Two Plus Two, Part 6

We continue from Two Plus Two, Part 5 with SENATOR BIDEN: AN INDEPENDENT KOSOVA IS INEVITABLE, which was written in 2002:

Biden noted throughout his address to the Albanian American community from Illinois and Wisconsin that he had come to the Albanian issue "not in an academic way, but in an emotional one." His Irish great grandparents could neither read nor write, but if they had been literate, the British of the nineteenth century would have killed them. Biden explained that it was because of this personal understanding of oppression and his meeting Joe DioGuardi (with Senator Claiborne Pell in 1991) that he spoke out on the Senate floor against the arms embargo that was penalizing the Bosnian Muslim victims of aggression at the hands of Slobodan Milosevic. In his subsequent report, "Lift and Strike," Biden called for lifting the arms embargo and striking Serbia. Later, in 1998 and 1999, he introduced Senate resolutions condemning Serbian attacks on Kosovar Albanians and calling for the bombing of Serbia to end Milosevic's genocidal warfare.

Throughout his foreign policy work in the Balkans, Senator Biden said that his aim was "to change five hundred years of history." As long as the Balkans are viewed as "a backwater and an appendage of Europe," Biden observed, "the world will not care if seven million Albanians are being persecuted." As long as the Balkans remain isolated, its peoples will be at the mercy of external powers, adding that the Europeans must stop making Albanians "pawns that can be moved on the chessboard by others." To the extent that the Robert Kaplans of the world can sell the message that the people of the Balkans are "uncivilized, not cultured, and not capable, we will lose," Biden said. He appealed to Albanians in the audience, and through the Civic League, to be the people who move the world's perspective in a different direction.

Returning to the image of the spotlight, Biden expressed his grave concern that the "light that had shone brightly" during the NATO bombing campaign was "beginning to fade." He emphasized that, "To the degree that the world does not shine light on the plight of Albanians, their condition will become dire." To prevent this fate and to make Albanian freedom a reality, Biden said that Albanians must become part of Europe. Simultaneously, Biden expressed his strong conviction that the U.S. government must remain involved in the Balkans for integration to happen. The United States must have its "arms and rifles and boots on the ground," he said, if there is to be "ultimate security for seven million Albanians through integration into Europe." He added that the kind of functioning multiethnic societies that the West would like to see in the Balkans cannot occur in the absence of physical security and economic growth.

And, of course, "arms and rifles and boots on the ground" also help provide security for other things besides democracy in multiethnic societies. From A discreet deal in the pipeline, dated February 15 2001:

In November 1998, Bill Richardson, then US energy secretary, spelt out his policy on the extraction and transport of Caspian oil. "This is about America's energy security," he explained. "It's also about preventing strategic inroads by those who don't share our values. We're trying to move these newly independent countries toward the west.

"We would like to see them reliant on western commercial and political interests rather than going another way. We've made a substantial political investment in the Caspian, and it's very important to us that both the pipeline map and the politics come out right."

The project has been discussed for years. The US trade agency notes that the Trans-Balkan pipeline "will become a part of the region's critical east-west Corridor 8 infrastructure ... This transportation corridor was approved by the transport ministers of the European Union in April 1994". The pipeline itself, the agency says, has also been formally supported "since 1994". The first feasibility study, backed by the US, was conducted in 1996.

The pipeline does not pass through the former Yugoslavia [yes, it does; Macedonia is a former Yugoslav Republic -- YD], but there's no question that it featured prominently in Balkan war politics. On December 9 1998, the Albanian president attended a meeting about the scheme in Sofia, and linked it inextricably to Kosovo. "It is my personal opinion," he noted, "that no solution confined within Serbian borders will bring lasting peace." The message could scarcely have been blunter: if you want Albanian consent for the Trans-Balkan pipeline, you had better wrest Kosovo out of the hands of the Serbs.

