Hillary Clinton reitera compromiso de EE.UU. de continuar agitando conflictos en África y Oriente Medio

POR LUIS MIRANDA | THE REAL AGENDA | ENERO 25, 2013

Mientras los grandes conflictos en el Medio Oriente comienzan a menguar, los Estados Unidos se prepara para la apoyar guerras y  conflictos en otras regiones del mundo. De hecho, la historia muestra que el intervencionismo de EE.UU. ha sido un popurrí de intentos de desestabilización de gobiernos mediante la activación de grupos terroristas que hacen el trabajo sucio en nombre de Washington.

Si las palabras de Hillary Clinton realmente reflejan lo que se avecina en los próximos meses y años, el mundo verá una continuación de la actual política exterior estadounidense, que además de ataques militares, está compuesto también por guerra económica y financiera.

En su última aparición relevante como la Secretaria de Estado, Hillary Clinton advirtió al Congreso el miércoles que Estados Unidos tendrá que luchar contra Al Qaeda en el norte de África y lidiar con la inestabilidad y la inseguridad causada por las revoluciones en varios países árabes, que el propio EE.UU. ayudó a instigar. En su opinión, el gobierno de EE.UU. se verá obligado a participar directamente en la prevención de la propagación del terrorismo en la región. Clinton se olvidó de decir que la mayoría si no todos los actos de terrorismo se llevan a cabo ya sea por fuerzas especiales de Estados Unidos y miembros de la comunidad de inteligencia o por grupos terroristas armados y financiados por el gobierno de Estados Unidos.

“El ataque terrorista en Bengasi ocurrido el 11 de septiembre de 2012, en el que murieron cuatro estadounidenses valientes, son parte de un desafío estratégico más amplio para Estados Unidos y nuestros aliados en el norte de África”, dijo Clinton ante la Comisión de Asuntos Exteriores del Senado que investiga los hechos. Ningún miembro de la Comisión preguntó a Clinton sobre el papel de las fuerzas especiales de Estados Unidos o de otros grupos en el conflicto y tampoco ningún congresista le preguntó acerca de por qué las fuerzas estadounidenses recibieron la orden de retirarse, aunque estaban lo suficientemente cerca como para intervenir durante el ataque a la oficina consular estadounidense en Bengasi, Libia.

Clinton ha asumido la responsabilidad personal por los errores que se hayan podido cometer y que inevitablemente facilitaron el asesinato de los estadounidenses en Libia, pero dijo que no es un hecho aislado, atribuible a la falta de medidas de seguridad en el consulado en Bengasi, sino a una ofensiva más amplia a la que los EE.UU. está obligado a responder con urgencia. “Lo que significa,” ella dijo, “es que tenemos que redoblar nuestros esfuerzos para luchar contra el terrorismo y para encontrar maneras de apoyar a la naciente democracia en el Norte de África y en otros lugares.”

“Nos enfrentamos”, recordó, “a un ambiente amenazador que cambia rápidamente, y debemos trabajar para aumentar la presión sobre Al Qaeda en el Magreb Islámico y otros grupos terroristas en la región. Hemos diezmado a Al Qaeda en Afganistán y Pakistán, pero sus miembros se han dispersado a otros países “, agregó. Como se ha informado por los medios de comunicación, Estados Unidos patrocina a grupos afiliados a Al Qaeda en Libia y Siria como parte de un contingente internacional de terroristas que trabajaron con grupos de la oposición para derrocar a Gaddafi y que ahora están trabajando para destronar a Bashar al-Assad.

La Secretario de Estado se ha referido en particular a Malí “, donde la inestabilidad”, dijo, “ha creado un gran santuario para los terroristas, que tratan de extender su influencia y preparar nuevos ataques como el que vimos la semana pasada en Argelia”.

Clinton no se refirió a la actual operación militar francesa en ese país, pero dijo que “es importante que los EE.UU. mantenga su liderazgo en el Oriente Medio, África del Norte y el resto del mundo. Hemos avanzado mucho en los últimos cuatro años y no podemos salir ahora “, dijo, reafirmando el compromiso de Estados Unidos para ocupar algunas de las regiones más volátiles del mundo, donde, según la BBC, Francia y otros aliados han vuelto a reconquistar lo que una vez fue parte de sus colonias.

