This is how Norwegian diplomacy helped destroy Yugoslavia

Are Norwegian diplomats stealth agents of NATO? They say so themselves, and they played a leading role in the destruction of Yugoslavia.

- In 1998-99, Knut Vollebaek, the Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs, was Chairman in Office of the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe).

- In late 1998, NATO forced Yugoslavia under threat of bombs to accept into Kosovo an OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission (KVM), which was ostensibly a “peace verification” mission to monitor a “cease-fire” between the Yugoslav army and the KLA.

- In early 1999, the American OSCE team, together with the KLA, alleged that the Yugoslav army had carried out a massacre against civilians in the town of Racak. It later was revealed to be a hoax.

- On March 24, 1999, NATO bombed Yugoslavia, using the massacre that didn’t happen at Racak as an excuse.

The above four points are not coincidentally related. Taking orders from US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Knut Vollebaek allowed the American OSCE mission in Kosovo—which was crawling with CIA operatives—to help engineer a false excuse for war—the ‘Racak massacre’ hoax. The same Knut Vollebaek then bullied and threatened Milosevic on behalf of these same CIA operatives. Finally, as chairman of the OSCE, he lent a phony veneer of “international respectability” to NATO’s illegal (i.e. never approved by the UN Security Council) bombing of Yugoslavia.

Vollebaek was a main architect of the strategy which used covertly sponsored terrorists (the KLA) to destroy Yugoslavia. Understanding this is of great importance because Vollebaek has gone on to design other things. The Sri Lanka "Peace" Process, which is taking its first steps as I write, is a Vollebaek creation. We can expect great suffering in Sri Lanka, just as there has been great suffering in Yugoslavia. We can also expect that the Tamil Tiger terrorists in Sri Lanka will be given a 'freedom fighter' image by this process, just as the same was done with the terrorist KLA in Yugoslavia, and with the terrorist Fatah in Palestine, also as a result of Norwegian diplomatic intervention. And we can expect, finally, that events in Sri Lanka will be portrayed exactly the opposite of what will in fact happen, just as the same was done in Yugoslavia.

For all of these reasons it is important to understand what happened in Yugoslavia. Below I document how Vollebaek helped destroy Yugoslavia, knowing full well what he was doing. I end with an explanation of the dangers to Sri Lanka and India in the "peace" process which Vollebaek has set in motion there.

Norwegian international “mediation”: how does it work?

Vollebaek is our central character, but to understand what he does we need to set the scene, for Vollebaek is just one of the players (though a very important one) in what is a curious 'special relationship' between the US government and Norwegian diplomats.

We shall let Vollebaek himself set the scene. The following quotation, from The Washington Diplomat, expresses very well what most people assume about Norway and its international diplomacy.

Perhaps you have wondered: why Norway? Why did Norway, of all countries, get asked to broker a peace agreement between Israel and the PLO?

Because the innocent appearance—which Vollebaek tries hard to project, above—is of a harmless little country, neutral in every way, populated by a peace-loving Nordic people with a benevolent attitude towards humankind, seeking only to export their compassionate socialist values. For these reasons—or so the marketing goes—Norway can be trusted by all sides in an international conflict.

But don't take it from me. We shall ask the Norwegians, who all but confessed the whole game in a recent Christian Science Monitor article[1], excerpts of which I reproduce below:

Non-governmental organizations doing good by helping the neutral and gentle Norse—who lack any expertise or contacts of their own—conduct ‘peacekeeping diplomacy.’ Wonderful? Don’t applaud too hysterically. Ask yourself first why an absurd doublespeak label such as ‘non-governmental’ should ever be employed.

If I offered you a ride on my ‘non-reptilian horse,’ you’d think I was mad. Every horse is non-reptilian, so why speak like that? Similarly, why say ‘non-governmental organization’? It is perfectly redundant, as everybody knows that government institutions are called secretariats, agencies, departments, bureaus, or ministries, but never organizations. The exception is when several governments come together in the manner of private individuals (e.g. OSCE), and this confirms the rule: ‘organization’ connotes ‘private concern.’

But "non-governmental organization" is not merely redundant—it is also awkward. One could be more elegantly redundant with ‘private organization,’ so the insistence on the more awkward phrase suggests that somebody thinks the explicit message—not government—is important.

Why? Well, suppose you found evidence of direct, indirect, or covert government ties, influence, and funding for an alleged ‘non-governmental organization,’ and perhaps even noticed that their top leadership positions were revolving doors for highly-placed government insiders. Would you conclude it was a branch of government? Perhaps not if you had to say NGO—‘non-governmental organization’—every time you talked or thought about it. The point of doublespeak is to spread disinformation and preempt political awareness.

Emperor’s Clothes has documented government control for many alleged ‘non-governmental organizations,’ and we are not alone: academics are showing a growing interest in this.[2]

If Norwegian diplomats are manipulated by organizations that are covertly governmental, then they are not doing neutral ‘peacemaking diplomacy’ but somebody else’s geopolitical chess-playing. So the key question is: which government (or governments) controls the NGOs that ‘advise’ the Norwegians?

“Impotent Superpower, Potent Small State…” It says it all, doesn’t it? Since there is only one superpower, the founding document for the Norwegian strategy says in its title that what Norway calls its 'peacemaking diplomacy' is really on behalf of the United States.

Norway in fact shares many strategic interests with the US, and we see above why: it “has been a member of NATO from the start” and therefore “It is not neutral.” In fact, it is difficult to imagine any significant strategic interests of Norway that would not coincide with those of the NATO alliance leadership given that Norway is not, by itself, a global player.

Norwegians use their international diplomacy to beg for US and other NATO countries' attention? Well, beggars must be ingratiating. Obviously, therefore, Norway has a clear stake in seeing that its international diplomacy always fulfills the NATO foreign-policy elite’s wishes.

So, if Norway has a stake in seeing NATO get its way, and if it has no strategic interests that would clash with NATO, then when Mona Juul says (above) that in Norway "'We don't have stakes or strategic interests' that might make one side or another in a conflict suspect ulterior motives" she is just giving us a lot of disinformation.

The truth is that Norway has no stakes or strategic interests that are not NATO's own. And therefore, if the US-led Empire has ulterior motives in any particular conflict in which Norway is diplomatically deployed, then so does Norway.

Certainly, Norway's appearance of neutrality and harmlessness, which Juul tries to reinforce, convinces many that Norwegian diplomats may be trusted. Control of Norway thus solves two problems for the NATO foreign-policy establishment:

There you have it. Egeland, who invented the system,[3] spells it out loud and clear. The Norwegian diplomats have spoken.

I shall now examine in depth one specific case in which NATO deployed Norwegian diplomacy aggressively in order to destroy a country. This is the tragic case of Yugoslavia.

I. NATO’s gunboat diplomacy on behalf of Knut Vollebaek's OSCE

In 1998-1999, Knut Vollebaek, the Norwegian Foreign Minister and therefore Norway's highest diplomat, was Chairman in Office of the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe).

In 1998, NATO forced Slobodan Milosevic’s government to accept the presence of OSCE "peace verification" teams in Kosovo. But NATO didn't do this over the objections of the OSCE's Chairman-in-Office. Rather, Knut Vollebaek was part of this policy from the beginning. Here we analyze what the real purpose of Vollebaek's OSCE mission in Kosovo really was.

First, recall that NATO had never yet gone to war against anybody, and its charter was explicitly and famously defensive, not offensive. Given this, one might expect that only a tremendous emergency would cause NATO to completely contradict its founding charter by shifting to an unprecedented posture of offensive ultimatums against a sovereign nation-state that was not threatening the security of any NATO member.

If the Yugoslav army had "largely defeated the KLA," then it was all over. A war that has ended is the exact opposite of an urgent crisis.

Of course, the outcome of a war may be unacceptable on moral grounds. But this was not the case, for the Yugoslav army had just defeated a collection of brutal terrorists who preyed on the same people they claimed to represent.

If, as was blared in the mainstream Western press, the Yugoslav army was bent on cleansing the Albanians out of Kosovo, or even on systematically depriving them of their rights, this would have driven all Albanians straight into the arms of the KLA and made them wildly popular. Instead, we find:

All of this is consistent with the Yugoslav army’s claims to have been defending all innocent civilians—Albanian and Serb—from the KLA terrorists. It is also consistent with the Yugoslav government's claims that Albanians in Kosovo were never oppressed (quite the opposite), something that I can document with materials from the US military itself! (click here)

It was well known that they were terrorists, and earlier that same year (1998), US special envoy to the Balkans Robert Gelbard had “condemned the actions of an ethnic Albanian underground group Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK) which has claimed responsibility for a series of attacks on Serb targets. ‘We condemn very strongly terrorist actions in Kosovo. The UCK is, without any questions, a terrorist group [my emphasis],’ Gelbard said.”[5] It is now publicly known that the KLA finances itself by trafficking in heroin[6] and that it got both funds and personnel assistance from Al Qaeda.[7]

The responsibility for the death toll in Kosovo can be laid at the KLA’s feet. They were and are terrorists, behaving in the manner of unpopular separatists everywhere by victimizing even the people they claimed to represent. And this is who the Yugoslav army roundly defeated in 1998, pushing them out of the province of Kosovo.

So how did NATO react before the Yugoslav victory over brutal terrorists who victimized even the people they claimed to represent? They threatened the Yugoslavs with bombs...

NATO presented itself as doing a bit of necessary bullying for a good cause: to get the international OSCE observers to monitor that Albanian civilians not be attacked in Kosovo. But what NATO in fact did was help the brutal terrorists who preyed on innocent Albanians to take back lost territory.

It was no mistake. Although OSCE ‘international observers’ suggests ‘neutral observers,’ let’s not forget that the Chairman-In-Office of the OSCE was the Norwegian Foreign Minister Knut Vollebaek. Norwegian diplomats, we recall, work on behalf of the NATO foreign policy elite. Thus, NATO was putting its own people on the ground.

Well, the attack on Yugoslavia had nothing to do with events in Kosovo, real or imagined (click here). And so the OSCE 'observers' that Washington place in Kosovo had two main objectives:

The Racak “massacre” hoax

In January 1999 NATO leaders launched a media campaign, blasting Yugoslav security forces for excessive use of force and supposed atrocities. Many observers charged that NATO’s real goal was to foster a political climate that would permit the bombing of Yugoslavia. But NATO leaders claimed they had no ulterior purpose—theirs was just a decent reaction before gruesome ‘crimes’.

What ‘crimes’? Well, as reported in a recent Toronto Sun piece entitled “The Hoax That Started A War”:[8]

This alleged massacre of 45 ethnic Albanian civilians in the Kosovo town of Racak was the cassus belli—the pretext—for dropping bombs on Yugoslavia. As the Toronto Sun article's title blares it is now known that this was a hoax (click here for a full analysis of this fabrication).

But it was not merely a hoax: it was one that succeeded because William Walker, head of the American OSCE mission, was there to proclaim it a genuine "massacre" (and because the Western media then obligingly plastered this "opinion" all over its front-pages).

Knut Vollebaek's OSCE mission in Kosovo, which NATO forced the Yugoslav's to accept, was therefore a Trojan horse—an offensive action that initially appears like something else entirely, and which requires advance planning. The decision to attack Yugoslavia, obviously, had been taken long before.

The Yugoslav government demanded an investigation into the Racak allegations. Belorussian and Yugoslav forensic teams looked at the evidence and concluded there had been no massacre. A third team, Finnish, was chosen by Knut Vollebaek's OSCE to investigate because NATO supposedly didn't feel that the other two could be trusted (notice again the one-two step between NATO and the OSCE). The Finish team's report was withheld from publication.

Well, apparently so that Ranta could claim in public that Racak had been “a crime against humanity.” For, you see, this was a lie that her own report contradicted. The Finnish team’s report has finally become public and it agrees with the findings of the Belorussian and Yugoslav teams (click here). Other investigations since have reached the same conclusion: there was no massacre.

Well, the Yugoslav government was accused of using excessive force and of targeting civilians in Kosovo. Later, it was accused of genocide. But if the Yugoslav army was really behaving in such a reprehensible manner, why was a hoax necessary to make the argument?

If the KLA, which controlled 40% of the territory in Kosovo, needed a hoax in order to tarnish the Yugoslav army with accusations of abuses against civilians, then it needed it. The disciplined and humane Yugoslav army (whose rules of engagement require them to take losses rather than kill civilians[14]) had not obliged the KLA with a real massacre that they could use for propaganda purposes.

The Toronto Sun says in its headline that, because of the Racak hoax, “The U.S., Nato And The Western Media Were Conned In Kosovo.” Is that plausible?