So, there's Senator Biden's "arms and rifles and boots on the ground" -- unless we agreed to the demands of Albanian leaders (who are extensively tied to organized crime), there would be no deal on an oil pipeline; but if we did agree to those demands, there would be (and is) heroin and oil money for the campaigns of our political leaders in Washington, and business for their cronies.

From The Most Dangerous Game in the World: Oil, War, and U.S. Global Hegemony, dated July 25, 2002 (numerals in parentheses are footnotes; see original):

The Balkans is considered to be central to the "pipeline map", because oil destined for Western Europe must pass through them at one point or another.(34) During the 1999 Kosovo war, some of the critics of NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia alleged that the US and its allies in the West were seeking to secure a passage for oil from the Caspian Sea. This claim was mocked by the British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, who observed that "there is no oil in Kosovo". This observation was, of course, true but irrelevant to the claim. The oil reserves of the Caspian are a long way from the Balkans, but the routes by which this oil must come to the markets in the West are not. In 1997, BP and the Texas Halliburton Company proposed a pipeline that would go from Burgas in Bulgaria through Skopje in Macedonia to Vlore, a port in Albania.(35) This would be one of the shortest and least expensive of the possible routes. All these give the necessity of security in the Southeastern Europe an additional direct economic importance, adding to the primary strategic concerns that stand behind the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999. Geography makes the Balkans region a key stepping stone to oil interests in Eurasia.(36)

It was claimed that the main globalistic objective of the US-led NATO operations in Kosovo was to pacify Yugoslavia so that transnational oil corporations can secure the oil transportation route from the Caspian Sea through Yugoslavia, into Central Europe.(37) After the NATO's bombing campaign in March 1999, the US spent 36,6 million dollars to build Camp Bondsteel in southern Kosovo. The largest American foreign military base constructed since Vietnam, Camp Bondsteel was built by the Brown & Root Division of Halliburton, the world's biggest oil services corporation, which was run by Dick Cheney before he was made Vice-President.(38) On 2 June 1999, the US Trade and Development Agency announced that it had awarded a half-million dollar grant to Bulgaria to carry out a feasibility study for the pipeline across the Balkans.(39)

And that's how a Republican administration can agree with a powerful Democrat Senator on foreign policy -- it seems buddies of Bush & Cheney are getting a big piece of the action.

And that's why we support Islamic terrorists and heroin traffickers in Kosovo -- 1) over Christian Serbs, whose nation has been dismembered in violation of international law, and 2) to the detriment of the decent people among Southeastern Europe's ethnic Albanian Muslim community, who have been (and are being) sold out to governments of criminals and terrorists.

Back to SENATOR BIDEN: AN INDEPENDENT KOSOVA IS INEVITABLE:

Biden was candid in his criticism of the Bush administration for "exaggerating progress in the Balkans" in order to allow Americans to disengage prematurely from Kosova, Macedonia, and Bosnia. He cited Serbia as an example. While acknowledging that the government of Kostunica and Djindjic was certainly better than the Milosevic regime, Biden said that he and many others in Congress would continue to insist that Serbia, as the "prime mover of the insane genocidal warfare of the 1980s and 1990s," must meet all of the conditions necessary to receive U.S. assistance. Specifically, he said that Belgrade must cease its negative interference in Kosova and Bosnia; that it must end the de facto partition of Mitrovice and let displaced Albanians return to their homes in the north and Serbs to theirs in the south; that it must turn over all of its war criminals to The Hague; and that it must publicly apologize for its genocidal campaigns in Kosova, Bosnia, and Croatia. Like the Germans of the Nazi era, Biden argued that it was important for Serbs to shed the mythology that they are victims—a mythology that has enabled them to justify their acts of aggression against others—so that new generations do not repeat history.

It seems Senator Biden and President Bush were bidding for the praise and attention of the ethnic Albanian community -- at least insofar as that praise and attention were represented by the AACL.



