NATO has never been weaker thanrnin the aftermath of Kosovo.rnThe a l l i a n c e ‘ s main s t r a t e g i crnfunction has been the maintenancernof a community of interestrnbetween Europe and America.rnBut the Kosovo campaignrnhas done more damage to thatrnthan i t ever did to the SerbrnArmy. . . . The KLA presidesrnover a drug-smuggling operatrni on responsible for 40 perrncent of the heroin sold in Europernand the US.rnThe only surprising part is that it’s onlyrn40 percent. But perhaps the KLA—recentlyrnconverted into the U.N.-controlledrn”Kosovo Protection Corps”—is neglectingrnthe business side of its operations becausernit is too busy “instituting the reign ofrnterror,” as reported in the Observer (London)rnon March 12:rnMurder, torture and extortion:rnthese are the extraordinaryrncharges made against the UN’srnown Kosovo Protection Corps inrna confidential United Nationsrnreport written for Secretary-rnGeneral Kofi Annan. The KPCrnstands accused in the document,rndrawn up on 29 February,rnof “criminal a c t i v i t i e s -rnk i l l i n g s , i l l – t r e a t m e n t / t o r ­ture,rni l l e g a l policing, abusernof authority, intimidation,rnbreaches of p o l i t i c a l neutralirnt y and hate-speech.” The UN’srnown damning verdict on i t s newlyrncreated c i v i l defence forcerni s fresh evidence of the f a i l ­urernof Special RepresentativernBernard Kouchner to establishrnthe rule of law in Kosovo. ThernKPC i s led by Croatian ArmyrnGeneral Agim Ceku, the veteranrnethnic cleanser of the Krajina,rnwho comes in for fiercernc r i t i c i sm from the report.rnPerhaps the United Nations protests toornmuch. In view of his previous record, entrustingrnthe KPC to Ceku was tantamountrnto making Bill Clinton the principal of arngirl’s school.rnNot to be outdone, the Observer’s mainrnrival, the Sunday Times of London, publishedrna Kosovo scoop of it own on thernsame day. This article confirms that beingrnparanoid about U.S. intentions in the Balkansrndoesn’t mean Albright is not out tornget you. The British weekly now revealsrnthat the OSCE Verification Mission inrnKosovo was, from the outset, a covert operationrnunit that functioned as a liaison betweenrnWestern (primarily American)rnagencies and the KLA, and that Americanrnintelligence agents had trained the KLArnlong before NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia:rnCentral Intelligence Agencyrnofficers were cease-fire monitrno r s in Kosovo in 1998 andrn1999, developing t i e s with thernKLA and giving American militaryrntraining manuals andrnf i e ld advice on fighting thernYugoslav army and Serbian polrni c e . When the Organisationrnfor Security and Co-operationrnin Europe (OSCE), which co-ordinatedrnthe monitoring, leftrnKosovo a week beforerna i r s t r i k e s began a year ago,rnmany of i t s s a t e l l i t e telephonesrnand global positioningrnsystems were secretly handedrnto the KLA, ensuring that guerrrni l l a commanders could stay inrntouch with NATO and Washington.rnSeveral KLA leaders hadrnthe mobile phone number of GeneralrnWesley Clark, the NATOrncommander.rnOn March 21, the eminent German dailyrnFrankfurter Rundshau revealed thatrnBulgarian and German secret services hadrnforged a “secret Serb plan” that was usedrnas justification for NATO airstrikes. Thernplan, code-named “Horseshoe,” purportedrnto prove that the Serbs had planned ethnicrncleansing of Kosovo Albanians well beforernthe NATO bombing campaign. ThernGerman paper quoted Heinz Loquai, a retiredrnBundeswehr brigadier general, whornsays that the “plan” was no more than anrnintelligence assessment written in Sofiarnand embellished in Bonn:rnBut during the NATO war “Horseshoe”rnwas given top b i l l i n g . Itrnwas f i r s t revealed by JoschkarnFischer, the German foreignrnminister, on April 6 l a s t yearrn. . . i t was mentioned again atrna press conference by the BundeswehrrnInspector-GeneralrnHans-Peter von Kierbach. Therngeneral claimed that this documentrnprovided evidence thatrnBelgrade wanted to liquidaternthe KLA “even if that wouldrnmean extermination of the Albaniansrnin Kosovo.”rn”Operation Horseshoe” provided ammunitionrnto the interventionist chorus inrnthe U.S. media. On April 15 of last year, itrnwas invoked by William Pfaff in the InternationalrnHerald Tribune in support of hisrnclaim that it would be “immoral” to stoprnthe bombing:rnMr. Milosevic and his governmentrnare attempting to solvernt h e i r Kosovo problem by producingrna basic demographicrnchange in the province throughrndeporting i t s Albanian populationrn. . . Horseshoe was designedrnto produce a permanentrnsolution, and was launchedrneven before the Rambouilletrndiscussions in February, whichrnthe Serbian leadership did notrntake seriously.rnOn April 24, 1999, Bulgarian PrimernMinister Kostov quoted “Horseshoe” tornjustify the pending Bulgarian collaborationrnwith NATO. It was used most recentlyrnby the State Department’s James Rubinrnat the end of February.rnThe truth about “Horseshoe” remainsrnunfit to print in America; but in Europe, itrnis now common knowledge that this wasrnyet another Kosovo lie. On April 2, thernSunday Tunes of London printed a story ofrnits own about General Loquai’s findings:rnLoquai has accused RudolfrnScharping, the German defencernminister, of obscuring thernorigins of Operation Horseshoern. . . “No such operation everrnexisted. The c r i t i c i sm of thernwar, which had grown into arnf i r e that was almost out ofrncontrol, was completely extinguishedrnby Operation Horseshoern.”rnLoquai says that the German defensernministry even coined the name “Horseshoe.”rnBut this eagemess to embellish thernforgery gave the game away: The Germansrnnamed the bogus operation “Potko-rnV(2,” which is the Croatian word for horseshoe.rnThe Serbian word for horseshoe isrn”Potkovica.” It is a bit like claiming that arnsecret IRA document was called “OperationrnLondonderry.”rnlUNE 2000/23rnrnrn