The hypocrisy of U.S. government officials is boundless. On Feb. 18, the U.S. government inflamed Serbians by recognizing Muslim separatists in Kosovo, a historic province of Serbia, as an independent country. Two hundred thousand Serbs marched in protest, and the U.S. embassy in Belgrade was damaged.

Is this surprising? No, not unless you are an official in the American Empire. The notorious Empire Neocon Counsel, Zalmay Khalilzad, Bush's representative to the United Nations, declared, "I'm outraged by the mob attack."

What's an embassy building compared to a province of Serbia, a province that stirs nationalist sentiments associated with the Serbs' long military struggles with the Turks? Had it not been for the Serbs, Europeans would probably be Turks.

To neocon Khalilzad, a province of Serbia is nothing. It is merely real estate to be given away by U.S. recognition bestowed on a breakaway movement led by what some consider to be a gang of Muslim drug runners.

Secretary of State Condi Rice also found the Serbian response to the U.S. giving away part of their country to be "intolerable."

Former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke also sees no reason for the Serbs to be upset that America gave away part of their country. He explained away the Serbian protests by declaring, "The Russians are behind this."

We can understand why U.S. diplomacy is a failure when we see our diplomats explaining that, had it not been for the Russians stirring them up, Serbians wouldn't have noticed the loss of a historic part of their country.

Perhaps Kosovo should have its independence. However, the U.S. government could not have handled the issue in a more provocative way.

Washington has been interfering in Serbian internal affairs since the Clinton administration. Told that Americans had to prevent genocide, few paid enough attention to Washington's facilitation of the breakup of the Yugoslav state during the 1990s and to the Clinton administration's bombing and murder of Serbian civilians in order to support Muslim separatists in Kosovo in 1999.

Clinton used NATO as cover, but the bombing campaign was not backed by the U.N. Security Council. Bombs fell on Serbia for 78 days, taking out public infrastructure, bridges, factories, power stations, petrochemical plants, telecommunications facilities, markets, refugees, the Chinese Embassy and a passenger train.

"Sorry, honey, tell the kids I won't be home tonight.

President Clinton decided to bomb my train."

Cluster bombs and depleted uranium were used. Clearly, the U.S. government and its NATO puppets were guilty of war crimes under the Nuremberg standard.

Americans were told by an obedient media that the bombings were necessary in order to prevent Yugoslav leader, Slobodan Milosevic, from committing war crimes against the separatists who were stealing part of his country. After Clinton's bombings intimidated the Serbian political establishment, Milosevic was turned out of office and handed over to the Americans for a payment of several hundred million dollars and delivered to the Hague for trial as a war criminal.

Milosevic represented himself at his trial and was more than a match for the trumped-up charges. Unfortunately, he died in prison. Many believe he was helped on his way by an embarrassed American Empire unable to convict him.

What is the U.S. government's secret agenda in the Balkans? Why is the U.S. government on the side of Muslims intent on severing Kosovo from Serbia? What is being served by creating a new Muslim state closer to Europe?

Whose interests are being served by Washington? Clearly, not our own. Or Europe's.

And, please, none of that B.S. about "building freedom and democracy." As one of England's most famous conservatives, Peregrine Worsthorne, wrote on Feb. 20, America's reputation as "the West's conscience is fatally weakened."

Supposedly, our time is the era of globalism and one-worldism. Ancient European nationalities are dissolving into the European Union, a new super-state. U.S. corporations now have transnational interests devoid of any national loyalties. Yet, the United States is hard at work dissolving a small Balkan state into even smaller constituent parts.

Why is this happening? Why did Bush order U.S. puppets in Britain, France and Germany to instantly recognize the historic Serbian province as a new Muslim state?

Is the new state of Kosovo, as rumors would have it, Richard Perle's payoff to the Turks, or is the explanation that Serbia, like Palestine, Iraq and Iran, lacking any international media reach, was easy for Empire Neocons to demonize in order to establish the precedent that Washington decides what territory belongs to who and who rules it. Clinton's bombing of Serbia was a precedent for Bush's bombing of Afghanistan and Iraq, and now Africa, and tomorrow Iran and Syria.

The day the Empire Crazies bomb Russia or China, we are all fried.

Be a macho super patriot, believe your government, help to fry the world. It's the American way.

To find out more about Paul Craig Roberts, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

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