[mark502inf]

Haven't tried to post an excerpt before. I apologize in advance if this doesn't work.

Nice recap at the end of the much less influential role Islam plays in the Balkans than in the Middle East. Lots of propaganda & misinformation about "Islamists" in the Balkans, but the real deal is ethnicity, not religion.

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[JohnGalt]

Wolfowitz in Skopje – What Next for Macedonia?"
by Christopher Deliso May 20, 2003

[Hoplite]

Seems to me that we really haven't seen too many Al Qaeda members from Afghanistan, never mind the Balkans.

But you've got to give it to our friends on FR - some of them have made quite an effort trying to sell the Balkans - Al Qaeda connection. I'm just sorry you weren't around for the whole "hijackers as Bosnian citizens" fiasco.

[inquest]

So the article quotes the Washington Times, and then does basically nothing to debunk its claim. I guess we're just supposed to know that the WT is one of those eeevil conservative newspapers, and therefore can't be trusted.

In any case, I think it might be a good idea to quote a bit more extensively from that briefly mentioned article:

In the past, Saudi Arabia has sent millions of dollars in aid to "humanitarian" agencies that encourage Bosnian Muslims to promote the doctrines of Wahhabism, a particularly intolerant and puritanical version of Islam. Mosques have been established throughout the Muslim-Croat federation, many of whom preach the need for "jihad" against the country's Catholic Croats and Orthodox Christian Serbs.

The result has been numerous acts of terror perpetrated upon civilians — especially the Croats. During the past several years, Catholic churches in and around Sarajevo have been vandalized by Islamic extremists. Cemeteries where Croats were buried have been desecrated. Many ordinary Catholics are afraid of walking on the streets of Sarajevo with a cross around their neck for fear of being attacked.

The most notorious incident occurred on Christmas Eve, when three Croats — a father and his two daughters — were gunned down in their home by an Islamic militant near the town of Konjic. Their crime: celebrating Christmas.

An all we have in response is a quote from Paddy Ashdown saying, Nothing to see here!

[swarthyguy]

SARAJEVO (Reuters) - Serb and Croat nationalists are warning Washington that Bosnia's Muslims will let Al Qaeda infest the soft underbelly of Europe, unless they are called in to guarantee security should the U.S. military quit the Balkans.

Western diplomats in the region discount the threat. They believe the nationalists' real goal, as ever, is to isolate the Muslims and split Bosnia on ethnic lines, while winning kudos as America's staunch ally in some "clash of civilizations."

But they worry that scare-mongering may sway Congress.

An October article in the Washington Times says Bosnia "now serves as a base" for Al Qaeda. Croats are the best U.S. ally on the "front-lines in the war against Islamic terrorism in the Balkans" and can be its "eyes and ears," the Times says.

A new paper by U.S. think tank Strategic Forecasting also calls the Balkans a "frontier conflict...in the U.S. war against the Islamist world," but proposes that Serbs handle security.

This is news to Westerners who live in the Balkans, where ethnic rather than religious friction is the real concern. A senior diplomat notes that the September 11 hijackers planted cells in the cities of Western Europe and the United States.

MORE BARS THAN MOSQUES

Since the September 2001 attacks, Washington has mostly ignored the Balkans. The influential, neo-conservative Project for the American Century and the American Enterprise Institute have both said little about it on their Web Sites since 2000.

The idea of extracting 4,000 U.S. troops from NATO peace missions in Bosnia and Kosovo was raised in September by visiting General Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, as a means of partially relieving U.S. overstretch in Iraq.

If this puts a Balkan pullout on the 2004 election agenda, the Al Qaeda scare could blacken the image of Bosnian Muslims and benefit those vying to be what the Times, in an echo of the 13th century Crusades, called the "rampart of Christendom."

There are seven million Muslims in the Balkans. But this is not Afghanistan, Chechnya or the Middle East.

It is customary to remove shoes on entering a home, but veiled faces and long beards are rare. There are more bars than mosques, serving women in jeans. Life does not come to a halt five times a day for prayer, and Sharia law is not an option.

There is no growing fundamentalist fervor and no deep resentment of or hostility to America -- rather the reverse.

