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To: Jane_N
Crosland is a very credible witness. Had dozens of visits to Kosovo in 1998-99, to include spending days at a time with the KLA.

He spent two days on the stand (July 10th and July 15th)testifying against Milosevic in 2002 as to the Serb operations aimed against the civilian population in Kosovo and the wanton destruction of Kosovar villages & farms & livestock, etc. Most damaging to Milosevic, Crosland also testified that the chain of command went directly from Milosevic to the 3d Army Commander (responsible for Kosovo) and avoided the VJ high command.

Interestingly, given how this subject is treated by some FReepers, Crosland spoke of seeing widespread destruction to include a village literally bulldozed to the ground in Kosovo, but when he returned to Belgrade, Serbs would insist such things were not taking place.

Besides testifying as to what he saw, Crosland takes advantage of his time on the stand to rip Serb tactics in Kosovo; i.e. over-reliance on heavy caliber firepower caused lots of damage to civilians, but little to the KLA; attacked villages where perhaps some KLA might have been while actual KLA checkpoints on roads were left alone; forced expulsion of civilian population into the hills and heavy damage to villages & civilian infrastructure alienated the people and drove up recruitment for the KLA.

3 posted on 01/19/2005 4:45:53 AM PST by mark502inf
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To: Jane_N; mark502inf
Straight from the horse's mouth! Here is a British diplomat openly describing the KLA as a terrorist organization systematically targeting both Serbs and ethnic Albanians:

' “In order to increase the fear among Serbs, they were being kidnapped on a relatively regular basis,” he told the court. '
(of course most of the abductees were never seen again).

' “These attacks... were similar to what went on throughout this campaign, where Albanians who were seen to be siding with the Serb administration were taken out and their businesses either bombed and they themselves murdered,” Crosland told judges. '

And how did Blair, Albright and Clinton tried to stop these terrorists? By joining in their war effort!

KLA apologists consider the Serb response to these terrorists disproportionate. But the good Mr. Crosland shuts them up too:

' By June, Crosland said, the KLA controlled some 35 per cent of Kosovo and was in fact able to launch operations in some 65 per cent of the territory, '

Wow! To anyone with common sense (and honesty), this sounds like by June 1998 these terrorists had become a formidable and quite effective military force poised for a complete takeover of Kosovo (and whatever this would imply for the remaining Serb population and ethnic Albanian loyalists). How would any state respond if not by a military campaign that will inevitably lead to civilian cadualties, as the U.S. has learnt the hard way in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq? If we lighheartedly hold the whole Serbian leadership responsible for "command responsibility" in civilian casualties in Kosovo, how can we honestly avoid holding the whole U.S. leadership for unquestionably higher civilian casualties and destruction in Iraq?

4 posted on 01/19/2005 7:43:49 AM PST by pythagorean
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To: mark502inf
He says the Albanians were using terror tactics to cause ethnic cleansing of Serbs almost a year before the NATO airstrikes, so Crosland is confirming the evidence that the "poor, innocent Albanians" (as they were sold on TV) were long-running ethnic terrorists before the war:
Against the background of mounting violence, Crosland confirmed the KLA had a practice of kidnapping ethnic Serbs.

“In order to increase the fear among Serbs, they were being kidnapped on a relatively regular basis,” he told the court.

Many of those kidnapped were later found tortured and/or killed.

13 posted on 01/19/2005 4:25:07 PM PST by joan
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