Another Yugoslav firm, Brunner, constructed a Libyan rocket propellant manufacturing facility. In an interview to the "Washington Post", Yugoslavia's president Vojislav Kostunica brushed off the American complaints about, as he put it disdainfully, "overhauling older-generation aircraft engines".
Such exploits are not unique to Yugoslavia or Bosnia. The Croat security services are notorious for their collusion in drug and arms trafficking, mainly via Hungary.
Macedonian construction companies collaborate with manufacturers of heavy machinery and purveyors of missile technology in an effort to recoup hundreds of millions of dollars in Iraqi debts. Albanian crime gangs collude with weapon smugglers based in Montenegro and Kosovo. The Balkan - from Greece to Hungary - is teeming with these penumbral figures.
Arms smuggling is a by-product of criminalized societies, destitution, and dysfunctional institutions. The prolonged period of failed transition in countries such as Yugoslavia, Macedonia, Bosnia, Moldova, Belarus, and Ukraine has entrenched organized crime. It now permeates every legitimate economic sphere and every organ of the state.
Whether this situation is reversible is the subject of heated debate. But it is the West which pays the price in increased crime rates and, probably in Iraq, in added fatalities once it launches war against that murderous regime.
XVI. The Industrious Spies
By: Dr. Sam Vaknin Also published by United Press International (UPI)
The Web site of GURPS (Generic Universal Role Playing System) lists 18 "state of the art equipments (sic) used for advanced spying". These include binoculars to read lips, voice activated bugs, electronic imaging devices, computer taps, electromagnetic induction detectors, acoustic stethoscopes, fiber optic scopes, detectors of acoustic emissions (e.g., of printers), laser mikes that can decipher and amplify voice-activated vibrations of windows, and other James Bond gear.
Such contraptions are an integral part of industrial espionage. The American Society for Industrial Security (ASIC) estimated a few years ago that the damage caused by economic or commercial espionage to American industry between 1993-5 alone was c. $63 billion.