EE.UU. ha comenzado a ayudar a Francia mediante el transporte aéreo de las tropas francesas y equipo militar.

Clinton dijo que la diplomacia estadounidense está en pleno funcionamiento en la zona – lo que significa infiltración militar – lo que sugiere que otras medidas más fuertes se tomarán en los próximos meses. “Cuando los EE.UU. está ausente”, dijo, “el extremismo echa raíces, y nuestros intereses de seguridad en el país están amenazados.”

La Secretaria de Estado ha admitido que los movimientos revolucionarios ocurridos en los últimos dos años en el mundo árabe “tienen una dinámica complicada y han destruido las fuerzas de seguridad en la región, lo que establece las bases para la expansión del terrorismo. Afirmó que “muchas de las armas utilizadas por los terroristas en Argelia y Malí proceden de Libia, donde las autoridades actuales son incapaces de controlar todos los grupos armados que surgieron durante la revuelta contra Muammar Gaddafi.” En realidad las poderosas armas de las que Clinton habla, fueron proporcionados por los EE.UU. a esos mismos grupos terroristas para llevar a cabo ataques contra civiles inocentes en Libia.

Sólo John McCain y Rand Paul mostraron su descontento acerca de las excusas de Clinton. El congresista Paul dijo a Clinton que dada su falta de liderazgo la habría despedido de su cargo en el Departamento de Estado. Sin embargo, Paul y los demás miembros de la Comisión de Asuntos Exteriores fracasaron miserablemente pues no hicieron preguntas relevantes sobre lo que realmente sucedió en Bengasi.

El Demócrata John Kerry será sustituto de Clinton en el Departamento de Estado una vez que sea confirmado por el Congreso.

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Hillary Clinton reaffirms U.S. commitment to continue stirring conflicts in Africa and the Middle East

By LUIS MIRANDA | THE REAL AGENDA | JANUARY 24, 2013

As major conflicts in the Middle East wane down, the United States prepares itself to ramp up wars and conflict in other regions of the world. In fact, history shows that U.S. interventionism has been a potpourri of attempts to destabilize governments by activating proxy terrorist groups that do the dirty work on behalf of Washington.

If Hillary Clinton’s words were to mirror what is coming in the next few months and years, the world will see a continuation of the current foreign policy, which in addition to military attacks, is also composed by financial and economic warfare.

In her latest relevant appearance as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton warned Congress on Wednesday that the United States will have to fight Al Qaeda in North Africa and the instability and insecurity caused by revolutions in several Arab countries, which the U.S. itself helped instigate. In her opinion, the U.S. government will be forced to become directly involved in preventing the spread of terrorism in the region. Clinton forgot to say that most if not all acts of terrorism are either carried out by U.S. special forces and members of the intelligence community or executed by terrorist groups armed and financed by the United States government.

“The terrorist attacks in Benghazi on September 11, 2012, which killed four brave Americans, are part of a broader strategic challenge for the United States and our allies in North Africa,” Clinton told the Foreign Affairs Committee Senate investigating those events. No one in the Committee questioned Clinton about the role of U.S. special forces or other groups in the conflict and neither did any congressman asked about why U.S. forces were ordered to stand down, even though  they were close enough to intervene during the attack on the U.S. office in Benghazi.

Clinton has taken personal responsibility for any errors that may have been made to prevent the death of Americans in Libya, but said it is not a single event, attributable to the lack of security measures at the consulate in Benghazi, but a broader offensive to which the U.S. is obliged to respond with urgency. “Which means,” she said, “to intensify our efforts to combat terrorism and to find ways to support the emerging democracy in North Africa and elsewhere.”

“We face,” she recalled, “a menacing environment rapidly changing, and we must work to increase the pressure on al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and other terrorist groups in the region. We’ve decimated al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but its members have dispersed to other countries,” she added. As it has been reported by the media, U.S. sponsored al Qaeda-affiliated groups arrived in Libya and Syria as part of an international contingent of terrorists who worked with government opposition groups to bring down Gaddafi and who are now working to dethrone Bashar al-Assad.

The Secretary of State has referred particularly to Mali, “where instability,” she said, “has created a large sanctuary for terrorists, seeking to extend their influence and prepare new attacks like the one we saw last week in Algeria.”

