Clash of Civilizations' Shortcut: The Balkan Mirror
(L'ideologia dello "scontro di civiltà" elaborata dai rozzi teorici
neocons statunitensi, dalla quale non sono immuni certi settori
nazionalisti, anticomunisti e filo-occidentali del campo serbo, è
entrata in corto circuito: come si può scatenare una "guerra contro i
fascisti islamici" in mezzo mondo se proprio al centro dell'Europa
fascisti islamisti veri e propri sono stati sostenuti e
ricompensati?...)
1. The Balkan Mirror; What it says about the Middle East
Michael Djordjevich: "America did not oppose Germany's drive for the
dismemberment of Yugoslavia and then sided with Islamists in Bosnia.
Secretary of State James Baker said 'we have no dog in this fight'
but in the end America was the top dog in the fight..."
2. Former Serb member of Presidency sees no hope for Bosnia's
survival as state
Nenad Kecmanovic: "the West and the East have been deluding each
other to a high degree. Neither side has ever truly believed in that
delusion, because under the table one side was holding Samuel
Huntington's "The Clash of Civilizations", while the other had Alija
Izetbegovic's Islamic Declaration..."
3. The Yugoslav Caldron
Jürgen Elsässer: "The CIA recruited and trained the jihadists"
=== 1 ===
The Balkan Mirror; What it says about the Middle East
The Washington Times - August 15, 2006 Tuesday
By Michael Djordjevich, SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Together with the Middle East, the border lands of southeast Europe
known as the Balkans have been a region of the world where seminal
events and trends in human history have taken place. It has been
called many names, including "the powder keg of Europe" or "the
graveyard of empires." The conflicts in the region have also been a
mirror of history.
Long before Samuel Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations," in the
period between the 14th and 19th centuries, the incessant ebb and
flow in the conflict between Islam and the West took place in the
Balkans. Early in the 20th century, Serbian gun shots in Sarajevo
ushered in World War I, Communism and Nazism. At the end of the
century, Bosnian Muslim fundamentalists fired gun shots in Sarajevo,
killing several Christian Serbs at a wedding party and began a bloody
war in Bosnia among Christian Serbs and Croats and Muslims. This war
may have well reflected in earnest the renewed clash of civilizations.
The Berlin Wall fell at the end of 1989. The Soviet Union imploded
and the end of Communism as a global force followed. Balkan countries
joined the trend. However, the pivotal and largest state, Yugoslavia,
rapidly descended into a bloody civil-religious war and dissolution.
This decade-long war at the end of 20th century mirrored a number of
important political, legal, religious and geopolitical precedents for
the post-Communist world. Of particular significance are those
involving America, the European Union and the United Nations.
At first, the United States favored the preservation of Yugoslavia,
or at least its peaceful and orderly dissolution. Changing this
position abruptly, America did not oppose Germany's drive for the
dismemberment of Yugoslavia and then sided with Islamists in Bosnia.
Secretary of State James Baker said "we have no dog in this fight"
but in the end America was the top dog in the fight.
The international community's engagement in the Balkans have so far
been a textbook illustration of the dangers of contradictory
policies, chronic indecisions, confusion and ignorance about
historical forces in play, double standards and flawed precedents.
America was not prepared for the peace and the role of the only
superpower in the world. Our leadership has failed in this task so far.
Apparently, not much has been learned from this experience. We could
replace the location, inserting Iraq instead of the Balkans, and the
aforementioned assessment would be similar today.
The Balkan mirror also shows the impotence and irrelevance of the
United Nations. Any country and any people would be foolhardy to
place their destiny in the hands of this inept institution. With
America's complicity, the United Nations did nothing when its embargo
on arms shipments was violated by Iran sending planeloads of arms to
Bosnian Muslims. Subsequently, when veteran jihadists came to the
country to fight Serbs, the West was also supportive.
The Serbian province of Kosovo has been ethnically cleansed from
Serbs, Roma and other non-Albanians while 150 churches and many
medieval monasteries have been destroyed during 10 years of U.N.
governance.
The mirror showed the duplicitous methods by which world media
influenced world opinion. With few exceptions, it has abused its
power and professional responsibility, failing to heed Ed Murrow's
admonition to examine all sides of a story and aim to elucidate, not
advocate. It did the latter and in general continues to advocate an
Islamic agenda in Bosnia and Kosovo.
The Balkan realities also show a great adaptability of Islamists to
present a worldly, democratic face. Readily accepted by the West,
Bosnian leader and fundamentalist Islamist Alija Izetbegovic was
tolerated and praised as a democrat. Nevertheless, in his book "The
Islamic Declaration" Izetbegovic asserted absolute validity of
dominance of Islam: "There can be neither peace nor coexistence
between Islamic religion and non-Islamic social and political
institutions," he wrote. Later in the war, Mr. Izetbegovic was
influenced and financially and militarily supported by fundamentalist
Islamists (including Osama bin Laden). Similarly, some Kosovo
leaders, previously called terrorists and thugs by U.S. special envoy
Robert Gelbard, are now afforded respect in the United Nations and
elsewhere.
The ugliest and most dangerous reflection in the mirror is that of
double-standards. As we are facing challenges and dangers of radical
Islam and terrorism worldwide, let's not dismiss the Balkan
experience. Our policies must contain moral dimensions. International
agreements, legal precedents and evenhanded treatment of warring
people were not followed in the Yugoslav tragedy. If we are to get
out of the Middle East quagmire we must change these policies.
Failing to realize that by endeavoring to resolve complex problems by
double standards, we more often than not double them in the end.
In addition, the Balkan Mirror has provided important and troubling
reflections upon Islam and the new world (dis)order.
Michael Djordjevich, an American of Serbian origin, founded and was
the first president of the Serbian Unity Congress.
Copyright 2006 News World Communications, Inc.
Posted for Fair Use only.
http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/wt081506.htm
=== 2 ===
http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/gs072606.htm
Former Serb member of Presidency sees no hope for Bosnia's survival
as state
BBC Monitoring Europe (Political) - July 26, 2006, Wednesday
Source: Glas Srpske, Banja Luka, in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian 25 Jul
06 p 2
Copyright 2006 British Broadcasting Corporation - Posted for Fair Use
only.
Text of commentary by Nenad Kecmanovic, prewar Serb member of Bosnian
Presidency, entitled "Last dictatorship in Europe" published by
Bosnian Serb newspaper Glas Srpske on 25 July
If the Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks [Bosnian Muslims] could not find a
way to live together before the war, if they fought one another for
three and a half years over it, and if a decade of peace has not been
enough for them to try to achieve a compromise without an
intermediary, this means that we can forget about Bosnia-Hercegovina
[B-H] as a state.
There is no democracy in the world that can keep people under the
same roof who do not want to be there. This can be achieved only by
force, whether you call it occupation, colonization or a protectorate.
Some Western analysts have already called the regime of the Office of
the High Representative in B-H "the last dictatorship in Europe" and
rightly so. All this has been seen before in Bosnia-Hercegovina. For
half a millennium Bosnia-Hercegovina has existed only as a "dungeon
for people". When it occasionally changed the guard in the course of
history, the Bosnians and Hercegovinians were at each other's throats
along religious and national lines, as they had been the previous time.
I repeat again: the West and the East have been deluding each other
to a high degree. Neither side has ever truly believed in that
delusion, because under the table one side was holding Samuel
Huntington's "The Clash of Civilizations", while the other had Alija
Izetbegovic's Islamic Declaration. However, their mutual interests
forced them to keep up the game of mutual pretence and we know what
the result was like.
People often ask me: "Do you go to Sarajevo? Do you follow the
Sarajevo media? What reactions do you get from Sarajevo to your
political analyses?"
I almost regularly read their weeklies; I occasionally read their
dailies and I watch television. My public reactions are partly a
reaction to what I hear or read in their media.
The reactions to my reactions are malicious and without any depth,
because our neighbours are used to looking at themselves in a magic
fairytale mirror, while I remind them of some unpleasant truths.
The fact that neither Banja Luka nor Belgrade shows much interest in
the political scene in the other entity, where the joint institutions
are located, makes it sometimes look as if I am the only one who
spoils their fanciful picture of themselves.
Quite often I meet old acquaintances, colleagues and friends,
Bosnians in Sarajevo, but that is something completely different.
Despite certain disagreements and endless debate, they know what I
could have really said or written, what was taken out of context, and
what was suppressed or simply made up.
