night watch:  rfn=BRUSSELS -  The main reason why I use Xinhua is because their photographers have access to some of the international community's most important meetings especially the NATO/European Union meetings in Brussels.   And today begins two days of extensive, stressful, tense discussions on what I assume to be a definite timetable for NATO to withdraw all of its units officially by 2014.  What these officials don't seem to realize or at least don't want to say publicly is this suits Teheran's timetable and you can tell what they are thinking from their expressions.  Russia has placed its military on mobilized alert nearly a month ago as directed by the Strategic Working Group (SWG) an extension of the Kissinger-Primakov discussions on preparing Russia's military to attract Iran's attention to the north and to finally resolve Russia's ability to control the resources of the Caucasus between the Black and Caspian Sea, a crossroads of energy pipelines.  Because the West's response to full scale war will be mainly defensive despite all of its air attacks.  Substantial as those attacks will be I suspect Iran has a variety of ballistic missiles targeting all NATO bases in Afghanistan and some of those missiles will be accurate (swissinfo/reuters).  Not to mention Iran's martyrdom army marching through Turkey, with no difficulty whatsover, in support of the 2006 security agreement with Serbia. 

The reason for these tense two days of meetings is because of the recent wave of attacks in central Kabul near Embassies and Brussels realizes, I assume, that the situation in Afghanistan will become more hellish when Teheran enters the war directly and long before 2014 (swissinfo/reuters).  I would guess Teheran has prepared the Taliban for its most effective spring offensive then Teheran enters sometime during this summer-Guns of August in addition to Iran announcing that they will not let their enemies attack first.  And with the antics of some of these American troops it is highly questionable many of them will leave the country alive as their bases come under heavy missile fire.  But of course Iran and its nuclear/ballistic missile facilities should have been attacked quite some time ago but that is obviously a moot point and so is Brussels' since of timing, what passes for their strategy.

But despite all the glaring mistakes made by NATO and U.S. troops and the mistakes are legion I still realize the hellish beliefs that inspired the Taliban were not generated by teachings from the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. But by religious schools headed by teachers mainly from Pakistan.  And Pakistan will be facing a very real prospect of civil war since India will be easily defeated due to the enormous neglect of its military units on every level.  The only thing that united Pakistan was India and that unifying influence will soon end and so will Pakistan however the boundaries are drawn.  (assassination teams orgainzed by Moscow-Teheran-Berlin-Washington, after the war may be able to save Karachi and the surrounding environs).  The Pentagon, however, did render and extremely important economic service to the administration in Kabul which realizes the staggering potential of the resources  discovered across Afghanistan by the team of geologists the Pentagon sent into the country. 

And obviously with any kind of stability Afghanistan should be able to achieve a high standard of living with opportunity for every community in the same manner Saudi Arabia has created for its extremely young population by developing several new economic cities in order to become less dependent on oil revenue.  The Taliban leadership should be invited to Saudi Arabia to receive acknowledgement of their excellent effort to resist occupation and I hope the Taliban officials will bring their wives-girl friends along with them and they will probably believe, even before they leave Riyadh's airport they may have arrived in paradise.  How can they say economic development and highly educated women, co-eds is wrong after seeing Saudi Arabia.  This is what Saudi officials, residents and especially Saudi students will ask them.  Not to mention King Abdullah and his court.  I would guess if any Taliban official tries divine somehow the spectacular economic developments are wrong he will be taken out of the King's tent and executed on the spot.

The main reason I hate NATO and its leading governments is because the alliance forgot its original and most genuine sense of mission as soon as it was established in 1949.  The real reason, and it was no secret, was to finally convince the nations in the alliance to no longer go to war with each other as they had been doing for a thousand years ever since the death of Charlemange in the 9th century.

Damascus  Cairo  Dubai  Afghanistan

night watch:  rfn=ANKARA -  President Abdullah Gul of Turkey has today begun a three day visit to the Netherlands ostensibly to commemorate 400 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries.  HDN/AP report President Gul's visit will begin with laying a wreath at the Dutch National Monument in downtown Amsterdam but in reality the laying of the wreath symbolizes a temporary break in friendly relations between Ankara/Amsterdam for reasons that date back to 1991 (if not back to 1600 which was not long after the Ottoman siege of Vienna was lifted by a Polish Count) and the beginning of the breakup of the former Yugoslavia.  Brussels, which serves as NATO headquarters, and also the seat of the European Union (EU) jubilantly celebrated, not only the breakup but also a chance to use NATO's military commitment as a twisted, contrived opportunity to put on a show, a power projection directed at Turkey and all people in the Balkans. 

That is why I have often characterized the mentality of NATO's leadership as evil with a clown face (b92).  Essentially, all President Gul will do during his visit will be to hint or even state directly that Ankara-Athens, not to mention every government in the former Yugoslavia, is no longer marching in step with Brussels.  Gul may even add if Amsterdam or any other government in the EU is concerned about Ankara's intimate military relations with Teheran-Belgrade, then that is the EU's problem and the problem of whatever governments are left in the divided NATO alliance. 

And to make matters even worse for the insulated, arrogant leadership in Brussels, heavy fighting is about to erupt in two weeks time in Macedonia as it did in early 2001.  B92 is reporting a new armed group of ethnic Albanians has surfaced and its ultimatum will come as no shock to Athens-Ankara-Teheran or any other goverment in the former Yugoslavia from Zagreb to Skopje.  An Army for the Liberation of Occupied Albanian Lands today threatened to launch attacks in Macedonia the southern most government to come out of the former Yugoslavia and it borders Greece, Albania, Serbia and Bulgaria.  The army states it is prepared to attack, in two weeks, what it describes as a "Slavo-Macedonian" army and police in occupied Albanian lands.  And that its General Staff has already been meeting in Kosovska Mitrovica one of the largest cities in the province in Kosovo, the Serbian province bordering Macedonia.

Among other charges the unit makes it is accusing Macedonia's Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski as being "pro-Serbian".  This latest front in the Southeast Europe theatre is the last thing Brussels wants to experience but it is Teheran that has the initiative ever since Iran established strategic relations with Croatia in 1992 and announced Croatia was Iran's entry into Central Europe.  Since then Berlin has sent to Poland Leopard tanks as Washington also sent F-16's to Poland.  The current NATO units in Kosovo are now surrounded on all sides and may have to be written off by Brussels.

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