Clinton did not refer to the current French military operation in that country, but said that “it is important that the U.S. maintain its leadership in the Middle East, North Africa and the rest of the world. We have come far in the past four years and we can not leave now,” she said, reaffirming the American commitment to occupy some of the most volatile regions in the world, where, according to the BBC, France and other allies have returned to reconquer what once was part of their colonies.

U.S. has begun helping France by providing air transport of French troops and military equipment.

Clinton said that American diplomacy is in full operation in the area — that means military infiltration — which suggests that other stronger measures will be taken in the coming months. “When the U.S. is absent,” she said, “there are consequences: extremism takes root, and our security interests at home are threatened.”

The Secretary of State has admitted that revolutionary movements occurred in the last two years in the Arab world “have complicated power dynamics and have destroyed the security forces in the region”, which provides the ground for the spread of terrorism. She stated that “many of the weapons used by terrorists in Argelia and Mali come from Libya”, where the current authorities are powerless to control all armed groups that emerged during the revolt against Muammar Gaddafi. In reality, powerful weapons were provided by the U.S. to those same terrorist groups to carry out attacks on innocent civilians in Libya.

Only John McCain and Rand Paul showed a bit more dissatisfaction about Clinton’s excuses. Congressman Paul told Clinton that given her lack of leadership he would have dismissed her from her position at the State Department. However, Paul and the other members of the  Foreign Affairs Committee failed miserably to ask real questions about what really happened in Benghazi.

Democrat John Kerry will be Clinton’s substitute at the State Department once he is confirmed in Congress.

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Hillary Clinton takes the blame on Benghazi in dramatic appearance before Congress

By LUIS MIRANDA | THE REAL AGENDA | JANUARY 23, 2013

United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on took full responsibility on Wednesday for the attack that killed 11 people, including the U.S. Ambassador in the U.S. consulate in Benghazi last September 11.

Clinton appeared at a hearing before the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate and asked its members to work with her successor in office to respond to new threats in North Africa.

Clinton responded to several questions about security problems detected in the consulate in Benghazi, the measures taken to protect the U.S. response to terrorist threats in North Africa, and the reaction from the State Department to prevent similar attacks occur in the future.

“I take full responsibility and no one is more committed than me to learn the lessons of this attack,” said the secretary. Clinton said the State Department created an internal commission to determine the different measures that can prevent a similar attack and repeat all of them, a set of 65 strategic changes will be implemented by March.

“It is absolutely essential that this committee work with the new secretary of state to understand the challenges, that are increasingly complex,” said Clinton.

“You can not say we agree on everything, but let’s focus on what really matters.” Clinton has asked the committee to abandon confrontations such as those surrounding the statements of the U.S. ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, that ended with her refusal to be considered as his replacement at the head of U.S. diplomacy.

The secretary strongly defended the role of Rice and her remarks four days after the attack on the consulate and asked the Senate Republicans to put aside their doubts about the time that that took the Administration to recognize that it was a terrorist attack.

“What difference does that make in a time when the government was still trying to determine the cause of the deaths of four U.S. citizens?” Clinton responded with great anger, and stroke the table with her left hand. “It took several days to get a clear picture of what had happened.”

The head of U.S. diplomacy answered several questions about the security measures taken by the Department to protect its representatives abroad, especially after the instability created by the Arab Spring in various countries in the region, which incidentally was sponsored by the United States government, among other Western nations. The U.S. actually armed much of the opposition that apparently took down Mubarak in Egypt, Gaddafi in Libya and that is now trying to take down Assad in Syria.

Several Republican politicians have argued since then that the secretary rejected requests from various embassies to increase security, something she has rejected by saying that she was “shocked” by such assumptions.

Clinton said at the beginning of her appearance, that the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens “is a personal matter, not just professional” and that she feels responsible for the lives of the 70,000 employees who work for the State Department.

Hillary Clinton had initially refused to appear before Congress alleging she was ill when the request was issued, but she later agreed to appear given growing political and popular demands to have an official explanation of the facts.

