PHOENIX, Nov. 12 - The Euro-U.S. rift is widening. And not only over bananas. Signs of a coming clash are springing up everywhere - in Germany, France, Italy, even the U.K. - that staunchest of the staunch American allies. Not to mention Greece and Turkey.

But let's start with bananas... Who would ever think nowadays that countries could go to war over bananas? Unless they were banana republics, of course. Or led by monkeys. Well, the U.S. and the European Union (E.U.) certainly don't regard themselves as banana republics. Yet both are poised for a trade war over bananas. No kidding.

The Wall Street Journal Europe reported today (Nov. 12) that, as the Clinton administration is plotting yet another saber-rattling crackdown on Saddam Hussein, it is also contemplating a crackdown on Scotch whiskey and French wine. The reason? In retaliation for what the U.S. government alleges is the E.U.'s protectionism of its banana growers.

Now, everybody knows that bananas don't grow on Wall Street or in Washington, any more than they do in Brussels, London or Paris. So this trade dispute isn't protectionism in its classic sense - protecting one's own producers. But it is protectionism nevertheless.

If a trade war were to erupt between the E.U. and the U.S., it would be a duel between the new and the old colonial powers over the SOURCES of banana suppliers in their respective economic COLONIES: Latin and Central America for the U.S.-based banana giants, versus the African suppliers to the European market.

Which means that the only difference between the old-style colonialism, and the NWO's "neo-colonialism," is the brutal honesty of the former; and the callous perfidy of the latter. At least the old-style colonial powers fought each other for resources without preaching the virtues of "free trade" and "globalism" to each other across the Atlantic, or across the British Channel.

But as we said, bananas are just a tip of the iceberg in the cooling E.U.-U.S. relations. The Kosovo conflict is another festering sore.

The German government had to wait for two days to get a copy of the Oct. 12 Kosovo accord which the U.S. envoy, Richard Holbrooke, had reached with the Serbian president, Slobodan Milosevic. Eventually, the Yugoslav embassy in Bonn took pity upon the Germans and furnished them one, according to a Nov. 10 New York Times report.

"It was almost funny, if it was not so worrying," a senior German official told the NYT. "There seems to be very little willingness to treat the Europeans on an equal footing. Our impression is that the Americans prefer to cut us out."

But not when it comes to paying for the Clinton administration's foreign policy goals in Europe - in treasure or in (Euro) lives. "We provide two-thirds of the expense and personnel, and then the appointment (of an American to head the OSCE mission in Kosovo) is made with almost no consultation," bristled another European official. The British Foreign Office even went as far as to file an official protest to the National Security Council (NSC).

(A sidebar comment: Now we know who is running the U.S. European policy - the NSC, not the State Dept., just as in Bosnia. So if you're unhappy about what you see, do as the British did - yell at the NSC, not at the White House or the State Department).

Speaking of yelling, there was lots of it in the streets of Paris, too. A dozen or so French Army veteran-officers demonstrated in front the French Army headquarters in Paris on Nov. 10. They demanded the release from prison of Major Pierre Bunel. Bunel, an active duty French Army officer, was imprisoned on Nov. 2 on suspicion of providing information to Serbia about the potential NATO bombing targets. U.S. intelligence sources reportedly tipped off the French government about it, who arrested Bunel in order to save face and their, at least rhetorical, commitment to the NATO alliance.

But while the French government buckled under Washington's pressure, the French Army veterans would have none of it. "The Army Backs the Serbs. Release Major Bunel," read one of their banners, according to the Nov. 11 edition of the London Times. The leaflets handed out by the former French officers accused their government of "turning their backs... on the Serb people, our allies in two world wars," according to a Nov. 10 Reuters dispatch.

Meanwhile, the Italian news agency, ANSA, reported on Nov. 9 that Osama bin Laden, the Saudi Arabian fugitive, who has been accused by the U.S. government of financing and masterminding the recent bombing of the American embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, is planning to send 300 of his Islamic mercenaries to reinforce the (predominantly Muslim) Albanian separatist-terrorists in Kosovo.

So get this: On the one hand, the U.S. government accuses this Arab sheik of being a terrorist, on the other hand the Clinton administration backs the same Albanian terrorists as bin Laden. Just as they did in 1994, when they winked at Iran, America's sworn enemy, secretly shipping weapons to the Bosnian Muslims.

And you wonder why the Europeans are upset? Actually, one should wonder why more "average Americans" aren't more upset about it, either.

But, of course, there is an answer to all this. And it's not the "average American's" fault. The answer lies in the "dumbing down of America." The NWO globalist elite, having claimed a monopoly on the U.S. foreign policy, evidently deem such information - read contradictions- to be "too complex" for an average American to grasp. As did the Soviet censors when it came to telling the truth to the Russian people.

So what does the U.S. foreign affairs establishment do? They just don't report the bin Laden Kosovo connection to us. Nor any other which doesn't fit their opinions or business interests, such as last weekend's cold-bloodied murder by Albanian terrorists of two Serbian policemen in Kosovo, one of them a 23-year old reservist (check out our recent letters to the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post about it - available at our Web site).

Is there any wonder that the E.U., the "euro," the NATO expansion, and other globalist designs for (how to destroy) Europe are all proceeding full steam ahead notwithstanding the fact than 54% of the E.U. citizens are AGAINST it, according to a poll by the London-based Henley Center? (see WSJ, 10/19/98).

Is there any wonder then, that 62% of Americans did not bother to vote in the Nov. 3 elections, feeling disenfranchised by the Wall Street-Washington "ruling class?"

The last time around a situation like that occurred, our Founding Fathers characterized it "taxation without representation." And we all know what followed... Liberty, of course!

Also, check out... "NATO: New Iron Curtain Upon Europe,"  "The Coming EU-US Clash?", "Northern Ireland: A War of the Hooligans", "U.S. European Policy Destroying Own Creations", "Austrian Men Do Dishes; Shakespeare Condemned in Arizona", "US Senate Picks Up the NATO Hot Potato", "Russia Is Still the Bogey No. 1"

Or Djurdjevic's CHRONICLES and WASHINGTON TIMES columns: "A Bear in Sheep's Clothing", and "Rekindling NATO to Fuel Cold War..."