U.S. analyst ties war in Bosnia, al-Qaida (Clinton helped create al-Qaeda to fight Serbs)

seattletimes.nwsource.com ^ | Thursday, September 09, 2004 - Page updated at 12:00 A.M. | MARIA LOKSHIN

[Destro]

Thursday, September 09, 2004 - Page updated at 12:00 A.M.

U.S. analyst ties war in Bosnia, al-Qaida

By MARIA LOKSHIN

The Associated Press

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — A former U.S. policy analyst, testifying for the defense at Slobodan Milosevic's war-crimes trial yesterday, said part of the groundwork for what became the al-Qaida terrorist network was laid during the Bosnian war in the 1990s break-up of Yugoslavia.

The testimony of analyst James Jatras appeared directed at showing the U.S. government probably knew Islamic fundamentalists were fighting in Bosnia during the 1992-95 war and in the Serbian province of Kosovo in the 1990s.

Milosevic has claimed the Serbs in Kosovo and the former Yugoslav republics were fighting wars of self defense against what he described as persecution by Croats and Muslims. In his opening statement, he accused the United States of being part of an anti-Serb conspiracy that also included Germany, NATO, Islamic countries and the Vatican.

Prosecutors allege that Milosevic designed and carried out a complex plan to create an ethnically pure Serb nation by expelling or killing non-Serbs in the former Yugoslav republics to carve out a "Greater Serbia."

Jatras, testifying at Milosevic's resumed trial, had compiled several reports on Yugoslavia when he worked for the Senate Republican Policy Committee from 1985-2000.

Reinforcing his earlier conclusions, Jatras said the U.S. commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States had found that the "groundwork for a true terrorist network was being laid" in 1990s Bosnia. He called it "a small footprint movement" that later became recognized as al-Qaida.

Prosecutors protested that Jatras was an analyst with no firsthand knowledge of the wars, but judges allowed him to continue, saying his opinion as an expert was of interest.

Jatras was questioned by Steven Kay, a lawyer assigned last week as Milosevic's defense counsel. The former Serb leader conducted his own defense for two years until doctors ruled he was in danger of a heart attack if he continued.

[Destro]

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Agora/3518/jatras2.html

A Senate Republican aide came under fire this week for what members of the Muslim community called his bigoted remarks on Islam. But Idaho Sen.

Larry E. Craig, the number three ranking Republican in the Senate, rejected calls to fire the aide, citing his right to free speech.

James George Jatras (retired colonel USAF), a foreign policy staff analyst on the Senate Republican Policy Committee, said Islam has a "fraudulent self-depiction as a pacific creed," arises from "the darkness of heathen Araby" and rivals communism as one of the "gigantic Christian-killing machines."

[Destro]

Imagine if Slobo was allowed by the UN kangaroo court to conduct his own defense questioning?

[Calpernia]

Ping

[MattinNJ]

IIRC, Serbia has always been a gatekeeper for Europe against Muslim expansion. Can't believe we fought on the KLA's side, oh wait a minute, Clinton was POTUS, never mind.

[lone star annie]

Were we ever on the wrong side of this one!! 3,000 innocent Serbs were killed by NATO. Why? Because they realized the threat of Islamic Facism better than we could ever understand. The Serbs were murdered by the thousands when the Albanian Muslims sided with the Nazis in WW2.

Their understanding of the threat was something we should have heeded instead of protected. Geesh that entire military action was a fiasco.

[Incorrigible]

Bump

[FormerLib]

A "The Truth Will Out" ping!

[Jim_Curtis]

The most disgraceful decision in US history. They have done the impossible by sweeping a war under the rug.

The media had a self-imposed blackout during the war as they whipped the deceived public into a frenzy for it. The media's favorite Senators, Kerry and McCain, were fanning the flames for jihad in the Senate.

[JustAnotherSavage]

I agree and hope the rest of the world, especially the USA, soon realizes the folly of Clinton/Clark/Albright.