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Mitt Romney will continue Obama’s Plan to destroy the Middle East and North Africa

By LUIS MIRANDA | THE REAL AGENDA | OCTOBER 10, 2012

The Republican candidate for the U.S. presidency, Mitt Romney said Tuesday  that if he wins the election next November, the United States will continue to arm the opposition in Syria to fight against the regime of Bashar al-Assad. This statement may be surprising for many who see Romney as an alternative to Obama’s failed ‘hope and change’ hoax. But the truth is that neither candidate seems to deviate significantly from the travesty administration of George W. Bush, who democrats blame for everything that Obama inherited; or from Bill Clinton who built carried out the same policies that Bush Sr., Bush Jr. and Obama support.

The thought that a Romney presidency will further help set up the Middle East and North Africa ablaze is not so strange. Mitt Romney himself has said it clearly in his speech at the  Virginia Military Institute in Lexington. He assured the audience that if elected on November 6, he will work with U.S. allies to “identify and organize the Syrian opposition members” who share their values “and to ensure they get the weapons they need to defeat tanks, helicopters and planes from the Assad government”. This statement is revealing indeed. Mr. Romney has confessed that his administration shares the same values of the Syrian opposition groups.

The Syrian fighters are admittedly, US and NATO supported members of Al-Qaeda and its affiliate terrorist groups, so in a sense, Romney has admitted to supporting the use of terrorism to bring about change in Syria. As The Real Agenda has reported before, the terrorist militias that attack innocent people in Syria are the same groups that operate from across right across the border on Turkish territory. These are also the same groups that launched a false-flag attack against Turkey — the weapons used belonged to NATO — to blame Syria for it, so Turkey would have an excuse to fire its weapons against Syria. The government of Turkey has officially approved legislation to attack Syria and it has been doing so for the past 7 days. The move has been praised by NATO, the UN the United States government and of course Mr. Romney himself.

During his speech in Virginia, the former governor of Massachusetts criticized the “passive policy” of President Barack Obama in the Middle East conflict, and the absence of a strong reaction to the attack on an American consulate in Libya last month that killed U.S. ambassador, Chris Stevens, and three other U.S. officials. So for Romney the killing of hundreds of people by US allies and guerrilla groups that operate clandestinely in Libya and Syria, and which are funded with American taxpayer dollars is way too passive. As it has now been revealed, the attack on the American consulate was at the very least overlooked by the Obama administration after receiving multiple requests and warnings that the attack was coming.

According to Romney, Obama has failed both Israel and the Palestinians, as “what should be a negotiation process has become a series of heated disputes in the United Nations,” said Romney. “In this old conflict, as in every challenge we face in the Middle East, only a new president will bring the opportunity to start over. There is a yearning for American leadership,” said the candidate, who gave no details of his plan for the region.

Romney said that the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, which incidentally happened on September 11, was probably the work of “the same forces” who bombed the US in 2001. “You can not blame this attack on a video that insulted Islam even though the government has tried to convince us of it for so long,” he added.

Regarding the Iranian threat, the Republican to occupy the White House said it would take in “new sanctions and tighten” existing ones to bring Iran to its knees. “I will restore the permanent presence of aircraft carrier task forces in both the eastern Mediterranean and in the Gulf region, and work with Israel to increase military assistance and coordination,” he added. In other words, Romney intends not only to sustain the current murderous campaign being carried out by Barack Obama, but also to increase the level of aggression against non aligned nations.

Obama is credited — wrongfully many argue — with the death of the leader of the terrorist network Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, the end of the war in Iraq, a limited military intervention that ended the regime of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya with intensified air attacks with drones against suspected terrorists, and the gradual reduction of troops in Afghanistan.

As a political candidate, Romney has adopted the concept of many conservatives in the United States according to which political systems of Europe, especially the French, are socialists and contrary to the “free market” American style. This is true, just as it is true what Romney said about self-entitled, government-dependent people who can never get enough welfare and who knowingly choose to support the bribery system sponsored by the central government.

But the similarities between Obama and Romney do not stop at speeches given to brainwashed supporters. Both the US president and the Republican candidate believe that government can and should Bailouts, ‘too big to fail’ entities, provide free money to banks and corporations in the form of stimulus packages, use quantitative easing and deficit spending as development policies, send troops to protect others borders and sending taxpayer money to foreign dictators, intervene in the affairs of other nations, restrict gun ownership, surveil and oppress citizens with tools such as the Patriot Act and warrantless wiretaps and so on.

Both presidential candidates also support the indefinite detention of American citizens without charge, trial or legal counsel. They both support the assassinations of American citizens or anyone else without due process and socialized healthcare, among others.

Choosing the least dangerous option this time around is just not a viable way to go this time for the American people, because Romney and Obama as equally dangerous.

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Kosovo’s “Mafia State” Sponsors Permanent US Heroin Trade and Money Laundering

By F. WILLIAM ENGDAHL | GLOBAL RESEARCH | APRIL 13, 2012

In one of the more bizarre foreign policy announcements of a bizarre Obama Administration, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has announced that Washington will “help” Kosovo to join NATO as well as the European Union. She made the pledge after a recent Washington meeting with Kosovan Prime Minister Hashim Thaci in Washington where she praised the progress of the Thaci government in its progress in “European integration and economic development.” ¹

Her announcement no doubt caused serious gas pains among government and military officials in the various capitals of European NATO. Few people  appreciate just how mad Clinton’s plan to push Kosovo into NATO and the EU is.

Basic Kosovo geopolitics

The controversial piece of real estate today called Kosovo was a part of Yugoslavia and tied to Serbia until the NATO bombing campaign in 1999 demolished what remained of Milosevic’s Serbia and  opened the way for the United States, with the dubious assist of EU nations, above all Germany, to carve up the former Yugoslavia into tiny, dependent pseudo states. Kosovo became one, as did Macedonia. Slovenia and Croatia had earlier split off from Yugoslavia with a strong assist from the German Foreign Ministry.

Some brief review of the circumstances leading to the secession of Kosovo from Yugoslavia will help locate how risky a NATO membership or EU membership would be for the future of Europe. Hashim Thaci the current Kosovo Prime Minister, got his job, so to speak, through the US State Department and not via free democratic Kosovo elections. Kosovo is not recognized as a legitimate state by either Russia or Serbia or over one hundred other nations. However, it was immediately recognized when it declared independence in 2008 by the Bush Administration and by Berlin.

 Membership into the EU for Kosovo would be welcoming another failed state, something which may not bother US Secretary Clinton, but which the EU at this juncture definitely can do without. Best estimates place unemployment in the country at as much as 60%. That is not just Third World level. The economy was always the poorest in Yugoslavia and today it is worse. Yet the real issue in terms of the future of EU peace and security is the nature of the Kosovo state that has been created by Washington since the late 1990’s.

 Mafia State and Camp Bondsteel

 Kosovo is a tiny parcel of land in one of the most strategic locations in all Europe from a geopolitical standpoint of the US military objective of controlling oil flows and political developments from the oil-rich Middle East to Russia and Western Europe. The current US-led recognition of the self-declared Republic of Kosovo is a continuation of US policy for the Balkans since the illegal 1999 US-led NATO bombing of Serbia—a NATO “out-of-area” deployment never approved by the UN Security Council, allegedly on the premise that Milosevic’s army was on the verge of carrying out a genocidal massacre of Kosovo Albanians.

 Some months before the US-led bombing of Serbian targets, one of the heaviest bombings since World War II, a senior US intelligence official in private conversation told Croatian senior army officers in Zagreb about Washington’s strategy for former Yugoslavia. According to these reports, communicated privately to this author, the Pentagon goal already in late 1998 was to take control of Kosovo in order to secure a military base to control the entire southeast European region down to the Middle East oil lands.

 Since June 1999 when the NATO Kosovo Force (KFOR) occupied Kosovo, then an integral part of then-Yugoslavia, Kosovo was technically under a United Nations mandate, UN Security Council Resolution 1244. Russia and China also agreed to that mandate, which specifies the role of KFOR to ensure an end to inter-ethnic fighting and atrocities between the Serb minority population, others and the Kosovo Albanian Islamic majority. Under 1244 Kosovo would remain part of Serbia pending a peaceful resolution of its status. That UN Resolution was blatantly ignored by the US, German and other EU parties in 2008.

 Germany’s and Washington’s prompt recognition of Kosovo’s independence in February 2008, significantly, came days after elections for President in Serbia confirmed pro-Washington Boris Tadic had won a second four year term. With Tadic’s post secured, Washington could count on a compliant Serbian reaction to its support for Kosovo.