In any event, they know that I am not responsible for the problems
that Bosnia has got itself into nor do I have bad intentions towards
Bosniaks. On the contrary, I have lived my life in that environment
and those are the people with whom I lived for almost half a century.
Therefore, I cannot be indifferent, nor am I ignorant; my
professional interest is focused on researching politics.
Many things that I find out as an analyst do not make me happy as a
human being, so I would not mind if I turned out to be wrong.
=== 3 ===
http://signs-of-the-times.org/signs/editorials/
signs20060815_TheYugoslavCaldronJFCrgenElsE4sser22TheCIArecruitedandtrai
nedthejihadists22.php
http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=25794&s2=16
The Yugoslav Caldron: Jürgen Elsässer: "The CIA recruited and trained
the jihadists"
By Silvia Cattori
In his latest book, How the Jihad Came to Europe, German journalist
Jürgen Elsässer unravels the Jihadist thread. Muslim fighters
recruited by the CIA to fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan were
used successively in Yugoslavia and Chechnya, still supported by the
CIA, but perhaps sometimes out of its control. Basing himself on
diverse sources, mainly Yugoslavian, Dutch, and German, he
reconstructed the development of Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants
at the side of NATO in Bosnia-Herzegovinia.
Silvia Cattori: Your investigation into the actions of the secret
services makes a frightening report. We discover that since the 80's
the United States has invested billions of dollars to finance
criminal activities and that by means of the CIA they are directly
implicated in the attacks attributed to the Moslems. What is the
contribution of your book?
Jurgen Elsässer: It is the only work that establishes the tie between
wars in the Balkan of the 90's and the attack of September 11, 2001.
All the large attacks, in New York, in London, in Madrid, would never
have taken place without the recruitment by the American and British
secret services of these jihadists who have been blamed for the
attacks. I bring a new light on the manipulations of the intelligence
agencies. Other books than mine have noted the presence of Ossama Ben
Laden in the Balkans. But their authors presented the Moslem fighters
in the Balkan as enemies of the west. The information that I
collected from multiple sources, demonstrate that these jihadists are
puppets in the hands of the west and are not, as one pretends, enemies.
Silvia Cattori: In the case of the war in the Balkan, the
manipulations of various States are clearly designated in your book.
The United States supported Ben Laden whose work was to form the
Mujahidines. How can anyone continue to ignore that these attempts
that horrify public opinion would never have existed if these
«terrorists» had not been driven and financed by the western
intelligence services?
Jürgen Elsässer: Yes, indeed, it is the result of facts that one can
observe. But one cannot say that the western intervention in ex -
Yugoslavia had for objective to prepare attack of September 11. To be
precise: these attacks are a consequence of western politics of the
90's because NATO put these jihadists in place in the Balkans and
collaborated with them. The Moslem militants who have been designated
the persons responsible for the attacks of September 11 were part of
this network.
Silvia Cattori: According to you, what was the interest of the United
States and Germany to set the people of the Balkans one against the
other?
Jürgen Elsässer: The west had a common interest to destroy
Yugoslavia, to dismember it, because, after the end of the soviet
bloc, it would have been a model of the intelligent combination of
capitalist and socialist elements. But the west wanted to impose the
neoliberal model on all countries.
Silvia Cattori: Is not Europe itself imprudently committed to a war
manipulated by the neoconservatives?
Jürgen Elsässer: It is difficult to say. I believe that in the 90's,
the politics of the United States was inspired by their victory
against Soviets in Afghanistan. It was the model that they wanted to
apply in Balkans. If, during those years, the economy of the United
States had not fallen into depression, maybe the more realistic
politicians, such as Kissinger, could have kept control of American
politics. I think that the coincidence between the economic
depression and the aggressiveness of the neoconservative school
determined what happened.
Silvia Cattori: Do you think that a leader like Blair, for example,
once embarked in the neoconservative project, has become a hostage to
a certain point?
Jürgen Elsässer: I don't know the position of Blair enough well. It
is easier to see what goes on in the United States. One can see that
Bush is the hostage of those around him. And, as he is not very
intelligent, he is not able to take decisions and must follow ideas
of his entourage. It is clear that his father was against the attack
on Iraq in 2003.
Silvia Cattori: Wasn't the first Gulf war part of a plan aiming to
trigger other wars thereafter?
Jürgen Elsässer: No, there was no tie with the war in Iraq in 1991.
There were two phases. Until the end of the Clinton period, the
politics of the United States were imperialistic, but at the same
time, pragmatic. They chased the Soviets out of Afghanistan. They
defeated Iraq in 1991. Their war stopped once Kuwait was free. Then
they attacked Bosnia and Yugoslavia; but it occurred stage by stage.
Everything went out of control after September 11.
Silvia Cattori: The neoconservatives don't count for anything?
Jürgen Elsässer: The neoconservatives, grouped around Pearl, had
written a document one year before September 11, according to which
America had need of a catalyzing event similar to the attack on Pearl
Harbor. September 11 was this catalyzing event. I believe that people
around Pearl wished for the attacks of September 11.
Silvia Cattori: What was the objective pursued by the United States
in attacking Serbia? Was it merely about, as is indicated in your
book, the US getting itself installed in a strategic region situated
on a transit line for the oil and the gas of central Asia? Or did the
alliance of the United States with the Moslem fighters directed by
Izetbegovic have a second objective: to create a Moslem extremism at
the doors of Europe in order to make use of it in the setting of
terrorist manipulations? And, if yes, towards what goal?
Jürgen Elsässer: The United States wanted, as did Austria at the end
of the 19th century in Bosnia, to create a "European" Islam to weaken
the Islamic states in the Middle East, meaning, at that time, the
Ottoman empire, and today, Iran and the Arab states. The
neoconservatives had other plans again: to construct a clandestine
network of "fundamentalist" puppets to do the dirty work against
"old" Europe.
Silvia Cattori: The result, a terrifying civil war. How could Europe
have participated in the destruction of Yugoslavia, which appeared as
an example of the perfectly successful cohabitation between ethnic
groups? By making the Serbians the guilty party, didn't Europe
destroy a country that was one of the major constructions of the
postwar era? On what legitimacy did Europe base its intervention?
Jürgen Elsässer: First, in the beginning of the 90's, Germany led the
attack based upon the principles of the self-determination of ethnic
groups: in other words, Hitler's old ruse against Czechoslovakia and
Poland in 1938/39. Then, the United States took the relay and praised
"human rights", an obvious swindle.
Silvia Cattori: In your investigation Israel is never mentioned. Have
you not minimized the importance of pro-Israeli neoconservatives
inside the Pentagon, who serve interests of Israel more that those of
the United States?
Jürgen Elsässer: There are Israelis who collaborated with the
neoconservatives; it is a fact. But I am not sure of the role played
by Israel in this business. Sharon was against NATO support for the
Albanians of Kosovo. And, in 1998, he expressed his worry over the
idea that NATO support the setting up of pro-Islamic elements in the
Balkan. I also believe that he was not favorable to this war the
following year.
Silvia Cattori: Don't you see ties between the Israeli secret
services and the attacks of September 11, 2001?
Jürgen Elsässer: There are ties, but I didn't analyze the character
of these ties. For example, immediately after September 11, a certain
number of Israeli agents were arrested in the United States. They
were present in places where the attacks were prepared. There are
analysts who say this is proof that Israel was directly implicated in
these attacks. But it could also mean something else. It could be
that these agents were watching what happened, that they were aware
that the American secret services supported these "terrorists" in the
preparation of these attacks, but that they kept their knowledge to
use it at the appropriate moment, and to be able to use it as
blackmail when the moment came: "If you don't increase your support
for Israel, we are going to hand over this information to the media".
There is even a third possibility: that these Israeli spies wanted to
warn about the attacks but failed. At the moment, we only know that
these types were there and that they were arrested. Supplementary
investigations are necessary.
Silvia Cattori: Do these ties put in evidence that the attacks of
September 11, 2001 were part of a plan conceived a long time before?
Jürgen Elsässer: I am not certain that a plan had been established
for a long time. It could be that people such as Richard Perle
improvise a lot and use criminal elements that they put in place but
that they don't permanently control. As, at the time of Kennedy's
murder, it is clear that the CIA was implicated, but one doesn't know
if it had been planned at the top, at Langley [the headquarters of
the CIA], or if it was conceived among the most violent Cuban exiles
working for the CIA, the headquarters of the CIA limiting themselves
to tolerating it.
