Lawrence Eagleburger, Jimmy Carter’s ambassador to Belgrade and George Bush Sr.’s Secretary of State, has been a busy bee lately, weighing in on the right side of the Kosovo issue repeatedly in recent months. As opposed to the past nine years, when his influential input might have had some effect on policy. While we take what allies we can get on the dissenting side of the Kosovo surrender — an underappreciated catalyst for the demise of Western civilization – this is not a case of ‘better late than never’. Considering the influence this man could have had with a brand new Republican administration, especially after 9/11; considering that our disastrous Kosovo policy was still only being solidified and wasn’t yet institutionalized; considering that the entrenched Clintonistas — the only voice on Kosovo to be heard in Washington — hadn’t yet fully programmed the Republican president; considering that the word “Kosovo” hadn’t even entered Bush’s head between the years 2001 and early 2006 and there was still room for leadership, Eagleburger’s recent torrent of insight amounts to just another pile of Kosovo litter. Because he woke up and spoke up just a month before the actual declaration of independence, that is only once we reached the point of no return, and well after George Bush lost his soul.
But given that his name does mean something to Republicans — who know and care about this issue as much as the janitor at my gym does — it’s worth sharing what Eaglesandwich — I mean burger — had to say about the direction of our pan-Albanian policies over the past nine years:
2000: zzzzzzzzzz
2001: zzzzzzzzz
2002: zzzzzzzz
2003: zzzzzzz
2004: zzzzzz
2005: zzzzz
2006: zzzz
2007: zzz
January 8, 2008:
I have really very serious problems with the international community and part of that being the United States, advocating grabbing a hunk of territory from one country and making it independent. I don’t think that’s a tradition that we want to establish very substantially. There are perfectly good reasons for objecting to international efforts to hive Kosovo off from Serbia…[the] issue involved here [is]…all of a sudden establishing the right of the international community to order or pressure the taking of a particular territory and telling the nominal host country that it’s no longer a part of their territory.
January 29:
We believe an imposed settlement of the Kosovo question and seeking to partition Serbia’s sovereign territory without its consent is not in the interest of the United States…Neither the Security Council nor any other international body has the power or authority to impose a change of any country’s borders.
Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the current policy is the dismissive attitude displayed toward Russia’s objections. Whatever disagreements the United States may have with Moscow on other issues, and there are many, the United States should not prompt an unnecessary crisis in U.S.-Russia relations. There are urgent matters regarding which the United States must work with Russia, including Iran’s nuclear intentions and North Korea’s nuclear capability. Such cooperation would be undercut by American action to neutralize Moscow’s legitimate concerns regarding Kosovo.
…
While some European countries, notably members of the EU, may feel themselves obligated to join us in recognizing Kosovo’s independence, a number of those countries would do so reluctantly because of Washington’s inflexibility and insistence. No more than the United States, Europe would not benefit from an avoidable confrontation with Russia.
Even if Kosovo declared itself an independent state, it would be a dysfunctional one and a ward of the international community for the indefinite future. Corruption and organized crime are rampant. The economy, aside from international largesse and criminal activities, is nonviable. Law enforcement, integrity of the courts, protection of persons and property, and other prerequisites for statehood are practically nonexistent…
The result would be a new “frozen conflict,” with Kosovo’s status still unresolved. The risk of renewed violence would further impede Kosovo’s development. Moreover, heightened tensions might require reinforcing the U.S. presence in Kosovo when we can least afford it due to other commitments.
Serbia has made great strides in democratic development and economic revitalization since the fall of the regime of Slobodan Milosevic. Current policy with respect to Kosovo risks complete reversal of these gains. Faced with a choice between Western partnership and defense of their sovereign territory and constitution, there is little doubt what Serbia would decide…Serbia would inevitably move closer to Russia as its only protector.
…
Viable and enduring settlements should result from negotiation and compromise. Such an outcome has been undermined by a U.S. promise to the Kosovo Albanians that their demands will be satisfied if they remain adamant and no agreement is reached with Belgrade. Such a promise cannot be justified by the claim, often heard from proponents of independence, that the Albanians’ “patience” is running out, so independence must be granted without delay. This is nothing less than appeasing a threat of violence.
Within a month of the above writings, the free world’s fate was sealed, and Eaglesandwich got busier:
Eagleburger: Independent Kosovo introduction to new war
BELGRADE, March 21 (Tanjug) - Former U.S. Secretary of State and Ambassador to Belgrade Lawrence Eagleburger has evaluated that the unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo was a mistake and that independent Kosovo is an introduction to a new war.
Kosovo will never be able to provide for economic survival alone, it will try to attract Albanians from Macedonia and Greece, which will result in conflicts with those countries, Eagleburger said in an interview published by Glas Javnosti.