 Immediately after the bombing of Serbia in 1999 the Pentagon seized a 1000 acre large parcel of land in Kosovo at Uresevic near the border to Macedonia, and awarded a contract to Halliburton when Dick Cheney was CEO there, to build one of the largest US overseas military bases in the world, Camp Bondsteel, with more than 7000 troops today.

 The Pentagon has already secured seven new military bases in Bulgaria and Romania on the Black Sea in the Northern Balkans, including the Graf Ignatievo and Bezmer airbases in Bulgaria and Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base in Romania, which are used for “downrange” military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Romanian installation hosts the Pentagon’s Joint Task Force–East. The US’s colossal Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo and the use and upgrading of Croatian and Montenegrin Adriatic harbors for US Navy deployments complete the militarization of the Balkans.[ii]

 The US strategic agenda for Kosovo is primarily military, secondarily, it seems, narcotics trafficking. Its prime focus is against Russia and for control of oil flows from the Caspian Sea to the Middle East into Western Europe. By declaring its independence, Washington gains a weak state which it can fully control. So long as it remained a part of Serbia, that NATO military control would be politically insecure. Today Kosovo is controlled as a military satrapy of NATO, whose KFOR has 16,000 troops there for a tiny population of 2 million. Its Camp Bondsteel is one of a string of so-called forward operating bases and “lily pads” as Donald Rumsfeld called them, for military action to the east and south. Now formally bringing Kosovo into the EU and to NATO will solidify that military base now that the Republic of Georgia under US protégé Saakashvili failed so miserably in 2008 to fill that NATO role.

 Heroin Transport Corridor

 US-NATO military control of Kosovo serves several purposes for Washington’s greater geo-strategic agenda. First it enables greater US control over potential oil and gas pipeline routes into the EU from the Caspian and Middle East as well as control of the transport corridors linking the EU to the Black Sea.

 It also protects the multi-billion dollar heroin trade, which, significantly, has grown to record dimensions in Afghanistan according to UN narcotics officials, since the US occupation. Kosovo and Albania are major heroin transit routes into Europe. According to a 2008 US State Department annual report on international narcotics traffic, several key drug trafficking routes pass through the Balkans. Kosovo is mentioned as a key point for the transfer of heroin from Turkey and Afghanistan to Western Europe. Those drugs flow under the watchful eye of the Thaci government.

 Since its dealings with the Meo tribesmen in Laos during the Vietnam era, the CIA has protected narcotics traffic in key locations in order partly to finance its covert operations. The scale of international narcotics traffic today is such that major US banks such as Citigroup are reported to derive a significant share of their profits from laundering the proceeds.

 One of the notable features of the indecent rush by Washington and other states to immediately recognize the independence of Kosovo is the fact that they well knew its government and both major political parties were in fact run by Kosovo Albanian organized crime.

 Hashim Thaci, Prime Minister of Kosovo and head of the Democratic Party of Kosovo, is the former leader of the terrorist organization which the US and NATO trained and called the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, or in Albanian, UCK. In Kosovo crime circles he is known as Hashim “The Snake” for his personal ruthlessness against opponents.

 In 1997, President Clinton’s Special Balkans Envoy, Robert Gelbard described the KLA as, “without any question a terrorist group.” It was far more. It was a klan-based mafia, impossible therefore to infiltrate, which controlled the underground black economy of Kosovo. Today the Democratic Party of Thaci, according to European police sources, retains its links to organized crime.

 A February 22, 2005 German BND report, labeled Top Secret, which has since been leaked, stated, “Über die Key-Player (wie z. B. Haliti, Thaci, Haradinaj) bestehen engste Verflechtungen zwischen Politik, Wirtschaft und international operierenden OK-Strukturen im Kosovo. Die dahinter stehenden kriminellen Netzwerke fördern dort die politische Instabilität. Sie haben kein Interesse am Aufbau einer funktionierenden staatlichen Ordnung, durch die ihre florierenden Geschäfte beeinträchtigt werden können.“ (OK=Organized Kriminalität). (Translation: “Through the key players—for example Thaci, Haliti, Haradinaj—there is the closest interlink between politics, the economy and international organized crime in Kosovo. The criminal organizations in the background there foster political instability. They have no interest at all in the building of a functioning orderly state that could be detrimental to their booming business.”3

 The KLA began action in 1996 with the bombing of refugee camps housing Serbian refugees from the wars in Bosnia and Croatia. The KLA repeatedly called for the “liberation” of areas of Montenegro, Macedonia and parts of Northern Greece. Thaci is hardly a figure of regional stability to put it mildly.