Silvia Cattori: If tomorrow these characters grouped around Pearl
were removed, would that stop the anti-Muslim war strategy of the
United States and the manipulations that justify it?
Jürgen Elsässer: It stops when they lose a war.
Silvia Cattori: The war, didn't they lose it in Iraq?
Jürgen Elsässer: The war will only be lost when they leave the
country, as in Vietnam.
Silvia Cattori: These Moslems who, like Mohammed Atta, were just
ordinary citizens before being enlisted by the CIA, how could they be
driven to such terrifying actions, without knowing that they were
being manipulated by intelligence agents of the opposite camp?
Jürgen Elsässer: There are some youth that can be turned into
fanatics and manipulated very easily by intelligence services. High-
placed characters are not unaware of what happens and know by who
they are hired.
Silvia Cattori: Ben Laden, for example, did he know that he served
the interests of the United States?
Jürgen Elsässer: I didn't study his case. I studied the case of Al
Zawahiri, Ben Laden's right arm, who was the chief of operations in
the Balkans. In the beginning of the 90's, he traveled all through
the United States with an agent of the US Special Command to collect
money for the Jihad; this man knew that he participated in this
collection of money as an activity that was supported by the United
States.
Silvia Cattori: All of this is very troubling. You bring the proof
that that attacks that have occurred since 1996 (attacks in the
subway of Paris), would never have been possible if the war in the
Balkan had not taken place. And you impute these attacks, that left
thousands of victims, to western intelligence services. Has opinion
in West therefore been deceived by governments that have embarked on
terrorist actions?
Jürgen Elsässer: The terrorist network that the American and British
secret services formed during the civil war in Bosnia and later in
Kosovo provided a reservoir of militants that we find implicated
later in the attacks in New York, Madrid, London.
Silvia Cattori: How did this happen concretely?
Jürgen Elsässer: Once the war was finished in Afghanistan, Osama Ben
Laden recruited these jihadist militants. It was his work. It was he
that trained them, partially with the support of the CIA, and put
them in place in Bosnia. The Americans tolerated the connection
between the President Izetbegovic and Ben Laden. Two years later, in
1994, the Americans began to send weapons, in a common clandestine
operation with Iran. After the treaty of Dayton, in November 1995,
the CIA and the Pentagon recruited best of the jihadists that had
fought in Bosnia.
Silvia Cattori: How does it happen that these Moslems got into the
hands of services that served ideological interests opposed to theirs?
Jürgen Elsässer: I analyzed testimonies given by some jihadists
interrogated by the German judges. They said that after the treaty of
Dayton, which stipulated that all foreign ex-fighters had to leave
the country, they didn't have any more money and had nowhere to go.
As for those that could remain in Bosnia, because they had been
provided with Bosnian passports, they were without work and without
money. The day when the recruiters came and rang at their doors and
proposed to pay them 3000 dollars a month to serve in the Bosnian
army, they didn't know that they were recruited and paid by
emissaries of the CIA to serve the United States.
Silvia Cattori: After, when they were sent to prepare the attacks in
London in July 2005, for example, did they not become aware that they
were in the hands of western intelligence agents who manipulated them?
Jürgen Elsässer: It is not clear that it was really the young Moslems
from the suburbs of London that committed the attacks, as the police
claim. There are other indications according to which the bombs were
fixed under the trains. It is possible the bombs were attached under
the trains without these young men knowing about it. In that case it
is not sure that the young Moslems, incriminated by the
investigation, committed these attempts.
Silvia Cattori: It is hard to understand the goal that the western
States pursue when they engage their services in criminal manipulations?
Jürgen Elsässer: This is not easy to say. Remember Kennedy's murder.
Who did it? It is certain that it was people from the CIA that
supported the second killer, it is certain that Oswald was murdered
by a man who had been mandated by the CIA. What is not clear is if
these men recruited by the CIA acted on order of Johnson or Dulles,
or if they were link to the milieu of extremist Cuban exiles, which
means affiliated to the mafia. I don't believe that Bush or Blairs
are chiefs. I don't believe in the theory of the big conspiracy. I
believe that the secret services hire men who are ordered to carry
out the dirty business; these agents act as they want. Perhaps you
know that on September 11, 2001, someone tried to kill Bush. What
does it mean? It is difficult to explain.
Silvia Cattori: Do you mean that Bush is, for example, himself
hostage of the people who, inside the Pentagon, form a State within
the state, one that also escapes the command of the American army?
Jürgen Elsässer: Yes. Bush is stupid. He is only an instrument in
other people's hands.
Silvia Cattori: Are you thinking about people that are under the
direct influence of characters such as Pearl, Wolfowitz, Feith? Do
you think that it is they who, after the war of the Balkan, would
have been the real backers of these attacks and that these attacks
are not separate from each other, that there is a link between Madrid
and London? Does it mean that the Americans are ready to ally with
the devil to sow chaos everywhere under the pretext of this anti-
Muslim, anti - Arabic war waged under the banner of terrorism? A
fabricated terrorism?
Jürgen Elsässer: Yes, there is a duplicate government that escapes
Bush's control. It is the neoconservatives, such as Cheney, Rumsfeld,
Wolfowitz, Pearl, the people tied into the oil and the military
industries,. The global chaos is in the interest of the military
industry: when there is the chaos all over the world, one can sell
weapons and oil for a bigger price.
Silvia Cattori: Youssef Asckar described this State within in the
state very well, to which you give credit [1]. Isn't Israel the first
country interested by this strategy of chaos, therefore by the
manipulation of terrorist attacks? Doesn't the propaganda of the pro-
Israeli lobby have the tendency to make us believe that Israel is
threatened by Arabs fanatics?
Jürgen Elsässer: It is not certain that this strategy can serve the
interests of Israel because, if things continue this way, the whole
Middle East will be in flames, including Israel. They used the same
process during the war in Bosnia. In order to demonize the Serbs, the
western media invented stories of concentration camps and made photo
montages that compared the Serbs to the Nazis. This propaganda aimed
to win opinion over to the war against Serbia, but, with regard to
the United States, it was not nourished necessarily by the Jewish
lobby, but by the Christian and atheist strategists. These
strategists play the "Jewish" card. That is my thesis. One sees it
currently with the propaganda against Iran; strategists of the war
play the "Jewish" card to impress people that have more morals than
intelligence.
Silvia Cattori: The recent manipulations confirm, in part, your
thesis: at the same moment where the United States wanted the
Security Council to pass sanctions against Iran, a Canadian newspaper
wrote that Iran wanted to force Iranian Jews to wear the equivalent
of a yellow star [2]. But I refer to these openly pro-Israeli
personalities that, in France for example, play an important role in
the formation of opinion because they occupy some strategic positions
in the media, and whose community allegiance psuyhes them to support
the policies of Israel and the United States, even if it is criminal.
Remember the active support brought to Izetbegovic in Bosnia by
Bernard-Henri Lévy and Bernard Kouchner. As soon as Serbia was on the
knees, they immediately turned their propaganda against Arabs and
Moslems; this time it was to mobilize opinion in favor of the so-
called "war of civilizations". When they spoke of "concentration
camps" to associate the Serbs with Hitler, didn't they participate in
manipulations of NATO?
Jürgen Elsässer: We watched the same phenomenon in Germany. The
Jewish journalists that supported the war against Yugoslavia had
access to the televised studios. But the journalists that were
against, whether they were Jewish or not, were excluded from the
debate. I think that the media and politicians use the Jewish voices
for geostrategic stakes.
Silvia Cattori: So, as you see it, what happened in the Balkan was
only the repetition of what had happened in Afghanistan, what
followed was part of the same process. Do you think that our
authorities know risks of the wars provoked by their intelligence
agencies?
Jürgen Elsässer: My hope is that there is a reaction on behalf of the
military in the United States. There are among them people who know
very well that all these wars are not intelligent. They know that the
United States is going to lose this war. In the American army, they
are imperialistic but they are not crazy, they don't agree with what
is happening. But the neoconservatives are crazy, they want to wage
the Third World War against all Arabs and all Moslems, just like
Hitler who wanted to kill all Jews and to attack all other countries;
the German generals had warned Hitler of all that he risked.
Silvia Cattori: Is your hope that a change occurs unexpectedly?
