{"id":1613,"date":"2020-06-19T11:58:09","date_gmt":"2020-06-19T10:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.balkan-conflicts-research.com\/archive\/?page_id=1613"},"modified":"2020-06-19T12:05:15","modified_gmt":"2020-06-19T11:05:15","slug":"1613-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.balkan-conflicts-research.com\/archive\/1613-2\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cDeception? Or Self-Deception?”- Gregory Copley, Feb 2004"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gregory R. Copley, \u201cDeception? Or Self-Deception?”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy.<\/p>\n

February 2004<\/p>\n

– – – – –<\/p>\n

Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy, February 2004<\/p>\n

Early Warning<\/p>\n

Deception? Or Self-Deception?<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Gregory R. Copley<\/p>\n

THE ADAGE ABOUT Nero fiddling while Rome burned is becoming an apt\u00a0<\/span>metaphor for the persistent manner in which a range of officials from a\u00a0<\/span>number of countries have persisted in denying the existence of a\u00a0<\/span>radical terrorist and insurgency threat in Bosnia, southern Serbia,\u00a0<\/span>Albania and Macedonia while that threat grows in capability, hardens in\u00a0<\/span>intent and moves into action. Of particular concern is the linkage of\u00a0<\/span>this threat to the Summer 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. But there is\u00a0<\/span>also, tied to this refusal to view the current threat, a refusal to\u00a0<\/span>admit that past policies may have been flawed.<\/p>\n

These denials and refusals come in the form of lies – major lies – by\u00a0<\/span>officials, including officials up to ambassador rank in the US State\u00a0<\/span>Department, and by such people as the High Representative for Bosnia &\u00a0<\/span>Herzegovina. These officials use threats and blackmail, and abuses of\u00a0<\/span>authority granted to them by their governments and the international\u00a0<\/span>community in order to remove or intimidate those who disagree with\u00a0<\/span>them.<\/p>\n

Significantly, all of this is going on “below the radar.” It has yet to\u00a0<\/span>reach the level of a public outcry in the US or European media; it has\u00a0<\/span>not forced its way to the top of the agendas of the President of the\u00a0<\/span>United States, or the European Union leadership. What does it entail?<\/p>\n

Firstly, a significant number of officials of the US Department of\u00a0<\/span>State remain in posts in the Balkans, assigned to them by the former\u00a0<\/span>Clinton Administration. These officials prosecuted the Clinton policy\u00a0<\/span>in the Balkans: the policy which used an array of false claims to\u00a0<\/span>instigate a war which violated both US law and international law in\u00a0<\/span>many respects. As a result, it behooves these officials to ensure that\u00a0<\/span>nothing is done which questions the legitimacy of the myths and lies\u00a0<\/span>which were used during that period. Indeed, it is vital to these\u00a0<\/span>officials that nothing be done which could disturb their careers or\u00a0<\/span>their professional legacies.<\/p>\n

It is now at the point where the “old hands” even believe many of the\u00a0<\/span>lies they have perpetuated about the wars in Bosnia and the former\u00a0<\/span>Yugoslavia. They cite some of the media reporting at the time,\u00a0<\/span>forgetting that these reports relied on the lies – some of them damned\u00a0<\/span>lies – which they and their colleagues issued at the time. They have\u00a0<\/span>created a mythology based on shibboleths, and they now not only recite\u00a0<\/span>it, but believe it.<\/p>\n

In intelligence, this is called “drinking your own bathwater.”<\/p>\n

In this deception or self-deception, they see it as vital that they\u00a0<\/span>continue to punish many innocent people who know the truth of what\u00a0<\/span>happened, and to uphold many of those who are now known, absolutely and\u00a0<\/span>without question, to have been all the time engaged with terrorist\u00a0<\/span>leader Osama bin Laden and the Iranian Government, and with\u00a0<\/span>narco-trafficking.<\/p>\n

To now question the terrorist supporters and narco-traffickers with\u00a0<\/span>whom they have shown more than a decade of allegiance – and to admit\u00a0<\/span>that they in fact present a threat to Bosnian and European stability,\u00a0<\/span>and to the safety of the Olympics – would be to open up a Pandora’s Box\u00a0<\/span>in which the radicals and narco-traffickers could and would expose\u00a0<\/span>their links with these officials. So these officials dishonor their\u00a0<\/span>government and stand by and watch threats mount, all the time seeing\u00a0<\/span>the innocents of the war continue to be punished.<\/p>\n

Secondly, in the case of the Office of the High Representative (OHR) in\u00a0<\/span>Bosnia & Herzegovina, there is grave bias to the point of criminal\u00a0<\/span>distortion of reality, for the same reason. To admit that the US and\u00a0<\/span>some EU members were wrong in supporting the radical Islamists under\u00a0<\/span>the late Bosnian leader Alija Izetbegovic and his SDA party, would be\u00a0<\/span>exposing the whole basis for the imposed Dayton Accords of 1995 to\u00a0<\/span>question.<\/p>\n