 The 44 year old Thaci was a personal protégé of Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine Albright during the 1990s, when he was a mere 30-year old gangster. The KLA was supported from the outset by the CIA and the German BND. During the 1999 war the KLA was directly supported by NATO. At the time he was picked up by the USA in the mid-1990s, Thaci was founder of the Drenica Group, a criminal syndicate in Kosovo with ties to Albanian, Macedonian and Italian organized mafias.  A classified January 2007 report prepared for the EU Commission, labeled “VS-Nur für den Dienstgebrauch” was leaked to the media. It detailed the organized criminal activity of KLA and its successor Democratic Party under Thaci.

 A December 2010 Council of Europe report, released a day after Kosovo’s election commission said Mr Thaci’s party won the first post-independence election, accused Western powers of complicity in ignoring the activities of the crime ring headed by Thaci: “Thaci and these other ‘Drenica Group’ members are consistently named as ‘key players’ in intelligence reports on Kosovo’s mafia-like structures of organised crime,” the report said. “We found that the ‘Drenica Group’ had as its chief – or, to use the terminology of organised crime networks, its ‘boss’ – the renowned political operator … Hashim Thaci.” 4

 The report stated that Thaci exerted “violent control” over the heroin trade. Dick Marty, the European Union investigator, presented the report to European diplomats from all member states. The response was silence. Washington was behind Thaci.5

 The same Council of Europe report on Kosovo organized crime accused Thaci’s mafia organization of dealing in trade in human organs. Figures from Thaçi’s inner circle were accused of taking captives across the border into Albania after the war, where a number of Serbs are said to have been murdered for their kidneys that were sold on the black market. In one case revealed in legal proceedings in a Pristina district court in 2008 organs were said to have been taken from impoverished victims at a clinic known as Medicus – linked to Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) organ harvesting in 2000.6

 The question then becomes, why are Washington, NATO, the EU and inclusive and importantly, the German Government, so eager to legitimize the breakaway Kosovo? A Kosovo run internally by organized criminal networks is easy for NATO to control. It insures a weak state which is far easier to bring under NATO domination. Combined with NATO control over Afghanistan where the Kosovo heroin controlled by Prime Minister Thaci originates, the Pentagon is building a web of encirclement around Russia that is anything but peaceful.

 The Thaci dependence on US and NATO good graces insures Thaci’s government will do what it is asked. That, in turn, assures the US a major military gain consolidating its permanent presence in the strategically vital southeast Europe. It is a major step in consolidating NATO control of Eurasia, and gives the US a large swing its way in the European balance of power. Little wonder Moscow has not welcomed the development, nor have numerous other states. The US is literally playing with dynamite, potentially as well with nuclear war in the Balkans.

*F. William Engdahl is author of Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order. He may be contacted via his website, www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net

Notes

1 RIA Novosti, US to Help Kosovo Join EU NATO: Clinton, April 5, 2012, accessed in
http://en.rian.ru/world/20120405/172621125.html.

 2 Rick Rozoff, Pentagon and NATO Complete Their Conquest of The Balkans, Global Research, November 28, 2009, accessed in
www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16311.

 3 Tom Burghardt, The End of the Affair: The BND, CIA and Kosovo’s Deep State, accessed in

http://wikileaks.org/wiki/The_End_of_the_Affair%3F_The_BND%2C_CIA_and_Kosovo%27s_Deep_State.

 4 The Telegraph, Kosovo’s prime minister ‘key player in mafia-like gang,’ December 14, 2010, accessed in
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/kosovo/8202700/Kosovos-prime-minister-key-player-in-mafia-like-gang.html.

 5 Ibid.

 6  Paul Lewis, Kosovo PM is head of human organ and arms ring Council of Europe reports, The Guardian, 14 December 2010.

 F. William Engdahl is a frequent contributor to Global Research.  Global Research Articles by F. William Engdahl