TERROR AND INTELLIGENCE:
THE NEED NOT TO KNOW
February 5, 2004
By Toby Westerman
Copyright 2004 International News Analysis Today
www.inatoday.com
In the Balkans, one of the most strategic and volatile regions on earth, U.S., E.U., and UN policies have favored Islamic terrorism and produced a nationalist backlash which threatens to rekindle the flames of war close to the heart of Europe. The conflagration could also involve U.S. troops stationed in the area.
The head of a noted conservative international think tank believes that over the years, the West in general and the U.S. in particular, have followed policies favoring terrorism in the region.
Thomas Fleming, the director of the Rockford Institute, a leading conservative think tank, asserts that over recent years, U.S. presidents have sought to use Islamic Fundamentalist militants within American foreign policy - with disastrous results - and have successfully isolated top decision makers from information contrary to administration policy.
In an exclusive interview with International News Analysis Today, Fleming stated that U.S. intelligence personnel informed him that U.S. policy makers in at least two presidential administrations have made it known that reports from intelligence officers in the field are not to rise above middle management level if they contain information contrary to stated U.S. policy.
That is, no information from regional intelligence officers is to arrive at the desks of top administration officials, unless that information supports already established policy, according to Fleming.
As a result of this intelligence policy, top officials can honestly state that they have no information regarding terrorist networks in areas where their presence would be embarrassing to the administration in power.
The implications of an intelligence policy of this nature are staggering, bearing directly on the current situation in Iraq, and could explain America's apparently contradictory actions in the Balkans.
While opposing terrorism, the U.S., other NATO partners, and the UN are turning a blind eye to terrorists operating in the Balkans, and to the possible establishment of a Islamic republic in the region, Fleming asserted.
The roots of terror in the area go back to the Balkan civil wars of the early and mid-1990s, when Washington made an agreement "with a rich Saudi businessman" to allow Islamic fundamentalist militants to enter into the Balkans to fight the Serbs, Fleming stated.
The same approach used in Bosnia had earlier been tried in Afghanistan in the 1980s, pitting Islamic militants against Soviet forces which supported an unpopular puppet regime. The same wealthy Saudi entrepreneur was used in both instances.
"That Saudi businessman was Osama bin Laden," Fleming said.
Although U.S. officials claim that fighters imported into the region returned home at the end of the civil wars, local residents throughout the region are able to identify the fighters from North Africa and the Middle East who stayed behind, Fleming declared.
Some of those fighters are currently in Kosovo, which technically belongs to Serbia, but is steadily gaining independence under the eyes of its NATO/UN administrators.
In 1999, the U.S. led a NATO attack against the Republic of Yugoslavia in response to reports of mass murders and atrocities committed against the Albanian Muslim inhabitants of Kosovo, a province of Serbia, which, in turn, comprised most of Yugoslavia.
After the war, and NATO occupation of Kosovo, no evidence was found to support the Albanian Muslim charges. Nonetheless, NATO continues to occupy Kosovo, with civilian administration under UN control.
UN-administered Kosovo is also a center of crime, human trafficking, ethnic cleansing - now against the Serbs - and as a center for terrorist activity.
Most recent reports from special intelligence units of Serbia-Montenegro (the successor state to the Yugoslav Republic) assert that Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network and other terror groups are active in the Balkans, especially Kosovo, and have the "strategic aim of… [establishing] an Islamic state in the Balkans, according to the Macedonian Information Agency.
Serbs regard Kosovo as the cradle of their nationhood, with many of Serbia's oldest churches and monasteries located in Kosovo. Many of these structures, however, have been destroyed by Muslim gangs.
Fleming cited the testimony of an Orthodox monk who claims that, in some areas of Kosovo, NATO troops have watched ethnic Albanian gangs destroy churches and monasteries without attempting to intervene.
UN Resolution 1244 formally recognizes Kosovo as a Serbian province.
As terror networks become more entrenched in Kosovo, Macedonia, Bosnia, and other areas in the Balkans, violence against non-Muslims increases, and so does the anger of local non-Muslim residents.
A growing dread of the increasing power of Islamic Fundamentalist terror groups in the region have lead to fury among some individuals at Western policies, and an increase in nationalist sentiments among non-Muslim populations, especially Serbs.
Thomas Fleming may be contacted at editor@chroniclesmagazine.org.
See Also:
WAS IT CLINTON'S FOLLY OR WESLEY'S WAR?
ADVENTURES IN WORLD GOVERNMENT --
PORTENT FOR IRAQ?
Amnesia and the Birth of a Nation
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