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18May07
- Paul Hausser's quote that NATO was formed from the International brigades
of the SS
SS Oberstgruppenfuhrer Paul Hausser, WWII
'Das Reich' Division commander and SS general, publicly stated that
NATO grew out of the international brigades
of the SS
quoted by A.J. Barker in 'Waffen SS at war'
Caption to picture
number 16 on pages 24/25:
"SS Oberstgruppenfuhrer Paul Hausser (seen here as an Obergruppenfuhrer while commanding the Das Reich division in Russia winter 1941) was unquestionably the ablest military commander in the Waffen SS. After the war he sought to reestablish the reputation of the SS and claimed that the foreign units of the SS were really the precursors of the NATO army."
Taken from pages 24/25 of 'Waffen SS at War' by A. J. Barker, Ian Allen Ltd., 1982, ISBN 0 7110 1099 4
24May07
- Paul Hausser - Part I
by Theo Fruendt - 24th May 2007
There is a reason for the fact that
there are no precise documentations about personalities like Paul Hausser
who initiated the military training of the Waffen SS in 1934: In 1959 Hausser
became the founder of a organisation called HIAG (Hilfsgemeinschaft auf
Gegenseitigkeit der Angehoerigen der ehemaligen Waffen SS = the auxiliary
community on mutuality of the members of the former weapons SS) . He was
at this time already 79 years.
This organisation of former members of Waffen SS maintained contacts to all relevant political parties in Germany. Thus for example the Federal Chancellor of Germany, at that time Adenauer, visited condemned war criminals in the prison of Verler and have had a conversation with the former Waffen SS general Kurt Meyer. Meyer, known as „Panzermeyer “, was selected in the year 1959 to become the HIAG spokes person.
As a member of the German parliament, the Social Democrat, SPD, Helmut Schmidt reported to HIAG Hamburg in the year 1954 with that to the topic „Soldatentum and social-democracy “with the intention „difficulties from the way to vacate “, which with „the HIAG Fürsorgearbeit still on the part of the SPD meet weapon SS veterans “.Helmut Schmidt became chancellor from 1974 till 1982 and was a strong advocate of re armouring debate for stationing of nuclear short-range missiles.
Paul Hausser died in September 1972 in the age of 92 years he was active in the HAIG society to his late 80’s and due to his lobbying for the HAIG-society it resulted in remarkable political success, so for example the equalization of pension for former members of Waffen SS with all former members of the regular German Armed Forces. This indicated that the Waffen SS was not illegal anymore. In this consent the society succeeded to accomplish public meetings with up to 20.000 participants in public.
Paul Hausser came already 1892 in the age of twelve years to the Prussian institute for cadets “Köslin and Lichterfelde”. 1898 he was transferred and integrated into the army. He served as No. 155 in the 7th west Prussian infantry regiment where he became second lieutenant 20.March 1899, on 19 August 1909 to the first lieutenant. Shortly thereafter he was ordered to a general staff training course at the academy for war. After succeeding in his exams he began his service from 1912 at the General of Staff unit, where he worked till 1914 in the topographic department. Already on 1 October 1913 he had been appointed as captain.
The First World War, Hausser survived on front and general staff uses, he became highly decorated and was at the end of WWI a major and head of the operation department Ia, an army corps. He joined immediately after the war the “Grenzschutz Ost” (border control „east “), and was assigned to this 100.000 troop-strong army who’s task it was to stop communist infiltration from Russia.
On 15 November 1922 he became a lieutenant colonel as jointed the staff of the infantry regiment 10. Afterwards he became for several years Chief of Staff of the 2nd division in Stettin, a northern town in Mecklenburg Vorpommern. At the same time with his appointment to a Colonel on 1 July 1927 he became commander of the infantry regiment 10. Then, 1 October 1930 he was transferred to become the infantry leader IV to Magdeburg, and on 1 February 1931 his appointment as the major general followed. At the age of 51 years he finished his carrier in the army on 31 January 1932 due to age limits and left the army with rank of a lieutenant general of German army.
In the summer 1933 Paul Hausser joined an federation named “Nationalistischer Stahlhelm” (nationalistic steel helmet), a federation of soldiers. Hausser was soon appointed to „the national leader Berlin Brandenburg “of this federation. When this federation was integrated in 1934 into the SA, Hausser was appointed as a “Standartenfuehrer” (banner leader) of the SA. In fact the SA-Reserve I was born out of the federation “Nationalistischer Stahlhelm” former steel helmet) and used to develop „Reiter SA “ (Horseback-Rider SA).
Hausser joined on recommendation of his former army comrade Paul Scharfe, on 15 November 1934 (membership number: 239.795). He was maintaining his rank during this transformation into the SS corresponding rank. Here from this time onwards Hausser’s political responsibilities are beginning to become lenient with the political structures of this time in Germany, because once in the SS he was soon in charge to train and coach a contingent of a young troopers whose core responsibilities laid in “political readiness”, the SS Sturmtruppen. At this stage this troops have had similar goals like we know from its successor, NATO’s Gladio. This troop received very soon the name „SS-combat support force “(SS-VT = SS-Verfügungstruppe). Paul Hausser was responsible for their training; he took over the command of the SS-Junkerschule Braunschweig. in which the officers were trained militarily, in psychological war fare and ideologically (in the sense of racist NSDAP spirit).
On the 1 May 1937 Hausser became voluntarily member of the NSDAP (membership number 4.138.779) and 1939 set up the first SS-VT-combat force: „The SS- combat support-division “, which became later known as division „the empire“.
Due to his enormous military skills and experiences Hausser ascended rapidly in the SS-hierarchy. On 1 July 1935 he was appointed to SS-Oberführer (SS Lieutenant Colonel), not even a year later he received the rank of SS-Brigadeführer (SS Colonel) on 22. May 1936 and on 1 June 1939 he was appointed the SS-Gruppenführer (SS Lieutenant Colonel). 5 month later on 14 November Hausser received the right to carry military rank one „Lieutenant General of the SS “.
He and Theodor Eicke were the first SS-leaders, that were allowed to carry the shoulder straps of a general of the regular German army. By allowing this the SS was officially integrated into the regular army. However, on 1 October 1941 Hausser was appointed SS-Obergruppenführer (Major General SS). The appointment as the SS-Oberstgruppenführer (Brigadier General SS) received Paul Hausser on 1 August 1944.
On 14 October 1941, after break-through on the frontline near Moscow Hausser was heavily wounded by an armour-piercing shell. It lost his right eye. During the fights into and for Charkow he often opposed the instructions of Adolf Hitler, and did good to do so: He became respected for his combat skills equally with friends and enemies and his soldiers liked to call him „Daddy Hausser “.
The most well-known example for his disobedience toward Hitler was that he ordered the retread from the city of Charkow against the explicit order of Hitler (“… Charkow is to be held with the exception of the last man!”), when the Russian army began to succeed on 15. February 1943. At 12.50 Hausser instruction to abandon the town - in a memory of the recently lost Stalingrad -.and he explained to his 1st officer, Georg Berger, why he did not obey to the orders of Hitler: „If it would be for my old head it would be just unfortunate, but young boys out there… that I cannot do. Give the corps instruction to retread! “Four weeks later the city was taken back by German troops under general field marshal Von Manstein and the town was held then for very long. When Hausser was sent to a material-court for his refusal to disobey orders of the Fuehrer, Von Manstein intervened: „On 15 February the SS-Panzerkorps Charkow have had to retread, after it was foreseeable that the troops would be encircled and stacked in the city. I understood and approved of this evacuation, although I learned of it after it was already carried out… “
One of Paul Hausser’s greatest skills was to built up strong alliances and bonds with other military leaders. He have had a strong position in the German MOD and here another example for his controversial practices in resisting against the highest party and SS-Leaders: He condemned Heinrich Himmler publicly in front of his troops and in the presence of the division commanders of other the “Empire”-SS-divisions, „Wiking “and „Totenkopf “, because Himmler wanted to justify the conquest Charkow with „the terror of the SS against the “lower Slavic race “, whereupon Hausser fell loudly into Himmler’s speech and bawled at him: „Empire Leader Himmler, this success was not won with any terror but with the blood of my boys… I forbid expressively this impudent assumption you have of them! “
(According to Georg Berger, who was attending this out rage Hausser’s on Himmler, who left immediately, informed Hitler and asked him to discharge Hausser from office. Hitler's reaction is not known, Hausser did not lost his post, but continued to rise on in the SS-hierarchy)
It conquered the city Charkow again back in March. In addition his tank corps was used during the operation “citadel”.
1945 had been promoted Hausser Oberfehlshaber (General of Staff) of the group Upper-Rhine army and became in the meantime even colonel general of the Waffen-SS. At the end of WWII he came into American captivity as a POW, and was dismissed as early as 1949.
What was happened during his time as POW? Why was he dismissed year before most of the other SS Leader? This will be continued.....................
Who was Paul Hausser?
Initial enquiries reveal the following:
What an interesting person! Almost all literature by and about him is in the German language.
Paul Hausser was a real writer, publishing serious propaganda about "SS-soldiers are soldiers like any other soldiers". He has six books in the German National Library and at the the Institut in Munich. He spent his energies justifying and legitimizing the "Waffen-SS" till his death 1972.
His title "general oberst" is equvivalent to Brigadier-Colonel or Colonel-General. In 1945 he was promoted General of Staff of Nazi-Germany's Upper Rhine Army. In the meantime he also was still Colonel General of the "Waffen-SS".
After end of WW II he came into American captivity as POW and was released rather quickly in 1949.
In 1951 Paul Hausser together with Felix Steiner, Josef Dietrich and Kurt Meyer founded the auxiliary community on mutuality of former members of the Waffen-SS. The goal of this organisation was to equalize and defend members of the Waffen-SS with soldiers of the regular Armed Forces and by doing so trying to legalize and rehabilitate the reputation of the Waffen-SS.
That is a very tricky issue when you think about Blackwater and other PMC's...
Anyway in addition to his semi-political and lobbying he wrote some auto-biographically books, in order to justify himself and his activities.
PS: a signed book of his was sold recently for almost $700 USD.
Daniele Ganser
Published on December 22, 2004
Published by Frank Cass Publishers
Hardback ISBN: 0714656070
Paperback ISBN: 0714685003
The CIA and the British secret service MI6, in collaboration with the military alliance NATO and European military secret services set up a network of clandestine anticommunist armies in Western Europe after World War II. The secret soldiers were trained on remote islands in the Mediterranean and in unorthodox warfare centers in England and in the United States by the Green Berets and SAS Special Forces.
The network was armed with explosives, machine guns and high-tech communication equipment hidden in underground bunkers and secret arms caches in forests and mountain meadows. In some countries the secret army linked up with right-wing terrorist who in a secret war engaged in political manipulation, harrassement of left wing parties, massacres, coup 'Etats and torture.
Codenamed "Gladio" ('the sword'), the Italian secret army was exposed in 1990 by Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti to the Italian Senate, whereupon the press spoke of "The best kept, and most damaging, political-military secret since World War II" (Observer, 18. November 1990) and observed that "The story seems straight from the pages of a political thriller." (The Times, November 19, 1990).
