Opinion
By
Gary Q. Kokalari
November 9. 2013
http://www.wave3.com/story/23915530/exclusive-inside-chemcial-weapons-destruction-plant
http://news.yahoo.com/albania-confirms-us-demand-syria-chemical-weapon-destruction-234239891.html
This video describes a $2 billion high tech chemical weapons destruction plant the U.S. government is building in a rural area of Kentucky that's located 100 miles away from the major population of Louisville. The Department of Defense is storing chemical weapons there that amount to only half the amount that is estimated to be in Syria. It is an enormous challenge for the Department of Defense because it is considered a very dangerous project to complete by the military of the United States, the most powerful, wealthiest and technologically advanced country in the world.
Yet, the U.S. and EU are contemplating sending the Syrian chemical weapons - twice the amount of chemical weapons at the Kentucky facility - to Albania for destruction. The same country that couldn't demilitarize relatively simple ammunition without seeing 26 people killed in a tragic explosion (Gerdec) while the perpetrators of this crime still roam the streets freely. The same country where senior government officials aided shady arms dealers (AEY) in an attempt to defraud the Department of Defense of $300 million by trying to illegally sell the U.S. government old, corroding Chinese ammunition. And while the American perpetrators of this scheme were convicted by DOJ and serve prison sentences, the Albanian government officials who conspired with them have not even been called for questioning.
President Obama should be ashamed of himself for looking the other way while more than 1,000 people, including several hundred children, were murdered by Assad with weapons of mass destruction. So now, after being manipulated and outmaneuvered by Putin, the U.S. and EU are looking for a way to sweep the entire affair - including the chemical weapons - under the rug. But in this case the rug is Albania, a poor, little backward country that has been riddled with scandal, tragedy and corruption with its previous efforts to demilitarize weapons. And a country that has developed a reputation as one big garbage dump for everything the world doesn't want. This hair brained, brazen scheme to now send these deadly weapons to Albania is as stupid as it is crazy.
In July, I wrote to Edi Rama to provide him with suggestions about some of the issues he should address with his new government. Among them was the issue of Albania's relationship with the United States when I stated, " Heretofore, Albanian leaders have functioned as servants to American government leaders. Berisha and Nano bent over backward to accommodate American demands, not necessarily because their cooperation helped Albania, but because it enabled them to curry favor with American leaders. With regard to the latest example of this behavior, I see no benefit in Albania taking in terrorists just because other countries rejected this request from the U.S. America is greatly admired and respected by Albanians, and Albanians certainly can count themselves among the best friends in the world to the U.S.; therefore, Albania must strive to be a strategic partner of the U.S., not a strategic pawn."
Albania is under no obligation to bend to every outrageous demand made by the U.S. and EU. And the request for Western governments to now dump weapons of mass destruction in Albania is as immoral as it is irresponsible, to say nothing of the grave international security threat this poses to Americans and Europeans by placing these weapons in a country that some consider to have the least effective law enforcement and the most porous borders in the world. These Western officials should be just as embarrassed for this disgraceful, contemptible request as they should be for letting Bashar al-Assad get away with mass murder.