Recall that (1) NATO forced Yugoslavia to accept the OSCE verification mission at gunpoint, (2) that the head of the OSCE is a Norwegian diplomat, (3) that the American component of Knut Vollebaek's OSCE mission cooperated in the Racak hoax, (4) that the head of the forensic team which Knut Vollebaek's OSCE handpicked didn't publish her own report and falsely claimed that Racak had been a crime against humanity," (5) that Madeleine Albright and the German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer rushed to use the Racak hoax as their excuse to launch a war (as they explained to the press themselves [9]), and (6) that the American OSCE mission was crawling with CIA agents who fanned to different parts of Kosovo to unify and train the KLA (see below)...

Was anybody conned? Yes, but not NATO, and not the Western media, and not Knut Vollebaek.

Who was in the loop about the Racak hoax?

There is every indication that William Walker, who headed the American OSCE mission in Kosovo, colluded with the KLA in staging the Racak hoax. First of all, William Walker immediately rushed to judgment, even though he was supposed to be a diplomat, rather than a forensic expert. Second, this sort of thing is Walker’s specialty (click here). Third, his OSCE mission was crawling with CIA operatives, as explained in a piece entitled “CIA Aided Kosovo Guerilla Army” that appeared in the Sunday Times of London:[10]

This reveals an intimate level of covert cooperation between the Walker OSCE mission (that is to say, the CIA) and the KLA. It also shows that, contrary to their puritanical denials,[11] NATO was planning from the very beginning to be the KLA’s air force.

Walker was perfect for this mission. He had earlier been a key player in bringing US assistance to the Salvadoran government’s massive terror campaign which included collusion with right-wing paramilitary terrorists. He was a key apologist for all sorts of atrocities committed by the Salvadoran government and its proxies, including the infamous massacre of several prominent Jesuit priests (click here). And he was a link in the illegal support given to the Contra terrorists. Later he was sent to Croatia, where the dismemberment of Yugoslavia began under the aegis of Franjo Tudjman’s revived Ustasha (Croatian Nazis), whose military were trained and supplied by American paramilitary companies with close ties to the CIA. These same companies placed their people in Walker's OSCE Kosovo mission.

So it is obvious that Walker was in Kosovo to cooperate with the KLA and the CIA in conning others.

But can we at least say that Madeleine Albright was duped by Walker’s CIA operatives and the KLA? Not really. Albright was eager to make war—so much so, in fact, that in Washington and in the media NATO’s bombing campaign got called “Albright’s War.”[12] This warlike eagerness, plus the fact that Albright immediately seized upon the Racak allegations as her excuse to go to war, suggest that she was knowingly involved. That does not close the case against her, but we must also consider that Albright handpicked Walker: "Walker... was nominated by Madeleine Albright, the American secretary of state." [12a] Albright was involved at the executive level.

So the KLA didn't con Walker, and it didn't con Albright. But did it con Knut Vollebaek, the Chairman-in-Office of the OSCE, under whose auspices the American mission carried out its dirty tricks?

Knut Vollebaek was very active in defending the behavior of the American OSCE mission and in insisting that the Yugoslavs allow this mission to operate unimpeded. His performance, as we shall see, demonstrates that he understood perfectly that the Walker OSCE mission—for which he was ultimately responsible—was a Trojan horse.

II. Knut Vollebaek prepares the ground for war

In the run-up to the bombing of Yugoslavia, which began on March 24, 1999, shortly after the ‘Racak massacre’ hoax exploded into the headlines, the Norwegian Knut Vollebaek, who was chairman of the OSCE, played a prominent role in (1) NATO’s gunboat diplomacy to keep William Walker in Kosovo against the wishes of the Yugoslav government; and (2) NATO’s gunboat diplomacy to compel Slobodan Milosevic to sign the Rambouillet so-called "Agreement."

As reported in the Sunday Times of London,[15] the Yugoslav government, like European diplomats in Belgrade, became understandably suspicious of William Walker because of his background. These suspicions appeared confirmed when Walker rushed to declare the Racak incident a ‘massacre’ against Albanian ‘civilians’ by the Yugoslav army. So Walker was ordered to leave. After a flurry of gunboat diplomacy in which Milosevic was told to either back off or get bombed, the expulsion order was “frozen.”

Albright’s meaning between the lines becomes very clear: if Walker is kicked out we pull everybody out, we declare a collapse of the cease-fire, and then we bomb, because the ‘collapse’ of the ‘cease-fire’ will give us the excuse we need. Translation: “Make my day.”

Madeleine Albright’s threat to remove the entire 750-person OSCE monitoring team deserves close attention. Albright, of course, was the US Secretary of State, not the Chairman in Office of the OSCE. That title, as we know, was held by Knut Vollebaek. The website of the OSCE explains the role of the OSCE chairman as follows:

The American delegation was about 130 people (as Walker is quoted saying in the Sunday Times of London[18]). These are all the people that Albright herself could threaten to pull out, not the entire 750-person OSCE monitoring team.

Knut Vollebaek had executive responsibility for the OSCE mission as a whole and, to boot, he also had a reasonable constituency for acting independently from Albright because the OSCE missions from other countries were upset with the behavior of the American mission.[19] Thus, only if Knut Vollebaek is a cog in Albright’s machine could she be so brazenly sure that such threats as removing the entire OSCE mission were hers to make.

But Vollebaek was much more than just a cog. He was dispatched to assist in the bullying of Milosevic.

Notice that NATO planes went on alert for possible strikes against Yugoslavia contingent on one man (!?) being issued his exit visa.

Let us leave all that aside and examine merely whether Vollebaek’s threats are even minimally consistent with his and NATO’s public protestations.

The Yugoslav government was complaining entirely about one person whom it considered biased and suspect, and this person was supposed to be a diplomat acting as a ‘peace-verifier.’ So the question is obvious: could not another person be found whom the Yugoslav government would not have objected to? Isn’t this incredibly easy and also the diplomatic thing to do? Should states threaten each other with war over the visa status of one individual?

But underneath the incomprehensible official story there is another story that perfectly explains NATO’s behavior. Walker had a very important covert role to play: he was in Kosovo to engineer the Racak hoax (which would provide a pretext for war), and also to fan out his CIA personnel for the purpose of training the KLA and establishing the necessary communication links in advance of the foreordained bombing of Serbia.

The flurry of desperate bullying and diplomacy to keep him in Kosovo suggests that he was the critical mastermind for the entire operation. And Albright’s prominent role in the frantic efforts to keep Walker in Kosovo are consistent with her full and complete understanding of the Walker mission’s true purpose.

