Posted on 05/29/2004 12:24:36 PM PDT by Destro
Editorial
While the Bush Administration dances around their lies about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction used to justify the conquest of Iraq, let us recall the Clinton administration lied to justify their conquest of Kosovo in 1999. No mass graves were found, except in places where a few dozen Islamic terrorists, and civilians caught in the crossfire, were killed in firefights with Serbian police. There was no "ethnic cleansing" by the Serbian army, which includes thousands of Muslim soldiers. Reports that civilians were forced to vacate cities by evil Serbian police proved false; they fled because they were terrified as NATO aircraft unleashed hundreds of bombs over a three week period, killing 2000 civilians. This destroyed the Serbian economy and terrorized their government into submission, which resulted in a compromise in which Serbia retained sovereignty over its Kosovo province and agreed to allow NATO peacekeepers to occupy Kosovo on a temporary basis.
As with the conquest of Iraq, it is uncertain why this conflict arose. Some think it was created by the powerful NATO bureaucracy to justify their post Cold war existence. Defense contractors made handsome profits though supplemental funding while by contractors like Halliburton continue to pocket billions of dollars to support the occupation of Kosovo. Others claim it was a public relations gimmick by President Clinton, while a few think more sinister reasons were involved. Here is an excellent update on the present situation:
THE NATIONAL POST (Canada) | 2004-04-06 |
We bombed the wrong side?
Major General Lewis MacKenzie - Armed Forces of Canada (retired)
Five years ago our television screens were dominated by pictures of Kosovo-Albanian refugees escaping across Kosovo's borders to the sanctuaries of Macedonia and Albania. Shrill reports indicated that Slobodan Milosevic's security forces were conducting a campaign of genocide and that at least 100,000 Kosovo-Albanians had been exterminated and buried in mass graves throughout the Serbian province. NATO sprung into action and, in spite of the fact no member nation of the alliance was threatened, commenced bombing not only Kosovo, but the infrastructure and population of Serbia itself -- without the authorizing United Nations resolution so revered by Canadian leadership, past and present.
Those of us who warned that the West was being sucked in on the side of an extremist, militant, Kosovo-Albanian independence movement were dismissed as appeasers. The fact that the lead organization spearheading the fight for independence, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), was universally designated a terrorist organization and known to be receiving support from Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda was conveniently ignored.
The recent dearth of news in the North American media regarding the increase in violence in Kosovo compared to the comprehensive coverage in the European press strongly suggests that we Canadians don't like to admit it when we are wrong. On the contrary, selected news clips on this side of the ocean continue to reinforce the popular spin that those dastardly Serbs are at it again.
A case in point was the latest crisis that exploded on March 15. The media reported that four Albanian boys had been chased into the river Ibar in Mitrovica by at least two Serbs and a dog (the dog's ethnic affiliation was not reported). Three of the boys drowned and one escaped to the other side. Immediately, thousands of Albanians mobilized and concentrated in the area of the divided city. Attacks on Serbs took place throughout the province resulting in an estimated 30 killed and 600 wounded. Thirty Serbian Christian Orthodox churches and monasteries were destroyed, more than 300 homes were burnt to the ground and six Serbian villages cleansed of their occupants. One hundred and fifty international peacekeepers were injured.
Totally ignored in North America were the numerous statements from impartial sources that said there was no incident between the Serbs, the dog and the Albanian boys. NATO Police spokesman Derek Chappell stated on March 16 that it was "definitely not true" that the boys had been chased into the river by Serbs. Chappell went on to say that the surviving boy had told his parents that they had entered the river alone and that three of his friends had been swept away by the current. Admiral Gregory Johnson, the overall NATO commander, further stated that the ensuing clashes were "orchestrated and well-planned ethnic cleansing" by the Kosovo-Albanians. Those Serbs forced to leave joined the 200,000 who had been cleansed from the province since NATO's "humanitarian" bombing in 1999. The '"cleansees" have become very effective "cleansers."
In the same week a number of individuals posing as Serbs ambushed and killed a UN policeman and his local police partner. During the firefight one of them was wounded which caused an immediate switch from Serbian to Albanian as he screamed, "I've been hit"! The UN pursued the attackers and tracked them to an Albanian-run farm where they discovered weapons and the wounded Albanian who had died from his wounds. Four Albanians were arrested. Once again, the ambush had been reported in the United States but not the follow-up which clearly indicated yet another orchestrated provocation by the Albanian terrorists.
Kosovo is administered by the UN, the very organization many Canadians have indicated they would like to see take over from the United States in Iraq. The fact the UN cannot order its civilian employees to go or stay anywhere -- they have to volunteer -- combined with recent history that saw the UN abandon Iraq after a single brutal attack on their compound in Baghdad and the reality that Kosovo, under the organization's administration, is a basket case, disqualifies it from consideration for such a role.
Since the NATO/UN intervention in 1999, Kosovo has become the crime capital of Europe. The sex slave trade is flourishing. The province has become an invaluable transit point for drugs en route to Europe and North America. Ironically, the majority of the drugs come from another state "liberated" by the West, Afghanistan. Members of the demobilized, but not eliminated, KLA are intimately involved in organized crime and the government. The UN police arrest a small percentage of those involved in criminal activities and turn them over to a judiciary with a revolving door that responds to bribes and coercion. The objective of the Albanians is to purge all non-Albanians, including the international community's representatives, from Kosovo and ultimately link up with mother Albania thereby achieving the goal of "Greater Albania." The campaign started with their attacks on Serbian security forces in the early 1990s and they were successful in turning Milosevic's heavy-handed response into worldwide sympathy for their cause. There was no genocide as claimed by the West -- the 100,000 allegedly buried in mass graves turned out to be around 2,000, of all ethnic origins, including those killed in combat during the war itself.
The Kosovo-Albanians have played us like a Stradivarius. We have subsidized and indirectly supported their violent campaign for an ethnically pure and independent Kosovo. We have never blamed them for being the perpetrators of the violence in the early '90s and we continue to portray them as the designated victim today in spite of evidence to the contrary. When they achieve independence with the help of our tax dollars combined with those of bin Laden and al-Qaeda, just consider the message of encouragement this sends to other terrorist-supported independence movements around the world.
Funny how we just keep digging the hole deeper!
Maj-Gen. Lewis MacKenzie, now retired, commanded UN troops during the Bosnian civil war of 1992.
(c) 2004 National Post . All Rights Reserved.
Serbia is a European democracy which maintains friendly relations with all nations. It delivered Milosevic to the war crimes tribunal in the Hague two years ago, although they are having trouble accumulating evidence that he used excessive force to suppress Islamic terrorists in Kosovo. Fighting had increased in the late 1990s as the CIA shipped arms to the KLA terror group and helped coordinate Iranian arm shipments to Albania funded in part by Al Qaeda. Deposing Milosevic and turning him over for "war crimes" was a key demand, yet NATO (e.g. the United States) has yet to announce when the temporary NATO peacekeepers will depart.
Kosovo has been part of Serbia for hundreds of years, and remains part of Serbia as recognized by every nation on Earth, including the United States. NATO and the UN have failed to keep the peace in Kosovo, and lack the resolve to pursue Islamic terrorists and criminal gangs based there. The United States hasn't the resources to provide security forever, and no European ally is anxious to add troops. The solution is obvious; allow Serbian peacekeepers to return to Serbia's Kosovo province. They are willing and experienced at this task, something they had done successfully for hundreds of years, until NATO pushed them aside.