Ever since, so-called 'stay-behind' armies of NATO have also been discovered in France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxemburg, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Austria, Greece and Turkey.
They were internationally coordinated by the Pentagon and NATO and had their last known meeting in the NATO-linked Allied Clandestine Committee (ACC) in Brussels in October 1990.
The Pentagon's Peace Games Centre
The first prerequisite for winning a game is to know that you're in one
One freezing afternoon in early 1956, word got around Washington that a 'limpet,' an electric transmitting device, had been found under the conference table in an important State Department Office. It was a Friday, and government employees were anxious to get away early, especially since the sky was threatening snow, but orders went out that skeleton staffs were to remain on duty in those offices containing secret information so as to be on hand while security men 'swept' the offices in a search for more of these devices. This was a major scare. The limpet, no larger than a double matchbox and requiring no wires, could in seconds be stuck under any desk by a charwoman, a workman, or any one of a dozen other categories of employees who are given only light security checks.
The U.S. Government's interdepartmental "Peace Games Centre" (working hours 5-30 p.m. to midnight) was swept at about eight in the evening, when the `early meeting' was just breaking up and its participants, some of them in dinner dress, were looking out of the twelfth floor window at the stream of cars pouring down Connecticut Avenue, and wondering how they were going to make their respective Georgetown parties. The later arrivals, who were to keep the 'board' until midnight, were removing their coats and rolling up their sleeves, ready for a rough evening. The security sweep took an hour. Nothing was found, but so long as the possibility lasted we amused ourselves with the thought of what some foreign intelligence service might make of its gleanings from a microphone placed under that particular conference table.
Conversation going into the 'limpet' would include snatches such as these: 'Has anyone checked these with the Kremlin boys?' . . . 'Where the hell is de Gaulle? He should have been here an hour ago' . . . 'We could lose half of Europe before Tito figures out how he should react to Nasser's Moscow visit.' Monitors picking up the transmission could hardly have known that 'Tito' wore a Brooks &others suit, a crew haircut, and a button-down collar. 'De Gaulle' could have been Peter Sellars; 'Anthony Eden,' Sidney Greenstreet. 'Konrad Adenauer' was a remarkably pretty girl who wore her hair straight and tied into a bun, and hid behind horn rimmed glasses. The `boys from the Kremlin,' arriving later carrying expensive leather attaché cases, could have been the Yale Choir about to register at the Statler Hotel for a football weekend.
The foreign agents would have been eavesdropping on what was known as the `Peace Game,' years later to be travestied in Report from Iron Mountain. In this little known `Games Centre' a carefully selected assortment of super experts under contract to the United States Government 'gamed out' international trends and crises to predict their outcome. With the benefit of information teletyped hourly from the State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon, and other American government agencies, teams `representing' the various countries of the world assessed their respective positions, worked out solutions, and took action - notionally, of course. 'Action' was in the form of a memorandum stating what this or that 'player' thought the real Tito, de Gaulle or Nasser would really do under the approximate circumstances - or, more usually, a set of alternatives of which each had its 'probability priority.' These actions were fed back into the stream of incoming information either by putting them into the computer or, in cases where the purely personal element was especially strong, onto the desks of players who had been drilled in the personal characteristics of world leaders who would be most affected were the action real.
Rules of the Game were simple:
First moral judgements are relevant only when they are in accord with the recognised moral standards of the various countries in the Game. Our own moral standards applied only when we were predicting what our own government's actions and counteractions would be. 'Good is good, and bad is bad wherever you go,' a famous churchman once said. Such thinking was not allowed in the Game. We spent a lot of time trying to identify what the moral background of a national leader's actions really was (as opposed to what the nation's politicians, religious leaders, and newspapers said it was) and we let it go at that. We didn't label it 'good' or 'bad.'
Second we assume unless it is proved otherwise that a national leader's first objective is to stay in power or if he cannot to retire from power with a minimum of personal loss (however he views `loss') to himself There are many patriotic leaders throughout the world about whom such an assumption is not justified: they would unhesitatingly sacrifice their lives, and even their reputations, in the national interest. But when we assumed that such leaders were rare exceptions our predictions seemed to come out much better than when we allowed ourselves to take a more roseate view of human leadership. Hence this rule.
Third we assume unless it is proved otherwise that a national leader acts in his country's best interests as he sees them and that he sincerely thinks he has a good case as he explains his actions to the world. One remembers the American congressman who got carried away in a patriotic speech and berated General de Gaulle for being 'un-American.' So, as we played the Game, he was. But this did not make him a Baddie. We had no Baddies and Goodies in our Game, only a lot of players each of whom was trying to win according to what constituted 'winning' by his own lights.
These were all the rules we needed. A 'player' was given the known facts of a given situation - that is, the facts which are notionally represented - then, on the basis of his understanding of the assets at his command and the restrictions on his action, he decided what he should do. Before actually making his play, he stepped into the role of the national leader he was playing and, on the basis of his knowledge of the style and foibles of that leader, he took action - in the form, as we said earlier, of the 'action memorandum' which was fed back into the system as raw information to be processed, along with other action memoranda and the material coming over the teletype machines, to make more 'decision information, on which players planned their subsequent moves.
The 'Games Centre' has since been raised to much more sophisticated levels, but even in its most primitive form it worked. It showed clearly: first, that the 'winners' of the world are those leaders who make virtually their every decision as though it were a move in a game; second, that the most reliable intelligence estimates of things-to-come are those which are based on an assumption that this is the case. Even in its early days, the Games Centre produced more reliable guides to the future than all the CIA spies put together.
'You can't win at anything - war, business, poker, or even love - unless you maintain a game attitude.'
And what, when he said these words (not entirely facetiously), did our Games Centre supervisor mean by a 'game attitude?' It happens that he was a psychologist. During World War II, his job had been to choose men for America's first intelligence service, the 'Office of Strategic Services.' After the war he moved on to the newly formed Central Intelligence Agency. His tests, by which the CIA still screens candidates in search of `men and women who can make sound decisions under pressure, and act on them unemotionally' have been adopted by some of the world's largest corporations. And the 'game' which he brought with him to the Peace Games Centre was originally one of his tests. He never forgot this. As he supervised moves which were designed to predict the actions or real-life 'players' in the game of nations- Eden, Adenauer, Kruschev, Nasser and all the others - he kept a sharp eye on those who played their parts in the Centre and made out their efficiency reports accordingly.
My old boss used to remark, as we rode home together after work on cold winter evenings (we were neighbours), that 'there is no warmer and more satisfying experience than to sit down by the fire with one's family to play a new board game.' He used to say that merely unwrapping a new game, picked up in a store on his way home, was `more thrilling than opening a new book, playing a new gramophone record, or trying out a new piece of sports equipment.' But he in no way strayed from his conviction that the concept of `games' was an entirely serious one. Bismark, he noted, played chess with almost every sovereign in Europe - on the theory that by so doing he could gain a basis for estimating how each would behave at the conference table or on the battlefield. General Eisenhower played bridge with his generals, and is known to have made promotions and changed assignments on the basis of what he observed of their game styles. The late William Whiteford, formerly President and Chairman of the Board of the Gulf Oil Corporation (and, at the time of his retirement, the highest paid executive in the world) sized up key members of his staff - and, sometimes, presidents of other oil companies which were Gulf's competitors - by playing poker with them. But my psychologist boss believed - and proved by the demonstrated success of his method - that the warmth and pleasure experienced by some players is as much an indication of their competence in practical affairs as the analytical qualities they demonstrate.
Briefly, here are the conclusions to which masses of performance records - of diplomats, intelligence officers, company executives, and successful self-employed individuals - have taken my associates and myself:
1. A person with a "game player attitude" sees problems for what they are, as mere problems. He thinks in terms of rational solutions - at the same time appreciating fully the extent to which irrationality of others will limit his freedom of choice.
2. Common "worry" has no place in the life of a true game player. Consequently his job is an adventure, even when it goes wrong, and he gets greater enjoyment out of it. He keeps his head in the face of adversity, and his perspectives in the face of success.
Not surprisingly, every time I publicly extol the virtues of the "game player attitude" I incur the wrath of some moralist who accuses me of advocating shallowness and heartlessness. If I bother to answer, it is to remark that if I am to have my appendix removed I prefer to be in the hands of a doctor who enjoys surgery, and who regards my illness as a problem to be solved, to one who has a deep emotional hatred of sickness. This is not to belittle the Albert Schweizers of this world, but I must agree with New York's Dr. Irwin Matthews, scientist to the core, who said, 'Dr. Schweizer has set for us a moral and spiritual example which we must appreciate, but I wouldn't let him operate on my cat.'
I feel the same way about international politics. The diplomat whose performance consists solely in taking 'positions' is of no more value than the doctor whose only aid to a patient is to announce, 'I am unalterably opposed to disease in any form.' A diplomat must do something about the problems before him. And we should put our trust in those political leaders and diplomats who wear the 'game player attitude' rather than in those whose primary assets are seriousness and purity of heart.
So - THE GAME OF NATIONS. Regard it as a Good Thing or a Bad Thing, but rest assured that it is the basis of those decisions and exchanges between governments which affect the lives of us all. And whether you are a diplomat playing it `for real' or a private citizen playing this board microcosm, there is a fact-of-life which you should keep firmly in mind. It is that every chief-of-state, politician or diplomat is playing at least three 'games' at the same time. These games fit into one, like three dimensional chess (or as, in an abbreviated way, our board GAME OF NATIONS), but each has problems of its own. `Winners' in the real-life game are those who can find what political analysts call 'integrated solutions' - i.e. actions which stand on their own as wise for-the-good-of-the-people actions, but which are, in fact, simultaneous solutions to problems of the three levels.
Every chief-of state, politician or diplomat is playing at least three `games' at one time.
The principal games (there are other, minor ones) of the maker of political decisions are these:
The international game: This is the pure 'game of nations' , as the leader would play it were there no other games to consider. It consists of moves made to advance or protect the interests of the leader's nation vis a vis other nations. Anyone doubting its comparative importance should look at the defence budgets. Even the leaders of those smaller nations which would probably be on the sidelines in the event of any major conflict often show themselves to be more concerned with problems of national security (i.e. the maintenance of defences against would-be attackers from abroad) than with domestic problems such as economic welfare and social justice.
The domestic game: A chief-of-state must win his domestic game - that is, the contest of rival forces seeking to dominate the country from within - or he is not given a chance to play in the international game. His first job is to keep in power, and in many countries of the world the 'game' the chief-of-state must play to achieve this end is all-consuming. Indeed, many moves of a chief-of-state in the international game are not genuine moves in that game at all but reflections of moves the chief-of-state is forced to make in the domestic game. The late President Nasser of Egypt, of whom my book, The Game of Nations, is a case study, went so far as to create problems in the international game in order to justify moves in his domestic game which he would otherwise be unable to take (for example, the establishment of censorship and police controls, the silencing of political rivals, the imposition of austerity measures). In the American elections of 1972, moves which would have later necessitated his taking severe losses in the international game had he succeeded in getting himself elected. Only an absolute ruler, whose internal power position is totally secure, would be free to employ what is known as 'pure strategy' in the game of nations. But in this modern day absolute rulers cannot exist. It can safely be said that most actions of most chiefs-of-state are 'integrated' - that is, designed for purposes of more than one game and that the game of nations suffers for the benefit of the domestic game more often than the reverse.
The game of personal satisfaction: The game which most eludes the analysts, yet which is the most important of all, is this game which every individual plays in order to satisfy his purely personal desires. The international game is the game which a chief-of-state may play, in its pure form, only after he has won his domestic game and is comfortably on top of it. The domestic game, in turn, can be won only by the would-be leader who has won his game of personal satisfaction. But what constitutes 'winning' in this peculiar game? A chief-of-state plays the international game as a game of patriotism: to the extent that his domestic situation allows, he makes plays which he regards as best for his nation. He plays the domestic game, at least partly, as a game of survival. But he plays the game of personal satisfaction to come to terms with himself. His success in the other games, after all, must mean something. For reasons which defy analysis, if his success does not have a meaning which fits the moral structures of the society in which he aspires to rise he stands little chance of winning these other games. Contrary to what many cynics assume, the mere survivalist, the amoral climber, only rarely achieves top political leadership. The great American who said, 'I would rather be right than be President' was never elected President, but he came near enough to it to make the point that he was on to a winning position.
This 'game of personal satisfaction' is worth special comment, because it is what makes man the unfathomable and unpredictable creature that he is. The fact that even a totally dedicated statesman has no choice but to play it is what adds the element of chance to the game of nations an element, 1 would say, which is about the same as that introduced into poker and bridge by the shuffling of the cards. Why do I waste a whole morning writing an indignant letter to THE TIMES in reply to someone else's indignant letter to THE TIMES when I should be working on a client report for which I would be paid a fat fee? Why do I 'use up stock' in places I have influence to get a job for someone I don't particularly like, and who will never do anything for me, but who I think should have that job? Why do I sometimes exert inconvenience to someone I think deserves punishment? Why do some people give their lives-and risk their families, their communities, and sometimes their whole countries to further some cause? As President Eisenhower once said, 'A good man does many things just for the hell of it' because they are 'things he likes to see done,' or because of some deeper inexplicable quest for satisfaction. The game of personal satisfaction can make a man great, or it can make him dangerous. A man who refuses to play it, and who thinks entirely in terms of self-interest (rarely the same as self-satisfaction) can never be great. He cannot even be dangerous, unless he is too stupid to understand the terms of real self-interest.
The GAME OF NATIONS as a test of leadership potential Can ability at each of the three games, and an ability to weave them into one, be tested in a laboratory? Dr. Henry Murray of Harvard University, who organized the Office of Strategic Services' psychological assessment staff, believed that it could. Under his supervision, a group of scientists formulated a GAME OF NATIONS which were used successfully as a means for selecting OSS Section leaders. Later it provided the basis for the 'game' played at the Peace Games Centre in Washington and, now, for this board game. As originally conceived, purely for purposes of psychological testing, it was played by four teams of four players each. The teams struggled with one another for power over a piece of Middle Eastern land known, as in this board game, as 'the Peninsula of Kark.' And within each team - which consisted of a military man, a politician, a religious leader (a moralist), and a royal pretender - there was a struggle for internal power. On the surface, there appeared to be only these two games: each of the sixteen individual players had simultaneously to fight for ascendancy in his own 'nation' and for the success of his own nation against the three others. But it was soon found that whether a player was assigned the role of military man, politician, religious leader or royalist, his own playing style inevitably came through. However mathematical he tried to be in his decision-making, he would fall into patterns of strategy consistent with the kind of person he was - and, of course, consistent with his ideas of what he thought it took to make a desirable impression on the examining psychologists.
In short, the old OSS game 'worked'. In various forms, it survived World War II and was adopted by the Central Intelligence Agency, both as a means for testing personnel and as a means of predicting the actions of existing state leaders. And now, thanks to Michael Hicks-Beach and the dozen or so psychologists, diplomats, politicians and military strategists he has consulted, we have a greatly simplified board version of the GAME OF NATIONS which can be played by a small number of players. In the interests of simplicity it has been necessary to integrate the three games, but elements of all of them are in one way or another still present.
Can one really learn something valuable about one's style of leadership by playing this board game?
The answer seems to be: very definitely, yes. In our prototype game, which was to be played by four players, no more and no less, operating under strictly controlled circumstances (i.e. without dice and card draws) it was found that the winner was always the one who made his decisions in strict accordance with mathematical games theory in other words, a properly programmed computer would consistently come out ahead of a player who even to the slightest extent allowed personal inclinations to influence his move. In its present version, however, it has just enough chance in it to allow - indeed, to force - each player's personal characteristics to take over.
Is there a particular strategy which ensures success at this board GAME OF NATIONS? There seem to be many, several which are easily identifiable, but more which begin to emerge in favour of one who plays the game many times and who constantly reviews the successes and mistakes of past games. Is there a strategy which we particularly recommend? No. We would say that your choice of strategy, from among alternatives, is what will make the game interesting not only to yourself but to your friends and fellow players who are curious about what kind of decision maker you are. For the first few games, you will bumble through as one does in any new game. No fixed strategy will seem possible. Then, you will find that in spite of yourself, you have fallen into some obvious strategy - and, provided the others haven't done the same, you will begin to win. Then you will see faults in the strategy, and will adopt another. At the same time, if you play the game over and over again with the same contestants, you will be amazed as you see what variety of strategies they develop.
One could go on and on. But it is my very strong feeling that you will enjoy THE GAME OF NATIONS much more (and get much more practical benefit from it) if you will simply remember this: For good or for bad, right or wrong, the 'winners' of this world are almost without exception those in whose psychological make-up the 'game attitude' plays an important part. Formal study of game theory, diplomatic and military strategy, political science and all the rest are helpful. But somehow the man or woman with the `game attitude' acquires naturally what the knowledge under these headings which is relevant to his or her individual concept of 'winning.'
Miles Copeland London, 1972
1973 JOHN WADDINGTON LTD.
Castle Gate, Oulton, Leeds LS26 BHU, England
By Charles Aldinger http://www.reuters.co.uk
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has acknowledged it carried out a sweeping Cold War-era test programme of chemical and germ warfare agents in Britain and North America.
An unknown number of civilians were exposed at the time to "simulants", or what were then thought to be harmless agents meant to stand in for deadlier ones, the Defense Department said. Some of those were later discovered to be dangerous.
"We do know that some civilians were exposed in tests that occurred in Hawaii, possibly in Alaska and possibly in Florida," said William Winkenwerder, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs.
Also exposed or possibly exposed were civilians in or around Vieques, Puerto Rico, and an unknown number of U.S. service personnel, said Michael Kilpatrick of the Pentagon's Deployment Health Support Directorate.
As many as 5,500 members of the U.S. armed forces were involved, including 5,000 who took part in previously disclosed ship-board experiments in the Pacific in the 1960s, the Pentagon said.
So far, more than 50 veterans have filed claims related to symptoms they associate with exposure to the tests, the Department of Veterans Affairs said.
The tests of such nerve agents as Sarin, Soman, Tabun and VX were carried out from 1962 to 1973 both on land and at sea "out of concern for our ability to protect and defend against these potential threats," a Pentagon statement said on Wednesday. The tests were co-ordinated by an outfit called the Deseret Test Center at Fort Douglas, Utah.
The reports amounted to an acknowledgement of much wider Cold War testing of toxic arms involving U.S. forces than earlier admitted by the Pentagon.
"During this period there were serious and legitimate concerns about the Soviet Union's chemical and biological warfare programme," Winkenwerder added at a Pentagon news briefing.
But the tests also had applications to the offensive chemical and biological weapons stocks then maintained by the United States, he said. President Richard Nixon ordered an end to U.S. offensive chemical and biological weapons programmes in 1970.
Britain and Canada joined the United States in a series of tests on their military proving grounds from July 1967 to September 1968, a document released by the Pentagon said.
These joint exercises, known as Rapid Tan 1, 2 and 3, were designed to investigate "the extent and duration of hazard" following a Tabun, Soman or other nerve agent attack, a fact sheet said. These agents, along with VX, were sprayed in both open grassland and wooded terrain at the Chemical Defence Establishment in Porton Down, Wiltshire, the document said.
Similar tests took place at the Suffield Defence Research Establishment in Ralston, Canada, the Pentagon said.
"The weapons systems germane to this test were explosive munitions (Soman-filled), aircraft spray, rain-type munitions (using both Tabun and Soman), and massive bombs (Tabun- and Soman-filled), the fact sheet said.
Both Canada and Britain made public information about these tests years ago, Kilpatrick said, citing word received from their governments as part of the process of co-ordinating the U.S. release of information.
But in Ottawa, Canadian Defense Minister John McCallum told reporters he had just learned of the experiments.
"My understanding is that this was ... for the purposes of defence against biological or chemical weapons ... My understanding also is that no human beings were deliberately exposed to any of these agents." he said.
The department said it had contracted with the Institute of Medicine, a private group with ties to the National Academy of Sciences, to carry out a three-year, $3 million (1.92 million pounds) study of potential long-term health effects of the tests conducted aboard U.S. Navy ships.
The reports on the U.S. land tests in Alaska, Hawaii, Maryland and Florida did not all involve deadly agents and were used to learn how climate and a battle environment would affect the use of such arms, the Pentagon said.
The information was released amid U.S. charges that Iraq has continued building weapons of mass destruction despite disarmament requirements at the end of the 1991 Gulf War.
Iraq flatly denies having such weapons programmes.
Within minutes, Sarin can trigger symptoms including difficult breathing, nausea, jerking, staggering, loss of bladder-bowel control and death.
Extremely lethal VX is an oily liquid that is tasteless and odourless and considered one of the most deadly agents ever made by man. With severe exposure to the skin or lungs, death usually occurs within 10 to 15 minutes.
Some 3500 heavily armed NATO troops have entered Macedonia with a mandate to "disarm the Albanian rebels". Whereas a token collection and destruction of obsolete weapons is envisaged, the evidence amply confirms that the "National Liberation Army" has been armed, equipped and financed by Washington. NATO's ultimate goal is to protect rather than disarm the terrorists, weaken and disable the Macedonian Security Forces and install a protectorate under direct military rule. The US-EU brokered "peace" agreement constitutes an act of surrender and submission to the NATO aggressor.
In the hours preceding the "initialing" of the Ohrid "peace" agreement on August 8th, the terrorists renewed their assaults leading to the death of ten Macedonian soldiers in an ambush in Prilep. On the next day, a major KLA-NLA military offensive directed against the Macedonian Security forces was launched. And two days later, several hundred troops belonging to the United Nations Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC) stationed in Kosovo crossed the border and attacked the Macedonian Security Forces (ARM) in the Radusha area.1 These carefully planned military actions were also accompanied by violent assaults directed against civilians.
