-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.suc.org/~kosta/tar/external/e-cia-XX0395-strategic_policy.html <A HREF="http://www.suc.org/~kosta/tar/external/e-cia- XX0395-strategic_policy.html">...r/external/e-cia-XX0395-strategic_policy.html </A> ----- Involment of the US and Germany intelligence services Sean Gervasi [ Defense & Foreign Affairs - STRATEGIC POLICY, 3-1995 ] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ In 1991, Yugoslavia was torn apart by a bloody civil war which continues to this day. The conventional view is that this violent break-up was the result of suppresses ethnic tensions and 'Serbian aggression". There is, however, considerable evidence that Western governments encouraged both the dismantling of the country and the continuation of the civil war. Independent US analyst Sean Gervasi looks at the deception and misconceptions . ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THERE is considerable evidence to suggest that the intelligence services of the US and Germany have been prime movers in the events leading to, and the continuation of the conflict in Bosnia and Croatia . Today it appears they are pushing all the parties in Croatia and Bosnis into an escalation of the conflict. The United States and Germany were already preparing for the dismemberment of Yugoslavia in the late 1980s. Both NATO states wanted to put an end to communism in Yugoslavia. Anticipating the gradual collapse of communist power in the Eastern Bloc they wanted to redraw the map of the Balkans and Germany at least to create a series of dependent mini-states there which would open the way to the economic reculonisation of the region. Yugoslavia as it was then constituted -- was a major obstacle to these plans. It was the only country in Eastern Europe which had a hill social revolution. The modified communism which had been implanted there had, with considerable Western assistance, launched a drive for industrialiastion which had significantly raised the living standards of the poorer sections of the population. Whatever its failings, the Adminstration of the (then) Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia did nut lack popular support. Moreover, Yugoslavia had the fourth largest army in Europe and possessed large numbers of modern aircraft and weapons and its own armaments industry. It had not only the motive to resist recoloniastion - which leads to the kind of deindustrialisation, impoverishment and social havoc which Russia is experiencing now hut the means to resist it. To remove Yugoslavia from the chessboard, the US and Germany secretly set out to dismemberthe country. They deliberately set different ethnic religious groups against one another, built up extreme nationalist forces and en couraged them, under the flag of "self determination", to secede from the Yugoslav Federation. The nazis had pursued a similar strategy in the Balkans in the 1940s. There is substantial evidence that both the US and German Governments were aware that their secret policies would lead to civil war in Yugoslavia. What the West needed in Yugoslavia were groups which could rallly around the theme of anti-communism and form an opposition to the Government. Most anti-communist groups were also ultra-nationalist. The most important ultra-nationalist groups which the US and Germany chose as allies in preparing the break-up of Yugoslavia were those in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. In Croatia, the most militant nationalist groups were proto-fascist. They had close links with the Usstashi organisations overseas. From the late 1980s, many of those organisatiuns provided the money and personnel which enabled Franjo Tudjman's HDZ party to win the 1990 elections in Croatia. In Bosnia-Herregovina, the US and Germany chose the anti-Yugoslav pan-Islamists around Ilija Izetbegovic as their secret collaborators. They encouraged them to work with Bosnian Croats and helped them to forge connections with the ultra-nationalists of Croatia. They also encouraged and supported their efforts to move toward secession. The Slovenian, Croatian and Bosnian secessions of 1991 and 1992 ensured the break-up of Yugoslavia and plunged much ofthe country into civil war. The of UN troops in Croatia helped to contain the confrontation between Serbs and Croats there. But the UN came too late to Busnis to prevent the Serbs establishing, and defending, an independent republic on which lands 20 generations of Serbs had lived and farmed. The UN, and NATO, have since sought to reinforce the position of the precarious Izetbegovic Government and to undermine that of the Serbs . But the Serbs remain in a strong position. In 1994, however, after two years of war, the West found itself in an impasse in Busnia. It supported the Izethegovic Government and its claim to exercise sovereignty over the whole of Bosnia-Herregovina . However, owing to the refusal of the US to provide troops in Bosnia, and to divisions within NATO itself, the West had not been able to defeat the Serbs and to impose a settlement favourable to the Muslim-Croat Government. The US and Germany were therefore in a dilemma. They supported the Izetbegovic Government but could do relatively little to help it subjugate the Serbs. Therefore, in recent months, in the view of this writer, the United States has resorted to the same solution that it sought in Indo-China after the 1968 Tet offensive. It has sought to "Vietnamise" the war in Bosnia; that is, to create a much larger and more effective client (Bosnian Muslim) army which can makeup for the lack of Western troops with a mandate to impose a settlement. The US has sought to carry out this "Vietnamisation" secretly. [ In retrospect it seems quite possible that the US intention all along was to stop the Serbs by seductive promises of negotiations which would never take place. ] The Serbs are wall-equipped militarily and very strong. But their pool of military-age personnel is limited. The Izetbegovic Government, on the other hand, has a large manpower pool, but lacks adequate organiastion, training, heavy arms, inteiligence and communications. So the US has been secretly helping the Izetbegovic Government to expand, retrain and re-arm its forces, in the hope that they would be able to deal a fatal blow to the Bosnian Serbs, or