Yurope: Bahus War Diary

Bahus War Diary - A personal view

Too many mysteries

Does anyone remembers those mysterious flights over Tuzla a few years ago during the war in Bosnia? The U.S. was in charge of controlling the air space over Bosnia, and in spite of their superior technology, they claimed to know nothing about flights of the huge planes that many peace-keepers from different countries have seen in the Tuzla area. It appeared later that the flights were not a mystery to the Americans. They admitted, when it didn't matter much anymore, that those were Turkish military planes that were delivering arms to the Bosnian Muslims who were fighting against perpetual villains, the Serbs.

Does anyone remember the so called operation Storm, when Croatian military attacked the Krajina Serbs and achieved the greatest ethnic-cleansing victory in the Balkan war, with hundreds of thousands of perpetual villains had to walk or ride on tractors for days to reach Serbia. The Americans were surprised by this Croatian victory, at least that's what they claimed at the time. It appeared t to turn later that this easy victory was not a mystery to the Americans, after all. They admitted later, when it didn't matter much anymore, that their retired Army Generals were planning the whole action, which enjoyed the intelligence and logistic support of the U.S. The Croats did show some initiative of their own, they attacked the column of unarmed Serbian civilians and killed and wounded a number of them. Since this was apparently the case of perpetual villains getting finally what they deserved, there was no outrage or condemnation of this spontaneous act.

Now Americans claim that they've encountered another mystery. Where are the Albanian men, they ask. They claim that the Albanian refugees arriving to the borders of Macedonia, Albania, and Montenegro, are mostly women and children. Well, there were a few photographs prominently printed on the front pages of all American daily papers that show clearly men, many of them young, riding on those famous tractors and reaching neighboring countries safely. I guess those who asked the question counted heavily on our short attention span, and since nobody offered this simple explanation, I guess they were right.

Unfortunately, I remember much more than I should, and according to my mother, much more than it's good for me. So I remember that during the Bosnian War, Mr. Bob Dole kept repeating only one sentence: "let's give them arms, so they can defend themselves." He was referring to the Bosnian Muslims, who already have gotten enough arms through those mysterious flights and some that were not so mysterious. At the same time that they were asking that the Muslims get some arms, Americans were already arming them.

These days Mr. Dole is repeating the same sentence that worked for him so well (in terms of receiving campaign contribution) only this time he refers to the Albanians. And if we've learned anything from history, the fact that he is asking that the Albanians receive arms means that they are receiving arms already. Which will help us solve the "mystery" of the "missing" Albanian men. They are somewhere, probably in Albania, being trained to use those arms. There was already an article claiming that those Albanian refugees who happen to be male are immediately recruited by the KLA upon entering Albania.

So there you have it. At some point, after the NATO air-power pummels the Yugoslav army into a disarray of units without lines of communication and without tanks, oil, ammunition or a will to fight anymore, the Albanian men will mysteriously appear again, these time fully armed, to send the perpetual villains running towards Belgrade. Probably swimming a lot, since there won't be any bridges in that part of the world, the way humanitarian NATO bombing is going. There will be another Operation Storm, and, guess what, again the outrage and the condemnation will be missing, since them Serbs will be finally getting what they deserve. Again.