In an atmosphere of public protests and renewed terrorist assaults, the "framework peace agreement" was signed on the 13th of August, allowing NATO to deploy troops throughout Macedonia with a mandate to "disarm the Albanian rebels".
The Western media mantra --parroting NATO's official statements-- concluded without further examination that the "Albanian rebels" were attempting to stall the ratification and implementation of the "framework document" (yet to be approved by the Macedonian parliament), undermining "the painstaking efforts of the international community": "We have unequivocally stood against all acts of violence in Macedonia and all breaches of the cease-fire…" said US State Department spokesperson Richard Boucher…".2 Meanwhile, Yugoslav President Voijislav Kostunica accused the American and European mediators of "having been duped by the Albanian rebels."3
Pentagon and US State department planners (from the most powerful nation on earth) "duped" by "Albanian rebels"? According to the Western media, the military alliance had no prior knowledge of these terrorist assaults launched at the time of crucial "peace" negotiations. The enemy is presented, as a peace "facilitor", the identity of the NATO aggressor and its relationship to the terrorists, are not mentioned.
The so-called "Albanian rebels" do not make key military decisions on their own. Amply documented, the KLA-NLA and its various affiliated factions constitute America's proxy army integrated by US military advisers, trained by British Special Forces, financed and equipped by Washington. War is always waged in terms of carefully designed political objectives; military operations --including covert activities in support of "freedom fighters"-- are never haphazard. The terrorist assaults are part of Washington's military-intelligence agenda in Macedonia.
Senior US military advisers detached from private mercenary companies are working with KLA-NLA commanders. NLA Commander Gezim Ostremi, was trained by British Special Forces to head the UN sponsored Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC).4 Confirmed by British military sources, the task of arming and training of the KLA had been entrusted in 1998 to the US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) and Britain's Secret Intelligence Services MI6, together with "former and serving members of 22 SAS [Britain's 22nd Special Air Services Regiment], as well as three British and American private security companies".5:
"'The US DIA approached MI6 to arrange a training programme for the KLA,' said a senior British military source. `MI6 then sub-contracted the operation to two British security companies, who in turn approached a number of former members of the (22 SAS) regiment. Lists were then drawn up of weapons and equipment needed by the KLA.' While these covert operations were continuing, serving members of 22 SAS Regiment, mostly from the unit's D Squadron, were first deployed in Kosovo before the beginning of the bombing campaign in March. 6
The First and Third Parachute battalions ("1 PARA" and "3 PARA") detached to Macedonia under Operation "Essential Harvest" have a history of active collaboration with the KLA. The British Paras led the invasion into Kosovo in June 1999 in liaison with KLA forces.7 The evidence amply confirms that the US and British military-intelligence establishment has continued to support the KLA in its terrorist operations in Macedonia:
"two of the Kosovo-based commanders leading the Albanian push [into the Tetovo region] were trained by former British SAS and Parachute Regiment officers… [A] commander with the nom de guerre of Bilal was organising the flow of arms and men into Macedonia, and … veteran KLA commander Adem Bajrami was helping to co-ordinate the assault on Tetovo. Both were taught by British soldiers in the secretive training camps that operated above Bajram Curri in northern Albania during 1998 and 1999. "8
In a bitter irony, the officers of the British parachute regiment dispatched under Operation "Essential Harvest" had previously collaborated and forged personal ties with KLA-NLA commanders now in charge of military operations in Macedonia. The evidence would suggest that the British Para battalions were sent in "to assist" rather than "'disarm" the KLA-NLA. 9
Moreover, US military advisers --on assignment to the KLA-NLA (through private mercenary companies)-- remain in contact with NATO and US military and intelligence planners, who are in turn in liaison with the US State Department. Ultimately, Washington and London decide on the broad direction of KLA-NLA military operations in Macedonia. What this means is that while the Washington call for a cease-fire a diplomatic level, it also decides when "to breach" the cease-fire, and when to actually implement the cease-fire.
In other words, the so-called "breaches of the cease-fire" --marked by a renewed wave of terrorist attacks-- during the final stages of the US-EU sponsored "peace negotiations"-- were not decided by the "Albanian rebel" commanders without consulting Washington.
What this means is that by allowing the "National Liberation Army", America's proxy military force in Macedonia, to launch a new wave of terrorist assaults at the time of crucial negotiations, Washington had consciously and deliberately stalled its own bogus "peace" initiative, while precipitating the country to the brink of civil war.
NATO has stated that they will only intervene and "disarm the rebels" if there is a cease-fire. But what NATO really wants is that the Macedonian ARM remain in the barracks under a unilateral cease-fire, while their proxy forces continue to make further territorial gains.
Already, the unilateral cease-fire ordered by President Trajkovski in the wake of the Ohrid peace agreement has enabled the KLA-NLA terrorists to take up strategic positions in the Crna Gora mountain range near Skopje while also reinforcing their control in the Tetovo region.10 These NLA territorial advances at the time of crucial negotiations are part and parcel of NATO planning.
Following the visit to Skopje of General Joseph Ralston, NATO's supreme allied commander in Europe (20 August) the President ordered (under a new unilateral cease-fire) the Macedonian Security Forces to remain in the barracks. The ARM has been instructed:
"…to carry out a withdrawal of troops as a contribution towards de-escalation in advance of a planned NATO mission to the country… the [defence] ministry in Skopje said warplanes and helicopters would accordingly not be used in crisis areas and the army was to withdraw heavy weapons from combat positions".11
In other words, the invading army imposes a unilateral cease-fire to facilitate the process of territorial conquest.
The command structures of the KLA, the NLA and the United Nations sponsored Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC) overlap and coincide. The so-called Albanian National Army (AKSh) (a paramilitary group linked to the KLA-NLA) which claimed responsibility for the Prelic killings was formed by members of the United Nations KPC. These killings coincided (almost like clockwork) with the final stages of the "peace" negotiations at Ohrid. Everything suggests that this action had been carefully planned in advance and was known to Western intelligence agencies.12Moreover, the decision to dispatch several hundred KPC troops across the border from Kosovo in the days following the conclusion of the Ohrid negotations, could not have been taken without the acquiescence of NATO and UN military personnel stationed in Kosovo.
What this means is that a UN sponsored military force (using UN equipment and resources) has invaded a member country of the United Nations, with the knowledge and approval of NATO forces in Kosovo.
To say that this constitutes "a violation of the UN charter" would be a gross understatement. In the words of Macedonia's Prime Minister Ljubo Georgevski in a letter to addressed to the Secretary General of the United Nations Kofi Annan:
"I, personally, consider this an official declaration of war by the international protectorate of Kosovo and by the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC), which is unfortunately part of the UN civil administration in Kosovo."13
While representing a dissenting political voice, Prime Minister Georgevski, nonetheless signed the "framework document" opening the door to the invasion of his country by NATO troops.
The disarmament process is totally fictitious. Why would NATO disarm its own proxy force, which has been re-equipped in the last few months with brand new weapons "Made in America".
Following the signing of the framework document, NATO announced it had agreed "with the NLA on terms and procedures for an eventual arms turnover". In this regard, NATO plans to replicate the token "disarmament" of the KLA implemented in the wake of the 1999 bombing campaign in Kosovo, where small arms and AK-47s were handed in on a "voluntary" basis. This process was then followed by the arming and equipping of the KLA with advanced weaponry leading into the terrorist attacks in Southern Serbia and Macedonia.
The whole disarmament process is an obvious hoax. In fact, the terms of the "disarmament" are being negotiated with the terrorists rather than with the Macedonian authorities:
"the rebels will collect their own weapons and deposit them at pre-arranged collection sites. NATO troops will then move in, seal the area, pick up the guns for destruction in a third country and leave."14
While NATO "weapons collection teams" have been deployed, NATO has clarified that the handing in of weapons will be entirely "voluntary": "what we prefer from a NATO force point of view is that the insurgents collect the weapons on our behalf…"15
But if the handing in of the weapons is "voluntary", then why does NATO need to bring in large amounts of heavy military equipment in British military transport planes? There is reason to believe that one of the objectives of Operation "Essential Harvest" is to channel arms and supplies to the terrorists inside their territorial enclaves, while at the same time disarming all forms of armed resistance, including the civilian defense groups which have developed in opposition to the terrorists and the NATO led invasion.
While the Western media is spreading rumours that the rebels are "armed with assault rifles and knives" 16 (Associated Press, 20 August 2001), the evidence confirms that the US is continuing to equip the terrorists with advanced weaponry:
"In the well-built guerrilla bunkers overlooking the besieged city of Tetovo, there is ample evidence of U.S. military hardware … An abundant stock of sophisticated night-vision goggles provide the guerrillas with a tremendous tactical advantage over the Macedonian security forces… Snake Arifaj, a 22-year-old guerrilla platoon commander, proudly displayed his unit's impressive arsenal and said, 'Thanks to Uncle Sam, the Macedonians are no match for us.'… Commander "Mouse," a 47-year-old UCK officer in the Tetovo sector… confirmed that two US Chinook Heavy Transport Helicopters had in fact delivered "heavy mortars and ammunition" [in early August] to the guerrillas… [A]mmunition supply is not a problem for the guerrillas. 'We have all the equipment and men we need to capture Skopje in 24 hours,' said Commander "Jimmy", a 22-year-old Albanian guerrilla who is already a veteran of Chechnya, Kosovo, and south Serbia. "Militarily, the Macedonians are no match for our soldiers."17
While paying lip service to the social rights of ethnic Albanians, Washington has no interest in the process of constitutional reform as contained in the "framework document". Washington's objective is not to "disarm the rebels" but to disable the Macedonian Security Forces (ARM) and dismantle State institutions. In this regard, NATO forces are working hand in glove with the KLA-NLA.
Moreover, once the so-called "disarmament" process has been completed, "unarmed observers" from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the EU Monitoring Mission (EUMM) are slated to enter "NLA enclaves to begin confidence-building measures before the return of Macedonian police."18
All the appearances of an "internal conflict" are retained. The links of NATO to the terrorists are never mentioned by the Western media. The confrontation between Macedonians and ethnic Albanians is the cornerstone of most news stories, logically providing a justification for a "peacekeeping" intervention.With a shaky framework agreement on constitutional reform and the country on the brink of civil war, the main players retain their full legitimacy. In the eyes of public opinion, they are not "aggressors", they are peace-keepers intervening on "humanitarian ground".
While the media upholds the NLA as a liberation army fighting for the social rights of an oppressed minority, the process of "demonisation" of the Macedonians has commenced with one-sided news stories relating to presumed war crimes and alleged atrocities committed by the Macedonian police and security forces.
Meanwhile, everything indicates that ethnic tensions have been further heightened with the entry of NATO troops. Terrorist gangs linked to the KLA-NLA are assaulting Macedonian civilians as occurred in Kosovo in 1999.
Washington has pushed Macedonia to the brink of civil war with a view to justifying a NATO led intervention "on humanitarian grounds".