Jürgen Elsässer: To stop this madness I see possibility of change
only among those forces that remained rational. The high command of
the American army wrote a letter to Bush to say that it doesn't want
to participate in an attack against Iran with nuclear weapons. Maybe
Bush will attack; but the consequences would be more serious than in
the case of Iraq. The same thing happened with the Nazis: they
attacked, they attacked, and one day there was Stalingrad and the
beginning of the defeat. But this adventure cost the lives of 60
million human beings.
Silvia Cattori: Is that what motivated your effort while writing this
book: to alert people's consciences in order to avoid new disasters
and new suffering? Moreover, that after Iraq it would be Iran's turn?
Jürgen Elsässer: Yes. But characters like Bush don't care about all
of that. I am not completely pessimistic on Iran: one could see a
repetition of the Paris, Berlin, Moscow axis. Our chancellor, who is
normally a puppet of the United States, offered strategic cooperation
with Russia, because Germany depends entirely on Russian oil and gas.
It is a strong argument. Germans are imperialists, but they are not
crazy.
Silvia Cattori: In the Balkans, was it not Germany that opened the
door to the war?
Jürgen Elsässer: Yes, it is true. But, today, you see that Joschka
Fischer and Madeleine Albright have sent an open letter to Bush to
tell him not to attack Iran. Mrs. Albright specified that one cannot
attack all the people that one doesn't like. It is rational.
Silvia Cattori: Were you able to collect these elements that
illustrate the actions of the intelligence agencies because, today,
people, worried of the evolution of international politics, are
beginning to speak?
Jürgen Elsässer: Yes. I depended a great deal on information from
people that work in the belly of "the beast".
Silvia Cattori: Everywhere in the world?
Jürgen Elsässer: I can only tell you that it is people from Western
Europe. It is people that haven't stopped using their heads.
Silvia Cattori: To obtain the proof of the manipulations
surroundeding the "Gulf of Tonkin Incident", the incident that
permitted the United States to unleash the war against the Vietnamese
people, it was necessary to wait a long time. Have things therefore
changed today, permitting a response in time?
Jürgen Elsässer: There is a big difference between the situation in
the 60's and the one today. In the Federal Republic of Germany, they
were, for example, at that time in favor of the war against
Communists in Vietnam. The official version that said our republic
was in danger of being attacked by Communists was shared by a big
part of public opinion. What has changed is that, today, the majority
of the population is against the war, without discussion.
Silvia Cattori: You rightly underline the extremist religious
character of Bosnia-Herzegovina under Izetbegovic, but, whereas you
doubt the support of Israel to this sort of draft of the emirate of
the Talibans, don't you overvalue the role of Iran and Saudi Arabia?
Richard Perle was the principal political advisor to Izetbegovic.
Didn't the Iranians and the Saudis raise the ante on the question of
Islam hoping to take the control of a Moslem regime that only took
its orders from Tel Aviv and Washington? In fact, was Izetbegovic not
an agent of Israel?
Jürgen Elsässer: The Mossad helped the Bosnian Serbians, they even
provided them weapons. There is nothing that indicates that the
Israeli government helped Izetbegovic. It was supported by Americans,
and Clinton depended upon the Zionist lobby in the United States, but
this lobby didn't have the support of the Israeli government during
the war of Bosnia.
Silvia Cattori: With regard to some of your sources, can one grant
credit to the assertions of Yossef Bodanski, director of the Working
Group on Terrorism and Non-Conventional war close to the American
Senate?
Jürgen Elsässer: I don't trust anybody. They claim that Bodansky has
ties with sources in Mossad and it renders a number of his findings
suspect. On the other hand, he brings to our knowledge a lot of
interesting facts that contradict the official propaganda. In my book
I show the contradictions within the dominant elites of the United
States, and, in this respect, Bodansky, is very interesting.
Silvia Cattori: It says in your book: "Terrorism exists in Kosovo and
Macedonia, but in its majority it is not controled by Ben Laden but
by US intelligence". Do you doubt the existence of Al Qaeda?
Jürgen Elsässer: Yes, as I wrote it in my book, it is propaganda
manufactured by the west.
Silvia Cattori: One has a bit the impression that, to go to the end
of its logic, your investigation is not finished. Certainly,
Yugoslavia was a laboratory for the manufacture of the Islamic
networks, and your book shows well that these networks serve the
interests of the United States. However, you seem to believe in the
existence of international Islamic networks who would have a popular
base in the Moslem world, whereas at the same time your research
demonstrates that these networks are only mercenaries of the United
States and that they have never done anything for the Moslems?
Jürgen Elsässer: Look at the example of Hamas: in the beginning of
the 80's, it was fomented by Mossad to counter the influence of the
PLO. But thereafter, Hamas developed its own popular base and, now,
it is part of the resistance. But I bet that there are still foreign
agents inside Hamas.
Silvia Cattori: You mentioned that the inspectors of the United
Nations are infiltrated by spies from the United States. Could we
have some precisions?
Jürgen Elsässer: Some blue helmets of the UNPROFOR in Bosnia
transported weapons to destinations of the Mujahidines.
Silvia Cattori: When Peter Handke affirms that Serbs are not the only
guilty party, that they are victims of the war of the Balkans, one
banish it. Who is right in this business?
Jürgen Elsässer: On all sides - Serbs, Croatians, Moslems - the
ordinary people have all lost. Moslems won the war in Bosnia with the
help of Ben Laden and Clinton but, now, their country is occupied by
NATO. They have less independence today than at the time of Yugoslavia.
Silvia Cattori: How does your research relate to that of Andreas Von
Bülow and Thierry Meyssan?
Jurgen Elsässer: We share the same opinion on the events of September
11, 2001: we think that the official version is not true. All this
combined research is very useful to be able to continue to deepen the
reality of the facts. My specialty is to have made the link between
wars of the Balkans and September 11, while Thierry Meyssan analyzed
the attack on the Pentagon to demonstrate that it was due to a
missile and not to a plane, and Von Bülow arrived at the conclusion
that planes were guided by a beacon.
Silvia Cattori: To having put into question the official truth,
Thierry Meyssan was discredited and blocked by the media. Are you
going to escape that?
Jürgen Elsässer: There is also a blockage against my book. It is not
possible for one author alone to break this blockage. However, it
can't prevent our theses from making their path. The public is not in
agreement with what the media says: in spite of their blockage 35 to
40% of people don't believe what media tells them. There is the
example of Kennedy's assassination: today, 90% of people don't
believe in the official version and think that Kennedy's murder was
an action of the CIA.
Silvia Cattori: Isn't it dangerous to uncover the manipulations of
States that use their intelligence services in criminal ways?
Jürgen Elsässer: I believe that the danger only comes when one sells
more than 100 000 books. In Germany, in eleven months, my book has
only sold 6 000 copies.
Silvia Cattori
Swiss Journalist.
Comment le Djihad est arrivé en Europe by Jürgen Elsässer, preface by
Jean-Pierre Chevènement. Éditions Xenia (Suisse), 304 pages, 19 euros.
[1] Read "La 'guerre contre le terrorisme' est une guerre contre les
peoples" by Youssef Aschkar, Voltaire, 16 mars 2006.
[2] "Iran : les gouvernements anglo-saxons fabriquent de fausses
nouvelles », Voltaire, 24 mai 2006.
---
Jürgen Elsässer
Wie der Dschihad nach Europa kam:
Gotteskrieger und Geheimdienste auf dem Balkan
NP-Verlag, 240 Seiten, 19.90 €
https://www.cnj.it/INIZIATIVE/roma290305.htm
---
Jürgen Elsässer
Comment le Djihad est arrivé en Europe
préface de Jean-Pierre Chevènement
Éditions Xenia (Suisse) 2006, 304 pages, 19 euros
ISBN 2-88892-004-2
http://www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/ASIN/2888920042/qid=1149522318/
sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/403-4260395-4442061
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/4992
http://www.voltairenet.org/article139861.html
http://www.oulala.net/Portail/article.php3?id_article=2474
http://www.legrandsoir.info/article.php3?id_article=3788
Balkans Info N.112
http://www.editions-xenia.com/php2/xedox/article_elsaesser_agefi.pdf
Jean-Pierre Chevenement sur "Horizons et debats"
Introduction de Jean-Pierre Chevenement sur "Observatoire du
communautarisme"
http://www.horizons-et-debats.ch/36/36_22.htm
http://www.anis-online.de/1/orient-online/elsaesser.htm
(L'ideologia dello "scontro di civiltà" elaborata dai rozzi teorici
neocons statunitensi, dalla quale non sono immuni certi settori
nazionalisti, anticomunisti e filo-occidentali del campo serbo, è
entrata in corto circuito: come si può scatenare una "guerra contro i
fascisti islamici" in mezzo mondo se proprio al centro dell'Europa
fascisti islamisti veri e propri sono stati sostenuti e
ricompensati?...)