[Mamzelle]

I'm afraid it was not *just* Clinton (who never went to any fight eagerly), but the combination of McCain, Biden, Albright and neoconservative intellectuals like Kristol, Frum, etc. Google up "neoconservative balkans" and get ready for an awful ride. Put me off neos for good.

Interestingly, neocons who supported McCain against Bush also supported our catastophic involvement in the Balkans.

[DTA]

>>>>>I'm afraid it was not *just* Clinton (who never went to any fight eagerly), but the combination of McCain, Biden, Albright and neoconservative intellectuals like Kristol, Frum, etc. Google up "neoconservative balkans" and get ready for an awful ride. Put me off neos for good.<<<<<

It all started with Zbignew Brzezinsky, the man who brought Osama Bin Laden to the skyscraper near you.

The idea of 'humanitarian' intervention on behalf of Islamic terrorists. The idea of fostering Wahhabis. The idea of helping Iran to establish fooothold in Europe. The idea of facilitating Al-Qaeda network in Europe. The idea of damaging Trans-Atlantic relations and U.S.-Russia relations with one shot (attack on Serbia).

Only above mentioned "geniuses" could set the world ablaze like this.

They only error they made was not reading the instruction manual for their tool. They did not know there is no POWER OFF switch.

[Destro]

Zbignew Brzezinsky (Carter's man) should be in prison in a sane world or in exile like the Chechens he supports.

[Jane_N]

I found this in the International Herald Tribune about James Jatras' appearance at the Milosevic trial. Thought you might find it interesting.

"On Wednesday, his second witness appeared. The witness, James Jatras, an American lawyer, described himself as a former analyst for Republicans in the U.S. Senate. He told the court that he was asked to skew a report he wrote for a Senate committee in the early 1990s about the conflict in Yugoslavia. While he described the dispute as an ethnic conflict, he was asked to rewrite it as a confrontation between democratic Croatia and Slovenia on the one hand and Communist Serbia on the other. He said he was so angry he had his name taken off the report."

http://www.iht.com/articles/538007.html

[bgarid]

I wish there was a law which prohibited those who was not born in America to take high level positions in the administration.

This would conviniently rid us from both Brzezinski (born in Warsaw) and Albright (born in Prague, I believe).

Not sure about Colin Powell...

[JustAnotherSavage]

Kissinger?

[JustAnotherSavage]

" He told the court that he was asked to skew a report he wrote for a Senate committee in the early 1990s about the conflict in Yugoslavia"

That should make any one take pause. It will be interesting to find out more about Mr. Jatras.

[kimosabe31]

Great post Destro.

[Destro]

It will be interesting to find out more about Mr. Jatras.

Colonel George Jatras, USAF (Ret.), confronts General Wesley Clark at Borders bookstore, Pentagon Center Mall, 17 Jul 2001

Colonel George Jatras, USAF (Ret.), General Wesley Clark and moderator

Excerpt:

I was the third questioner. I began by explaining that I was retired military and I questioned our policy in the Balkans. I held up the flier which my wife, Stella, had distributed and said that I particularly wanted to ask him about the picture on it.

For those in the audience who did not have a flier, I began to explain the picture which showed General Clark in a congratulatory handshake with Hashim Thaci, leader of the KLA, which under the noses of KFOR had murdered or ethnically cleansed thousands of Kosovo Serbs and had destroyed more Orthodox Christian churches and monasteries than were destroyed in 500 years under the Ottoman Empire. Next to Thaci was Bernard Kouchner, Chief U.N. administrator in Kosovo, British General Sir Michael Jackson, and Agim Ceku, who commanded the Croatian Army in "Operation Storm" that ethnically cleansed 250,000 Serbs from Krajina and murdered thousands and who now commands the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC), the thinly disguised successor to the KLA. It should be noted that the KLA, with whom we allied ourselves, at one time was designated by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organization. Of course, this is the same KLA about whom Senator Joe Lieberman said: "The United States of America and the Kosovo Liberation Army stand for the same values and principles . . . Fighting for the KLA is fighting for human rights and American values." (Washington Post, Apr.28, 1999).

[FormerLib]

I believe this may be James' father.

[JustAnotherSavage]

Thanks!!