PHOENIX, Nov. 24 - NATO was effectively the air wing of their military. The retired U.S. "rent-a-generals" (MPRI) trained them. The U.S. Air Force won the war they were losing. The American troops, among other NATO forces, ensured they kept their war booty - enormous swaths of territory (about 20% of the entire country which used to belong for centuries to their ethnic enemy). After the war, the West, led by America, showered them with billions of dollars of reconstruction and humanitarian aid.

So you'd think people like that would prostrate themselves in front of the American taxpayer and say "thank you." Think again. The recipients of all this charity, the Bosnian Muslim government leaders, have just told America to "get off our backs." And have called a U.S. diplomat in Sarajevo a liar, according to today's (Nov. 24) Dow Jones Newswire, which relayed an Associated Press report filed from Sarajevo, Bosnia.

The Muslim members of the presidency and government of Bosnia as well as of the Muslim-Croat Federation half of Bosnia reacted jointly to a statement U.S. mediator, Richard Sklar, made on television on Monday (Nov. 23). The letter accused Sklar of saying that, "all politicians in Bosnia-Herzegovina are corrupt."

Alija Izetbegovic, the Muslim member of Bosnia's tripartite presidency and prime ministers, Haris Silajdzic and Edhem Bicakcic, said Sklar's alleged statement was a "lie." "We are not thieves," the letter said.

Well, such an assertion flies in the face of widespread reports of corruption among their ranks. The London Times, for example, reported on March 6 that nearly $600 million of Bosnian aid provided by the American and other western taxpayers was "stolen by fraudsters." And the accusation came not from the U.S. or the West, but from within the Bosnian Muslims' own ranks.

Stanko Sliskovic, the head of a five-man Bosnian parliamentary delegation invited by Great Britain to "tell the British Parliament and government about the massive fraud now undermining the reconstruction efforts," said that his group "lived in fear for their lives."

"We were ordered by senior government officials to announce that everything was fine, and that there was no corruption. We refused. We owe it to our people who are poor and who want help," Sliskovic said.

Robin Cook, the British Foreign Office secretary, gave a public warning in Sarajevo last year that, "unless there was a crackdown on fraud and embezzlement, international aid to Bosnia would stop."

Sliskovic said that the delegation members knew that "senior Bosnian Muslim figures were involved, but without proof could do nothing." They were denied any investigation powers by the Bosnian government and could only guess which banks in Bosnia were involved. "All their requests to the Bosnian Foreign Ministry for details of international grants were ignored," the London Times reported.

And just think, these are the same Bosnian Muslim leaders who had previously taken financial and military aid from the sworn enemies of the U.S. (Iran and Libya, among others), at times even with the Clinton administration's acquiescence, if not direct asssitance (see TiM GW Bulletins 98/10-8, 10/24/98, and TiM Bulletin 96-4, 4/05/96):

And now, such Bosnian Muslim government leaders are calling an American diplomat a liar. Not a very diplomatic term, is it? But then, we're not dealing with diplomats here. We are dealing with people who are not only alleged to have siphoned off hundreds of millions of dollars of western aid into their private accounts, but are also responsible for systematic murder of over 6,000 Sarajevo Serbs, according to one of their own henchmen, Sljivo Jasmin. Jasmin testified to that effect in the presence of international observers on March 22, 1996 (see TiM Bulletin 96-05, May 1996). Here's an excerpt from his testimony:

"In the first half of February 1993, on Feb. 1 and Feb 16, (the Bosnian President) Alija Izetbegovic visited Musan Topalovic 'Caco,' (a Muslim commander), and ordered him to commence a massive liquidation of the Serbs in Sarajevo. The Topalovic unit participated in the murders, harassment and humiliation of the Serbs in Sarajevo until his death in July 1994."

During 1993 and 1994, Sljivo Jasmin was a member of the 10th Mountain Brigade of the Bosnian Muslim forces which was commanded by Musan Topalovic ('Caco'). Jasmin confessed that he had personally killed and cut the throats of more than 200 Serbs in Sarajevo. He also raped about 40 Serbian women. He said had personally known some of the victims. "The Muslim authorities have now begun an effort to cover up their crimes, and move the mass graves where the murdered (Sarajevo) Serbs were buried," he said.

So, what's a hundred million dollars here, a hundred million there, in light of such crimes?

Or Djurdjevic's WASHINGTON TIMES columns: "An Ugly Double Standard in Kosovo Conflict?", "NATO's Bullyboys", "Kosovo: Why Are We Involved?", and "Ginning Up Another Crisis"