1. The Balkan Mirror; What it says about the Middle East
Michael Djordjevich: "America did not oppose Germany's drive for the
dismemberment of Yugoslavia and then sided with Islamists in Bosnia.
Secretary of State James Baker said 'we have no dog in this fight'
but in the end America was the top dog in the fight..."
2. Former Serb member of Presidency sees no hope for Bosnia's
survival as state
Nenad Kecmanovic: "the West and the East have been deluding each
other to a high degree. Neither side has ever truly believed in that
delusion, because under the table one side was holding Samuel
Huntington's "The Clash of Civilizations", while the other had Alija
Izetbegovic's Islamic Declaration..."
3. The Yugoslav Caldron
Jürgen Elsässer: "The CIA recruited and trained the jihadists"
=== 1 ===
The Balkan Mirror; What it says about the Middle East
The Washington Times - August 15, 2006 Tuesday
By Michael Djordjevich, SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Together with the Middle East, the border lands of southeast Europe
known as the Balkans have been a region of the world where seminal
events and trends in human history have taken place. It has been
called many names, including "the powder keg of Europe" or "the
graveyard of empires." The conflicts in the region have also been a
mirror of history.
Long before Samuel Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations," in the
period between the 14th and 19th centuries, the incessant ebb and
flow in the conflict between Islam and the West took place in the
Balkans. Early in the 20th century, Serbian gun shots in Sarajevo
ushered in World War I, Communism and Nazism. At the end of the
century, Bosnian Muslim fundamentalists fired gun shots in Sarajevo,
killing several Christian Serbs at a wedding party and began a bloody
war in Bosnia among Christian Serbs and Croats and Muslims. This war
may have well reflected in earnest the renewed clash of civilizations.
The Berlin Wall fell at the end of 1989. The Soviet Union imploded
and the end of Communism as a global force followed. Balkan countries
joined the trend. However, the pivotal and largest state, Yugoslavia,
rapidly descended into a bloody civil-religious war and dissolution.
This decade-long war at the end of 20th century mirrored a number of
important political, legal, religious and geopolitical precedents for
the post-Communist world. Of particular significance are those
involving America, the European Union and the United Nations.
At first, the United States favored the preservation of Yugoslavia,
or at least its peaceful and orderly dissolution. Changing this
position abruptly, America did not oppose Germany's drive for the
dismemberment of Yugoslavia and then sided with Islamists in Bosnia.
Secretary of State James Baker said "we have no dog in this fight"
but in the end America was the top dog in the fight.
The international community's engagement in the Balkans have so far
been a textbook illustration of the dangers of contradictory
policies, chronic indecisions, confusion and ignorance about
historical forces in play, double standards and flawed precedents.
America was not prepared for the peace and the role of the only
superpower in the world. Our leadership has failed in this task so far.
Apparently, not much has been learned from this experience. We could
replace the location, inserting Iraq instead of the Balkans, and the
aforementioned assessment would be similar today.
The Balkan mirror also shows the impotence and irrelevance of the
United Nations. Any country and any people would be foolhardy to
place their destiny in the hands of this inept institution. With
America's complicity, the United Nations did nothing when its embargo
on arms shipments was violated by Iran sending planeloads of arms to
Bosnian Muslims. Subsequently, when veteran jihadists came to the
country to fight Serbs, the West was also supportive.
The Serbian province of Kosovo has been ethnically cleansed from
Serbs, Roma and other non-Albanians while 150 churches and many
medieval monasteries have been destroyed during 10 years of U.N.
governance.
The mirror showed the duplicitous methods by which world media
influenced world opinion. With few exceptions, it has abused its
power and professional responsibility, failing to heed Ed Murrow's
admonition to examine all sides of a story and aim to elucidate, not
advocate. It did the latter and in general continues to advocate an
Islamic agenda in Bosnia and Kosovo.
The Balkan realities also show a great adaptability of Islamists to
present a worldly, democratic face. Readily accepted by the West,
Bosnian leader and fundamentalist Islamist Alija Izetbegovic was
tolerated and praised as a democrat. Nevertheless, in his book "The
Islamic Declaration" Izetbegovic asserted absolute validity of
dominance of Islam: "There can be neither peace nor coexistence
between Islamic religion and non-Islamic social and political
institutions," he wrote. Later in the war, Mr. Izetbegovic was
influenced and financially and militarily supported by fundamentalist
Islamists (including Osama bin Laden). Similarly, some Kosovo
leaders, previously called terrorists and thugs by U.S. special envoy
Robert Gelbard, are now afforded respect in the United Nations and
elsewhere.
The ugliest and most dangerous reflection in the mirror is that of
double-standards. As we are facing challenges and dangers of radical
Islam and terrorism worldwide, let's not dismiss the Balkan
experience. Our policies must contain moral dimensions. International
agreements, legal precedents and evenhanded treatment of warring
people were not followed in the Yugoslav tragedy. If we are to get
out of the Middle East quagmire we must change these policies.
Failing to realize that by endeavoring to resolve complex problems by
double standards, we more often than not double them in the end.
In addition, the Balkan Mirror has provided important and troubling
reflections upon Islam and the new world (dis)order.
Michael Djordjevich, an American of Serbian origin, founded and was
the first president of the Serbian Unity Congress.
Copyright 2006 News World Communications, Inc.
Posted for Fair Use only.
http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/wt081506.htm
=== 2 ===
http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/gs072606.htm
Former Serb member of Presidency sees no hope for Bosnia's survival
as state
BBC Monitoring Europe (Political) - July 26, 2006, Wednesday
Source: Glas Srpske, Banja Luka, in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian 25 Jul
06 p 2
Copyright 2006 British Broadcasting Corporation - Posted for Fair Use
only.
Text of commentary by Nenad Kecmanovic, prewar Serb member of Bosnian
Presidency, entitled "Last dictatorship in Europe" published by
Bosnian Serb newspaper Glas Srpske on 25 July
If the Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks [Bosnian Muslims] could not find a
way to live together before the war, if they fought one another for
three and a half years over it, and if a decade of peace has not been
enough for them to try to achieve a compromise without an
intermediary, this means that we can forget about Bosnia-Hercegovina
[B-H] as a state.
There is no democracy in the world that can keep people under the
same roof who do not want to be there. This can be achieved only by
force, whether you call it occupation, colonization or a protectorate.
Some Western analysts have already called the regime of the Office of
the High Representative in B-H "the last dictatorship in Europe" and
rightly so. All this has been seen before in Bosnia-Hercegovina. For
half a millennium Bosnia-Hercegovina has existed only as a "dungeon
for people". When it occasionally changed the guard in the course of
history, the Bosnians and Hercegovinians were at each other's throats
along religious and national lines, as they had been the previous time.
I repeat again: the West and the East have been deluding each other
to a high degree. Neither side has ever truly believed in that
delusion, because under the table one side was holding Samuel
Huntington's "The Clash of Civilizations", while the other had Alija
Izetbegovic's Islamic Declaration. However, their mutual interests
forced them to keep up the game of mutual pretence and we know what
the result was like.
People often ask me: "Do you go to Sarajevo? Do you follow the
Sarajevo media? What reactions do you get from Sarajevo to your
political analyses?"
I almost regularly read their weeklies; I occasionally read their
dailies and I watch television. My public reactions are partly a
reaction to what I hear or read in their media.
The reactions to my reactions are malicious and without any depth,
because our neighbours are used to looking at themselves in a magic
fairytale mirror, while I remind them of some unpleasant truths.
The fact that neither Banja Luka nor Belgrade shows much interest in
the political scene in the other entity, where the joint institutions
are located, makes it sometimes look as if I am the only one who
spoils their fanciful picture of themselves.
Quite often I meet old acquaintances, colleagues and friends,
Bosnians in Sarajevo, but that is something completely different.
Despite certain disagreements and endless debate, they know what I
could have really said or written, what was taken out of context, and
what was suppressed or simply made up.