The same is true for Vollebaek. His behavior makes sense only if we assume that he understood perfectly the desperate importance of keeping Walker on the ground until his crucial mission was accomplished.

When he obtained the “freeze” on Walker’s expulsion order, Knut Vollebaek in fact went the extra mile for NATO. The following is from The Daily Telegraph:[22]

Where two US envoys had failed, the seemingly neutral Norse who appeared to represent the so-called “international community” succeeded not only in keeping Walker in Kosovo, but in getting the Yugoslav army to retreat further and allow William Walker’s personnel—most of them CIA operatives or else employees of the CIA-linked paramilitary companies Military Professional Resources and Dyncorp—the ability to “move freely about the province.”

Vollebaek was preparing the ground for the bombing of Yugoslavia, which he obviously knew was foreordained.

Further evidence that Vollebaek knew long in advance that—come what may—NATO was resolved to bomb Yugoslavia can be gleaned from his subsequent diplomacy with regard to the Rambouillet so-called ‘peace agreement.’

Vollebaek’s Rambouillet diplomacy

On February 2^nd 1999, what NATO called ‘peace talks’ supposedly began in the town of Rambouillet, France. The following is from The Washington Post:[23]

Notice the language that the Washington Post employs. Belgrade is “the principal stumbling block” because of “its opposition to the peacekeeping force.”

Well, when you put it like that it certainly sounds as though Milosevic must be motivated by pathological “intransigence,” doesn’t it? Who would object to a “peacekeeping force”? Doesn't he want peace? If Milosevic didn’t sign, he would deserve what he got, or so the Washington Post implies.

But the public would have gotten a very different impression if the Washington Post and the rest of the mainstream Western media had:

For those who believe in the myth of the Western "free press" it should be shocking, amazing, that the details of the Rambouillet ‘peace agreement’ that Milosevic was being ordered to sign at the point of a gun were never even discussed in the media. Aren’t the stipulations of an international agreement relevant to understanding why the negotiations might fail?

The terms of Rambouillet effectively separated the province of Kosovo from Serbia and imposed de facto independence, with—to boot—a referendum on de jure independence to take place in just three years’ time. It also left the KLA terrorists as the provincial authority. This was already more than enough to prevent the Yugoslavs from signing, and with perfect justification. But even if that were not enough, Appendix B of the Rambouillet Agreement, which pertains to the status of what NATO called a ‘peacekeeping force,’ reveals this to be a sham document that was never meant to secure a Yugoslav signature, but rather provoke a categorical refusal so as to generate another excuse for war.

This is a blueprint for total occupation. In presenting this agreement for Milosevic’s signature or else, NATO was declaring war by other means. No self-respecting state, and no self-respecting executive of such a state, could sign an agreement that allows in an occupying force enjoying complete control and immunity, which—to boot—gets it all for free. NATO would have enjoyed occupying privileges comparable to those of the Nazi forces in WWII.

2) sign, and miraculously avoid a revolution but all the same surrender your country as if you had lost a devastating war; or

At least the third option had honor, and also respected the wishes of the Yugoslav electorate. This was Milosevic’s choice.

Knut Vollebaek, of course, knew perfectly well what the contents of Appendix B of the Rambouillet agreement were, as evidenced in his Rambouillet diplomacy. The Washington post reported:[25]

The Washington Post displays some candor: “…concerted efforts to subdue [my emphasis] Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic..." But we could bear a little more candor. The Post could explain that these were efforts to subdue Milosevic into accepting not a “peace process” but a total NATO occupation.

But this is what is really amazing: Vollebaek, Albright, and Co. were threatening Milosevic with war unless he signed a document that the other “party” had. . .yet. . .to. . .touch! A full two weeks later we find this, again in The Washington Post:[26]

Notice that the Albanian “factions,” supposedly the other “party” to the “agreement” had yet to sign Rambouillet a full two weeks after Milosevic was threatened to sign or else! And notice this is still a draft document, authored by a US ambassador, one Christopher Hill.

How does it look, from this perspective, that two weeks earlier the Washington Post should have written that “The principal stumbling block to achieving an agreement at the 12-day-old Kosovo peace talks outside Paris remains the opposition of the Serb-led Belgrade government…”? Doesn't it appear completely biased (not to mention completely wrong)?

This so-called ‘agreement’ was never anything of the sort, for the two parties that should have hammered this agreement out—those representing the national communities in Kosovo, and the Yugoslav government—never met. It was purely a NATO document, as the Washington Post lets on above, and as Slobodan Milosevic reminded the British and French Foreign Ministers in a letter:[27]

If Milosevic was threatened with war unless he signed an agreement that the other side had yet to sign, and which agreement had been drafted and published before the beginning of talks between the two sides (talks that never really took place), then everybody is a pawn.

The ‘agreement’ was just a little bit of theater: a document produced to give the impression of a vigorous diplomacy which had failed before the “intransigence” of the Yugoslavs, making war inevitable (how much clearer can the real intentions of NATO be?). That picture of Yugoslav "intransigence" was brought to life for the Washington Post readership by Vollebaek himself because: who better to paint someone as intransigent than a well-meaning, gentle, and neutral Norwegian?

Vollebaek said that “Milosevic rather flatly refused.” He could have explained that NATO had rather flatly declared war already. And he might have called the proposed “international military presence in Yugoslavia” what it was: a proposed NATO army of occupation.

But that would be an honest Vollebaek, not the Vollebaek who protests that his OSCE members are placed in detention even though he knows that his OSCE mission is crawling with CIA agents and paramilitary trainers; or the Vollebaek who includes the alleged beating of two OSCE observers by Serbian civilians as an example of “harassment…by government forces [my emphasis].”

Till the end, the Norwegian Vollebaek played the role of seemingly neutral diplomat from a tiny country, chairing the OSCE, an organization supposedly not under the direct command of the US government’s executive branch. But in truth he was always a front for NATO. This is Vollebaek delivering the final ultimatum (from the Washington Post): [28]

What Vollebaek betrayed

In 1975, with the elaboration of the Helsinki Final Act, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) was born, later to be transformed into the OSCE between 1990 and 1995. In the current OSCE handbook, which explains the history of the OSCE, one sees on the first page the logo, with the date 1975.[29] This means that there is supposed to be a continuity of purpose between the CSCE—established with the Helsinki Final Act in 1975—and the organization it later became: the OSCE. Any lingering doubts about the continuing centrality of the Helsinki Final Act are dispelled by the words 'Helsinki Final Act,' prominently displayed on the OSCE logo.

