I just saw another "Bush scares me" thread here, so I thought I'd share this with you . . If only for geographical reasons most of you won't have seen the Correspondent programme on BBC last night (it's certainly the best Current Affairs series on UK television these days). This was more than usually enlightening . . . Ever since the European "Rapid Reaction Force" was set up, as a rival to Nato (sorry, to "complement" Nato), I'd wondered why that idea had gone through so smoothly; this programme provided some of the answers.

It concerned the duplicity of the US military towards her "allies" during the Balkan crisis. Sticking with her star achievements . . .

a) The US's main role was to supervise a "no fly" policy in the area, partially intended to enforce a UN embargo on supplying arms to any of the fighting parties. However the US had decided (unilaterally) that she didn't agree with the UN policy and so - behind the backs of her allies - she decided to arm the Muslim army (what is it about the US and muslims??). To allow this re-arming the US stood down the AWAX monitoring she was running as part of the Nato operation, put up her own independent AWAX and under cover of this flew an arms drop into the area. (And put on a flying display to distract the locals from the drop . . )

b) It seems the US was concerned that the routing surveilance/intellegence operations in the area would produce evidence of her "dirty tricks". So she simply turned off the supply of this information to Nato and specific of her "allies" - including Britain and Norway, with whom she has additional specific treaties to supply this material (in return for our providing sites for the monitoring equipment). It might have kept us "in the dark" over the US activities (except it seems we were already well aware of them); it also increased the very real risks to Nato forces "on the ground".

With friends as trustworthy as these we certainly don't need any enemies . . . For info, try: Click here And before anyone says it, I do make a very clear distinction between the US military, Government and her people - especially 'catters . . Cheers! George