at least to force them to accept a "deal" imposed by the US and Germany. To this end, the US has provided the Isetbegovic Government with the same kind of resources which it provided to South Vietnam in the hope of making a viable state out of a narrowly-based and anti-democratic one . It has tried to force an end to the "second war" between Muslims and Croats in Bosnia. It has crested a Muslim-Croat "confederation" in Bosnia . It has created a joint command in that "confederation" and staffed it with "retired" US officers. It has sent US Special Forces to provide support for the new Bosnian army. It has been helping that army with planning tactical training, forward air control, the building of bases and command, control, communications and intelligence support and, it has been providing the Bosnian-Croat army with large quantities of modern weapons. It was this assistance which enabled the Bosnian army to mount major attacks againat the Serbs in Autumn 1994, notably at Kupres in central Bosnia and in Bihac, where the Seeb counter-offensive nearly broke the Bosnian Fifth Corps. It is this assistance which continues today and has enabled the Izetbegovic Government to launch new offensives against the Serbs in Bosnia during March 1995. The prospect in the coming months is for greatly intensified military and political pressure against the Bosnian Serbs by Izetbegovic's growing army. The situation is made even more serious by recent developments in Croatia. Over the past year, Tudjman's Croatian Army has also done a certain amount of retooling. There have been reports for months that the Croatians were confident that they could retake parts or all of the Krajina from the Serbs there, who have also created their own republic . The reduction of the United Nations Protection Force in Cruasis, at President Tudjman's demand, is, in this context, particular cause for concern. It is clear that the reduction and redeployment of UNPROFOR will substantially increase the vulnerability of the Krajina to attaick and that, as soon as they can, the Croatians will apply further military pressure against the Serbs there. This is obviously a matter which affects not only the Serb republic in the Krajina but the Bosnian Serb republic as well. As things stand now, it is quite possible that there will be joint Croatian and Bosnian offensives against both republics in an effort to stretch their defenses to the limit, to penetrate them and to inflict severe losses on the Serbs . The ultimate aim, of course, is to force the Serbs to accept Western terms for a settlement, something which the US and Germany cannot even hope for at the moment. The basic military situation, then, is threatening to the Serbs in the short run and unfavourable to them in the long run. The military situation, however, is complicated by the uncertainties of politics and clandestine warfare. Western strategy in the Balkans relies upon "coercive diplomacy". This combines diplomacy and military force in ever-increasing doses in order to press an adversary toward accepting what is unacceptable. While the US has been "Vietnamising" the war n Basnia and weakening UNPROEOR, with low-profile but clear and steady support from Germany, it has also been engaged in a constant and complex process of "negotiations". However, since "negotiations" are conducted in secret and since they involve many parties, there have been a great deal of confusion about what has really been going on. The West has not just been negotiating with the Bosnian and Krajina parties, including Croatia, but with Yugoslavia as well. Having imposed economic sanctions against that country, it hopes to force the Yuguslav state of Serbia to isolate and weaken the Serbs outside Yugoslavia, so that they will accept the Contact Group plan. This policy, however, has so far been counter-productive. Feeling themselves under siege, Yugoslsvs have rallied around the Serbian President, Slobodan Milosevic. In any case, they overwhelmingly support the Serbs outside their borders. Some have argued that the US would really like to "get out of the Bosnian mess" and that the US, without Germany, is trying to fashion a new plan which would be more acceptable to the Serbs in Bosnia and in Croatia. Others argue that the US has nut deviated from the course which was set in 1992 when it openly announced its support for the Izetbegovic Government in Bosnia. Certainly this last view is supported by the recent authoritative articles on "How to Defeat Serbia" and by the fact that US officials say they will not impose any solution which Izetbegovic will not accept. The only evidence for the former point ofview was former US President James Carter's initiative of December 1994, when he successfully negotiated a four-month cessstion-of-hostilities agreementin Busnia. Many observers at the time thought that Carter's meeting with Bosnian Serb Republic President Karadzic in Pale might be the beginning of an important shift in US policy which could lead to peace. Carter told the Bosnian Serbs that they no longer had to accept the Contact Group plan unconditionally, but only take it "as a basis for negotiations". This formula, however, was quickiy withdrawn, and the Bosnian Serbe were left in an exposed situation again. There are good reasons for thinking that the whole episode was staged to blunt the Busnian Seeb counter-offensive, although Carter himself may well have been an innocent party in the affair. Had Carter not intervened, the Bossian Serb Republic might well have gone on to complete military victory. They had, after all, just hammered the Bosnian Fifth Carps, throwing back the forces which had launched a major offensive against them in Bihac in November. This had prompted the US Secretary of Defense, William Perry, to annuunce that the Serbs "had won the war" and to suggest that the US had to rethink its policy in Bosnia. According to UN sources, the Serhs had also shot own a number of NATO aircraft at the time, forcing them afterwards to conduct their missions above 30,000 feet. The whole affair, protestations included, may well have been nothing more than a smokescreen. In retrospect seems quite possible that the US intention all along was to stop the Serbs by seductive promises of negotiations which would never take place. Certainly the