Deliberately jeopardised as a result of the terrorist assaults and the NATO invasion, Washington is fully aware that the "peace" agreement (including the constitutional amendments) has little chance of becoming operational under a "functioning democracy". In this regard, NATO has already hinted that it "has contingency plans" if it is unable to accomplish its mission under the framework "peace" agreement.19In the days following the signing of the framework agreement, the International Crisis Group (ICG), a "Non-governmental Organisation" (funded by George Soros') with links to US State department pointed to the need to "changing the mandate" of the NATO led "Operation Essential Harvest":
"NATO cannot limit its mission to 30 days. It must be prepared to do more than collect arms that are voluntarily given to it. It must seal the border with Kosovo and should provide the security assurance required to see the 13 August agreement through to parliamentary ratification and implementation. And it must be prepared to use all necessary force to make that assurance real… Unfortunately, despite the agreement, there is little trust or even expectation of peace among either ethnic Albanians or Macedonians. That puts a heavy burden on the international community, which will need to decide… whether the mission should have a more open-ended time frame and a more vigorous, traditional peacekeeping role…"20
In turn, the US media has already started to build a "justification" for a more permanent NATO presence as a means to guaranteeing the social rights of ethnic Albanians. An Associate Press report, for instance, quotes:
"Mustafa Arifi, 26, sitting with his uncle in the cool shadow of the local mosque… Not only does he want NATO troops to come, he wants them to stay far longer than the 30 days envisioned by the alliance. 'I know the big powers are on our side,'' he said with certainty. 'I would love for them to be here for 20 years.''' 21
And no doubt once the NATO mandate has been redefined --using a "humanitarian" or "peacekeeping" pretext-- the next stage will be to extend NATO's "mission" beyond the agreed 30 days, leading to a more permanent military presence of NATO troops, as a stepping stone towards the installation of a full-fledged NATO protectorate on the Kosovo-Bosnia model.
In this regard, it is worth recalling that Bosnia-Herzegovina was carved up "along ethnic lines" under the 1995 Dayton Agreement. Similarly, Under Operation "Essential Harvest", the arrangement imposed by NATO on the Macedonian government, is that the terrorists will remain in the territories they occupy and NATO will ensure that Macedonian troops will not enter rebel controlled territory. This also means that Macedonians who were expulsed by the terrorists will not be able to return to their homes. And NATO has confirmed, in this regard, that it will not assist in the return of "internally displaced persons".22
In other words, by firmly protecting the KLA-NLA in their territorial enclaves and allowing the process of ethnic cleansing to proceed, NATO has deliberately created conditions which favour the partition of Macedonia, opening the door to "the detachment" of the so-called "Albanian regions" occupied by KLA-NLA forces and their (possible) annexation to a so-called "free Kosovo".
Meanwhile, the Atlantic Military Alliance --while paying lip service to the territorial integrity of the Yugoslav federation-- is also promoting the secession of a "free Kosovo" from Yugoslavia, which would lead to a fracture of Yugoslavia as well as much broader conflagration in the Balkans.
1. Macedonia Information Agency (MIA), Skopje, 11 August 2001.
2. US State Department Briefing, Washington, 9 August 2001.
3. Interview with Belgrade's Politika, quoted in the Nouvel Observateur, Paris, 11 August 2001 at http://quotidien.nouvelobs.com/etranger/20010810.OBS7336.html.
4. UPI, 1 July 2001.
5. The Scotesman, Glasgow, 29 August 1999.
6. Ibid.
7. See the webpage of the Parachute Regiment at http://www.army.mod.uk/infantry/para/make_up.htm).
8. Sunday Times, London, 18 March 2001. See also The Observer, London, 11 March 2001.
9. From their experience in Northern Ireland, the British Paras have also developed techniques of dealing with civilians going back to the 1971 "Bloody Sunday Massacre" in Derry, Northern Ireland. In a bitter irony, General Michael Jackson who led the Allied Forces invasion into Kosovo in 1999, was Second in Command in the "Bloody Sunday Massacre".
10. Krasnaya Zvezda, Moscow, 16 August 2001, BBC Monitoring Service, London, 18 August 2001.
11. Deutsche Press Agentur, 20 August 2001.
12. On the origins of the AKSh, see Nedelnik Start's report on an intelligence document submitted to the Prime Minister in 2000 which confirms AKSh links to the KPC, Skopje, 2 June 2000.
13. MIA, Skopje, 13 August 2001.
14. BBC, 18 August 2001.
15. See Transcript of NATO Press Conference, Skopje 15 and 17 August, at http://www.afsouth.nato.int/operations/skopje/APICSKOPJE.htm#STARTNATO)
16. Associated Press, 20 August 2001,
17. Scott Taylor, "Thanks to Uncle Sam, Macedonians are no match for us!", 20 August 2001, at http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/taylor.htm).
18. Jane Defence Weekly, 15 August 2001.
19. Washington Post, 18 August.
20. See International Crisis Center (ICG) web page at http://www.crisisweb.org/.
21. Associated Press, 18 August 2001.
22. See NATO Press Conference, Skopje, 20 August 2001, at http://www.afsouth.nato.int/operations/skopje/TRANSCRIPT-20AUG.htm)
ARTICLES BY THE AUTHOR ON MACEDONIA:
"The Military Occupation of Macedonia", August 2001, at http://globalresearch.ca/articles/chossudovsky/macedonia-occupation.ht ml
"Washington Behind Terrorist Assaults in Macedonia", Ottawa, July 2001, athttp://emperors-clothes.com/articles/choss/washbe.htm also at
"America at War in Macedonia", June 2001,http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/choss/pipe.htm
"Macedonia: Washington's Military Intelligence Ploy", June 2001, http://www.transnational.org/forum/meet/2001/Chossudov_WashingtPloy.html
"Washington Finances Ethnic Warfare in the Balkans", Ottawa, April 2001, http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/choss/fin.htm
Copyright by Michel Chossudovsky, August, 2001. All rights reserved.
Permission is granted to post this text on non-commercial community internet sites, provided the essay remains intact and the copyright note is displayed. To publish this text in printed and/or other forms, including commercial internet sites and excerpts, contact the author at chossudovsky@videotron.ca, fax: 1-514-4256224.
The URL for this article is: http://globalresearch.ca/cho/natoinvades.htm.
Originally published published by 'Common Sense' in '99. This article illustrates - in brief fashion - the common parentage of NATO & the Common Market.
To elicit some sense of logic out of current events, with America firmly ensconced in the role of 'World Policeman' and the entry of NATO on to the Balkan scene, it is necessary to recall some crucial events from 1917 onwards.
The vast wealth amassed by the Vanderbilts, Astors, Morgans and other suchlike at the turn of the century fuelled the extraordinary growth of the American mass-production machine, and the resultant corporations were soon looking abroad with the intention of extending their interests. On the other hand, the Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia in 1917 created, in effect, a call to wage-earners worldwide for the setting up of a marxist system of social distribution of wealth - the very antithesis of the capitalist system of garnering profit from the wealth created by labor. The corporatists now had little option but to commit themselves to the destruction of this subversive marxist threat, even though this entailed the dubious - if not impossible - concept of the destruction of an Idea, an Ideal. Above all, they had to avoid this dichotomy being seen as one of ideology per se, the inequity inherent within their capitalist system being too vulnerable to close scrutiny. No, the struggle had to be seen by their public as one of 'Good Nation' against "Evil Nation': 'White' against 'Red'. This would be made easier both by ownership of the means of communication - the media - and the subornation of political parties of all shades outside of America (as in post-WW 2 in Italy). The weak left in America itself would be quashed by baton and gun.
Such was the ideological impasse that lay at the root of all subsequent events, and it is therefore essential to look more closely at the role of corporate America, the key stall-holder in the world market, and the group that would stand to lose the most in the case of failure. For them, political control was now important, but politicians could not be entrusted entirely with the task of avoiding and repudiating the temptations of this new ideology. Control would be implemented in two ways: (1) by direct secondment of top corporate executives to high government posts, thus skirting the democratic process (an example of this was the fact that in the first two years of Truman's presidency - of the 125 principal administrative appointments made, 56 were corporate lawyers, industrialists and bankers [one of whom, James Forrestal of Dillon, Read & Co. was probably the earliest and most vigorous promoter of what was soon to become popularly known as 'the Cold War']); and 31 were high-ranking military officers. And (2) by the formation of influential 'advisory' groups. A survey of these reveals that, contrary to the popular view of America as the epitome of a pluralistic, competitive society of 'rugged individuals', its corporations display a very high degree of cohesion of purpose, and this cohesion is exemplified by their manifest urge to form cabalistic groups, many of a pseudo-social character. This is a phenomenon that would come as no surprise to anyone who has attended an American university - with Fraternity membership frequently leading to the masonic lodge on graduation. Indeed, when it is recalled that America's first President, Washington, and nine of the signatories to the Declaration of Independence in 1776 were Freemasons, and that the subsequent rituals used for both Washington's inauguration and the laying of the Capitol cornerstone were masonic - then it would seem that this phenomenon even has certain traditional roots.
The result is groups such as (A) the Business Council (or BC) formed in 1933 by businessmen and bankers as an advisory body to the US Department of Commerce, and subsequently commissioned by FDR to draw up his Social Security Act of 1936 - thus de-fusing the potentially revolutionary situation induced by the 'Great Depression'. Since then, they have held immense political clout in Washington. Understandable when it is recalled that in 1972 the chairmen/presidents of 26 of the 50 largest industrial corporations were members of the BC. From FDR onwards, the only time the BC lost its advisory status was during JFK's presidency, after confrontation with him. (B) The Bohemian Club, with its prestigious membership and its 127-lodge Grove Camp north of San Francisco on the river Russia.It was here that the atom bomb Manhattan Project was conceived in 1942 at the prompting of physicist Professor Ernest Lawrence. And (C) The Euro-American Bilderberg Group, formed in 1954 to serve as a forum for lobbying at the highest political level in order to ensure that consensual policies were adopted by the signatories to the NATO Alliance in particular. On the international scene it is almost certainly the most influential of these groups/cabals. Implicit within the structure of the Bilderberg - with its publicised claim to having no membership as such, no charter and no elected officers - is its unaccountable, autocratic nature. However, the fact that it has a chairman, a steering committee and annual conferences would seem to contradict the above claim. In any case, all doors to the seats of power are open to the Bilderberg.
