Greg Guma: The History of America's Secret Wars:

Corporate espionage and the Outsourcing of National Security. This text is excerpted from Big Lies: How Our Corporate Overlords, Politicians and Media Establishment Warp Reality and Undermine Democracy. When NATO's US and British troops in Macedonia began evacuating Albanian rebels in June 2001, officials claimed that they were merely trying to help Europe avert a devastating civil war. Most media dutifully repeated this spin as fact. But the explanation only made sense if you ignored a troublesome contradiction, namely US support for both the Macedonian Armed Forces and the Albanians fighting them. Beyond that, there was a decade of confused and manipulative Western policies, climaxing with NATO bombing and the imposition of peace through aggression in Kosovo. Together, these moves effectively destabilized the region. In Macedonia, the main cut out spook speak for intermediary was Military Professional Resources, Inc. (MPRI), then a major private military company (PMC) whose Macedonian field commander was a former US general with strong ties to Kosovo Liberation Army Commander Agim Ceku and Macedonian General Jovan Andrejevski. MPRI and other PMCs that have succeeded it received much of their funding from the US State Department, Pentagon, and CIA. For example, MPRI trained and equipped the Bosnian Croat Muslim Federation Army with a large State Department contract. Over the years, the company claimed to have helped Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, and Macedonia, inn effect, arming and training all parties. In 2000, it pulled in at least $70 million from its global operations. Working closely with the Pentagon, MPRI also arranged for the Kosovo Liberation Army's (KLA) training and weapons in the run up to the war on Yugoslavia, Later, the same firm channeled token military aid to the Macedonian army, new US weapons to the rebels, and military intelligence to both sides. Actually, it was a standard procedure, applied with great success in the Middle East for decades: Keep warring parties from overwhelming one another and you strengthen the bargaining power of the puppeteer behind the scenes. Better yet, combine this with disinformation, that is, tell the public one thing while doing the opposite. It's not a question of allies and enemies. Those designations can change for any number od reasons. In 1999, ethnic Albanians were victims and freedom fighters. In 2001, they were officially a threat. Manuel Noriega, Saddam Hussein, and Osama bin Laden were just three of the friends turned pariahs who learned that lesson.