In any event, they know that I am not responsible for the problems
that Bosnia has got itself into nor do I have bad intentions towards
Bosniaks. On the contrary, I have lived my life in that environment
and those are the people with whom I lived for almost half a century.
Therefore, I cannot be indifferent, nor am I ignorant; my
professional interest is focused on researching politics.
Many things that I find out as an analyst do not make me happy as a
human being, so I would not mind if I turned out to be wrong.
=== 3 ===
http://signs-of-the-times.org/signs/editorials/
signs20060815_TheYugoslavCaldronJFCrgenElsE4sser22TheCIArecruitedandtrai
nedthejihadists22.php
http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=25794&s2=16
The Yugoslav Caldron: Jürgen Elsässer: "The CIA recruited and trained
the jihadists"
By Silvia Cattori
In his latest book, How the Jihad Came to Europe, German journalist
Jürgen Elsässer unravels the Jihadist thread. Muslim fighters
recruited by the CIA to fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan were
used successively in Yugoslavia and Chechnya, still supported by the
CIA, but perhaps sometimes out of its control. Basing himself on
diverse sources, mainly Yugoslavian, Dutch, and German, he
reconstructed the development of Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants
at the side of NATO in Bosnia-Herzegovinia.
Silvia Cattori: Your investigation into the actions of the secret
services makes a frightening report. We discover that since the 80's
the United States has invested billions of dollars to finance
criminal activities and that by means of the CIA they are directly
implicated in the attacks attributed to the Moslems. What is the
contribution of your book?
Jurgen Elsässer: It is the only work that establishes the tie between
wars in the Balkan of the 90's and the attack of September 11, 2001.
All the large attacks, in New York, in London, in Madrid, would never
have taken place without the recruitment by the American and British
secret services of these jihadists who have been blamed for the
attacks. I bring a new light on the manipulations of the intelligence
agencies. Other books than mine have noted the presence of Ossama Ben
Laden in the Balkans. But their authors presented the Moslem fighters
in the Balkan as enemies of the west. The information that I
collected from multiple sources, demonstrate that these jihadists are
puppets in the hands of the west and are not, as one pretends, enemies.
Silvia Cattori: In the case of the war in the Balkan, the
manipulations of various States are clearly designated in your book.
The United States supported Ben Laden whose work was to form the
Mujahidines. How can anyone continue to ignore that these attempts
that horrify public opinion would never have existed if these
«terrorists» had not been driven and financed by the western
intelligence services?
Jürgen Elsässer: Yes, indeed, it is the result of facts that one can
observe. But one cannot say that the western intervention in ex -
Yugoslavia had for objective to prepare attack of September 11. To be
precise: these attacks are a consequence of western politics of the
90's because NATO put these jihadists in place in the Balkans and
collaborated with them. The Moslem militants who have been designated
the persons responsible for the attacks of September 11 were part of
this network.
Silvia Cattori: According to you, what was the interest of the United
States and Germany to set the people of the Balkans one against the
other?
Jürgen Elsässer: The west had a common interest to destroy
Yugoslavia, to dismember it, because, after the end of the soviet
bloc, it would have been a model of the intelligent combination of
capitalist and socialist elements. But the west wanted to impose the
neoliberal model on all countries.
Silvia Cattori: Is not Europe itself imprudently committed to a war
manipulated by the neoconservatives?
Jürgen Elsässer: It is difficult to say. I believe that in the 90's,
the politics of the United States was inspired by their victory
against Soviets in Afghanistan. It was the model that they wanted to
apply in Balkans. If, during those years, the economy of the United
States had not fallen into depression, maybe the more realistic
politicians, such as Kissinger, could have kept control of American
politics. I think that the coincidence between the economic
depression and the aggressiveness of the neoconservative school
determined what happened.
Silvia Cattori: Do you think that a leader like Blair, for example,
once embarked in the neoconservative project, has become a hostage to
a certain point?
Jürgen Elsässer: I don't know the position of Blair enough well. It
is easier to see what goes on in the United States. One can see that
Bush is the hostage of those around him. And, as he is not very
intelligent, he is not able to take decisions and must follow ideas
of his entourage. It is clear that his father was against the attack
on Iraq in 2003.
Silvia Cattori: Wasn't the first Gulf war part of a plan aiming to
trigger other wars thereafter?
Jürgen Elsässer: No, there was no tie with the war in Iraq in 1991.
There were two phases. Until the end of the Clinton period, the
politics of the United States were imperialistic, but at the same
time, pragmatic. They chased the Soviets out of Afghanistan. They
defeated Iraq in 1991. Their war stopped once Kuwait was free. Then
they attacked Bosnia and Yugoslavia; but it occurred stage by stage.
Everything went out of control after September 11.
Silvia Cattori: The neoconservatives don't count for anything?
Jürgen Elsässer: The neoconservatives, grouped around Pearl, had
written a document one year before September 11, according to which
America had need of a catalyzing event similar to the attack on Pearl
Harbor. September 11 was this catalyzing event. I believe that people
around Pearl wished for the attacks of September 11.
Silvia Cattori: What was the objective pursued by the United States
in attacking Serbia? Was it merely about, as is indicated in your
book, the US getting itself installed in a strategic region situated
on a transit line for the oil and the gas of central Asia? Or did the
alliance of the United States with the Moslem fighters directed by
Izetbegovic have a second objective: to create a Moslem extremism at
the doors of Europe in order to make use of it in the setting of
terrorist manipulations? And, if yes, towards what goal?
Jürgen Elsässer: The United States wanted, as did Austria at the end
of the 19th century in Bosnia, to create a "European" Islam to weaken
the Islamic states in the Middle East, meaning, at that time, the
Ottoman empire, and today, Iran and the Arab states. The
neoconservatives had other plans again: to construct a clandestine
network of "fundamentalist" puppets to do the dirty work against
"old" Europe.
Silvia Cattori: The result, a terrifying civil war. How could Europe
have participated in the destruction of Yugoslavia, which appeared as
an example of the perfectly successful cohabitation between ethnic
groups? By making the Serbians the guilty party, didn't Europe
destroy a country that was one of the major constructions of the
postwar era? On what legitimacy did Europe base its intervention?
Jürgen Elsässer: First, in the beginning of the 90's, Germany led the
attack based upon the principles of the self-determination of ethnic
groups: in other words, Hitler's old ruse against Czechoslovakia and
Poland in 1938/39. Then, the United States took the relay and praised
"human rights", an obvious swindle.
Silvia Cattori: In your investigation Israel is never mentioned. Have
you not minimized the importance of pro-Israeli neoconservatives
inside the Pentagon, who serve interests of Israel more that those of
the United States?
Jürgen Elsässer: There are Israelis who collaborated with the
neoconservatives; it is a fact. But I am not sure of the role played
by Israel in this business. Sharon was against NATO support for the
Albanians of Kosovo. And, in 1998, he expressed his worry over the
idea that NATO support the setting up of pro-Islamic elements in the
Balkan. I also believe that he was not favorable to this war the
following year.
Silvia Cattori: Don't you see ties between the Israeli secret
services and the attacks of September 11, 2001?
Jürgen Elsässer: There are ties, but I didn't analyze the character
of these ties. For example, immediately after September 11, a certain
number of Israeli agents were arrested in the United States. They
were present in places where the attacks were prepared. There are
analysts who say this is proof that Israel was directly implicated in
these attacks. But it could also mean something else. It could be
that these agents were watching what happened, that they were aware
that the American secret services supported these "terrorists" in the
preparation of these attacks, but that they kept their knowledge to
use it at the appropriate moment, and to be able to use it as
blackmail when the moment came: "If you don't increase your support
for Israel, we are going to hand over this information to the media".
There is even a third possibility: that these Israeli spies wanted to
warn about the attacks but failed. At the moment, we only know that
these types were there and that they were arrested. Supplementary
investigations are necessary.
Silvia Cattori: Do these ties put in evidence that the attacks of
September 11, 2001 were part of a plan conceived a long time before?
Jürgen Elsässer: I am not certain that a plan had been established
for a long time. It could be that people such as Richard Perle
improvise a lot and use criminal elements that they put in place but
that they don't permanently control. As, at the time of Kennedy's
murder, it is clear that the CIA was implicated, but one doesn't know
if it had been planned at the top, at Langley [the headquarters of
the CIA], or if it was conceived among the most violent Cuban exiles
working for the CIA, the headquarters of the CIA limiting themselves
to tolerating it.
