Posted March 18, 2002

Mercenaries in Macedonia

I just read . . . [Christopher Deliso's] mujahedin piece. Awesome! It is by far the most thorough analysis on the issue of Islamic mercenaries fighting in Macedonia.

~ Darko A.

Beirut

[Regarding Justin Raimondo's column of March 13, "The 'Urban Myth' Gambit":]

I spent 10 years as an officer of the US Air Force, and can tell you from personal experience that the Israelis were worse than the Chinese when it came to "borrowing" material during base visits. They would go through garbage cans, take files from desks, and ask questions about everything, even questions they had been warned that we could not answer. I also encountered them throughout Latin America during my time as a special operations officer, and found them to be the same there. They always followed us around asking about everything but would tell you nothing more than their name.

Regarding Israel's not warning us about an impending attack, that happened 19 years ago in Beirut. At the time of the October 1983 barracks bombing, Israeli intel heard that a beefed-up chassis was being prepared to carry the amount of explosive needed to flatten our barracks and the French's. They did not tell us for fear of compromising their source. Must be comforting for the family members whose tax dollars go to the Israeli war machine to know their Marines did not die in vain.

~ IS

Jatras Article

This article by Stella Jatras should be emailed to every Congressman and Senator in this country as well as all Cabinet members and do not forget Clinton and Albright.

~ Peter C.

Mad Mel

Mel Gibson, this generation's John Wayne, is busy making war look like a good and honorable thing in a Bush-era succession of recent for-U.S.-release movies (as if he'd never seen, let alone acted in the post-nuclear apocalypse Australian Mad Max movies).

Wayne used every trick in the book to successfully dodge the draft while doing everything he could to send any-everybody else to World War II, Korea and Vietnam. And in 1964 Gibson's father won $ on Jeopardy! and used the money to move his family to Australia and prevent his sons from being drafted and sent to Vietnam. (And I don't fault him for this one iota!)

But Mel, it is always good for somebody else to get killed, nicht wahr?

~ GCT, New York

Negotiation Tools

I would just like to say that I am really impressed by this site and thank you for putting it up. I was just thinking about the media coverage on this war is pathetic and I pity anyone who relies on it. I for one don't. I currently live in Canada but am a Palestinian, . . . another one of those millions of refugees.

...[I] am surprised that it has not been on the news or anything like that, but it seems that the United States has failed to inform anyone that there are 18 troops at the moment in the hands of the Taliban and Qaeda forces. They are being used as negotiation tools for the prisoners in Cuba. This information is posted on the Jazeera television website www.al-jazeera.com.

~ Khalil A.

The 'Backtalk' editor replies:

Antiwar.com did link to a similar report -- "Ex-spy chief: Al Qaida has U.S. prisoners," by Anwar Iqbal UPI, March 13 -- today (March 15).

Lavon Affair

Given the recent revelations about Israeli agents' monitoring sensitive American government installations in the months before 911 and the attempt to pin the frame an Arab American for the Anthrax attack, I'm surprised that no American commentators have mentioned the infamous "Lavon Affair."

In 1954 Israel viewed with growing concern an emerging rapprochement between the United States an Egypt. Partly to forestall this rapprochement, partly to blacken the image of Arabs in the eyes of the world, a renegade senior Israeli intelligence officer launched his agents in Egypt on a series of terrorist bombing attacks against US diplomatic facilities and civilian British and Egyptian installations in Cairo and Alexandria. At the time, most international observers assumed the perpetrators were the "Moslem Brothers," a recently established Islamic fundamentalist movement. When a firebomb blew up prematurely, seriously injuring one of the Israeli agents, Egyptian police were able to crack the case and expose the Israeli conspiracy.

The Egyptians assumed that Israeli Defense Minister Lavon was behind the terrorist attacks. After years of wrangling and investigations in Israel, however, the consensus view now is that Lavon was the victim of a frame-up (including an authorization letter with Lavon's forged signature) orchestrated by the renegade Intel officer and protégés of retired prime minister Ben Gurion. One of these protégés was a young official in the Defense Ministry by the name of Shimon Peres.

Every educated Arab knows all about the "Lavon Affair." It shouldn't be surprising that the Arab world assumed from the beginning that 911 was indeed an example of state-sponsored terror, but not Afghani state-sponsored terror.

~ E.G.

Former Yugoslav

Yes, it finally happened. The day we were all waiting for, and the day some of us didn't want to come. The name Yugoslavia is no more. It has entered the history books as the generator of some of the bloodiest civil wars in the past century.

My country was a part of a once great and noble country and even now it wears a name that is a bitter reminder of those times: The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. And for the past ten years or so, we have been doing everything that is in our power to shake that name off. Everyone claims we are doing that so that we can finally have our own country (and yet, everyone that knows anything about what happened last year here, will smile bitterly and give a sarcastic remark: Keep hopin' kid). But if you ask me, it is being done so that every last trace of memory of that country that existed on the principles of 'Brotherhood and Unity' will fade away. That wonderful assembly of freethinkers and whatnot, the International Crisis Group (yes, an NGO, but look up their list of donors, and members) gave a solution to the problem Greece has with our constitutional name. And most claimed it was a great job on their part. But think about it: in December, the ICG gives a report that would erase the two adjectives in the name we have been accepted in the UN with, and sometime mid-February a Montenegrin daily came up with information about FR Yugoslavia's new name (Union of Serbia and Montenegro). A coincidence some would say. Too bad for me I don't believe in coincidences.

I remember now of an interview a colleague of mine did with Edward Joseph (the ICG representative in Macedonia) and in one instance of remarkable honesty he said: Let's be honest, there is no NATO interest if there isn't a Washington interest. Without Washington, there would be no NATO. (I am paraphrasing here, but I think you get the gist of it).

Then, you have the problems raised in Bosnia now: The Croats are forming parallel military, police and intelligence, in lieu of creating another chunk in Bosnia akin to Republika Srpska. Montenegro will have the opportunity to proclaim independence through a referendum sometime in the future, and as soon as that happens, Kosovo will follow suite. So will Republika Srpska, Republika Hrvatska and Republika Bosna (or whatever the Croatian and Bosnian"republics" decide to call themselves). The next thing that will happen, I imagine, is the federalization and inevitable division of Macedonia (first came the "amnesty", then the "amnesia" about our agreement with FRY about the border. How long before we get to the word "annexation"?). One may call me a conspiracy theorist, a doomsayer, etc., etc. And quite frankly, I couldn't blame you. I can't explain the past 23 years I've spent here to anyone. You should've been there.

After spending 1 year in the US (right before the bombing of Yugoslavia started in 1999), I have seen the effect the media has on the people, and I can't help but remember a line a friend told me once: the concept of modern journalism: Don't let the facts get in your way.

So now, I sit in my room, fearing anyone bearing gifts, and listening to David Bowie singing: I'm afraid of Americans.

~ Bojan A.