Vindicating the Serbian People: An 'Aerial' Counter-Attack

Serbianna ^ | Friday, November 12, 2004 | T.V. Weber

[Modernman]

I would expect an investigation into the prior administration and charges to be applied for criminal activity or treason if founded.

Don't expect that, either.

[Calpernia]

I pray you are wrong.

[Paratrooper_501]

Racak happened.
The Serbian Police gathered up the men and executed them in a ditch.
I know because I was there. I watched the attack all day and was in Racak within 30 minutes of the Serbs leaving.

After that and a few other incidents in Jan 99, the Serbs got what they desrved.

[mark502inf]

Clinton's handing Eastern Europe over to al Qaeda was stupid.

"handing...Eastern Europe to Al Qaeda???????" The major Al Qaeda bases were in Sudan & Afghanistan. The majority of AlQaeda members are from the Arab shield area with the rest mostly from N. Africa & the 'stans. Outside those areas, the 9-11 planning & prep was concentrated in Germany & the USA. Eastern Europe countries from Albania, Macedonia,& Bulgaria in the south on up to Poland in the north are providing troops in Iraq & Afghanistan and offering superb cooperation in the war on terror. So...say what?

[mark502inf]

Uh-0h, Paratrooper. You're going to make some people's heads burst. We've got lots of Serb apologists & fellow travellers on this forum. It is an article of faith with them that Racak was a hoax. The normal story-line is that the Serbs didn't do it, besides nobody saw us do it, and the Albanians deserved it anyway. Welcome aboard.

KVM?

[Jane_N]

KVM?? KLA? or RBJ?

There's more than one alternative.

[DTA]

>>>Since Nov 12, 2004<<<

Welcome to the FR.

It will be interesting to get your view. Hope you pack your chute by yourself :-)

[Paratrooper_501]

You forgot the alternative who actually committed the executions - MUP.

That is of course unless 200 KLA disguised themselves as Serbian Policemen (MUP) and attacked themselves supported by an armored company team from the Serbian Army. LOL

The KLA was not based in Racak. It was in a town several kilometers south of there.

[Paratrooper_501]

Thanks for the welcome.

The people in Racak were not KLA, but they did actively support and provide food, etc. to the KLA. The KLA was nearby, based in a town several kilometers south. The Serbian Police attacked and rather than try to differentiate KLA from civilian just executed all the men of military age. There were several KLA killed that day, but the KLA readily admitted to them.

Unless the Serbs are much better marksmen than our Soldiers I know these were all executions since nearly every man was shot in the head. Half of them, 24 if I remember correctly, were shot in the head, in a group, in a ditch. The remainder were scattered. I documented each one and the person I was with took pictures, so I know this to be factual.

[Paratrooper_501]

During my time in Kosovo, Nov 98 to Jan 99, I dealt extensively with the KLA and saw no evidence to suggest that Arabs were there helping them. I also have seldom seen a group of people more pro-American than the Albanians.

[weshess]

The Serbians are generally Orthodox Christian and were basically fighting Muslims in this time period. (are they good peaceful bible-believers?, they don't have to be, just more Christian than their opponents)

Precisely, I am Serbian Orthodox and none of us understood why we would be backing the terrorists.

[Paratrooper_501]

I found the Serbian people to be very nice. It was just the FRY gov't that was executing bad policies and actions. FYI - approximately 20% of the Kosovar Albanians were Roman Catholic. The Serbian gov't treated them just as badly as they did the Muslims. I personally spoke with one Roman Catholic priest who was threatened with death if he rebuilt his church. He had petitioned the Orthodox hierarchy in Belgrade for help and they refused him. I even took communion with his congregation which was so full there were people standing outside.

The problem in Kosovo appeared to me to be entirely along ethnic, rather than religious lines. The Kosovar Muslims I knew were not Islamists. They supported our actions in Iraq (98-99). One of my translators who was Muslim even wore a crucifix around his neck in memory of one of his Christian friends killed by Serbian police.

[AuntB]

Thanks for pointing that out.

[mark502inf]

the KLA is al Qaeda

Complete horse manure. You are delusional if you think bin Laden or Al Qaeda cranked up the Kosovo conflict or the Kosovo Liberation Army. The KLA is just the latest manifestation of Albanians that have been fighting for independence for the last hundred+ years--first against the Ottomans and then versus the Serbs. The Serb-Albanian conflict pre-dates bin Laden and it pre-dates Al Qaeda. By a lot.

KLA Background: After a try at peaceful resistance & a shadow govt in the early 90s, the Kosovar Albs felt betrayed when their issues weren't addressed at the 95 Dayton Accords. The KLA armed resistance became active after that, but was not very effective until the 1997 civil unrest next-door in Albania made available tens of thousand of weapons and lots of ammo from the looted military installations. Serious fighting began shortly thereafter.

The KLA started with only a few hundred hard core members, but after the standard Serb over-reactions in the form of massacres and village burnings, Albanians joined by the thousands. The fight against the Serbs in 98-99 was a classic popular revolt.

The KLA included Albanians who were Sunni, Bektashi, Orthodox, Catholic, and irreligious. Some hundreds of foreign mujahadeen are also known to have traveled to Kosovo along with thousands of Albanians from the diaspora. However, unlike in Bosnia some years earlier, the USA was ready & warned the KLA not to cooperate with Al Qaeda. The only documented Al Qaeda contact with the KLA is described in this news report:

He [Al Kader] confessed to being a member of one of bin Laden’s groups and told investigators he had been sent to give weapons to the guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation Army, then beginning their war against the Serbs. The KLA had promised US officials it would not co-operate with fundamentalists. Mr Kader said the KLA had turned him down and that he had returned to Albania, still with his weapons.

And so far, there has been no hard eveidence beyond that KLA rejection of Al Qaeda. If the Serbs had captured or killed any actual Al Qaeda, they darn sure would have loudly announced & paraded that evidence. Never happened, although they did try to spin every sighting of a bearded fighter or discovery of a foreign passport into an Al Qaeda spotting.

Here's more: Bin Laden issued his fatwa to al Qaeda to kill Americans in early 98, but not an American has ever been killed to hostile action in Kosovo. Rugova, the elected president of Kosovo is a Catholic. The Albanians are decidedly secular as I and everyone else who’s actually been there knows. So, yeah, in between drinking raki, refusing to take bin Laden's weapons, ogling the Pristina girls in tight jeans, and volunteering at our consulate in Pristina to go fight the Taliban, those guys are real “Islamists”.

Serb propagandists are selling the "Islamist" & Al Qaeda angle very hard, spamming out unsubstantiated assertions and counting on the lack of first hand knowledge most people have of the real situation in the Balkans combined with our war on Islamist terrorism to gain them sympathy & support. It does seem to work on some folks.

[mark502inf]

Thanks for pointing that out.

Aunt B, you answered me much nicer than I did you. And oso blanco, I apologize for the tone of my last post to you.

[dj_animal_2000]

You were there ???

AS WHAT were you there ???

[Paratrooper_501]

Fair enough. However, all Muslims are not Al Qaeda fanatics.

I will rephrase what I said earlier. I never saw any evidence of Muslim fanatics in Kosovo. The Albanian Muslims I knew demonstrated absolutely no feeling of kinship with Middle Eastern Muslims and they loved everything about the USA.

The Albanians were not fighting to establish Sharia as is Al Qaeda. They were fighting for freedom from a tyrannical government.