Reaping The Whirlwind- A recent BBC report insists that the United States was covertly arming the Bosnian Moslems during the worst of the Yugoslav Civil War while publicly supporting European efforts to contain the fighting. The entire Bosnian situation was a nightmare of confusion. All of the NATO allies had different agendas (sometimes two or three of them at the same time) based on political convenience, moral altruism, a lack of political courage, geopolitics (i.e., the fear Iran would use Bosnia as a base to attack Europe), and other factors. UN peacekeepers with inadequate support were trying to stop fighting that simply swept around them. The US began sending weapons to the Croats in late 1993, expecting them to pass a share of these to the Bosnian Moslems. The Croats stalled on arming a faction they regarded as their future enemy, and the US began covert air drops in 1995. (All the while, the US publicly insisted that Bosnia was "a European problem".) These had to be quietly arranged to pass through the NATO no-fly zone patrols (on nights when only US aircraft were operating). The air drops reportedly included anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, night vision gear, and tactical radios. Nordic UN troops observed some of these airdrops at the time. The air drops are said to be only part of the large picture. Retired US military officers advised the Moslems and the Croats, masterminding the Croatian liberation of Krajina and the invasion of Western Bosnia in 1995. The US shared signals intelligence data with the Croats. Supposedly, European allies have known of this situation since at least 1996 and this is one of the reasons for the tension and lack of cooperation between the US and its European allies.--Stephen V Cole