This Helsinki Final Act, the founding charter of the OSCE, is what Vollebaek betrayed.

Notice the last clause above. The signers of the Helsinki Final Act obviously foresaw that at some time in the future a concept such as ‘humanitarian war’ might be invented by a rogue imperial power in order to use it as an excuse to say: “All of that stuff we said about not using force or threat of force against anybody is fine, but look: we have a special circumstance here: we have a ‘humanitarian catastrophe’!”

The text of the Helsinki Final Act makes it very clear that any arguments for “the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State,” such as the State of Yugoslavia, are illegitimate, and that “No consideration may be invoked to serve to warrant resort to the threat or use of force in contravention of this principle.”

As we have seen, not once, but repeatedly, Knut Vollebaek violated this terribly explicit and carefully worded prohibition.

First, the chairman of the OSCE, Knut Vollebaek, assisted the United States, a founding member of the OSCE, in its “threat…of force against the territorial integrity [and] political independence of” Yugoslavia in order to force the Yugoslav government to accept—of all things—an OSCE delegation!

Second, the chairman of the OSCE, Knut Vollebaek, assisted the United States, a founding member of the OSCE, in its “threat…of force against the territorial integrity [and] political independence of” Yugoslavia in order to force the Yugoslav government to allow William Walker to stay as the head of the American OSCE delegation.

Finally, the chairman of the OSCE, Knut Vollebaek, assisted the United States, a founding member of the OSCE, in its “threat…of force against the territorial integrity [and] political independence of” Yugoslavia in an attempt to compel Slobodan Milosevic to sign the so-called Rambouillet “peace” agreement, and thereby accept a hostile NATO army of occupation with privileges comparable to the Nazi army in WWII.

This last threat did not succeed and in consequence a frightful NATO bombing campaign in which civilians were the main target was unleashed on Yugoslavia. This crime of war, of course, will not be investigated by the tribunal at The Hague that NATO has illegally set up and paid for (click here and here).

Knut Vollebaek’s betrayal is all the worse for these threats having been made in bad faith. These threats—and the ensuing use of force—would have violated the OSCE charter even if Knut Vollebaek, the willing vehicle of such threats, had really believed there was a “humanitarian catastrophe.” However, there is a mountain of evidence showing (1) that there was no such humanitarian catastrophe, and (2) that Knut Vollebaek knew this perfectly well.

Moreover, his behavior is consistent with assisting NATO to set up an excuse for a war of aggression, not with averting the humanitarian catastrophe that he claimed to believe was taking place. The obvious purpose of his threats was entirely tactical, subordinate to the goal of destroying Yugoslavia by colluding with fascists, fundamentalists, and terrorists, and which goal had been decided upon well in advance of these threats.

That Yugoslavia was—as it claimed—fighting brutal terrorists who threatened its civilian population is obvious from the fact that a hoax was necessary in order to tar its army with the accusation that it was murdering civilians. Knut Vollebaek’s collusion with this hoax, and his subsequent diplomacy, were designed to ensure that this unspeakable slander could succeed.

By participating in the perpetration of an international crime of war against the people of Yugoslavia, Vollebaek has brought shame to an organization which was conceived for security—i.e. freedom from war—and cooperation in Europe.

EPILOGUE. Worry about the future: Norwegian "peace" is coming to Sri Lanka ...and India...

There are plenty of reasons to worry about the future, particularly the future of India and Sri Lanka. Norway has launched another ‘peace process’—this time for Sri Lanka. We know how well the first such ballyhooed Norwegian ‘peace process’ went (in Israel). And we also know this: the man who laid the groundwork for the Sri Lankan peace process, establishing contacts with the Tamil Tiger terrorists (who are even worse than the KLA), is the same man who helped destroy Yugoslavia with his ‘international peacekeeping’ diplomacy: Knut Vollebaek.

Just how bad are the Tamil Tigers? Well, consider that, according to the National Post (Canada) the LTTE "has staged more suicide bombings than all the Islamist terrorist groups combined." [National Post (Canada). February 26, 2002. DECLAWING THE TIGERS]

But if that does not paint a colorful enough picture, consider this summary: [The Times (London), April 11, 2002, Thursday, Overseas news, 240 words, The trail of death left by the rebels]:

A Norwegian "peace" process is designed to give the Tigers more of what they want, not less. A "peace" process, by definition, will treat the Tigers terrorists as a political force that represents the Tamil people! This is precisely what Norwegian diplomatic intervention helped do for the brutal and terrorist KLA, and also for Arafat's Fatah in the other, much ballyhooed, Norwegian "peace" process. In other words, The Tamil Tigers will become the recognized government for the Tamils, and will be given more autonomy (this is the only logical endpoint of a peace process), even though it is these same Tigers who are most responsible for the oppression and suffering of innocent Tamils...

There are many dangers to India in the Sri Lankan conflict. For those readers not aware of such dangers, consider these excerpts from a Financial Times article (May 26, 2000):

There you have it. There are 60 million Tamils in India. The three main parties which represent those Tamils are all secessionist. The "peace process" in Sri Lanka will create a Tamil mini-state or quasi-state or de facto state in Sri Lanka. This will simultaneously encourage Tamil secessionists in India and will increase the power and influence of the Tigers in India's Tamil-Nadu.

Notice also that Vajpayee needs the support of those three secessionist Tamil parties to stay in power. What does this mean? That Vajpayee has very little room to maneuver with respect to violence on India's southern border, and therefore that things will probably get a lot worse before he is prepared to do something about it. Thus, the Sri Lankan conflict can easily spill into India, especially if the Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers, who are influential with the Indian Tamils, should help provoke a secessionist armed conflict in India’s southern flank (even the Indian Tamil secessionist parties seem to be worried about this!).

The Tamils of India are a direct analogy to the Albanians of Macedonia. These latter started out as secessionist but they were not KLA terrorists. NATO, however, made the KLA so prominent and threatening that it was impossible for the leaders of the Albanians in Macedonia to resist them (click here). Could a similar fate be in store for the Tamils of India? Well, the fact that there is a Norwegian sponsored ‘peace process’ already afoot in Sri Lanka, and the fact that Knut Vollebaek is the man who laid the groundwork for this process, does not bode well.