Silvia Cattori: If tomorrow these characters grouped around Pearl
were removed, would that stop the anti-Muslim war strategy of the
United States and the manipulations that justify it?
Jürgen Elsässer: It stops when they lose a war.
Silvia Cattori: The war, didn't they lose it in Iraq?
Jürgen Elsässer: The war will only be lost when they leave the
country, as in Vietnam.
Silvia Cattori: These Moslems who, like Mohammed Atta, were just
ordinary citizens before being enlisted by the CIA, how could they be
driven to such terrifying actions, without knowing that they were
being manipulated by intelligence agents of the opposite camp?
Jürgen Elsässer: There are some youth that can be turned into
fanatics and manipulated very easily by intelligence services. High-
placed characters are not unaware of what happens and know by who
they are hired.
Silvia Cattori: Ben Laden, for example, did he know that he served
the interests of the United States?
Jürgen Elsässer: I didn't study his case. I studied the case of Al
Zawahiri, Ben Laden's right arm, who was the chief of operations in
the Balkans. In the beginning of the 90's, he traveled all through
the United States with an agent of the US Special Command to collect
money for the Jihad; this man knew that he participated in this
collection of money as an activity that was supported by the United
States.
Silvia Cattori: All of this is very troubling. You bring the proof
that that attacks that have occurred since 1996 (attacks in the
subway of Paris), would never have been possible if the war in the
Balkan had not taken place. And you impute these attacks, that left
thousands of victims, to western intelligence services. Has opinion
in West therefore been deceived by governments that have embarked on
terrorist actions?
Jürgen Elsässer: The terrorist network that the American and British
secret services formed during the civil war in Bosnia and later in
Kosovo provided a reservoir of militants that we find implicated
later in the attacks in New York, Madrid, London.
Silvia Cattori: How did this happen concretely?
Jürgen Elsässer: Once the war was finished in Afghanistan, Osama Ben
Laden recruited these jihadist militants. It was his work. It was he
that trained them, partially with the support of the CIA, and put
them in place in Bosnia. The Americans tolerated the connection
between the President Izetbegovic and Ben Laden. Two years later, in
1994, the Americans began to send weapons, in a common clandestine
operation with Iran. After the treaty of Dayton, in November 1995,
the CIA and the Pentagon recruited best of the jihadists that had
fought in Bosnia.
Silvia Cattori: How does it happen that these Moslems got into the
hands of services that served ideological interests opposed to theirs?
Jürgen Elsässer: I analyzed testimonies given by some jihadists
interrogated by the German judges. They said that after the treaty of
Dayton, which stipulated that all foreign ex-fighters had to leave
the country, they didn't have any more money and had nowhere to go.
As for those that could remain in Bosnia, because they had been
provided with Bosnian passports, they were without work and without
money. The day when the recruiters came and rang at their doors and
proposed to pay them 3000 dollars a month to serve in the Bosnian
army, they didn't know that they were recruited and paid by
emissaries of the CIA to serve the United States.
Silvia Cattori: After, when they were sent to prepare the attacks in
London in July 2005, for example, did they not become aware that they
were in the hands of western intelligence agents who manipulated them?
Jürgen Elsässer: It is not clear that it was really the young Moslems
from the suburbs of London that committed the attacks, as the police
claim. There are other indications according to which the bombs were
fixed under the trains. It is possible the bombs were attached under
the trains without these young men knowing about it. In that case it
is not sure that the young Moslems, incriminated by the
investigation, committed these attempts.
Silvia Cattori: It is hard to understand the goal that the western
States pursue when they engage their services in criminal manipulations?
Jürgen Elsässer: This is not easy to say. Remember Kennedy's murder.
Who did it? It is certain that it was people from the CIA that
supported the second killer, it is certain that Oswald was murdered
by a man who had been mandated by the CIA. What is not clear is if
these men recruited by the CIA acted on order of Johnson or Dulles,
or if they were link to the milieu of extremist Cuban exiles, which
means affiliated to the mafia. I don't believe that Bush or Blairs
are chiefs. I don't believe in the theory of the big conspiracy. I
believe that the secret services hire men who are ordered to carry
out the dirty business; these agents act as they want. Perhaps you
know that on September 11, 2001, someone tried to kill Bush. What
does it mean? It is difficult to explain.
Silvia Cattori: Do you mean that Bush is, for example, himself
hostage of the people who, inside the Pentagon, form a State within
the state, one that also escapes the command of the American army?
Jürgen Elsässer: Yes. Bush is stupid. He is only an instrument in
other people's hands.
Silvia Cattori: Are you thinking about people that are under the
direct influence of characters such as Pearl, Wolfowitz, Feith? Do
you think that it is they who, after the war of the Balkan, would
have been the real backers of these attacks and that these attacks
are not separate from each other, that there is a link between Madrid
and London? Does it mean that the Americans are ready to ally with
the devil to sow chaos everywhere under the pretext of this anti-
Muslim, anti - Arabic war waged under the banner of terrorism? A
fabricated terrorism?
Jürgen Elsässer: Yes, there is a duplicate government that escapes
Bush's control. It is the neoconservatives, such as Cheney, Rumsfeld,
Wolfowitz, Pearl, the people tied into the oil and the military
industries,. The global chaos is in the interest of the military
industry: when there is the chaos all over the world, one can sell
weapons and oil for a bigger price.
Silvia Cattori: Youssef Asckar described this State within in the
state very well, to which you give credit [1]. Isn't Israel the first
country interested by this strategy of chaos, therefore by the
manipulation of terrorist attacks? Doesn't the propaganda of the pro-
Israeli lobby have the tendency to make us believe that Israel is
threatened by Arabs fanatics?
Jürgen Elsässer: It is not certain that this strategy can serve the
interests of Israel because, if things continue this way, the whole
Middle East will be in flames, including Israel. They used the same
process during the war in Bosnia. In order to demonize the Serbs, the
western media invented stories of concentration camps and made photo
montages that compared the Serbs to the Nazis. This propaganda aimed
to win opinion over to the war against Serbia, but, with regard to
the United States, it was not nourished necessarily by the Jewish
lobby, but by the Christian and atheist strategists. These
strategists play the "Jewish" card. That is my thesis. One sees it
currently with the propaganda against Iran; strategists of the war
play the "Jewish" card to impress people that have more morals than
intelligence.
Silvia Cattori: The recent manipulations confirm, in part, your
thesis: at the same moment where the United States wanted the
Security Council to pass sanctions against Iran, a Canadian newspaper
wrote that Iran wanted to force Iranian Jews to wear the equivalent
of a yellow star [2]. But I refer to these openly pro-Israeli
personalities that, in France for example, play an important role in
the formation of opinion because they occupy some strategic positions
in the media, and whose community allegiance psuyhes them to support
the policies of Israel and the United States, even if it is criminal.
Remember the active support brought to Izetbegovic in Bosnia by
Bernard-Henri Lévy and Bernard Kouchner. As soon as Serbia was on the
knees, they immediately turned their propaganda against Arabs and
Moslems; this time it was to mobilize opinion in favor of the so-
called "war of civilizations". When they spoke of "concentration
camps" to associate the Serbs with Hitler, didn't they participate in
manipulations of NATO?
Jürgen Elsässer: We watched the same phenomenon in Germany. The
Jewish journalists that supported the war against Yugoslavia had
access to the televised studios. But the journalists that were
against, whether they were Jewish or not, were excluded from the
debate. I think that the media and politicians use the Jewish voices
for geostrategic stakes.
Silvia Cattori: So, as you see it, what happened in the Balkan was
only the repetition of what had happened in Afghanistan, what
followed was part of the same process. Do you think that our
authorities know risks of the wars provoked by their intelligence
agencies?
Jürgen Elsässer: My hope is that there is a reaction on behalf of the
military in the United States. There are among them people who know
very well that all these wars are not intelligent. They know that the
United States is going to lose this war. In the American army, they
are imperialistic but they are not crazy, they don't agree with what
is happening. But the neoconservatives are crazy, they want to wage
the Third World War against all Arabs and all Moslems, just like
Hitler who wanted to kill all Jews and to attack all other countries;
the German generals had warned Hitler of all that he risked.
Silvia Cattori: Is your hope that a change occurs unexpectedly?
Jürgen Elsässer: To stop this madness I see possibility of change
only among those forces that remained rational. The high command of
the American army wrote a letter to Bush to say that it doesn't want
to participate in an attack against Iran with nuclear weapons. Maybe
Bush will attack; but the consequences would be more serious than in
the case of Iraq. The same thing happened with the Nazis: they
attacked, they attacked, and one day there was Stalingrad and the
beginning of the defeat. But this adventure cost the lives of 60
million human beings.
Silvia Cattori: Is that what motivated your effort while writing this
book: to alert people's consciences in order to avoid new disasters
and new suffering? Moreover, that after Iraq it would be Iran's turn?
Jürgen Elsässer: Yes. But characters like Bush don't care about all
of that. I am not completely pessimistic on Iran: one could see a
repetition of the Paris, Berlin, Moscow axis. Our chancellor, who is
normally a puppet of the United States, offered strategic cooperation
with Russia, because Germany depends entirely on Russian oil and gas.
It is a strong argument. Germans are imperialists, but they are not
crazy.
Silvia Cattori: In the Balkans, was it not Germany that opened the
door to the war?
Jürgen Elsässer: Yes, it is true. But, today, you see that Joschka
Fischer and Madeleine Albright have sent an open letter to Bush to
tell him not to attack Iran. Mrs. Albright specified that one cannot
attack all the people that one doesn't like. It is rational.
Silvia Cattori: Were you able to collect these elements that
illustrate the actions of the intelligence agencies because, today,
people, worried of the evolution of international politics, are
beginning to speak?
Jürgen Elsässer: Yes. I depended a great deal on information from
people that work in the belly of "the beast".
Silvia Cattori: Everywhere in the world?
Jürgen Elsässer: I can only tell you that it is people from Western
Europe. It is people that haven't stopped using their heads.
Silvia Cattori: To obtain the proof of the manipulations
surroundeding the "Gulf of Tonkin Incident", the incident that
permitted the United States to unleash the war against the Vietnamese
people, it was necessary to wait a long time. Have things therefore
changed today, permitting a response in time?
Jürgen Elsässer: There is a big difference between the situation in
the 60's and the one today. In the Federal Republic of Germany, they
were, for example, at that time in favor of the war against
Communists in Vietnam. The official version that said our republic
was in danger of being attacked by Communists was shared by a big
part of public opinion. What has changed is that, today, the majority
of the population is against the war, without discussion.
Silvia Cattori: You rightly underline the extremist religious
character of Bosnia-Herzegovina under Izetbegovic, but, whereas you
doubt the support of Israel to this sort of draft of the emirate of
the Talibans, don't you overvalue the role of Iran and Saudi Arabia?
Richard Perle was the principal political advisor to Izetbegovic.
Didn't the Iranians and the Saudis raise the ante on the question of
Islam hoping to take the control of a Moslem regime that only took
its orders from Tel Aviv and Washington? In fact, was Izetbegovic not
an agent of Israel?
Jürgen Elsässer: The Mossad helped the Bosnian Serbians, they even
provided them weapons. There is nothing that indicates that the
Israeli government helped Izetbegovic. It was supported by Americans,
and Clinton depended upon the Zionist lobby in the United States, but
this lobby didn't have the support of the Israeli government during
the war of Bosnia.
Silvia Cattori: With regard to some of your sources, can one grant
credit to the assertions of Yossef Bodanski, director of the Working
Group on Terrorism and Non-Conventional war close to the American
Senate?
Jürgen Elsässer: I don't trust anybody. They claim that Bodansky has
ties with sources in Mossad and it renders a number of his findings
suspect. On the other hand, he brings to our knowledge a lot of
interesting facts that contradict the official propaganda. In my book
I show the contradictions within the dominant elites of the United
States, and, in this respect, Bodansky, is very interesting.
Silvia Cattori: It says in your book: "Terrorism exists in Kosovo and
Macedonia, but in its majority it is not controled by Ben Laden but
by US intelligence". Do you doubt the existence of Al Qaeda?
Jürgen Elsässer: Yes, as I wrote it in my book, it is propaganda
manufactured by the west.
Silvia Cattori: One has a bit the impression that, to go to the end
of its logic, your investigation is not finished. Certainly,
Yugoslavia was a laboratory for the manufacture of the Islamic
networks, and your book shows well that these networks serve the
interests of the United States. However, you seem to believe in the
existence of international Islamic networks who would have a popular
base in the Moslem world, whereas at the same time your research
demonstrates that these networks are only mercenaries of the United
States and that they have never done anything for the Moslems?
Jürgen Elsässer: Look at the example of Hamas: in the beginning of
the 80's, it was fomented by Mossad to counter the influence of the
PLO. But thereafter, Hamas developed its own popular base and, now,
it is part of the resistance. But I bet that there are still foreign
agents inside Hamas.
Silvia Cattori: You mentioned that the inspectors of the United
Nations are infiltrated by spies from the United States. Could we
have some precisions?
Jürgen Elsässer: Some blue helmets of the UNPROFOR in Bosnia
transported weapons to destinations of the Mujahidines.
Silvia Cattori: When Peter Handke affirms that Serbs are not the only
guilty party, that they are victims of the war of the Balkans, one
banish it. Who is right in this business?
Jürgen Elsässer: On all sides - Serbs, Croatians, Moslems - the
ordinary people have all lost. Moslems won the war in Bosnia with the
help of Ben Laden and Clinton but, now, their country is occupied by
NATO. They have less independence today than at the time of Yugoslavia.
Silvia Cattori: How does your research relate to that of Andreas Von
Bülow and Thierry Meyssan?
Jurgen Elsässer: We share the same opinion on the events of September
11, 2001: we think that the official version is not true. All this
combined research is very useful to be able to continue to deepen the
reality of the facts. My specialty is to have made the link between
wars of the Balkans and September 11, while Thierry Meyssan analyzed
the attack on the Pentagon to demonstrate that it was due to a
missile and not to a plane, and Von Bülow arrived at the conclusion
that planes were guided by a beacon.
Silvia Cattori: To having put into question the official truth,
Thierry Meyssan was discredited and blocked by the media. Are you
going to escape that?
Jürgen Elsässer: There is also a blockage against my book. It is not
possible for one author alone to break this blockage. However, it
can't prevent our theses from making their path. The public is not in
agreement with what the media says: in spite of their blockage 35 to
40% of people don't believe what media tells them. There is the
example of Kennedy's assassination: today, 90% of people don't
believe in the official version and think that Kennedy's murder was
an action of the CIA.
Silvia Cattori: Isn't it dangerous to uncover the manipulations of
States that use their intelligence services in criminal ways?
Jürgen Elsässer: I believe that the danger only comes when one sells
more than 100 000 books. In Germany, in eleven months, my book has
only sold 6 000 copies.
Silvia Cattori
Swiss Journalist.
Comment le Djihad est arrivé en Europe by Jürgen Elsässer, preface by
Jean-Pierre Chevènement. Éditions Xenia (Suisse), 304 pages, 19 euros.
[1] Read "La 'guerre contre le terrorisme' est une guerre contre les
peoples" by Youssef Aschkar, Voltaire, 16 mars 2006.
[2] "Iran : les gouvernements anglo-saxons fabriquent de fausses
nouvelles », Voltaire, 24 mai 2006.
---
Jürgen Elsässer
Wie der Dschihad nach Europa kam:
Gotteskrieger und Geheimdienste auf dem Balkan
NP-Verlag, 240 Seiten, 19.90 €
https://www.cnj.it/INIZIATIVE/roma290305.htm
---
Jürgen Elsässer
Comment le Djihad est arrivé en Europe
préface de Jean-Pierre Chevènement
Éditions Xenia (Suisse) 2006, 304 pages, 19 euros
ISBN 2-88892-004-2
http://www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/ASIN/2888920042/qid=1149522318/
sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/403-4260395-4442061
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/4992
http://www.voltairenet.org/article139861.html
http://www.oulala.net/Portail/article.php3?id_article=2474
http://www.legrandsoir.info/article.php3?id_article=3788
Balkans Info N.112
http://www.editions-xenia.com/php2/xedox/article_elsaesser_agefi.pdf
Jean-Pierre Chevenement sur "Horizons et debats"
Introduction de Jean-Pierre Chevenement sur "Observatoire du
communautarisme"
http://www.horizons-et-debats.ch/36/36_22.htm
http://www.anis-online.de/1/orient-online/elsaesser.htm