He underscored that the movement for Great Albania will be activated at some point and that serious problems in that part of the world will be created….Eagleburger said that he does not believe that independence of Kosovo was the only solution to the problem of Serbia’s province, but that some countries had decided it was so due to the relations that had developed between Serbia and Kosovo, whose Albanian population grew bigger while the Serbian population was getting smaller, and because of Milosevic on whose account serious preconceptions about Serbs were created.
I agree that Milosevic and Serbia did some horrible things then, but I don’t believe that you will find a solution to that if you proclaim independence of Kosovo, because we now see that it will not stop the fighting but it will only make it worse, said Eagleburger.
Eagleburger: Macedonia’s NATO entry to prevent attacks from Kosovo, Albania (March 21)
It’s important NATO to admit Macedonia to thwart all aggressive attacks from Kosovo or Albania, said Lawrence Eagleburger, a former senior US diplomat.
Eagleburger told Serbian media that Kosovo independence was a mistake speaking from the point of the international law. Furthermore, Kosovo can never survive economically.
“Kosovo will try to attract Albanians from Macedonia and Greece, which will result in conflict with these countries. The project Greater Albania is likely to emerge later on,” Eagleburger said.
The best option to solve the situation in the region is Serbia to recognize Kosovo independence, and Kosovo to focus on establishing peaceful relations with Serbia and not to try to pressure Macedonia and Greece as regards annexation of Albanians of these countries toward Kosovo.
And that’s where he’s wrong (assuming the last paragraph was meant to be attributed to Eagleburger). Given that he warns of Greater Albania moving on to Macedonia and Greece, the man seems to comprehend that if you give Albanians a hand, they’ll take your whole arm, leg, torso and head. And yet he suggests Serbia give them that hand — after previously writing what a mistake this is. But then, how much can we really expect from a man whose record on the Balkans includes the following, starting with Srdja Trifkovic from 2006:
The involvement of the Clinton administration in the wars of Yugoslav succession was a good example of the failed expectation that pandering to Muslim ambitions in a secondary theater will improve the U.S. standing in the Muslim world as a whole. The notion germinated in the final months of George H.W. Bush’s presidency, when his Acting Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger said that a goal in Bosnia was to mollify the Muslim world and to counter any perception of an anti-Muslim bias regarding American policies in Iraq in the period leading up to Gulf War I. The result of years of policies thus inspired is a terrorist base [in] the heart of Europe, a moral debacle, and the absence of any positive payoff to the United States.
Now from director of the Jerusalem Institute for Western Defense, Yohanan Ramati writing in 1994:
The civil war in Yugoslavia continues, with untold suffering on all sides. The media report the suffering of the Muslims in gruesome detail. The suffering of Croats at Muslim hands gets little attention. The suffering of Serbs is ignored. So it will surprise large sections of the American public that some 600,000 refugees from Croatia and Bosnia have saught refuge in beliguered Serbia deprived of food and fuel by UN dictate during the deadly winter.
The media in the Western world, the Muslim world and Israel treats us to a regular dose of tearjacking hate propaganda. We see women and children in Sarajevo - the Muslim quarters of Sarajevo - with terrible wounds seeping blood and shattered limbs, to the accompaniment of shells and small arms fire. We do not see the killing and maiming of Serb women and children by Muslim fire in Bosnia or by Croat fire in Croatia. And when Croat women and children are brutally murdered by Muslims, or vice versa, the media response is sporadic and no conclusions are drawn.
This organized anti-Serb and pro-Muslim propaganda should cause anyone believing in democracy and free speech serious concern. It recalls Hitler’s propaganda against Allies in World War II…The selectivity in reporting and comment is far too blatant to be accidental. The Western governments do not control their media sufficiently to be responsible for it. So who is? Who is bankrolling and masterminding the vast effort to destroy a people the United States, England and France have no reason to hate in order to establish a second Muslim state in a Balkan province where Muslims are minority?
Part of the answer is provided by a revealing interview by Mr. James Harff (director of Ruder & Finn Global Public Affairs) given to Mr. Jacques Merlino in Paris in October 1993. Ruder & Finn are public relations company, currently registered as foreign agents. Here are Harff’s statements, slightly abridged.
Harrf: For 18 months, we have been working for the Republics of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, as well as for the opposition in Kosovo [Albanian nationalists]…
Marlino: How often do you intervene?
