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Will American Empire End Before It
Ends the World?
By Paul Craig Roberts
25/02/08 "ICH" -- -- The hypocrisy of US government officials is
boundless. On February 18, the US government inflamed Serbians
by recognizing Muslim separatists in Kosovo, a historic province
of Serbia, as an independent country. Two hundred thousand Serbs
marched in protest and the US embassy in Belgrade was damaged.
Is this surprising? No, not unless you are an official in the
American Empire. The notorious Empire Neocon Counsel, Azlmay
Khalilzad, Bush’s representative to the UN, declared: “I’m
outraged by the mob attack.”
What’s an embassy building compared to a province of Serbia, a
province that stirs nationalist sentiments associated with the
Serbs long military struggles with the Turks? Had it not been
for the Serbs, Europeans would probably be Turks.
To neocon Khalilzad a province of Serbia is nothing. It is
merely real estate to be given away by US recognition bestowed
on a break-away movement led by what some consider to be a gang
of Muslim drug runners.
Secretary of State Condi Rice also found the Serbian response to
the US giving away part of their country to be “intolerable.”
Former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke also sees
no reason for the Serbs to be upset that America gave away part
of their country. He explained away the Serbian protests by
declaring: “The Russians are behind this.”
We can understand why US diplomacy is a failure when we see our
diplomats explaining that, had it not been for the Russians
stirring them up, Serbians wouldn’t have noticed the loss of a
historic part of their country.
Perhaps Kosovo should have its independence. However, the US
government could not have handled the issue in a more
provocative way.
Washington has been interfering in Serbian internal affairs
since the Clinton administration. Told that Americans had to
prevent genocide, few paid enough attention to Washington’s
facilitation of the breakup of the Yugoslav state during the
1990s and to the Clinton administration’s bombing and murder of
Serbian civilians in order to support Muslim separatists in
Kosovo in 1999. Clinton used NATO as cover, but the bombing
campaign was not backed by the UN Security Council. Bombs fell
on Serbia for 78 days, taking out public infrastructure,
bridges, factories, power stations, petrochemical plants,
telecommunications facilities, markets, refugees, the Chinese
Embassy and a passenger train. “Sorry honey, tell the kids I
won’t be home tonight. President Clinton decided to bomb my
train.” Cluster bombs and depleted uranium were used. Clearly,
the US government and its NATO puppets were guilty of war crimes
under the Nuremberg standard.
Americans were told by an obedient media that the bombings were
necessary in order to prevent Yugoslav leader, Slobodan
Milosevic, from committing war crimes against the separatists
who were stealing part of his country. After Clinton’s bombings
intimidated the Serbian political establishment, Milosevic was
turned out of office and handed over to the Americans for a
payment of several hundred million dollars and delivered to the
Hague for trial as a war criminal.
Milosevic represented himself at his trial and was more than a
match for the trumped up charges. Unfortunately, he died in
prison. Many believe he was helped on his way by an embarrassed
American Empire unable to convict him.
What is the US government’s secret agenda in the Balkans? Why is
the US government on the side of Muslims intent on severing
Kosovo from Serbia? What is being served by creating a new
Muslim state closer to Europe?
Whose interests are being served by Washington? Clearly, not our
own. Or Europe’s.
And, please, none of that BS about “building freedom and
democracy.” As one of England’s most famous conservatives,
Peregrine Worsthorne, wrote on February 20, America’s reputation
as “the West’s conscience is fatally weakened.”
Supposedly our time is the era of globalism and one worldism.
Ancient European nationalities are dissolving into the European
Union, a new super state. US corporations now have transnational
interests devoid of any national loyalties. Yet, the US is hard
at work dissolving a small Balkan state into even smaller
constituent parts. Why is this happening? Why did Bush order US
puppets in Britain, France and Germany to instantly recognize
the historic Serbian province as a new Muslim state?
Is the new state of Kosovo, as rumors would have it, Richard
Perle’s payoff to the Turks, or is the explanation that Serbia,
like Palestine, Iraq, and Iran, lacking any international media
reach, was easy for Empire Neocons to demonize in order to
establish the precedent that Washington decides what territory
belongs to who and who rules it. Clinton’s bombing of Serbia was
a precedent for Bush’s bombing of Afghanistan and Iraq and now
Africa and tomorrow Iran and Syria.
The day the Empire Crazies bomb Russia or China, we are all
fried.
Be a macho super patriot, believe your government, help to fry
the world. It’s the American way.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury
during President Reagan’s first term. He was Associate Editor of
the Wall Street Journal. He has held numerous academic
appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for
Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and
Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
He was awarded the Legion of Honor by French President Francois
Mitterrand.
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