2 New Messages
Digest #4586
Messages
Tue Dec 25, 2012 6:53 am (PST) . Posted by:
"Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff
http://www.stripes.
Stars and Stripes
December 24, 2012
Kosovo aims to form military force and join NATO
Steven Beardsley
====
“It is not absolutely clear if all allies are going to participate in those new tasks, but NATO as an alliance will do it,” then-NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told reporters in June 2008.
[I]ndividual nations were left to shoulder much of the burden for training and equipping the force. Chief among them was the U.S., which remains Kosovo’s biggest supporter...
“The U.S. is our strategic partner, and it will forever be our strategic partner,” KSF commander Lt. Gen. Kadri Kastrati said. “Everything that we are doing we do in coordination with [the] U.S. military attaché in Pristina and our colleagues who work here in NATO Advisory Team or Office of Defense Cooperation.”
====
PRISTINA, Kosovo: Nearly five years after Kosovo declared independence, its international backers are encouraging the tiny Balkan nation to walk on its own.
One of its next steps may be to form a small army from an existing 2,500-strong civil protection force — a difficult task for a young nation that still has not secured full international recognition and is deeply distrusted by its northern neighbor, Serbia, from which it declared independence in 2008.
Nearly 5,600 NATO troops, including close to 800 Americans, remain stationed in Kosovo to help keep the peace with ethnic Serbs [sic] who refuse to recognize the government of the former Serbian province, where 90 percent of the population is ethnic Albanian.
“We have to produce security, not consume security,” said Rexhep Selimi, a member of the Kosovo assembly committee that oversees the current force. “That’s why we want to finish our job as soon as possible, so we can join NATO.”
While the U.S. backs Kosovo’s nationhood, embassy officials in Pristina declined to comment on Kosovo’s push for a military, saying only that the U.S. supports the current Kosovo Security Force and a security sector review, guided by U.S. military advisers.
“It’s what we think is a great opportunity for them to take a hard look at where they’re going,” said U.S. Army Lt. Col. Ray Wojcik, head of the embassy’s Office of Defense Cooperation.
Kosovo’s declaration of independence in February 2008 came nearly nine years after a NATO bombing campaign to end Serbia...It continues to divide world opinion.
Russia, which as an ally of Serbia has refused to recognize Kosovo’s independence, has veto power on the U.N. Security Council to keep Kosovo out of the world body. Five members of the European Union, including four NATO members, don’t recognize Kosovo, putting any aspirations Kosovo has for membership in those organizations on hold.
Nonetheless, NATO’s Kosovo force helped stand up the civilian-controlled Kosovo Security Force, despite the alliance’s internal divisions over Kosovo’s status. The KSF specializes in demining, search and rescue and IED-defeat, among other tasks.
“It is not absolutely clear if all allies are going to participate in those new tasks, but NATO as an alliance will do it,” then-NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told reporters in June 2008.
And indeed, individual nations were left to shoulder much of the burden for training and equipping the force. Chief among them was the U.S., which remains Kosovo’s biggest supporter, according to Wojcik. It provides between $5.5 MILLION and $7 million in annual training and military sales, among other forms of assistance, according to the U.S. Embassy. The KSF budget hovers around $35 million.
The U.S. provided uniforms and radios, and it opened its schools to KSF members, including the Army Sergeants Major Academy at Fort Bliss, Texas, and the service’s Command and General Staff College. It paired Kosovo with the Iowa National Guard for a mentor relationship, and sent members to Grafenwöhr, Germany, for NCO training.
Such training is now being incorporated into the KSF structure with U.S. military help. At a September ceremony on a KSF base in the southern Kosovo city of Ferizaj, U.S. Army advisers looked on as some two dozen senior NCOs graduated a course run within the country, and largely by KSF trainers.