As a result, although the Bosnian Serbs – now deprived of much of the\u00a0<\/span>lands they owned and farmed for centuries and herded into an enclave\u00a0<\/span>state known as Republica Srpska – have thoroughly abided by the Dayton\u00a0<\/span>Accords, and have created a prosperous, harmonious and tolerant\u00a0<\/span>society, the OHR and a rump element of the US State Dept. is determined\u00a0<\/span>to destroy it. They would rather see a radicalized Islamist terrorist\u00a0<\/span>state – not a moderate and tolerant, democratic Muslim state, which the\u00a0<\/span>Dayton Accords envisaged – swallow up the Bosnian Serbs’ remaining\u00a0<\/span>land, and have the embarrassing sight of the Serbs removed.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span>Embarrassing because the continued existence (and particularly the\u00a0<\/span>success) of the Bosnian Serbs only serves to remind these officials\u00a0<\/span>that they had deliberately aided the terrorists and the “ethnic\u00a0<\/span>cleansers.”<\/p>\n

As a result, there is a deliberate policy among these officials to lie,\u00a0<\/span>and lie profoundly and without hesitation, about the history of the\u00a0<\/span>war. In particular, they lie about the so-called “Srebrenica massacre,”\u00a0<\/span>and refuse to even discuss internationally-undertaken forensic\u00a0<\/span>evidence, preferring to steamroller arguments by citing disproved\u00a0<\/span>claims and ensuring that at no stage will evidence of a concrete nature\u00a0<\/span>be allowed to surface. The OHR and the US Embassy in Sarajevo have\u00a0<\/span>attempted to bully and suppress, as well, the officials and reporting\u00a0<\/span>of the Republica Srpska’s liaison bureau with the International\u00a0<\/span>Criminal Tribunal on the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).<\/p>\n

Officials of the OHR – including the Deputy HR, US Ambassador Donald\u00a0<\/span>Hays – and US State Dept. officials in Bosnia and Serbia-Montenegro\u00a0<\/span>have made it clear, repeatedly, to people on the ground in their host\u00a0<\/span>countries that they expect the US Bush Administration to be removed at\u00a0<\/span>the next US Presidential elections in November 2004. At that point,\u00a0<\/span>they have indicated, former Clinton Administration Officials, such as\u00a0<\/span>former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke (responsible for\u00a0<\/span>much of the prosecution of the Clinton war in Bosnia and against\u00a0<\/span>Serbia) would return to positions of power. Hays even introduced\u00a0<\/span>Holbrooke in late 2003 in Bosnia as “the next US Secretary of State.”<\/p>\n

So it is clear that these officials do not speak for the US Bush\u00a0<\/span>Administration, even though they draw on its weight to bully and\u00a0<\/span>intimidate. They work against the US; they work against the success of\u00a0<\/span>the Dayton Accords. They actively work to illegally overturn those\u00a0<\/span>Accords and to see Republica Srpska removed from the map. And by\u00a0<\/span>continuing to protect the terrorist supporters in Bosnia, they actively\u00a0<\/span>assist in the narco-trafficking which is part of the terrorism\u00a0<\/span>phenomenon, and they will share great responsibility should all of this\u00a0<\/span>result in a major terrorist action against the Athens Olympics.<\/p>\n

It is significant that, despite the arrogant statements of Bosnia High\u00a0<\/span>Representative Paddy Ashdown to the effect that there is no al-Qaida or\u00a0<\/span>terrorist presence in Bosnia, the Greek Government – obviously\u00a0<\/span>reluctant to admit a threat to the Olympics for fear of deterring\u00a0<\/span>would-be visitors to the Games – has begun to take urgent steps to\u00a0<\/span>acknowledge and deal with the terrorist threat emanating from Bosnia\u00a0<\/span>and Kosovo, and the related territories controlled by the Islamists and\u00a0<\/span>narco-traffickers in Albania, southern Serbia (outside the Serbian\u00a0<\/span>province of Kosovo and Metohija) and Macedonia.<\/p>\n

Why, then, does the US Government and the EU continue to tolerate\u00a0<\/span>adamant positions by people such as Ashdown and Hays, denying the\u00a0<\/span>threat and covering up the links of the past between the terrorists and\u00a0<\/span>narco-traffickers and the Clinton Administration, and attempting to\u00a0<\/span>destroy the Dayton Accords in the process?<\/p>\n

Admittedly, the State Department’s “no threat” scenario has enabled the\u00a0<\/span>US Defense Department to withdraw peacekeeping forces from Kosovo and\u00a0<\/span>Bosnia, to meet urgent needs in Iraq and Afghanistan. Perhaps that is\u00a0<\/span>one reason the policy of deceit by anti-Bush State Dept. officials has\u00a0<\/span>been tolerated by the Pentagon and White House.<\/p>\n

But it is a house of cards, a game approaching its denouement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gregory R. Copley, \u201cDeception? Or Self-Deception?” Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy. February 2004 – – – – – Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy, February 2004 Early Warning Deception? Or Self-Deception? By Gregory R. Copley THE ADAGE ABOUT Nero fiddling while Rome burned is becoming an apt\u00a0metaphor for the persistent manner in which a … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “\u201cDeception? Or Self-Deception?”- Gregory Copley, Feb 2004″<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"yoast_head":"\n\u201cDeception? Or Self-Deception?"- Gregory Copley, Feb 2004 - Balkan Conflicts Research Team<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.balkan-conflicts-research.com\/archive\/1613-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u201cDeception? Or Self-Deception?"- Gregory Copley, Feb 2004 - Balkan Conflicts Research Team\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Gregory R. Copley, \u201cDeception? Or Self-Deception?” Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy. 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