The effect of the Oslo ‘Peace’ Process in Israel/Palestine was to rehabilitate Arafat's Fatah (also known as the PLO). Terrorists became 'respectable' politicians and seduced many in the Left. And the Palestinian struggle continues to enjoy support even though the Palestinian leadership is clearly anti-Semitic and has again resorted to widespread terrorism. The ‘peace’ process in Sri Lanka may have a similar aim: to make the Tamil Tigers politically respectable so that, when they destroy India, the Left all around the world will in fact protest in their favor; just as many in the Left now support those who resort to terrorism against innocent Israeli men, women, and children; just as the left supported the KLA terrorists who were terrorizing both Albanian and Serb civilians in Kosovo.

Meanwhile, on its northern flank India is in great danger from terrorists in Kashmir, and this may yet precipitate an all-out war. The attacks on India in the North, of course, come courtesy of the same Pakistani ISI which the CIA has been funding and controlling for many years and which was using this money to support the mujahedin and the Taliban. [31] Some of that money, of course, was going to the Kashmiri terrorists, many of whom were getting their training in Afghanistan. Far from cutting off all “states that sponsor terrorism,” the US is a strong supporter of Pakistan and has been turning a blind eye to the Pakistan-supported terrorism on the Kashmiri border, even while pretending to use Pakistani cooperation to pursue Al Qaeda. What we are seeing on India’s northern and southern flanks is deliberate US policy.

India will be destroyed for the same reasons Yugoslavia was destroyed: (1) it is a large country with an independent foreign policy, and (2) its existence makes possible a Eurasian alternative to US power (in the case of Yugoslavia, it was Russia’s ally in Europe). Its destruction will further an overall goal of cutting up the world into smaller pieces, made manageable for US world domination, and of preventing large-power coalitions in Eurasia, which is the US's main goal. [32] Since, just like Yugoslavia, India is a complex, multi-ethnic country, the strategy followed in India’s destruction will be very similar.

For background on Vollebaek’s central connection to the Sri Lankan ‘peace’ process, read:

THE HINDU, January 24, 2000, 484 words, Sri Lanka: Talks with LTTE on reforms package: Peiris, V. S. SAMBANDAN

The Gazette (Montreal), February 16, 2000, Wednesday, FINAL, 211 words, 21 killed before the start of Norwegian peace mission, COLOMBO

The New York Times, February 17, 2000, Thursday, Late Edition - Final Correction Appended, Section A; Page 13; Column 1; Foreign Desk, 570 words, Norwegian Says He Will Seek Talks for Sri Lanka and Tamils, Reuters, COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, Feb. 16

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 17, 2000, Thursday, THREE STAR EDITION, NEWS, Pg. A12, 624 words, WORLD BRIEFS, From News Services

Financial Times (London), February 19, 2000, Saturday, WORLD NEWS;, Pg. 6, 595 words, WORLD NEWS: Peacemaker Norway picks up Sri Lanka challenge, By DAVID GARDNER, COLOMBO

THE HINDU, February 24, 2000, 1373 words, The Hindu-Editorial: Norway as facilitator, D. B. S. JEYARAJ

Financial Times (London), May 26, 2000, Friday, WORLD NEWS: ASIA-PACIFIC;, Pg. 9, 1054 words, WORLD NEWS: ASIA-PACIFIC: India wary as rebels close in on Sri Lankan army: New Delhi is desperate to avoid another intervention in its neighbour's civil war but it cannot ignore the crisis unfolding in Jaffna, writes David Gardner:, By DAVID GARDNER

[1] The Christian Science Monitor, May 31, 2000, Wednesday, WORLD; GRASS-ROOTS DIPLOMACY; Pg. 1, 1462 words, Norway as peacemaker, Peter Ford, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor, OSLO, NORWAY

[2] “Idealists often present non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as the vanguard of an emerging global civil society, challenging the instinctive authoritarianism of states and the power of international capital. Enthusiasts for globalization see private social actors as building networks across borders, promoting shared understandings, even international solidarity. Hard-Line Realists, on the other hand, see NGOs either as front-organizations thinly disguising the interests of particular states, or as potential revolutionaries, seeking to undermine national solidarity and the stability of the state system… …defining non-state actors chiefly by their independence from states and state authority would be misleading. Both in domestic and international politics, the theoretical purity of these opposing ideal types is muddled by the complexities of practice…Governments of liberal states provide financial support for some transnational groups, primarily those working in economic and social development. Think-tanks and elite networks often have close links with governments, from funding to participation by officials. Intelligence agencies subsidize ‘autonomous’ groups which promote appropriate causes…” from Josselin, D., & Wallace, W. (2001). Non-state actors in world politics: A framework. In D. Josselin, & W. Wallace (Eds.), Non-state actors in world politics (pp. 1-20). New York: Palgrave. [www.palgrave.com/pdfs/033396814X.pdf]

[3] It should reassure nobody that Egeland subsequently went on to become a UN official (as reported in the same Monitor article). If the man who would subordinate his own country to the US now serves at the UN, what can be said for the independence of the UN?

[4] Liberty, July 1999: Inquiry: How Muderous Are the Serbs? By David Ramsay Steele.

[5] Agence France Presse, February 23, 1998 22:24 GMT, SECTION: International news, LENGTH: 631 words. HEADLINE: Washington ready to reward Belgrade for 'good will': envoy

[6] The Gazette (Montreal), November 27, 1999, FINAL, 4850 words, The Kosovo connection: The shooting has stopped, but the Kosovo Liberation Army isn't resting. It is still a major player in the international heroin trade, ALEX ROSLIN.

[7] http://emperors-clothes.com/news/binl.htm

[8] The Toronto Sun, April 1, 2001 Sunday, Final Edition, Comment;, Pg. C6;, 1382 words, The Hoax That Started A War; How The U.S., Nato And The Western Media Were Conned In Kosovo, PETER WORTHINGTON, TORONTO SUN.

[9] “U.S. Foreign Secretary Madeleine Albright, eager to make war against then-Yugoslavia and speaking on CBS' Face the Nation, cited Racak where, she said, there were 'dozens of people with their throats slit.' She called this the 'galvanizing incident' that meant peace talks at Rambouillet were pointless, and 'humanitarian bombing' the only recourse. Germany's Foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer, told the newspaper Berliner Zeitung that the Racak massacre 'became the turning point for me' and war was the only answer.” The Toronto Sun, April 1, 2001 Sunday, Final Edition, Comment;, Pg. C6;, 1382 words, The Hoax That Started A War; How The U.S., Nato And The Western Media Were Conned In Kosovo, PETER WORTHINGTON, TORONTO SUN.