“The U.S. is our strategic partner, and it will forever be our strategic partner,” KSF commander Lt. Gen. Kadri Kastrati said. “Everything that we are doing we do in coordination with [the] U.S. military attaché in Pristina and our colleagues who work here in NATO Advisory Team or Office of Defense Cooperation.”
The U.S. military is also instrumental in the next phase of Kosovo’s force. The Defense Institution Reform Initiative within the Department of Defense is guiding the Kosovo government’s security sector review, which began in March as a rethink of Kosovo’s security structure.
The review is significant in light of a recent change in the country. In September, Kosovo’s international backers stepped aside to grant the country full sovereignty over its laws. One, the law on the KSF, opens to restructuring in June 2013.
Agim Ceku, the current minister of the KSF, and former prime minister, says a defense force is a necessity.
“We are now not only building [a] state, but we are building society here,” Ceku said in a recent interview.
“And I think military force is [an] important factor of national identity for us.,” said Ceku, who fought in Croatia’s war of independence from the former Yugoslavia and served as a general in the Kosovo Liberation Army, which took up arms against Serbia in the late 1990s in a push for independence. He is considered a war criminal by Serbia. “Military force is [a] very good instrument for modernizing society. Here we can serve as [an] example, good example, of discipline, service to a nation, commitment to duty.”
Both Ceku and Kastrati, the commander of KSF, envision a small force developed to NATO standards and deployable for specialized capabilities such as demining or search and rescue, similar to what the KSF does now.
...
Many Kosovo leaders and some analysts envision a future within NATO. In the meantime, how the alliance would view a Kosovo military is unclear.
Even the status of the KSF remains contentious. NATO member nations are still considering whether to approve a largely technical designation of the force — that it reached its “Full Operational Capability” — granted by NATO’s own Kosovo Forces commander last November. The U.S. supports it.
“It’s something that we try to build broader consensus around and moving it in a positive direction,” said Michael Kreidler, political-military officer at the U.S. Embassy in Kosovo. “But the consensus-building process in Brussels, it’s agonizing.”
Another international concern about Kosovo standing up an army is the tense security situation in Kosovo’s north, where ethnic Serbs refuse any representation of the Kosovo government. Rioting erupted last year after Kosovo police entered the territory to impose customs offices on the border with Serbia.
Ilir Deda, chief of staff to Kosovo President Atifete Jahjaga through this past January and current director of the Kosovo Institute for Policy Research and Development, believes that even with a settlement over the north, countries in NATO that don’t recognize Kosovo may not come around to the idea of a Kosovo military. He said Kosovo needs to focus on its most influential supporters.
“If it happens, it has the (U.S.) support and U.K. support,” he said.
It’s a feeling repeated by Kosovo officials like Ceku.
“They are now supporting the process here,” he said. “And this process we are going to do together. I said I will not come up with any recommendation that it is not coordinated with the U.S. and accepted by the U.S.”
beardsleys@estripes
============
Stop NATO e-mail list home page with archives and search engine:
http://groups.
Stop NATO website and articles:
http://rickrozoff.
To subscribe for individual e-mails or the daily digest, unsubscribe, and otherwise change subscription status:
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============
Stars and Stripes
December 24, 2012
Kosovo aims to form military force and join NATO
Steven Beardsley
====
“It is not absolutely clear if all allies are going to participate in those new tasks, but NATO as an alliance will do it,” then-NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told reporters in June 2008.
[I]ndividual nations were left to shoulder much of the burden for training and equipping the force. Chief among them was the U.S., which remains Kosovo’s biggest supporter...
“The U.S. is our strategic partner, and it will forever be our strategic partner,” KSF commander Lt. Gen. Kadri Kastrati said. “Everything that we are doing we do in coordination with [the] U.S. military attaché in Pristina and our colleagues who work here in NATO Advisory Team or Office of Defense Cooperation.”
====
PRISTINA, Kosovo: Nearly five years after Kosovo declared independence, its international backers are encouraging the tiny Balkan nation to walk on its own.