Harff: Quantity is not important. You have to intervene at the right time with the right person. From June to September, we organized 30 meetings with the main press agencies, as well as meetings between Bosnian officials and Al Gore, Lawrence Eagleburger and 10 influential senators, among them George Mitchell and Robert Dole. We also sent out 13 exclusive news items, 37 last-minute faxes, 17 official letters and eight official reports. We placed 20 telephone calls to White House staff, 20 senators, and close to 100 to journalists, editors, newscaters and other influenctial people in the media.
From retired NY Times reporter David Binder writing in the South Slav Journal in 1995:
The international impulse came from the early recognition of the secessions of Slovenia and Croatia demanded by Germany and forced upon Germany’s European Community partners by Bonn’s blackmail. All at once Washington, which had sensibly opposed this recognition initiative, found itself out of step with its key European allies on a sensitive issue. This was perceived as a dangerous dysfunction in America’s key Atlantic relationships. With the Bosnian cauldron already bubbling, the Yugoslav conflict suddenly became a priority for Secretary of State Baker.
Few have noted that in 1992, Baker literally created the supposedly independent and supposedly sovereign Bosnia and Hercegovina with its Muslim president, Alija Izetbegovic, thereby provoking Europe’s first protracted war since 1945. He did so with the blessing of President Bush and with considerable input from Larry Eagleburger and Warren Zimmermann — past and contemporary ambassadors to Belgrade. Their design was both complex and devious, but they were so convinced of its efficacy that they supported Izetbegovic in his rejection of the European Community’s Lisbon plan for dividing Bosnia and Hercegovina in a federative scheme.
To get back in step with Germany and the other European powers, the United States would simultaneously recognize Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia and Hercegovina. Macedonia was also to be in this package, but with elections looming, President Bush bowed to the powerful Greek lobby’s objections and deferred that. Not wishing to step out in front on any Yugoslav issue, the Bush Administration strong-armed the Europeans to make the first move, according recognition to the Sarajevo government on 6 April, while the United States followed 24 hours later with simultaneous recognition of the governments of Sarajevo, Ljubljana [Slovenia capital] and Zagreb. At the time, Eagleburger and Zimmermann argued that international recognition of the Izetbegovic regime, along with United Nations membership, would automatically shield it from Serb predations. Both subsequently acknowledged that they had been disastrously mistaken. But, of course, it was too late. The Bush Administration had been on record since 1991 as hostile to the Serbs in general and Slobodan Milosevic in particular. That, too, was principally the work of Zimmermann and Eagleburger. Their bias was also evident in the fact that they did nothing to embrace or support any of Milosevic’s Serbian opponents.
From an article by George Jatras, former Senior Air Attache to Moscow:
[I]n his book “The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War and Peace, 1989-1992,” Mr. Baker wrote, … “After the meeting [with Bosnian Foreign Minister Haris Silajdzic], I had Larry Eagleburger take Silajdzic to see the EC troika political directors (who happened to be visiting the Department) and asked [Undersecretary] Margaret Tutwiler to talk to the Foreign Minister about the importance of using Western mass media to build support in Europe and North America for the Bosnian cause. I also had her talk to her contacts at the four television networks, The Washington Post, and The New York Times to try to get more attention focused on the story (pg. 643-644).” In other words, we had already taken sides and the Serbs never had a chance.
Eagleburger was also the one who drafted the 1992 “Christmas warning” to Milosevic to not intervene with Kosovo nationalist thugs cracking heads throughout the province and ethnically cleansing it of non-Albanians. From David Halberstam’s book War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton and the Generals
Eagleburger and Scowcroft recommended and got one other thing in the final days of the [Bush] administration. The day before Christmas the president issued a warning — it became known as the Christmas warning — to Milosevic and the Serbs to leave Kosovo alone. Eagleburger drew it up. “In the event of conflict in Kosovo caused by Serbian action, the United States will be prepared to employ military force against Serbians in Kosovo and in Serbia proper.”
Please note that we like kicking the Serbs’ teeth in on behalf of Muslims especially on Christian holidays, including bombing them right through Easter in 1999. If this isn’t self-killing, then nothing is.
Then there were Eaglesandwich’s accidentally honest moments, from Andy Wilcoxson in his Feb. 2006 article “Prof. Kostic Testifies That Unilateral Secession Caused Wars”:
The trial of Slobodan Milosevic resumed on Wednesday with the continued testimony of Prof. Branko Kostic, the former Montenegrin representative in the Yugoslav (SFRY) presidency.
…
The prosecution claims that Milosevic provoked the wars in Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia. The prosecution alleges that Milosevic was the mastermind of an enormous conspiracy, or “joint criminal enterprise.” The prosecution previously claimed that the conspiracy was aimed at the creation of greater Serbia, but recently the prosecution has withdrawn that claim. It is not clear what the prosecution now believes the objective of the alleged conspiracy was supposed to have been.