The inevitable interlocking of membership among groups such as above resulted in the creation of an intricate web of influence. (The Bohemian Club, with tongue in cheek, cautions its members and guests on entering the Grove: "Spiders Weave Not Here!" - as if a spider could exist without weaving its web!). The following table, covering nine of these groups, illustrates concisely the complexity and scale of the web as it existed in the early 1970's. (Two points must be made here: the Bilderberg is not included because of its structural ambiguity noted above; and it should be kept in mind that each figure represents a top-ranking executive in the American military/industrial/banking complex):
| BO | PU | CA | RA | LI | CE | CFR | CED | BC | |
| BO | |||||||||
| PU | 252 | ||||||||
| CA | 136 | 96 | |||||||
| RA | 40 | 20 | 45 | ||||||
| LI | 67 | 69 | 33 | 1 | |||||
| CE | 22 | 8 | 7 | 1 | 57 | ||||
| CFR | 34 | 25 | 15 | 1 | 108 | 332 | |||
| CED | 20 | 24 | 17 | 2 | 60 | 23 | 52 | ||
| BC | 27 | 24 | 14 | 2 | 77 | 12 | 42 | 49 | * |
(*) Table from the "Bohemian Grove"
Three notorious, well-documented examples of the use to which this influence was put:
(1) In Iran, mid-1953, the Americans deposed Mossadegh who had nationalised the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now BP) in 1951 - and installed the Shah by means of a CIA operation code-named AJAX. Legal counsel for the AIOC had for years been the distinguished New York corporate law firm, Sullivan & Cromwell, the senior partners of which were the Dulles brothers (another partner was Arthur Dean who was later to be co-chairman in the Bilderberg for some years). At the time of the coup, John Foster Dulles was Secretary of State; Allen Dulles was CIA Director. It is worth adding here that the AIOC had for years been financed by the Industrial Bank of Iran, an offshoot of the German Schröder banking house (about which, more later).
(2) In Guatemala, June 1954, a CIA-sponsored coup d'état removed the reformist, constitutionally-elected government of Jacobo Arbenz Guzman (a land-owning, military officer), and replaced it by a military dictatorship. Arbenz had, in 1953, expropriated - as part of his much-needed agrarian reform - large tracts of land belonging to the American United Fruit Company, whose earlier predatory incursion into Central America had caused the area to be known as 'The Banana Republics'. For years, the counsel for the UFC had been Sullivan & Cromwell, and at the time of the coup the Dulles's still held the posts they had held in 1953 (above). Indeed, John FD was also a large stockholder in the UFC. This coup, incidentally, had been a blatant violation of Article 15 of the US-inspired Organisation of American States (OAS) which specifically forbade any interference - political or military - by one state in the affairs of any other state.
(3) Chile, September 1970: the CIA, with the collaboration of International Telephone & Telegraph (ITT) and Pepsi-Cola, tried, unsuccessfully, to mount a military coup in order to prevent the favored, left-wing candidate Salvador Allende from winning the presidential election. They planned this coup without the privity of the American Ambassador, Edward Korry, who was opposed to such intervention. This abortive attempt did not stop the CIA and its corporate allies: in September 1973, Allende was overthrown - and killed - and the dictatorship of General Pinochet installed. Among those who played an active influential role in the above were: Harold Geneen (Pres./Chm. of ITT); John McCone (Board of ITT, Director CIA 1961 to 1965, & member of Bohemian Club), and Donald Kendall (Chm. Pepsi Cola, Mem. Business Council, & friend of Nixon).
These examples of corporate power-wielding reveal the lack of any democratic accountability, as well as a disregard of national frontiers - this latter aspect due largely to the now multi-national nature of the corporations. There were even a number of cases in the1930's and 1940's when such activity militated against the national interest of their own country - to the benefit of Germany in the following instances. The 1920's had been a particularly crucial period in Germany because of the extraordinary rise to power of the Nazis. What had been a rag-tag of street dissidents had, within a decade, become a well-uniformed, well-organised and obviously well-financed party. Above all, it projected a marked anti-communist bias. This attracted corporate America - and contacts were soon made. ITT and Sullivan & Cromwell were among the more high-profile firms to do so. In the case of both firms the German contact used was Dr. Gerhardt Alois Westrick, Hitler's financial agent - and through him deals were made with Baron Kurt von Schröder of the Schröder banking house (see AIOC above). This bank was a channel for funds for the Nazi Party in general, and the Gestapo in particular. (It was in von Schröder's villa in Köln on the 7th of January 1933 that Hitler and Franz von Papen had met to plan details for their subsequent seizure of power, and von Schröder was later made SS Gruppenfuehrer). In ITT's case: in return for directorships for both Westrick and von Schröder in ITT, the latter acquired a number of German firms, the most intriguing of which was a 28% share in the Focke-Wulf company whose aircraft saw much service in the ensuing WW 2 - much to the discomfiture of Allied civilians and servicemen. Furthermore, in 1967 ITT were paid $25 million in compensation for war damages to its factories in Germany! For its part, Sullivan & Cromwell acquired as clients the following: (1) IG Farben, the German chemical conglomerate which, in 1937, developed the deadly nerve gas Tabun. (2) The well-known Swedish ball-bearing manufacturer SKF, which supplied 60% of its production to Germany, primarily for its armaments. And (3) The Schröder banking house itself, Allen Dulles becoming a director of its New York offshoot - a post he held until 1944. Inasmuch as it exposes one of the filaments of the 'corporate web', it is pertinent to note here that the man who initially approached Sullivan & Cromwell on behalf of Schröder was the latter's New York vice-president, John l. Simpson, the chief confidant of Steve Bechtel Snr. (Bechtel Corp.) who was a member of the most prestigious camp in the Bohemian Grove - Mandalay Camp. (Bechtel was later to supply the US government with such figures as John McCone, George Schultz and Caspar Weinberger).
Implicit within the political unaccountability of the American corporate oligarchy is its secretiveness. We are thus justified in assuming that the few examples of foreign intervention that are in the public domain (as noted above) must mean that there are many more of like import and gravity not in the public domain. Hence, any concerned curiosity about such unpublicised activities is equally justified.
At this point it is necessary to recall that at the end of WW 2, America emerged with three-quarters of the world's invested capital and two-thirds of the world's industrial capacity - the USSR with its infrastructure decimated. The distribution of American aid that followed was significant: more aid was distributed to the right-wing dictatorships of Turkey, Greece, South Korea, South Vietnam and Formosa (Taiwan) than to Western Europe. Again, the USSR was denied aid, and the reason given by the US for this denial (which, incidentally, circumvented UN agreements) was that, at the critical Moscow Conference which started on the 10th of March 1947, the USSR had spurned Americas' gestures of compromise - conveniently disregarding Truman's bombshell of a speech to his Congress on the 12th of March, just two days into the Conference! A speech known as the 'Truman Doctrine' which was, in effect, an ultimatum to the Soviets. The Marshall Plan was announced three months later. George Kennan, who was Head of the US State Department Planning Staff in the late1940's (and protégé of James Forrestal), supplied the official rationale that lay behind the above facts concisely in articles he wrote at the time under the pseudonym of 'Mr. X'. He wrote:"..the United States has it in its power to increase enormously the strains under which Soviet policy must operate..and..to promote tendencies which eventually find their outlet in either the break up or the gradual mellowing of Soviet power". Prophetic words ?
These irreconcilable ideological differences between the USSR on the one hand, and Britain and America on the other, reflected the fact that their wartime alliance had been an alliance of convenience - of pragnatism (for instance, contrary to FDR's assurance to the USSR in May'1942 that a 'second front' would be opened later that year, this, in fact, did not occur until June 1944 - when it became clear to the Western Allies that the Soviets were advancing inexorably westwards). Thus, at war's end, the Western Allies immediately reverted to their pre-war anti-communist strategy - and given their common, fervent anti-communist bias, it was also inevitable that there would be co-operation between America and the Vatican. This was comprehensively portrayed in the book "Ratlines" (by Mark Aarons & John Loftus). Examples of this co-operation were the setting up of the anti-communist propaganda radio stations: Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe, joint ventures of the CIA (for funding) and the Knights of Malta (SMOM) members J.Peter Grace (WR Grace Corp.) and Frank Shakespeare (CBS, RKO, and US Information Agency) - among others. SMOM was the most active Catholic group which so co-operated, and although membership was opened to Americans only in 1927, it is a measure of that country's influential standing that by the 1940's the American Cardinal Spellman held the post of 'Grand Protector" within the Order, whereas King Leopold and Queen Wilhelmina were mere 'Protectors" within their respective countries. To name but a few of the SMOM members, past and present, is to reveal its elitism and power: Juan Peron; CIA Directors John McCone and William Casey; King Juan Carlos; ex-NATO Commander and Secretary of State Alexander Haig; Joseph Kennedy; and Nazi Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen (who negotiated the Hitler/Vatican Concordat of 1933).
This Concordat was an agreement that meant, in effect, that a government with an ostensibly anti-religious, Nazi bias had taken the seemingly extraordinary step of imposing a church tithe on its populace. To understand this apparent paradox it is necessary to recall the ties that bound Germany to Rome for some eight centuries (926 to 1806) under the aegis of the Holy Roman Empire, with its succession of German Kings. The unavoidable conclusion to be drawn here is that these ties were still alive in 1933. And when it is recalled that in the mid-thirties the Vatican, aided by French and British Intelligence Services, had formed a powerful secret oeganisation, 'Intermarium', whose primary aim was the promotion of a 'Pan-Danubian Confederation' of middle-European states (thus forming an anti-communist barrier stretching from the Baltic to the Adriatic), then the setting up of the puppet states in Slovenia and Croatia in 1941 are comprehensible. That these German/Roman ties still exist today is attested to by the facts that: (1) the Concordat is still in effect; and (2) since WW 2 the German political scene has been dominated, for the most part, by Christian Democratic (Catholic) parties. Indeed, there can be no other rational explanation for Germany's extraordinary action on the 15th of January 1992 when, following on the Vatican's recognition of the 'independence' of Slovenia and Croatia - and contrary to the advice and warnings given to them by the UN, EEC and Bosnia (Itzebegovic had even gone to Bonn in a vain attempt to dissuade them from taking this step) - they broke the universally-accepted rule of not interfering in the domestic affairs of a foreign sovereign state, and unilaterally recognised the 'independence' of Slovenia and Croatia, thereby sanctioning the violent outbursts of nationalism that had occurred as a result of the earlier Declarations of Independence by those two autonomous members of the Yugoslav Federation. It was inevitable that this German action would lead to the Bosnian débacle, and it is difficult to believe that germany was not aware of this (about which, more later). This act of recognition by the Vatican in 1992 should be viewed in the context of the Ustase's approach to the papal mission in Salzburg in June 1945 asking for the pope's assistance in the creation of either another Croatian state, or, at least a Danube-Adriatic union.
Any further historical review of the Balkan region would be inadequate if it did not include the role that religion in general, and the Roman Catholic Church in particular, has played in it - but in view of the schism that exists within the RC Church between the oligarchic 'Integralists' and the liberal 'Base Communities", it should be noted that any further references to the Church in this article are directed towards the former: the autocrats in the Vatican. The involvement of The Church in the region was inevitable, given its geographical juxtaposition to - and historical association with - Slovenia and Croatia. The latter had long been regarded by The Church as a bastion against both the Orthodox Serbs (since Pope John 10th's crowning of Tomislav as king of Croatia in 925 AD) and the Muslim Ottomans. The Roman/Orthodox split in the Christian Church and the subsequent five centuries of Ottoman rule ensured that the Yugoslavia that was to be formed in 1918 would be a land simmering with religious discord - a situation not eased by the earlier incursions of the Habsburgs from the north and the Bulgars from the east. The setting up of the Catholic state of Croatia under the fascist Ustase in the wake of the German invasion of Yugoslavia in '41 ignited this discord, resulting in large-scale massacres of Serbs, Jews, Muslims and Gipsies. Another area of discord during the war (and one of particular pertinence to the current crisis) was the split among the Serbs, between the Nationalist/Royalist Cetniks under Mihailovich and the communist/republican Partisans under Tito (most of whom were Serbs - though Tito himself was born a Croat). The British and Americans were well aware of this schism, the British having seconded Brig. Fitzroy McClean to the partisans, and the Americans Robert McDowell of the OSS to the Cetniks.