One of its next steps may be to form a small army from an existing 2,500-strong civil protection force — a difficult task for a young nation that still has not secured full international recognition and is deeply distrusted by its northern neighbor, Serbia, from which it declared independence in 2008.
Nearly 5,600 NATO troops, including close to 800 Americans, remain stationed in Kosovo to help keep the peace with ethnic Serbs [sic] who refuse to recognize the government of the former Serbian province, where 90 percent of the population is ethnic Albanian.
“We have to produce security, not consume security,” said Rexhep Selimi, a member of the Kosovo assembly committee that oversees the current force. “That’s why we want to finish our job as soon as possible, so we can join NATO.”
While the U.S. backs Kosovo’s nationhood, embassy officials in Pristina declined to comment on Kosovo’s push for a military, saying only that the U.S. supports the current Kosovo Security Force and a security sector review, guided by U.S. military advisers.
“It’s what we think is a great opportunity for them to take a hard look at where they’re going,” said U.S. Army Lt. Col. Ray Wojcik, head of the embassy’s Office of Defense Cooperation.
Kosovo’s declaration of independence in February 2008 came nearly nine years after a NATO bombing campaign to end Serbia...It continues to divide world opinion.
Russia, which as an ally of Serbia has refused to recognize Kosovo’s independence, has veto power on the U.N. Security Council to keep Kosovo out of the world body. Five members of the European Union, including four NATO members, don’t recognize Kosovo, putting any aspirations Kosovo has for membership in those organizations on hold.
Nonetheless, NATO’s Kosovo force helped stand up the civilian-controlled Kosovo Security Force, despite the alliance’s internal divisions over Kosovo’s status. The KSF specializes in demining, search and rescue and IED-defeat, among other tasks.
“It is not absolutely clear if all allies are going to participate in those new tasks, but NATO as an alliance will do it,” then-NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told reporters in June 2008.
And indeed, individual nations were left to shoulder much of the burden for training and equipping the force. Chief among them was the U.S., which remains Kosovo’s biggest supporter, according to Wojcik. It provides between $5.5 MILLION and $7 million in annual training and military sales, among other forms of assistance, according to the U.S. Embassy. The KSF budget hovers around $35 million.
The U.S. provided uniforms and radios, and it opened its schools to KSF members, including the Army Sergeants Major Academy at Fort Bliss, Texas, and the service’s Command and General Staff College. It paired Kosovo with the Iowa National Guard for a mentor relationship, and sent members to Grafenwöhr, Germany, for NCO training.
Such training is now being incorporated into the KSF structure with U.S. military help. At a September ceremony on a KSF base in the southern Kosovo city of Ferizaj, U.S. Army advisers looked on as some two dozen senior NCOs graduated a course run within the country, and largely by KSF trainers.
“The U.S. is our strategic partner, and it will forever be our strategic partner,” KSF commander Lt. Gen. Kadri Kastrati said. “Everything that we are doing we do in coordination with [the] U.S. military attaché in Pristina and our colleagues who work here in NATO Advisory Team or Office of Defense Cooperation.”
The U.S. military is also instrumental in the next phase of Kosovo’s force. The Defense Institution Reform Initiative within the Department of Defense is guiding the Kosovo government’s security sector review, which began in March as a rethink of Kosovo’s security structure.
The review is significant in light of a recent change in the country. In September, Kosovo’s international backers stepped aside to grant the country full sovereignty over its laws. One, the law on the KSF, opens to restructuring in June 2013.
Agim Ceku, the current minister of the KSF, and former prime minister, says a defense force is a necessity.
“We are now not only building [a] state, but we are building society here,” Ceku said in a recent interview.
“And I think military force is [an] important factor of national identity for us.,” said Ceku, who fought in Croatia’s war of independence from the former Yugoslavia and served as a general in the Kosovo Liberation Army, which took up arms against Serbia in the late 1990s in a push for independence. He is considered a war criminal by Serbia. “Military force is [a] very good instrument for modernizing society. Here we can serve as [an] example, good example, of discipline, service to a nation, commitment to duty.”
