in Bosnia in early 1996.
And now, the next (Kosovo) phase of NATO's expansion in the Balkans is about to unfold - with or without the bombing of Serbia. The "perpetual war for perpetual commerce" globalist principle is being affirmed once again in Kosovo. Which means that the U.S. and other western taxpayers can now start playing an "eeney, meeney, miney, mo…" game of their own: How much money and how many human lives will this overseas troops deployment cost us? Americans can also ask why we don't zip out of office - PERMANENTLY - the U.S. "Zippergate" officials who preach the virtue of chastity while chastising virtue the world over?