One aspect of the Vatican/Yugoslav relationship during the early post-war period that should be noted is that, whereas the Polish government, a USSR satellite, had intervened far more in the internal affairs of the Church than had Yugoslavia, which had broken off relations with the USSR in '48, the Vatican adopted a far more intransigent attitude towards the latter (as exemplified by their opposition to Tito's agrarian reform; their stance over the Istrian confrontation; and their ban on priests joining the long-established Priest's Associations) - than to the former. This could only have been a case of political opportunism aimed at Tito's comparative weakness. It was certainly not a case of religious principle.
Another post-war event that was to play a crucial role in Yugoslavia's future was the Greek civil war. The popular communist-led party EAM (with its military wing ELAS) would have assumed power in Greece in 1944 had not the British intervened militarily with two divisions, as a result of the (then) secret deal Churchill had made with Stalin in October '44: allowing the British a free hand in Greece, in return for the USSR having a free hand in Bulgaria and Romania. The British installed the right-wing Tsaldaris as dictator of Greece, and thus found themselves embroiled in a civil war they could ill-afford. In February '47 they notified the Americans of their intention to withdraw from Greece, and Truman made his crucial speech calling on the West to rally to his crusade against the "..un-American communist way of life" - the 'Truman Doctrine' as it came to be known (see above). America had now replaced Britain as the broker in the Balkans, and was faced by the fact that ELAS was an effective military force, due primarily to the aid/backing it was receiving from neighbouring Yugoslavia.
June '48 saw the Tito/Stalin split, resulting in the former being expelled from the Cominform. The West's reaction to this was best spelt out by Pavlowitch in his book "Yugoslavia": "The American and West European governments were faced with a dilemma. Should they help a now weak and isolated, but otherwise successful, instance of communism, while 'containing' communism generally?". On the one hand "..if Yugoslavia were left to collapse, only the Soviet Union would benefit. If, on the other hand, Tito's régime were helped to survive economically, his rift with Moscow could be widened to the point where no reconciliation were possible any longer, and his independent position could then entice other East European régimes to follow his example. Thus, at the same time as the states of Western Europe and North America were grouping together to constitute the North Atlantic Alliance, it was decided, as a calculated risk for a long -term advantage, to assist Yugoslavia without asking its government to alter its domestic policies in any way."
In July '48 America released Yugoslavia's frozen gold-assets which had been blocked earlier when the latter had refused to compensate for American property it had nationalised. This was the result of Yugoslavia now agreeing to pay such compensation. The following year America relaxed export controls to Yugoslavia, and instigated a series of loans and grants to same (this totalled some $2 to $2.5 billion in the decade up to '59). Tito stopped assisting ELAS, thus ensuring the latter's defeat. Yugoslavia was now embarked on a debt-ridden course which would eventually lead to the dissolution of its Federation - helped in no small measure by Tito's setting up in '74 of a New Constitution which, in effect, split the Republic of Serbia into three parts by giving its provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina a higher degree of autonomy than they had previously held - thereby, incidentally, exacerbating underlying dissidences of a political, ethno-religious nature. The collapse of the Soviet Union in '91 now meant that Yugoslavia's usefulness as a tactical foil to the Soviets (see Pavlowitch above) had now lapsed, leaving Yugoslavia in the vulnerable position of now being one of the only two remaining nominally communist states in Europe - the other being Albania. Moreover, as noted above, American aid had ensured that Yugoslavia would be a country heavily in debt, and with an economy in turmoil. This was a situation exacerbated by the disparate economies of the various republics within the Federation (Slovenia and Croatia vis-a-vis the others), and the historical ethno-religious discord within the region. Disintegration was inevitable, and was to begin in 1990.
On the face of it, and in simplistic terms, the resulting turmoil in the region was just another anarchic stew of religious ingredients. After all, there had been many such throughout history (and still are!), usually characterised by the cruel, vicious acts of the warring parties (begging the question: when is a war not cruel, not vicious? Can it be that it is when, by the simple, dehumanised act of pressing a button or pulling a lever, a nuclear or napalm bomb or cruise missile is sent on its impersonal way - in the name of 'humanitarian intervention'?). Be that as it may, such a simplistic approach to the Balkan maze - not taking into account the inexorable rationality of historical events leading to the débacle - has led to many a dead-end of irrationality in this crisis, epitomised by the many diplomatic and journalistic reports covering it.
Intervention by the West, in the form of the EEC and the UN, soon followed, but the initial attempts to bring the warring factions together, punctuated as they were by frequent about-turns in tactics on the part of the 'peace-makers', were of such an irresolute nature as to nurture doubts as to their aim. For a start, peace-brokers of questionable qualifications were appointed: Carrington, an eminent Bilderberger, and his successor, Owen, had both served as Foreign Secretary of a country, Britain, that had for decades been conspicuously unsuccessful in solving its own Balkan/Irish problem. Again, Carrington and Vance (Owen's co-broker) had both been board members of arms-dealing companies - the former with Kissinger Associates; the latter with the prestigious General Dynamics. Surely a case of 'conflict of interests' here?
In the middle of these peace-brokerings came Germany's recognition of Slovenian and Croatian independence , which ensured that the conflict would spread to neighbouring Bosnia-Herzogovnia with its potentially explosive mixture of three ethno-religious groups. On the face of it, it would seem that, having been given the chimerical task of untying the Balkan Gordian Knot by the Germans, the peace-makers had little choice but to make the best of it. However, in view of the clonal nature of the EEC/NATO partnership (of which, more later), it is hard to believe that fellow-members of the partnership were not party to Germany's action: were not two crucial NATO posts held by Germans at that time (Werner as Secretary General, and Weggener as Assistant Secretary General of Political Affairs)? Indeed, the fact that NATO was to adopt a more overt role in the crisis from hereon calls for scrutiny of that organisation.
The collapse of the communist states in the East caused many in the West to query the future need for NATO. It is now evident that this query was based on two grave misconceptions: (1) that NATO had been set up solely to resist Soviet expansion; and (2) that the collapse of the latter had meant the end of marxism. Had this been so, logic would have decreed immediate redundancy for NATO! From its birth in April '49 NATO has operated under American patronage and hegemony. Patronage whereby, under its Article 3, it finances the organisation; hegemony, as attested to by a glance at its command structure, which reveals that both its commands (Allied Command Europe [ACE with its two sub-commands SHAPE & SAFEUR]), and Allied Command Atlantic (ACLANT) come under statutory American control (It is significant that the third Command-that-was (CINCHAN), the only command previously not under statutory American control, was recently disbanded). No, NATO's true role has been to act as a counter-revolutionary, counter-reformist arm of the Corporate West. This was clarified by no less a person than George Kennan (once again) when, at the BBC Reith Lecture in '57, while objecting to the fact that since the co-option of Germany into NATO, the latter - a military instrument - had become "the major vehicle of western policy", he revealed that the State Department had created NATO as a shield behind which the West could meet "..the communist danger in its most threatening form - as an internal problem - that is, of Western society, to be combatted by reviving economic activity". In plain English: NATO had been formed to deal with the internal political problems of Western society. And if anybody should have known, it was he: had he not been Head of Planning at the time? This was a statement, moreover, that conformed precisely - and understandably - to the tenets of Corporate America. That this was its mandate, and that NATO was not subject to democratic accountability, can be attested to by the fact that in '59, under its Article 9 (which empowered the setting up of 'subsidiary bodies'), GLADIO (aka GLAIVE, aka ZWAARD)was brought under the control of SHAPE's Clandestine Planning Committee. GLADIO was a secret anti-left terrorist group set up by the CIA and British Intelligence in Italy in 1950 with the aim of countering the influence of the Communist Party in that country. Subsequent judicial investigation in Italy revealed that GLADIO had been actively involved in such acts as the Bologna station bombing.
Kennan could have added that NATO had had another more immediate role to play. In the immediate post-WW 2 period, well aware of the potentially lucrative markets that would result from the reconstruction of war-damaged Europe, Corporate America, with its vast capital reserves, was determined to benefit from it. They would achieve this by means of the Marshall Plan as implemented by the Economic Co-operation Act passed by Congress in '48. The most crucial requirement for the successful fulfilment of this Act was an integrated Europe - but the British and Scandinavians, fearing loss of sovereignty and suspicious of Americas'motives, opposed such integration. The following year NATO was formed, and by incorporating these dissenting nations under the guise of shielding them from any move west by the Soviets, America thus attenuated such dissension and gained a valuable hold in Europe. NATO had thus played an important role in the formative stage in what would ultimately become the Common Market/EEC/EU. Any doubt as to the close relationship between the two is dispelled by NATO's own words in its commemorative Handbook of 1999: (keeping in mind that, from 1955, the Brussels Treaty became known as the Western European Union - precursor of the Common Market) "The Brussels Treaty of 1948..was also the first step in the process leading to the signature of the North Atlantic Treaty in 1949 and the creation of the North Atlantic Alliance". A glance at recent events in Europe confirms this closeness: before an applicant country - such as Poland or Hungary - could be considered as a member of the EU, it had to be first vetted by NATO. Indeed, this relationship is so close as to cast doubt as to who is calling the tune in Europe.
NATO's involvement in the Balkan crisis was a gradual process - from its avowed readiness in June '92 to support peace-keeping under the authority of the Conference on Security & Cooperation in Europe (subsequently re-named the Organisation for Security & Cooperation in Europe [OCSE]) - through to its use of air strikes over Bosnia from '94 until September '95, when the strikes were suspended pending the Dayton peace talks.The reason for this somewhat tentative initial approach on the part of NATO was that they were playing for time: as a result of a strategic review undertaken in the aftermath of the dissolution of the USSR, NATO, in October '92, had inaugurated a plan to create an Allied Command Europe Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC) of some 250,000 troops to be deployed whenever NATO deemed it necessary to intervene in order to 'keep the peace'. (This was a force which would presumably augment its twin CENTCOM which had similarly been formed to 'protect' [control] the Middle East oilfields). As originally foreseen, the ARRC would not be ready until 1995.
NATO has for years stressed that "the Alliance is purely defensive in purpose..an attack on one is an attack on all". Indeed, Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty of 1949 states this clearly. What then was NATO's mandate for intervening militarily in what was an internal civil war in Yugoslavia? The above-mentioned1999 Handbook supplies NATO's answer - to the effect that some of its main defense forces "could also be employed for sustaining 'non-Article 5 operations'". This is eleborated upon by a footnote which, while re-affirming the validity of Article 5, adds that "Alliance activities falling outside the scope of Article 5 are referred to as 'Non-Article 5 operations'". This was a veiled reference to the fact that NATO, in the aftermath of the collapse of the USSR, had changed its 'strategic concept' conveniently modifying its Article 5 so that it could now intervene militarily in the name of'keeping the peace' or 'humanitarian intervention' - or both. Self-defence was no longer the only reason for launching an attack. In NATO's own words "The organisation of its forces has changed the Alliance's overall defense posture".
