The Senior Conservative

Naive NATO

By Dick O'Connor

Who is running NATO? Where is their common sense? How can a supposedly neutral group negotiate a 'peace' treaty with one of the combatants by agreeing to take control of their weapons in exchange for agreeing to their demands? NATO is going to accept the number of weapons the Islamic insurgents are ready to give them as a legitimate count to stop the conflict in Macedonia. And even then, the NATO troops say that they are receiving only about 10% of what was agreed to. Have these guys (negotiators) ever been in a fight?

The Macedonians have already had to give up precious sovereignty of their land due to these negotiators. A British soldier was killed by a piece of concrete thrown from an overhead bridge to a road being traversed by the soldier. Teenagers threw the concrete, but that is just a symptom of the anger felt by the Macedonian people for being 'sold out' by the negotiators. They believe, with quite a bit of history backing them up, that NATO is definitely biased in favor of the insurgents. Consider the bombing of the infrastructure of Belgrade. Consider the blackmailing of Yugoslavia with the threat of withholding millions in aid which forced the newly elected government to turn over Slobodan Milosevic, the former dictator, to the war crimes tribunal of the UN for punishment. NATO action forced this development. Consider that every decision made by NATO regarding territorial disputes has gone in favor of the insurgents. Why do they take one side over the other?

President Bush has scaled back our (US) involvement in the affair. If Socialist Bill Clinton had been calling the shots, US troops would have been the first in the neutral zone between the combatants, not the British. And it would have been an American GI who was killed instead of a Tommy.

On August 30 the British Foreign Minister, Jack Straw, speaking in Skopje, Macedonia, the capital, said that the operation of retrieving the weapons, euphemistically called "Operation Essential Harvest", might take longer than the 30 days stipulated in the agreement. No kidding! Shades of Neville Chamberlain!

(Do you remember, or have you seen photos or re-broadcasts of Chamberlain coming back from Munich after signing a peace pact with Adolph Hitler? Chamberlain was Prime Minister of Britain at that time, and he proudly proclaimed, "Peace in Our Time.!" That was the disastrous Munich Agreement of 1936. Thee years later, it was war!)

And what guarantee does NATO have that all the weapons will be turned over? Only the word of the rebels! They are free to turn over any old, damaged or useless weapon and call it part of their bargain. They are the ones who determine the count of the weapons and NATO has to take their count. In return, they receive the power they had been fighting for. Sweet deal, huh?? Have these NATO negotiators ever looked an enemy in the eye?? What folly!! What naivete! What plain old stupidity! Mr. Bush, please get us out of this company of fools!

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