Both Ceku and Kastrati, the commander of KSF, envision a small force developed to NATO standards and deployable for specialized capabilities such as demining or search and rescue, similar to what the KSF does now.
...
Many Kosovo leaders and some analysts envision a future within NATO. In the meantime, how the alliance would view a Kosovo military is unclear.
Even the status of the KSF remains contentious. NATO member nations are still considering whether to approve a largely technical designation of the force — that it reached its “Full Operational Capability” — granted by NATO’s own Kosovo Forces commander last November. The U.S. supports it.
“It’s something that we try to build broader consensus around and moving it in a positive direction,” said Michael Kreidler, political-military officer at the U.S. Embassy in Kosovo. “But the consensus-building process in Brussels, it’s agonizing.”
Another international concern about Kosovo standing up an army is the tense security situation in Kosovo’s north, where ethnic Serbs refuse any representation of the Kosovo government. Rioting erupted last year after Kosovo police entered the territory to impose customs offices on the border with Serbia.
Ilir Deda, chief of staff to Kosovo President Atifete Jahjaga through this past January and current director of the Kosovo Institute for Policy Research and Development, believes that even with a settlement over the north, countries in NATO that don’t recognize Kosovo may not come around to the idea of a Kosovo military. He said Kosovo needs to focus on its most influential supporters.
“If it happens, it has the (U.S.) support and U.K. support,” he said.
It’s a feeling repeated by Kosovo officials like Ceku.
“They are now supporting the process here,” he said. “And this process we are going to do together. I said I will not come up with any recommendation that it is not coordinated with the U.S. and accepted by the U.S.”
beardsleys@estripes
============
Stop NATO e-mail list home page with archives and search engine:
http://groups.
Stop NATO website and articles:
http://rickrozoff.
To subscribe for individual e-mails or the daily digest, unsubscribe, and otherwise change subscription status:
stopnato-subscribe@
============
Tue Dec 25, 2012 10:36 pm (PST) . Posted by:
"Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff
http://rt.com/
RT
December 25, 2012
US sets records with number of drone strikes in Afghanistan this year
The United States has carried out more drone strikes this year in Afghanistan than it has during its eight-year-long air war in Pakistan, launching 447 strikes and killing thousands while also reducing its air surveillance.
At a time when the US is transitioning military power to the Afghan government and planning its 2014 withdrawal, it broke a new record with the 447 drone strikes it launched in the war-torn country in 2012. Not only did the US launch more drones this year than ever before, but it carried out more strikes in Afghanistan than it did in Pakistan in the past eight years, which is how long the CIA has been conducting such strikes. About 338 drone strikes have been launched in Pakistan.
The data, which was released by the US Air Force, shows that drone strikes have been steadily increasing in Afghanistan, even after former terrorist leader Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011 and the conflict has been winding down. Last year, the US carried out 294 drone strikes in Afghanistan, which was up from 278 in 2010.
The average number of drone strikes per month has also been on the rise. This year, the average was 33 drone strikes, while last year, it was 24.5 At the same time, drone strikes have been increasingly criticized by both legislators and the American public.
A December report by the Brave New Foundation condemned the use of drones, which have killed hundreds of children – and possibly many more that were not reported. In Pakistan, 178 children were reportedly killed by US drones.
“Obama does not kill children deliberately. But their deaths are an inevitable outcome of the way his drones are deployed,” writes The Guardian’s George Monibot, who finds it hypocritical for the president to mourn the deaths of 20 US children killed in a shooting in Connecticut, while ignoring the fact that hundreds of children have died in drone strikes overseas.
US air surveillance in Afghanistan has significantly decreased, but still, drone strikes have been launched at an even greater rate. Surveillance sorties, many of which are flown by drones, decreased from an average of 3,183 per month in 2011 to 2,954 in 2012.