In September 1995, with the ARRC now ready, NATO announced its readiness to deploy a large force to implement a Bosnian peace settlement. They would now be in overt control of the situation and they pressurised the warring faactions to 'sit around the table'. On the 5th of October '95 they announced a 60-day cease-fire which came into effect a week later. Ultimatums were now the order of the day - accompanied by the carrot of an embargo-lift. Simultaneously, the UN echoed NATO's cease-fire announcement by announcing its intention to reduce its troops in the region. The Dayton peace talks took place in the intimidating atmosphere of the Wright-Patterson Air Force base near Dayton, Ohio. The embargo against Yugoslavia was lifted in November - and the peace accord signed in Paris on the 14th of December '95. Just previously, in early December, as a result of a conference convened in London to discuss the implementation of the Dayton accord, a Peace Implementation Council - with no UN representatives onboard - was set up in Brussels. The resulting Implementation Force (IFOR), a force of 60,000 American, British and French troops - under the command of the ARRC - was then deployed throughout Bosnia into three zones of operation. In December '96 IFOR was augmented by the Stabilisation Force (SFOR) of 30.000 troops. The cease-fire could now be ensured by this display of military might.
America's tactics in the crisis from early on had raised doubts as to its impartiality and avowed compliance with the tenets of reconciliation inherent in a peace-making process. David Owen had voiced such doubts, and certain subsequent actions were to validate such doubts. As a result of a signed agreement on military co-operation between the US and Croatia (the latter had already signed a similar agreement with Turkey), the Croatian Ministry of Defense had signed a contract with Military Professional Resources Inc. (MPRI) in 1994, under which the latter would act as military advisors to the Croat army at the Petar Zrinski military school in Zagreb. The MPRI officer in charge was retired General Richard Griffiths who, from '89 to '91, had been assistant to the US Commander in Europe for Intelligence, in Frankfurt. That the MPRI operates under the aegis of the US Department of Defense is attested to by: (1) the agreement referred to above; (2) the fact that it is staffed by many of the highest-ranking retired military officers in the US (such as its Chief of Operations, Lieut. General Harry Soyster, who had been Head of the Defense Intelligence Agency); and (3) James Pardew, the Pentagon's representative at the Dayton talks, had subsequently flown to Sarajevo to persuade the Bosnians to use MPRI's services. This was a company set up in Alexandria, Virginia in 1987 with the specific aim of promoting America's anti-left strategy on the international military scene. In August 1995 the training of the Croat army came to fruition: their attack on the Serbs of Western Krajina was so well and effectively planned that, within a matter of days, 150,000 Serbs had fled the region where, four centuries before, they had been settled to act as a buffer between catholic and muslim. Not long after the Krajina rout, it was revealed in a Croat newspaper - and later on British TV - that one of the contributory factors to the Croat's victory had been CIA-organised pilotless reconnaissance flights over Krajina from a base on the island of Brac, in the Adriatic. Obviously, this could not have been done without close coordination with MPRI.
The Americans had now adopted a blatantly anti-Serb stance which embraced both Cetnik Serbian leadership in Bosnia (Karadic was a self-avowed royalist Cetnik) and the rump Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia - conveniently disregarding the schism between these two groups (see above), a schism born in WW 2 and now re-activated in this crisis. This was clearly manifested during the Vance-Owen Plan negotiations in '93, when Karadic initially rejected the plan in open defiance of the wishes of the Federal Republic. In the context of the aftermath of the collapse of the USSR and the consequent lapse of Yugoslavia's use as a tactical foil (as noted above), the logical conclusion to be drawn from this latest American stance was that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) - still tainted with 'communism' in the eyes of the Americans - was now the ultimate target. And if Milosevic, by now effectively Saddamised, was not aware of that, then he was not the shrewd politician he had so far proven to be.
This build-up of the Bosnian army under the guise of creating an 'even playing field', while good news for American arms manufacturers, was most certainly not a helpful move towards a peaceful solution of the Balkan problem. The resulting entry of the big corporations on to the scene would be eased by the need for the reconstruction of the war-damaged infrastructure, with its accompanying lucrative contracts - as happened in the Gulf War, for instance, when, even before the war's end, corporations such as Bechtel were awarded contracts to rebuild Kuwait (both Secretary of State Shultz and Secretary of Defense Weinberger had joined the administration from Bechtel Corp.). While on this matter of reconstruction, the fact that an ostensibly military organisation NATO (in the form of IFOR) had been given the responsibility of undertaking the reconstruction of the civilian infrastructure of war-damaged Bosnia, was surely a pointer both to its inbred political nature and its corporate alliance.
Now, at the end of 1998, after months of internal strife in Kosovo - with the resultant outflow of Kosovar refugees and reports of massacres - NATO, after much sabre-rattling, prevailed upon the Yugoslavs to allow its (NATO's) affiliate, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to monitor the situation in situ. Result: the Kosovo Verification Mission (KVM) entered Kosovo under the leadership of a US diplomat, William Walker, who, as US Ambassador to El Salvador, had administered support for that State's reign of terror - with its politically motivated killings (shades of Guatemala, Chile, Nicaragua et al.). The concurrent peace talks convened by the Americans at Rambouillet, just west of Paris, were notable for the fact that one of the two main protagonists , Yugoslavia, was treated as a non-participant. How else to explain the fact that when, in Paris on the 18th of March 1999, the representatives of the FRY, Serbia , and seven of the Kosovan ethnic minorities submitted - for discussion - an Agreement for Self-Government in Kosovo & Metohija (a document conforming to democratic principles), - only to have it rejected out-of-hand by the (American) Contact Group and the KLA? The logical deduction to be drawn from this is that these talks had been an orchestrated facade obscuring the fact that NATO had already decided to bomb Yugoslavia. Certain facts sustain this view: (1) Regardless of Yugoslavia's non-participation (as noted), an 'Agreement' was reached at Rambouillet, the crucial clause of which was set forth under (authors'italics) Appendix B: Status of Multi-National Military Implementation Force (8) NATO personnel shall enjoy, together with their vehicles, vessels, aircraft, and equipment free and unrestricted passage and unimpeded access throughout the FRY including associated airspace and territorial waters." (Agreement - or Ultimatum?!); (2) On the 19th of March 1999 the KVM was withdrawn from Kosovo - its mission unfinished; and (3) (Keeping in mind that Kosovo is one of the two provinces of the Republic of Serbia, Vojvodina being the other) in answer to the Rambouillet Agreement/Ultimatum, the Serbian National Assembly convened, and on the 23rd of March passed a resolution rejecting NATO's ultimatum, condemning the withdrawal of the KVM, and calling for negotiations leading.."towards the reaching of a political agreement on a wide-ranging autonomy for Kosovo & Metohija". It added that , though.."the Serbian Parliament does not accept presence of foreign military troops in Kosovo & Metohija..it is ready to review the size and character of the International presence in Kosmet (Kosovo/Metohija) for the carrying out of the raeched accord. immediately upon signing the political accord on the self-rule agreed and accepted by the representatives of all national communities livcing in Kosovo & Metohija." There were now two peace plans on the table on the 23rd of March. NATO launched its bombing campaign the following day, on March the 24th - with the avowed 'humanitarian aim of returning the refugees to Kosovo', in the name of the 'international community'.
It is hard to believe that NATO was so politically obtuse that (1) it did not foresee that this bombing would exacerbate the ongoing strife in Kosovo - with its concomitant human suffering; (2) it was so eagerly committed to the return of Kosovar refugees, when, after 4 years, the refugee problem in neighbouring Bosnia had still not been resolved; and (3) it could have claimed so brazenly to be acting in the name of the international community when it was circumventing the authority of an organisation - the UN - which had been formed to cope with just such an eventuality. With these points in mind, when, on the 6th of May 1999, the G-8 nations called for a Kosovo peace settlement under UN mandate - and two days later NATO bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade (thereby making it much less likely that the plan would be implemented), surely logic demands that we harbour grave doubts as to the veracity of NATO's claim that the bombing was accidental? Moreover, NATO's constantly reiterated claim that it intervened in the Balkans 'for humanitarian reasons' loses all credence when viewed against events of a similar nature occurring simultaneously in not-so-distant Turkey, a long-standing member of NATO which had for years been responsible for the ethnic-cleansing of its Kurdish minority on an even greater scale than is the case in the Balkans - and in a region which boasts the presence of a long-established American military Intelligence base just outside Diyabakir, a town to which over a million Kurds fled between '90 and '94. This begs the question: by what right - other than military might - does NATO assume the mantle of the 'international community'? The rational answer is: the right of the Corporate West, led by America, to pursue its aim of global, capitalist domination. National boundaries are no longer sacrosanct.
In view of the foregoing facts, it is surely logical to assume that NATO's ploy in the Balkans clearly mirrors that of its twin, CENTCOM, in the Gulf - namely, the creation of a situation in which their continued military presence in the region is thus justified?
In conclusion, it is interesting to wonder what some historian in the more objective future would make of the long-past dissolution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Faced by the fact that the two main protagonists in the dispute had both been federal states, would he not ponder on the irony of it, and wonder what would have been the reaction of the federal United States government if the roles in the situation had been reversed - and two of its states had decided to quit the United States federation? Of one thing the historian would be in no doubt: peace counts for nowt when caught in the corporate spider's web of Profit!
"Ratlines" by Mark Aarons & John Loftus (Heineman '91)
"Church & State in Yugoslavia since '45 by Stella Alexander (CUP '79)
"The Temple & The Lodge" by M. Baigent & R. Leigh (Jonathan Cape '89)
"The New Military Humanism" by Noam Chomsky (Pluto Press '99)
"The Bohemian Grove" by G. W. Domhoff (Harper '74)
"The Fall of Yugoslavia" by Mischa Glenny (Penguin '92)
" The Free World Colossus" by D. Horowitz (Hill & Wang '65)
" People Of God" by Penny Lernoux (Viking '89)
"Friends in High Places" by L. McCartney (Ballantine '88)
"Yugoslavia" by Stevan Pavlowitz (Ernest Benn Ltd. '71)
"The Man Who Kept the Secrets" by T. Powers (Pocket Books '81)
"The Sovereign State" by A. Sampson (Hodder & Stoughton '73)
"Twentieth Century Yugoslavia" by F. Singleton (Macmillan Press '76)
" The Greatest Men's Party on Earth" by John van der Zee (Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich '74)
"Bilderberg: The Cold War Internationale" (Congressional Record No.E9615 '71)
"Yearbook of International Organisations '91 - '92 (9th Edition K.G.Sauer)
"The Europa World Yearbook 1997 (Europa Publications '97)
"NATO Handbook 50th Anniversary Edition ('99)