Yes, there will be increased violence as Islamic terrorists and criminal gangs battle Serbian police, once again. The Serbians will win, once again. The terrorists will be pushed out and criminal activity reduced. Violence will also decrease in neighboring Macedonia which is often terrorized by rouge gangs from Kosovo. Serbians can return to their stolen properties and rebuild their Christian churches. During a 2000 presidential debate, George Bush said: "But one of the problems we have in the military is we're in a lot of places around the world. And I mentioned one, and that's the Balkans. I would very much like to get our troops out of there." Given the strain on the US Army, American troops should leave Kosovo by years' end. The last American officer to leave should tell his Serbian replacement: Sorry about all this, it was our mistake. Good luck and good bye.
Carlton Meyer editor@G2mil.com
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Our editor is Carlton Meyer, a former Marine Corps officer who has participated in military operations around the world. He had written dozens of articles for military magazines, but became frustrated that important issues are ignored by editors fearful of upsetting their corporate advertisers or government sponsors. There are no advertisers or sponsors for G2mil.
What someone doesn't want you to publish is journalism, all else is publicity.
Americans and British carpet bombed Belgrade on Easter 1944. Bombing Christian Allies on Easter Sunday . I guess it becomes a tradition.
Wow--"Death Squads" & we "carpet bombed" Belgrade. You channeling Cynthia McKinney by any chance? Tell me A. Pole, just so I can confirm where you are coming from--who were the good guys in Nicaragua--the Contras or the Sandinistas? And which of those two groups killed the most civilians? How about in El Salvador--was it the government or the FMLN? And your bonus question, exactly what was it that the allied bombers did that made the attack on Belgrade any different than the hundreds of other attacks they made on German positions or critical facilities in towns in the allied countries of Holland or France or (later) Italy, etc?
I don't know which group killed more civilians. But it is Red Herring anyway. William Walker was around death squads which were in other Central American countries.
like all liberals, when you are called to task for your position you start quibling
it all depends on what the meaning of is; is
Mark should check out this link for illuminating just who Clinton supported.
Orwel words "Who controls the present, controls the past Who controls the past, controls the future" are applicable here. Since the fall of Berlin wall, there is a consistent, concerted activity to depict Serbs as Nazis and real Nazis as Serb victims.
Mindboggling. For example, USIP-sponsored Sonja Biserko claims that Serbia was fascist state during WWII responsible for The Holocaust. In reality Serbia was occupied country, under direct German Nazi military control and Serbs were holocaust victims. Such drivel would be insignifficant if not done under USIP supervision and Sonja Biserko being commissioned by USIP to write a study about alleged Serbian "nationalism" (in negative conotation). Who cares that this lie is an act of Nazi revisionism, financed by U.S. taxpayers dollars will enter into U.S. documents, allegedly as the analysis of an independent think tank.
Your attempt to depict Serbs as Nazis goes along the same line (you wrote: "You can read a little bit more about Serb ... SS forces here"
If you are indeed interested in Serbian Volunteer Corps and relationship with Wehrmacht and Waffen SS I would recommend Neubacher's “Sonderauftrag Sudost 1940-1945”,
SFK was similar to 15th Cossack Cavalry Corps - they never wore Nazi insignia nor Waffen SS uniform.
They fought along Nazis but were not Nazis themselves. They were anticommunists. But who cares about the facts, as long as you smear Serbs.
Easy, Wraith. If I wanted to be talked to like that, I'd call my wife!
The KLA used these people who did not support Thaci politically and guess what martyred them for the cause. In this case the KLA forced them to stand and fight with KLA guns at their backs... the KLA said they were going to take a stand and the Racak villagers were going to help if they liked it or not, except they would be doing most of the dying
OK Wraith, after eliminating the fluff and "my boy" and Serbs cleansed from Pristina moral equivalency arguments and how you talked to some guy from somewhere else who was not a nice person; what you are left with on the subject of Racak is yet one more unbelievable story trying to deny obvious Serbian war-crimes. The common element in each of those versions is that there is not a shred of hard evidence to support any of them. And yours is no different.