“The numbers are yet another powerful data illustrating the fact that unmanned systems are here and they are here to stay,” Peter W. Singer, who runs the Brooking Institution’s 21st Century Defense Initiative, told Wired.
Meanwhile, the media continues to publish harrowing accounts regarding the effect of US drone strikes, both on the victims and those who are forced to execute the deadly strikes.
The German publication Der Spiegel published an account of a former drone pilot whose bunker was located in New Mexico, from where he watched the strikes on video. After the drone pilot discharged a Hellfire missile into a mud house in northern Afghanistan, he witnessed a small child step into the picture. Much of the house was completely destroyed, and the pilot never again saw the child on video. The pilot says he was scarred from the incident, and still thinks of the people whose fate he decided that day.
“I felt disconnected from humanity,” he said.
But such occurrences are common in Afghanistan and Pakistan. While there may be no numbers accurately reflecting the number of civilians killed in drone strikes, they are in the thousands, and significantly on the rise in a country that the US says it is withdrawing from.
RT
December 25, 2012
US sets records with number of drone strikes in Afghanistan this year
The United States has carried out more drone strikes this year in Afghanistan than it has during its eight-year-long air war in Pakistan, launching 447 strikes and killing thousands while also reducing its air surveillance.
At a time when the US is transitioning military power to the Afghan government and planning its 2014 withdrawal, it broke a new record with the 447 drone strikes it launched in the war-torn country in 2012. Not only did the US launch more drones this year than ever before, but it carried out more strikes in Afghanistan than it did in Pakistan in the past eight years, which is how long the CIA has been conducting such strikes. About 338 drone strikes have been launched in Pakistan.
The data, which was released by the US Air Force, shows that drone strikes have been steadily increasing in Afghanistan, even after former terrorist leader Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011 and the conflict has been winding down. Last year, the US carried out 294 drone strikes in Afghanistan, which was up from 278 in 2010.
The average number of drone strikes per month has also been on the rise. This year, the average was 33 drone strikes, while last year, it was 24.5 At the same time, drone strikes have been increasingly criticized by both legislators and the American public.
A December report by the Brave New Foundation condemned the use of drones, which have killed hundreds of children – and possibly many more that were not reported. In Pakistan, 178 children were reportedly killed by US drones.
“Obama does not kill children deliberately. But their deaths are an inevitable outcome of the way his drones are deployed,” writes The Guardian’s George Monibot, who finds it hypocritical for the president to mourn the deaths of 20 US children killed in a shooting in Connecticut, while ignoring the fact that hundreds of children have died in drone strikes overseas.
US air surveillance in Afghanistan has significantly decreased, but still, drone strikes have been launched at an even greater rate. Surveillance sorties, many of which are flown by drones, decreased from an average of 3,183 per month in 2011 to 2,954 in 2012.
“The numbers are yet another powerful data illustrating the fact that unmanned systems are here and they are here to stay,” Peter W. Singer, who runs the Brooking Institution’s 21st Century Defense Initiative, told Wired.
Meanwhile, the media continues to publish harrowing accounts regarding the effect of US drone strikes, both on the victims and those who are forced to execute the deadly strikes.
The German publication Der Spiegel published an account of a former drone pilot whose bunker was located in New Mexico, from where he watched the strikes on video. After the drone pilot discharged a Hellfire missile into a mud house in northern Afghanistan, he witnessed a small child step into the picture. Much of the house was completely destroyed, and the pilot never again saw the child on video. The pilot says he was scarred from the incident, and still thinks of the people whose fate he decided that day.
“I felt disconnected from humanity,” he said.
But such occurrences are common in Afghanistan and Pakistan. While there may be no numbers accurately reflecting the number of civilians killed in drone strikes, they are in the thousands, and significantly on the rise in a country that the US says it is withdrawing from.
