Get the Picture Part Two

Kosovo, like Afghanistan, is land locked and like Afghanistan it is of great strategic importance. Pipelines pass from the Caspian Sea through Kosovo both into the European Union and across to the Albanian coast. From the Albanian coast, oil is then shipped to America. Moreover,the thriving narcotics trade that provides no little income for some American banks goes through Pristina. This all happens under the watchful eye of CIA trained Hashim Thaci, the "country's" president and head of the Democratic Party. Thaci's dependence on the goodwill of NATO and the United States will ensure that his government continues to do as it is asked. Bismarks, "some damn foolish thing in the Balkans" comes to mind and that foolish thing is 'Uncle Sam'. However, in a further reference to Bismark the area is, still "not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier." The Serbs are vexed, the Russians are unhappy and the next crisis is only a matter of time. Not only is the Great Game of the nineteenth century being repeated in Central Asia but the geopolitics of that era are now being played out elsewhere too. History does indeed repeat itself!