Lets do it again; just sticking to the Albanian bodies in the gully and not all the ones in the village itself nor the KLA soldiers killed on the other side of the village, here's what the evidence has established: eyewitnesses saw the men taken away by Serb forces out of Racak and toward the location where the bodies were found. Later, firing was heard from that area. Four Albanian men who were in the group taken into the gully described how they ran into the woods and escaped as Serbs gunned down the other Albanians. The bodies were found in the gully. They were the same Albanian villagers taken away by the Serbs. The forensic team says they were shot where they were found in the clothes they were found in and that there was no indication that they were "anything but unarmed villagers".
Wraith, you have nothing substantive-no evidence, no forensics, no witnesses-- to prop-up your story. And it contradicts the Serb government version that says the dead were all KLA terrorists. I seem to recall you claimed you were an intell type-what Army? No S-2 or G-2 I've ever seen could have survived throwing something like that little fantasy in front of the commander.
Oh, and for some of the peripheral stuff in your post-like your little lecture about the KLA setting up Racak because Racak citizens backed Rugova and KLA leader Thaci was upset because Rugova had gone to the peace conference in France. Whoops. The peace conference in France started in February. The Racak murders were on January 15th.
Racak was a Serb war-crime. Face up to it and move on, soldier. But before you do, fix your tag-line. That quote is from Frederick the Great, not Napoleon.
The challenge remains unmet. Or to be precise, it was met with more of the same--name-calling and a total inability to back up your position.
C'mon, fellas! Grow a little--show some integrity--it's never too late!
The only question remaining is how long it is until you accept some of these individuals simply aren't worth the time.
It is what it is.
Hello Hoplite, good to see you.
Mark whatever saying hello to himself?
Was Racak a anti-KLA village ?
Mark the Clinton version of Racak is based on eyewitnesses whose story is contradicted by ABC film.
Wraith's version of events is most plausible and fits precisely with the known facts and theM.O. of paramilitary guerillas.
Kfor concluded that the miost active KLA units (Ramush & Remi's) engaged in a systemic campaign of murdering Albanians. Why can't you ?
KLA Lied says Danny Pearl in WSJ 1999
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a386c976f6ffa.htm
KLA Prevent Reconstruction of Racak Event
http://www.FreeRepublic.com/focus/news/646128/posts
Kosovo OSCE observers admit to distorting their 'neutral' reports to favour KLA
http://www.FreeRepublic.com/focus/news/650948/posts
Kosovo- Complete Analysis of the Incident at Racak
http://www.FreeRepublic.com/focus/news/686417/posts
Kosovo- KLA Commander testifys he brought 47 KLA to fight at Racak
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/695375/posts
>
All US troops need to be out of Kosovo region. When the US leaves the Euro trash troops will leave too.
Let the Serbs handle this
They were all Albanians separated by a political direction. The KLA considered the LDK a big road block on the road to power because of their popularity. Thaci had to destroy the LDK anyway he could. Racak was simply a village of strong LDK supporters who became useful to the KLA by becoming dead for the cause. The KLA kill their own. Is Racak an anti KLA village and the answer is simply yes. To day no one there dares to challenge the KLA because they now own the place and one does they are killed.
thanks for setting Mark straight on this
Thanks for the ping, vooch. I don't know if it can be explained to someone who wasn't there. Or at least someplace (like Southeast Asia) where this sort of thing went on. And maybe you have to have been there to understand that there is no such thing as an "unarmed villager" in the Balkans. Or maybe I'm old and tired. People will believe what they want to believe, regardless of evidence or lack thereof.
Racak again. You all know my thoughts on that. It's a case of "lack thereof" and "what's wrong with this picture?". If you want, I could go back and look at some very old threads where we pulled together what we could find of forensic evidence on the net and analysed it.
I confess I haven't read through this thread yet. Maybe I'll be able to contribute something once I've had time to read it all.
That's why I just call them leftists. The only reason to call them "liberals", is to annoy the ones who run from the term. ;-)
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