"Kosovars were lucky that their suffering and their freedom became planetary media issues, a matter of understanding the existence of the NATO Pact, a matter of the triumph of civilization over barbarism.

Kosovo's freedom is a national and international value.

"She praises the heroes and martyrs of Kosovo and the biographies of great Western personalities, among whom is General Wesley Clark."

The Telegraph recalls the article published in 2002 in the Albanian Political Weekly "Zeri", by the former editor of this medium, Blerim Shala.

It is an analysis of General Clark's Waging Modern War (2002).

It will turn out that in 1997 the fate of Kosovo was determined.

In January of that year, Madeleine Albright became Secretary of State in the second administration of US President Bill Clinton.

In May, Britain wins the new Labor government, with Prime Minister Tony Blair and Secretary of State Robin Cook.

On July 11, 1997, in Mons, Belgium, at SHAPE (Supreme Allied Powers Europe), General Wesley Clark was elected Commander of the NATO Pact Forces (SACEUR, Supreme Allied Commander, Europe).

Albright, Blair, Cook and Clark will be the ones who pushed the West to make the war that ended the era of occupation of Kosovo.

The war for Kosovo was, first of all, a war of principles and personalities and not a war of interests.

This is best evidenced by General Wesley Clark's book "Waging Modern War".

When his reading closes, the reader, especially if he is a Kosovo Albanian, will not be able to escape the conclusion: Kosovo's freedom is a miracle in itself.

THE GREAT OVERTURN IN KOSOVO

Shortly after the end of the NATO war for Kosovo, in Toronto, Canada, the meeting of the North Atlantic Alliance at the level of defense ministers will be held, which was primarily dedicated to the lessons learned from the 78-day NATO campaign. .

One of the ministers stated that the upper lesson is that "we will never do what we did…".

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of France, Hubert Vedrine, will state, following this position, that the war for Kosovo was something special, an exception to the rule and not something that proves the fundamental change of Western policy.

In 1964, while at West Point, the world's most prestigious military academy, Clark would discuss war, death, Vietnam, with fellow generationman Alex Hottell, who would be killed six years later in Vietnam.

The conclusion of this conversation was that if there is nothing for man to fight for and die for, there is also nothing for him to live for.

The opportunity to fight for what is right, for General Clark is one of life's greatest gifts.

He proved this with his life.

The war for Kosovo not only overthrew a state order maintained by Belgrade for almost a century, thanks to previous Balkan and world wars in which Serbia was found on the western side of history, but even more so this war overthrew almost all political and military rules which were in force in the West after World War II.

Perhaps for this reason, in no single case, Western officials will not call the NATO Pact conflict with Serbia a war and will not celebrate the victory which will probably be decisive for the removal of the "Barrel of Gunpowder" surname in the Balkans. which he had won in the early twentieth century, when the Ottoman Empire left.

"Modern war", General Clark describes the war for Kosovo.

This war was presented, according to him, as a function of history and culture, as a result of NATO, media, technology.

The war for Kosovo, in fact, combined a variety of combat experiences: from World War II, the Vietnam War, limited US military intervention in Panama and Haiti, the Gulf War, the Bosnia-Herzegovina War to the Cold War.

All the contradictions and possible frustrations that are the legacy of these wars, came to the surface during the NATO Pact campaign, General Clark tells us in his book "Waging Modern War".

ATOMIC APOCALYPSES AND LOCAL DISASTERS

A "red line" was drawn for Kosovo by President George W. Bush in December 1992, which was remembered as the "Christmas Threat."

A message was given, in May 1998, by President Bill Clinton, that the West would not allow Bosnia-Herzegovina to be repeated in Kosovo.

A series of ultimatums were issued to Slobodan Milosevic and his regime to give up crimes in Kosovo and accept the International Agreement on Kosovo, as presented at the Rambouillet Conference.

However, between these commitments and the willingness to fulfill them, there was a huge gap.

Milosevic had understood this since 1991, when the SFRY was defeated in a fierce war, which politically, even to this day, has not won its epilogue, because the issue of Kosovo and Montenegro remain unresolved.

The Serbian leader learned early on that the West was taken by surprise by the peaceful end of the Cold War, the decomposition of the communist system in the East, and the bloody collapse of the SFRY.

For decades, the West had developed a military strategy and political concept that presupposed the Soviet threat as the core of the Western security and policy framework in Europe.

Avoiding the danger of the atomic apocalypse led the West to downplay the great tragedies of the small peoples in the Balkans, who were suffering the consequences of Belgrade's mandate from the West as a security hub in the Balkans.

The kneeling of the Soviet Union nevertheless had the message of creating a new European political and security order.

There were many Western European politicians and military who demanded a radical change in the NATO Pact, the strengthening of the CSCE (later the OSCE) and the European Union, the creation of a European military structure, the strengthening of the UN and, consequently, , removing the US from the position of the main European military power.

America had come to Europe following the three great world wars (the third was the "Cold War"), which it had won, and now, according to Eurocentrists, when Western Europe was no longer threatened by the East, America would had to withdraw militarily from Europe.

As will be seen and experienced, the void created by the search for new political and security structures filled the graves of hundreds of thousands of citizens of the former SFRY.

Milosevic emerged as the West's biggest challenger in 1991-1999.

His wars, as will be understood later, abolished the dominant Serbian role in the region, supported the process of self-determination of the peoples (which until then had always been subordinated to the principle of state sovereignty), discredited the political and military potential of the European Union, compromised The UN, established a special international decision-making structure (Contact Group), rediscovered the NATO Pact's place in post-Cold War European security, brought its troops to the Balkans, re-emerged the US as Europe's main political and military power.

VICTORY WITH ZERO LOSSES

It has often been said that Milosevic's unscrupulousness made possible the Western consensus against him and in favor of Kosovo.

He did, in fact, command the launch of attacks against Serbia even though he knew full well, as Clark's conversation with Milosevic shortly after the end of the war in Bosnia, that the FRY was unlikely to go to war with NATO.

Perhaps Milosevic estimated that he could win the West politically by playing the Cold War renewal letter, or thought that NATO would never be able to maintain its unity and that Washington would never agree to a ground offensive.

The NATO war will start on March 24, at 5:31 pm European time and will take place on June 10, at 3:36 pm.

On its first day 366 Alliance aircraft were available to hit 51 designated targets.

On the last day there were 900 planes in the campaign hitting 1000 targets in Kosovo and Serbia.

The war was won without the use of ground troops and Apache helicopters, with zero losses in the ranks of NATO, without giving up on the international concept of security for Kosovo and not allowing Russia to gain its sector in Kosovo.

General Clark had the opportunity, at the end of this war, to assure President Clinton that he had fulfilled his promise given on September 15, 1998, in a ceremony, when Clinton asked Clark: "You will be ready to take care of Kosovars. , or not…".

The West has won in Kosovo, because it simply could not lose, can be learned from Clark's book.

If Milosevic did not give up, the West would be forced into a total war with Serbia, because it would have no choice.

The defeat here meant the contestation of the NATO Pact, of the American role, of Western values, of all the achievements after 1945. The sacrifice of soldiers in the ground offensive would be inevitable to avoid this fatal loss of the West.

Kosovars were therefore lucky that their suffering and their freedom became a planetary media issue, a matter of understanding the existence of the NATO Pact, a matter of the triumph of civilization over barbarism.

Our freedom is a national and international value.

She praises the heroes and martyrs of Kosovo and the biographies of great Western personalities, among whom is General Wesley Clark.

The book "Waging Modern War" is a great and honest book, without which the new history of Kosovo can not be written.

/ Telegraphy /