Milosevic has a much simpler explanation. Milosevic claims that war broke out in Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia because secessionist forces illegally seized control of sovereign Yugoslav territory and unilaterally declared their secession, which violated the Yugoslav constitution as well as the rights of Yugoslav citizens (mostly Serbs) who wished to remain living in Yugoslavia.
To prove his case, Milosevic played a videotape of an interview with James Baker, the former U.S. Secretary of State (1989 – 1992). In the interview Baker says unequivocally that civil war broke out in Yugoslavia because secessionists in Bosnia, Croatia, and Slovenia unilaterally declared independence from Yugoslavia. Baker said that their actions violated the Helsinki Final act, and caused the wars to break out.
Milosevic then played videotape of Baker’s successor, Lawrence Eagleburger (U.S. Secretary of State 1992-1993). Eagleburger stated flat out that Bush recognized the secessionists simply because he was trying to win Croatian-American votes in the 1992 presidential election.
Milosevic played videotape of Franjo Tudjman speaking to a crowd of supporters on Ban Jelacic Square in Zagreb. In this videotape Tudjman admitted that there would not have been a war if Croatia had not insisted on secession from Yugoslavia.
Prof. Kostic pointed out that [Bosnian president] Alija Izetbegovic had made similar statements. He made reference to Izetbegovic’s notorious statement that he would “sacrifice peace for a sovereign Bosnia.” It is worth noting that Izetbegovic made that statement in February 1991, more than a year before war broke out in Bosnia.
And here is Eaglesandwich capitalizing on the successful efforts by the first Bush administration to convince the Muslim world that Muslims were simply being butchered wholesale in the Balkans as the indifferent world looked on. From an October 6, 1992 broadcast of the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour:
SEC. EAGLEBURGER: There’s no question, we’re very sensitive to the Moslem world’s view that the West is permitting the killing of Moslems in Bosnia and Herzegovina, while acting differently in Iraq. The situation is totally different. So I mean, I think it’s fairly clear you can impose a no-fly zone in Iraq and for totally different reasons but the point, nevertheless, and in this you’re correct, is that the Moslem world looks on aghast more and more as the Moslems in Bosnia and Herzegovina are killed, and that there is no question at all that this has weighed heavily on the President and all of us who’ve had to try to think through this problem. Again, the situation is totally different, but the fact of the matter is Moslems are being killed in Bosnia and Herzegovina and this government has tried to demonstrate to the Moslem world we care about that and want to try to do something about it.
MR. [ROBERT] MacNeil: So President Bush is now prepared to put American warplanes into the sky over Bosnia if the UN asks for them, is that —
SEC. EAGLEBURGER: You know, again, I don’t want to commit the President, but it seems to me to be fairly obvious that if, in fact, the no-fly zone were — were passed with the teeth in it that we want, that the President would be prepared to contribute to the enforcement of that no-fly zone, yes.
MR. MacNeil: And if Serbian planes interfered with them, they would be — U.S. planes would shoot them down?
SEC. EAGLEBURGER: Again, I don’t want to speculate, other than to say that you can assume the U.S. would be prepared to make sure that the no-fly zone was carried out, and I suppose if that required the use of force, we would be prepared to do that.
MR. MacNeil: Moving to the other piece of the situation which has so many people so concerned, particularly with winter advancing, what is the U.S. doing to increase the quantity or proportion of relief supplies actually reaching?
SEC. EAGLEBURGER: …[W]e’re trying to do what we can now working with the - - the [UNPROFOR] and the UN to try to make sure that we can get roads open so that we can transport food in by — food and medicines in by road this winter….
MR. MacNeil: And the U.S. would be prepared to use force in some way in conjunction with other countries to protect those road convoys?
SEC. EAGLEBURGER: Again, you’re asking me to make commitments for the President. The fact of the matter is we have already had the Security Council resolution which says all necessary means to assure that the humanitarian supplies reach there. It is a decision for the Secretary General of the UN and the Unprefor as to what that force might be. Obviously, we would be prepared to support whatever the decision of the UN is.
So here we are. Sixteen years later. Post-9/11. Still pursuing the same pro-Muslim policies in the Balkans at the expense of the Balkans’ Christians in order to keep the charade going. Here we are. Still perpetuating the same lies. And here is Lawrence “Larry” Eagleburger, surprised that one lie led to the next lie and that we are still lying. Eaglesandwich is “distressed” to be witnessing the inevitable next link in the chain of events that he helped set off, stunned that our Frankenstein’s monster — our ‘controllable’ Bosnian or Albanian proteges — is out of our control, and we must pursue the program we helped start, to its logical and unending conclusion.
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