continuing, large-scale, clandestine assistance to the Bosnian-Croat army, as well as the support for Tudjman in his efforts to loosen UNPROFOR's position in Croatia, suggest that the US and Germany have never veered from the course which they set long ago . This is nut to say that there are not divisions over policy within the US Government, or even within the German political estsblishment. But the coalition of hardliners in Washington and Bonn, with some support from other Western capitals, and with the constant pressuring of opinion by propaganda emanating from intelligence agencies and public relations firms, seems to be in control of the situation. it seems likely that, barring serious difficulties for their plans in Bosnia or Croatia, the US and Germany will stay on course. This means that there are three probable scenarios for The near- and medium-term future in Bosnia and Croatia. The most likely seems to he the continuation of see-saw warfare more or less along past lines for an extended period. This is very much what the former US National Security Council official (under President George Bush) Gumpert, now vice-president of the RAND Corporation (the US Air Force- owned think-tank), recommended publicly last Summer. This scenario is obviously unfavourable to the Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia and to Yugoslavia. They will continue to suffer and to experience military losses, while sanctions will continue to inflict their "invisible" damage on the citizens of Yoguslavia. The second scenario, perhaps somewhat less likely, is that at some point the Bosnian Serbs, whose survival as an independent state is certainly at risk, will repond to Bosnian military pressure with an offensive which does the Bosnian Muslims serious harm and forces some widespread retreat in a critical area or areas. In this event, it would be almost impissaible for NATO to resist the pressures to intervene and there would be a major confrontation in Bosnia, and possibly Croatia, which would bring in the Yugoslav Army. Once such a confrontation takes place, the consequences are entirely unpredictable. The third scenario, and probably the least likely of the three, is that the Bosnian army might inflicts major military defeat on the Serbs, cut the Brcko corridor or overrun some key area of the Bosnian Serb republic. In that case, the Yugoslav Army would inevitably become involved. Just as inevitably -- or less rational thought begins to prevail Washington and elsewhere -- NATO would intervene to protect its clients Bosnia and Croatia. Again, there would be a major confrontation, and the results would be unpredictable. There may be other possible scenarios in the Balkans at this point, especially if something is made to happen in Macedonia or the Yugoslav area of Kosovo. It is known that the United States does not want this -- although the German posiion is not clear -- but what happens in these two regions will not necessarily be determined by the US alone. In any case, if conflict should occur in either region, a general Balkan war would be likely to develop fairly quickly. It would seem. then, since low-level warfare is most likely to continue for some time, that there is little danger of a major conflict occurring in Yugoslavia involving NATO or the United States. This, however, is an illusion. There is a very real danger of such a confrontation and of such involvement. The Bosnian Serbs know that as time passes, the balance offorces is likely to shift against them, especially as the US and others continue the secret arming of their Bosnian (Izethegovic) clients. The present see-saw warfare, therefore, cannot go on for an extended period. The Bosnian Serb side will eventually have to give up the idea of an independent state, with many Serbs fleeing across the Drina to Yugoslavia, or it will have to seek a decisive military victory. What this means is that the first scenario almost inevitably degenerates into the second, triggering a confrontation with NATO or The US and Germany. To put it somewhat differently, the US determination, through the "Vietnamisation" of the Bosnian war, to seek military victory for its clients in Bosnia almost guarantees a major confrontation in the Balkans. None of These scenarios offers much hope of an equitable political settlement in Bosnia and Croatia, one which would guarantee Serbs the same rights which others take for granted. Nor do they offer much honour for the US. The US Government is steadily stumbling toward war in the Balkans. The problem here is that both the US and Germany, with some support from factions in other Western countries, are locked into the consequences of a mistaken alliance with fascist and so-called pan-Islamic forces in the Balkans. They cannot recognise that those alliances and the recognition of the secessions to which they led, were major mistakes. [ Indeed, the US support for the Izetbegovic forces ignores the large grouping of other Bosnian Muslims who want peace, oppose Sarajevo's war, and are prepared to live harmuninosly with their Serb and Croat neighbours.] When former Secretary of State Cyrus Vance told reporters at the UN recently that the recognition of Bosnia had been a major mistake, he was chastised by the State Department. Clearly, however, he reflected a growing perception of the situation. It is also time to begin fashioning a policy which does not make the Balkans a battle-ground of competing Western interests and which does not lock Western countries into war there. * ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [ Sean Gerrasi isa US economist and a political scientist. He has since 1992 been Research Professor at the Institute for International Politics and Economics in Belgrade. Over the past three decades he has taught at the London School of Economics, Oxford University, the City University of New York and the University of Paris. For 15 years he was also a consultant to various organs of the United Nations, including the Committee on Decolonisation to the Security Council, as well as to Third World delegations to the UN in New York. He and a French coleague are presently completing a book on the origins of the Yugoslav crisis. ] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ----- DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
