Eclipsed from the headlines by the ongoing carnage, there is an active
civil resistance in Iraq that opposes the occupation, the torture regime
it protects, and the jihadi and Ba'athist 'resistance' alike.
Born on 12 October 1955 near Zadar, on Croatia's Adriatic coast, Ante Gotovina left Tito's communist Yugoslavia at the age of 16.
He spent time on a merchant ship before joining the French Foreign Legion, where he built a reputation as a fearsome soldier with a taste for beautiful women.
He fought in Chad and spent much of the 1980s in Latin America, notably Guatemala, where he trained paramilitaries fighting that country's vicious civil war.
Service in Paraguay, Colombia, Argentina and Brazil followed, and he eventually won French citizenship.
Italy's La Reppublica informs us that he met his future wife Ximena when he was in Colombia to oversee the abduction, assassination and torture of her countrymen. (Why are women attracted by this sort of thing?)
This contract work in Latin America almost necessarily implies links to the CIA. Which throws an ironic light on the $5 million US State Department reward offered for information leading to Gotovina's capture.
Even more ironic (and little remembered) is that 1995's Operation Storm, which Gotovina is now facing charges in connection with, was given a "green light" (including CIA technical assistance and oversight) by the Clinton administration (as recalled by Ivo Pukanic in the Croatian weekly Nacional May 24, 2005).
In August [1995], Croatia invaded the Krajina, meeting little resistance. Serbia did nothing to intervene, leading to further theories of a Tudjman-Milosevic carve-up deal. A US plane based on a carrier off Dalmatia's coast launched strikes on the Serbs' missile defense system in the Krajina just before Tudjman ordered in his troops. The Croatian forces were also trained by US military advisors for the Krajina invasion--technically not a violation of the arms embargo, which did not cover military instruction. 200,000 Serbs fled the Krajina in a massive exodus to Serb-held Bosnia and Serbia, and Croatian troops burnt and ransacked their houses behind them.
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The inconvenient facts and unanswered questions surrounding the attacks are legion, but the endemic sloppiness of the self-styled "researchers" is delegitimizing the entire project of critiquing the "official version." The ostentatiously named "Truth movement" is not clearing the air, but muddying the water.
WW4 Report pamphlets
WAR AT THE CROSSROADS
An Historical Guide Through the Balkan Labyrinth
The Balkan region is intensely multicultural - a point of crossroads and clash for some of the world's major religions, cultural spheres, and economic systems. While there have been vicious wars in Balkan history, these have taken place in the context of manipulation by imperial powers and the self-serving local leaders who cater to them.
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From the BBC profile of Gotovina:
Italy's La Reppublica informs us that he met his future wife Ximena when he was in Colombia to oversee the abduction, assassination and torture of her countrymen. (Why are women attracted by this sort of thing?)
This contract work in Latin America almost necessarily implies links to the CIA. Which throws an ironic light on the $5 million US State Department reward offered for information leading to Gotovina's capture.
Even more ironic (and little remembered) is that 1995's Operation Storm, which Gotovina is now facing charges in connection with, was given a "green light" (including CIA technical assistance and oversight) by the Clinton administration (as recalled by Ivo Pukanic in the Croatian weekly Nacional May 24, 2005).
As we noted in our primer War at the Crossroads: An Historical Guide Through the Balkan Labyrinth: