Counterpunch: The USA, New Europe and Kosovo by ANDREJ GRUBACIC and ZIGA VODOVNIK (February 2 / 3, 2008)

Let us start with the "Slovenian scandal" which we recognize as a new colonial model. In one of our previous articles we suggested a possible explanation of the nature of American interests in the Balkans. We believe that our conclusions are further confirmed by the events in Slovenia, which, to remind our readers, today holds presidency of the European Union. European leaders woke up to an unpleasant surprise the other day, a leak of an internal document of Slovenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MZZ). This document, published in the Slovenian daily Dnevnik and the Serbian daily Politika, reveals content of a meeting between representatives of MZZ and representatives of the US State Department and National Security Agency (NSA),that took place on 24 December 2007 in Washington D.C. Slovenia's willful following of various exotic orders coming not from Brussels (the Senate) but from across the Atlantic (the Emperor), is already a well-known fact in the diplomatic hallways of Europe. But recent developments directly connected with orders and promises that were revealed in this leaked document, can mean the final transfer of our horse to the stable of New Europe, a group of states whose foreign policy is dictated by servile obedience to the United States. This, of course, also means the official end to all illusions about the credibility and importance of the Slovenian Presidency in the EU.

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The document, with the official markings VWA070767, reveals that the main topic of the meeting between high officials from Slovene MZZ, the State Department, and NSA, has been Slovenia's role during its Presidency of the EU in organizing support for international recognition of Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence. But the document also reveals other very important and interesting facts about the US involvement in, and planned actions concerned with, the future status of Kosovo. ...

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Now, this document itself is, for understandable reasons, a serious international scandal. The reactions from the mainstream press and EU officials are unanimous in calling it a "spectacular blunder". It clarifies, to the point of truism, the intended role of the New Europe in American imperial design. It provides us with irrefutable evidence of American meddling in the affairs of the European Union. More importantly, it discloses the true nature of US politics of humanitarian intervention (which we propose calling humanitarian imperialism). The document casts a very humiliating picture of the role of Slovenia, as well as other New European Balkan states, in the new colonial system.