Stewart Rowles: All I see is a country using NATO to get to the Golden Goose of the EU. What benefits are there for NATO when the majority of the FYROM’s Slav population detests NATO for kicking the fellow Slavic Serbs out and bringing the ethnic Albanians power in neighboring Kosovo?

Jahja Esli and Boneva Boyka make the case on atlantic-community.org for Macedonia (FYROM) to join NATO. They argue that NATO’s Open Door Policy was reaffirmed at the last Chicago Summit, but its doors remain firmly closed for Macedonia which has been aspiring membership since 1999 and continues to contribute more than its fair share to missions.

The article reads like a case of victim orientated opinion; the usual argument is expressly and impliedly centered around Greece and its intransigence with FYROM regarding their name and that if only this was sorted then NATO membership would be assured and how much the FYR Macedonians deserve this NATO membership. Let me elucidate why I believe this vein of thought should be taken in the light it deserves.

My military unit deployed to the Balkans and had driven to Skopje via Greece as part of Op Agricola and before we had even arrived at our destination in Skopje, locals had got on a bridge over-looking the ‘motorway’ and dropped a huge boulder into the cab of one of our passing vehicles, badly injuring my two friends and they were CASEVAC’d home.  This was our introduction to the friendly deserving locals; every work trip out, we were attacked by locals whose intent was to maim or kill us. Stones, rocks and fire were all used against us; we learnt very quickly when we went out, that we had to go out fully equipped and armed for trouble, all of our vehicle windows were covered in Mesh for protection.  Sat in the vehicle all kitted out for war in a supposedly friendly country; it could have passed for a normal day patrolling the bad lands of Ulster. The locals, their faces distorted by anger and rage,  whipping up violence wherever we stopped, provoking, spoiling for a fight, damaging anything, everything to do with NATO. The same NATO that stands for peace, democracy and civilization in the Western World for over 40 years attacked because it had the audacity to stop Slavs ethnically cleansing a neighbor.

Read the rest of the article in Atlantic-community.org