To be sure, not everyone associated with the AACL is associated with Albanian organized crime. It is helpful to recall a quote from Sibel Edmonds, made in the context of her case, but which seems to apply here; from An Interview with Sibel Edmonds, Page Two by Chris Deliso, July 1, 2004:

CD: [snip] At several points you state that such organized crime networks employ "semi-legitimate organizations" as their point of interface with governments and the "legit" world. Can you explain exactly what you mean?

SE: These are organizations that might have a legitimate front -- say as a business, or a cultural center or something. And we've also heard a lot about Islamic charities as fronts for terrorist organizations, but the range is much broader and even, simpler.

CD: For example?

SE: You might have an organization supposed to be promoting the cultural affairs of a certain country within another country. Hypothetically, say, an Uzbek folklore society based in Germany. The stated purpose would be to hold folklore-related activities -- and they might even do that -- but the real activities taking place behind the scenes are criminal.

CD: Such as?

SE: Everything -- from drugs to money laundering to arms sales. And yes, there are certain convergences with all these activities and international terrorism.

Drugs, money laundering, arms sales -- and trafficking in women for forced prostitution -- and terrorism, as well as Big Oil and Big Oil Services.



And money... from Former FBI Translator Sibel Edmonds Calls Current 9/11 Investigation Inadequate by Jim Hogue, May 7, 2004:

JH: Here's a question that you might be able to answer: What is al-Qaeda?

SE: This is a very interesting and complex question. When you think of al-Qaeda, you are not thinking of al-Qaeda in terms of one particular country, or one particular organization. You are looking at this massive movement that stretches to tens and tens of countries. And it involves a lot of sub-organizations and sub-sub-organizations and branches and it's extremely complicated. So to just narrow it down and say al-Qaeda and the Saudis, or to say it's what they had at the camp in Afghanistan, is extremely misleading. And we don't hear the extent of the penetration that this organization and the sub-organizations have throughout the world, throughout their networks and throughout their various activities. It's extremely sophisticated. And then you involve a significant amount of money into this equation. Then things start getting a lot of overlap -- money laundering, and drugs and terrorist activities and their support networks converging in several points. That's what I'm trying to convey without being too specific. And this money travels. And you start trying to go to the root of it and it's getting into somebody's political campaign, and somebody's lobbying. And people don't want to be traced back to this money.

From Big money in politics - sign of excess? by Deborah Charles, March 26, 2008:

"Yes it's a lot of money. But really -- it's less about the overall amount of money than where that money is coming from and who is supplying it," said [Gary] Klaman [of watchdog group U.S. PIRG].

Massie Ritsch of the Center for Responsive Politics said even with the Internet contributions, only about 4 percent of Americans make a contribution to a federal politician.

"The bulk of the money is coming from a tiny group of largely wealthy Americans who are having a great impact disproportionate to their numbers on something that should be important to everybody," he said.

Klaman agreed.

"That is what should frighten Americans -- when these guys get elected are they looking primarily out for the good of the people or are there debts that they need to pay back," he said.

"[D]ebts that they need to pay back...."

It seems there is far too much oil in the Caspian Basin to bring out through the Turkish Straits, and Russia is a big competitor, seeking to move oil through a pipeline in Bulgaria and Greece...



so we needed our own oil pipeline, linking to a secure deepwater port in Albania to effectively compete...



but, for that, we needed to give ethnic Albanian organized crime and terrorists what they wanted, an independent Kosovo and US "arms and rifles and boots on the ground" to protect it -- and to protect the pipeline.

So, here's America's energy security -- being built to be dependent upon Islamic extremists tied to Bush's friends, the Saudis, most notably and emphatically including ties to Sheikh Osama bin Laden.

And, here's Senator Joe Biden -- in the pocket of Albanian organized crime (the same pocket that Senator John McCain is in), and in the pocket of Big Oil; with Presidential ambitions, and perhaps soon to be one heartbeat away from the Oval Office.