[10] 'Sunday Times' (London), 12 March 2000 “CIA Aided Kosovo Guerrilla Army” by Tom Walker and Aidan Laverty

[11] 'The alliance has always said it did not want serve as the KLA's air force,' a senior NATO diplomat said. 'But if we start bombing and the Albanians see the chance to gain independence on the ground, there is little hope they would come back to negotiations even if Milosevic had a change of heart.' From The Washington Post, February 19, 1999, Friday, Final Edition, A SECTION; Pg. A01, 1139 words, Allies Reiterate Threats to Serbs; Albright to Join Kosovo Peace Talks, William Drozdiak, Washington Post Foreign Service, BERLIN, Feb. 18

[12] To the dismay of State Department officials, NATO's intervention in Yugoslavia has been called 'Albright's war.'; The Washington Post, May 02, 1999, Sunday, Final Edition, BOOK WORLD; Pg. X04, 1947 words, Identity Crisis, Walter Reich, Special to The Washington Post.

[12a] 'Sunday Times' (London), 12 March 2000 “CIA Aided Kosovo Guerrilla Army” by Tom Walker and Aidan Laverty
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/ciaaided.htm

[13] The Globe and Mail, January 10^th, 2000.

[14] http://www.icdsm.org/more/book.htm

[15] 'Sunday Times' (London), 12 March 2000 “CIA Aided Kosovo Guerrilla Army” by Tom Walker and Aidan Laverty

[16] Chicago Sun-Times, January 22, 1999, FRIDAY, Late Sports Final Edition, NEWS; Pg. 34, 511 words, Milosevic: Envoy can stay; Planned expulsion of U.S. diplomat 'frozen', BELGRADE, Yugoslavia

[17] http://www.osce.org/structures_institutions/index.php3

[18] 'Sunday Times' (London), 12 March 2000 “CIA Aided Kosovo Guerrilla Army” by Tom Walker and Aidan Laverty

[19] 'Sunday Times' (London), 12 March 2000 “CIA Aided Kosovo Guerrilla Army” by Tom Walker and Aidan Laverty

[20] The New York Times, January 23, 1999, Saturday, Late Edition - Final, Section A; Page 4; Column 1; Foreign Desk, 886 words, Force Possible If Milosevic Stays Defiant, West Warns, By STEVEN ERLANGER, PRISTINA, Serbia, Jan. 22

[21] Liberty, July 1999: Inquiry: How Muderous Are the Serbs? By David Ramsay Steele.

[22] THE DAILY TELEGRAPH, January 23, 1999, Saturday, FULLPAGE, WORLD; Pg. 19, 458 words, Buying time in Kosovo / Pullback averts airstrikes, MICHAEL RODDY

[23] The Washington Post, February 19, 1999, Friday, Final Edition, A SECTION; Pg. A01, 1139 words, Allies Reiterate Threats to Serbs; Albright to Join Kosovo Peace Talks, William Drozdiak, Washington Post Foreign Service, BERLIN, Feb. 18

[24] http://www.state.gov/www/regions/eur/ksvo_rambouillet_text.html

[25] The Washington Post, February 19, 1999, Friday, Final Edition, A SECTION; Pg. A18; DIPLOMATIC DISPATCHES, 896 words, Ready for Trouble in Yugoslavia, Nora Boustany

[26] The Washington Post, March 02, 1999, Tuesday, Final Edition, A SECTION; Pg. A13, 745 words, Kosovo Groups Warm to Pact; Belgrade Remains Opposed to Peacekeepers, Envoy Says, R. Jeffrey Smith, Washington Post Foreign Service, BELGRADE, March 1

[27] Krieger, H. (2001). The Kosovo conflict and international law: An analytical documentation 1974-1999, Cambridge International Documents Series, Volume II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p.286

[28] The Washington Post, December 07, 2001, Friday, Final Edition, A SECTION; Pg. A44; DIPLOMATIC DISPATCHES NORA BOUSTANY, 959 words, Little Norway's Big Contributions, Nora Boustany

[29] http://www.osce.org/publications/handbook/handbook.pdf

[30] http://www.hri.org/docs/Helsinki75.html

[31] Jihad as political holy war in the 20th Century has a very important sponsor: the United States.

Zbgniew Brzezinski, former National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter, had the idea to fund covertly what initially was just a handful of radical fundamentalists in Afghanistan in order to build them up into a force such that the Soviet Union would be sucked into this CIA-engineered conflict (click here). To read about the CIA operations in Afghanistan, click here.

The Christian Science Monitor explains that "The ISI was formed by Pakistani leader Gen. Zia ul Haq as the organization that funneled some $6 billion in arms and supplies to the Afghan mujahideen during the 1980s."

As the Monitor notes, the ISI was funneling money and arms, which of course means they were coming from somewhere else -- the United States. So we learn that the Pakistani secret service, the ISI, was created by the US to further the goal of fomenting Afghan Islamic fundamentalism.

The US's partner, Pakistani dictator Zia ul Haq was a fundamentalist himself, as noted by Defense Journal:

[Start Defense Journal Quote]

"The Islamization of Pakistan was another of Zia's goals. In 1978 he announced that...any laws passed...had to conform to Islamic law and any passed previously would be nullified if they were repugnant to Islamic law.

In 1979 Zia decreed the establishment of shariat courts to try cases under Islamic law. A year later, Islamic punishments were assigned to various violations, including drinking alcoholic beverages, theft, prostitution, fornication, adultery, and bearing false witness. Zia also began a process for the eventual Islamization of the financial system aimed at eliminating that which is forbidden and establishing that which is enjoined by Islam."

[End Defense Journal Quote]

What the Islamic fundamentalist dictator Zia ul Haq and the CIA created together -- the Pakistani ISI -- became powerful indeed. Today, it essentially controls Pakistan, and is responsible for Kashmiri terrorism in India, as the The Christian Science Monitor observes:

[Start Monitor Quote]

"From their official staff of 2,000 operatives and administrative personnel, the ISI grew to 20,000 employees during the height of the fight to remove the Soviets [from Afghanistan]. Even though US funding for Afghan operations was cut off in 1989, after the Soviets departed, the ISI continued to grow, with an estimated 40,000 employees and a $1 billion budget for maintaining influence among the now-victorious mujahideen groups. In the process, the ISI grew into a powerful institution with the ability to direct foreign policy, influence local news coverage, blackmail enemies, and even to topple governments.

"The ISI had become a ministate within a state," says one source with close ties to the Pakistani military. "They had their own headquarters ... their own enterprises. Their funding was totally unaudited. This gave them the ability, when the Afghan jihad was finished, to shift their eyes to the freedom movement in Kashmir. They had begun to define Pakistan's national interests."

[End Monitor Quote]

Starting in the 1980s, while the Pakistani ISI was funneling US arms and money to the Islamic fundamentalist fighters in Afghanistan (known as the mujahedin) the United States began editing and printing textbooks at the University of Nebraska, and then distributing them to schoolchildren in Afghanistan.

These books were Islamic fundamentalist primers -- complete with pictures of Muslims killing infidels with modern weapons. They were designed to poison an entire generation of Afghan youth with fundamentalist ideas. This story broke recently in the Washington Post (click here).

Afghan fundamentalism is an offshoot of the Saudi Arabian Wahabbi variety. Saudia Arabia cooperated closely with the US in its creation and as the Washington Post reported, "Saudi Arabia agreed to match U.S. financial contributions to the mujaheddin and distributed funds directly to ISI." In this Saudi- and US-sponsored Wahabbi fundamentalist climate, the Saudi citizen Osama bin Laden found his Afghan niche. This is also where he built his network, Al Qaeda.

The Afghans were always mere pawns in all of these games, and when after many bloody years the Soviets finally left, Afghanistan was abandoned to a brutal civil war.

[32] The Central Asian strategy was laid out in the mid-1990s by Zbgniev Brzezinski (former National Security Advisor to Jimmy Carter) in his book The Grand Chessboard: American primacy and its geostrategic imperatives (1997, New York: Basic Books).

This is the same Brzezinski who helped invent Afghan Islamic fundamentalism, funding it covertly through Pakistan before the Soviets got involved in 1979 (in fact, in order to get the Soviets involved). This is no secret as Brzezinski has actually proudly explained to the press how and why this was done (click here), expressing no concern for what he called "Some stirred-up Moslems."

Those of my readers who think the US has been putting its troops all over Asia because of oil should read Brzezinski's The Grand Chessboard.

The entire focus of this text is that the US should be the preeminent power in Eurasia and that, to this end, geopolitical strategy must be tailored so as to weaken Russia and China, preventing any coalition of great powers in the area. This is evidently the textbook that the current administration is using, and Brzezinski hardly talks about the control of Central Asian oil, except in terms of keeping Russia from controlling any of it so that it can be prevented from strengthening itself again. It is this - weakening Russia - that is the key geostrategic goal. On page 198 he himself puts the following in italics:

[START BRZEZINSKI QUOTE]

"In the short run, it is in America’s interest to consolidate and perpetuate the prevailing geopolitical pluralism on the map of Eurasia. That puts a premium on maneuver and manipulation in order to prevent the emergence of a hostile coalition that could eventually seek to challenge America’s primacy, not to mention the remote possibility of any one particular state seeking to do so…"

[END BRZEZINSKI QUOTE]

This has obviously nothing to do with oil, and it requires very little translation. “Consolidate and perpetuate the prevailing geopolitical pluralism on the map of Eurasia” means “Keep the countries of Eurasia small, and break the larger ones into smaller pieces.” The words “maneuver and manipulation” are code for “covert operations in which millions of innocent civilians will die.” Finally, the last part requires absolutely no translation as it is perfectly clear: the whole point of this is to make America, and its European allies, the rulers of the world. Brzezinski underlines this point:

[START BRZEZINSKI QUOTE]

"The most immediate task is to make certain that no state or combinations of states gains the capacity to expel the United States from Eurasia, or even to diminish significantly its decisive arbitrating role."

[END BRZEZINSKI QUOTE]

The body of Brzezinski’s book is devoted to explaining how important it is to neutralize both Russia and China and how crucial control of the Central Asian states will be in this regard. Brzezinski also explains that America must move fast, because there is very little time to move in and effectively take control of Central Asia. In his words (pp. 210-211):

[START BRZEZINSKI QUOTE]

"…the window of historical opportunity…could prove to be relatively brief, for both domestic and external reasons. A genuine populist democracy has never before attained international supremacy. The pursuit of power and especially the economic costs and human sacrifice that the exercise of such power often requires are not generally congenial to democratic instincts…

…Public opinion polls suggest that only a small minority (13 percent) of Americans favor the proposition that “as the sole remaining superpower, the US should continue to be the preeminent world leader in solving international problems.” An overwhelming majority (74 percent) prefer that America “do its fair share in efforts to solve international problems together with other countries.”

Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multicultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstances of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat [my emphasis]."

[END BRZEZINSKI QUOTE]

Brzezinski practically spells it out—in order to justify the conquest of Eurasia, America must become the object of a “truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat.”

In other words, September 11^th!

The move into Central Asia does not seem like a genuine reaction to the 9-11 attacks. On the contrary, it appears it was prepared in advance. The goal of 9-11 was to make the US look like it had been attacked by its ‘enemy,’ bin Laden, who was hiding in Afghanistan. This allowed NATO to move into Afghanistan in the guise of the aggrieved party. Imperial aggression was disguised as revenge (click here).

The way the US/European imperialists sell their move into Central Asia is to say “we'll help protect you against Islamic Fundamentalism.” But Islamic Fundamentalism would not be a serious problem where it not for the sponsorship of the US and its allies, both in Europe and among the Arab countries.

First, through the sponsorship of Saudi Arabia’s ruling family, which in turn sponsors the Wahabbi Islamic Fundamentalist sect, among the most radical and dangerous fundamentalists in the world. This is all done with the approval of the United States. To start with, the US and Saudi Arabia jointly spent, according to the NY times (March 13, 1994, Blowback From the Afghan Battlefield, By Tim Weiner), over $6 billion in sponsoring the creation of Islamic Fundamentalist terrorism in Afghanistan during the 1980s. Six billion dollars is probably more like $15 billion in today's money.

More directly, the US has financed the growth of Islamic fundamentalism in Central Asia through CIA and Saudi control of the Pakistani ISI (the Pakistani security service). [See footnote 31]

Why is the US secretly funding the growth of Islamic fundamentalism? Because Islamic fundamentalism destabilizes states that have significant Muslim populations, and this can be used by the US to either destroy a country (e.g. Yugoslavia) or else to control it (e.g. Uzbekistan), and then use them against key target states, such as Russia.

Forget oil. The stakes here are much higher.