There is no "war" or terrorist emergency. The main priority of secular governments in Bosnia, Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia is to complete reforms so they can join the European Union.

The Washington Times, however, states that a "resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism in Bosnia...seeks to either wipe out or convert all Christians in the region."

Strategic Forecasting says Islamists in Albania and Bosnia are able "to hit U.S. troops in both areas." A Balkan Al Qaeda, it warns, "could explode in Washington's face at any time."

Both analyzes cite sparse and questionable anecdotal evidence as the basis for their alarming conclusions.

"INSULTING AND INACCURATE"

The fundamentalist bogeyman serves as an "I-told-you-so" justification for vicious treatment of Muslims by their Serb and Croat neighbors in the wars of 1992-95. Potentially, it can help wreck the Dayton pact that has bound Bosnia since 1996.

The idea of consigning Balkan security to the Serbs, whose two wartime leaders are on the run from charges of genocide, meets with incredulity.

Bosnia's International High Representative, Paddy Ashdown, rejected the Times' "insulting and inaccurate prejudices from afar" insisting it "is not a terrorist base nor will become one."

"Those of us who live in the Balkans have yet to see any evidence of Islamic terrorism," he told the newspaper.

The Turkish Ottoman empire occupied the Balkans for 400 years from the 15th century, introducing a tolerant Islam. But communist secularization greatly eroded its influence.

Balkans Islamic scholars told Reuters the "white Al Qaeda" scare relies on ignorance of the faith and of Muslim gratitude for America's role in stopping Serb aggression.

Today, about 10 percent of Bosnian Muslims attend Friday prayers, said Ahmet Alibasic of Sarajevo's Faculty of Islamic Studies. But the number of those praying five times a day -- the key measure of devoutness -- is maybe just a few percent.

Stalinist Albania banned religion in 1967, declaring an atheist state and turning mosques and churches into warehouses. Religion has not revived strongly since communism fell in 1991.

"Islam in Albania has a peripheral dimension because it has been away for too long," said Islamic poet Ervin Hatibi.

Next door in Kosovo, where Muslim Albanians number two million or 90 percent of the population, a similar picture emerges: the percentage of fervent believers is quite small.

The soil for extremism, as Ashdown said, is no more fertile here than in U.S. or Western Europe cities where the September 11 hijackers planted their cells. Even if it were, tolerating extremism would be the fastest way to kill U.S. support for united Bosnia and Kosovo's hopes of independence from Serbia.



>>>>Western diplomats in the region discount the threat.

So what's new?

[Cicero]

Well, a great many of us have been saying that clinton fought the war on the wrong side, even before it started.

The Serbs used to be our main allies in the Balkans. Clinton decided to ally himself with the Muslims. He winked his eye when thousands of terrrorists poured into Bosnia. And he bombed civilian targets in Yugoslavia in order to turn Kosovo over to a bunch of drug-running, church-burning Albanian thugs.

Reuters just noticed?

[The_Reader_David]

No. Writing that 'the real deal is ethnicity' in the context of the Balkans shows an absolute misunderstanding of the Balkans. Serb, Croat and Bosniac are all the same ethnicity! The defining difference is religion.

[Prodigal Son]

Douglas Hamilton from Reuters. Well, well, well. That guy's on my media hit list since Operation Iraqi Freedom and before. A little more subtle than Robert Fisk. Guy thinks he's clever. He changed Comical Ali's words once from "America will be stuck in a swamp from which they will never escape" to "American will be stuck in a quagmire..." Hamilton just rewrites the facts and history as he sees fit.

This guy is a piece of work. When you see his name on the article, keep in mind he was one of the ones putting heavy duty negative spin on everything that was happening back in March/April. He has an agenda to say the least.

[Steve_Seattle]

The Times of London has also reported that al-Quaida and other Islamists have hopes to use the Balkans as a staging ground for further mischief in Europe, and I believe it. I believe pan-Islamic sentiments are more powerful than ethnic loyalties.

[singsong]

The real deal is religion and always has been. Ethnic conflicts were artificial and inflated from outside - with oil money. New mosques are popping up in the region faster than I can type - again with oil money. It's a religious conquest which Western Europe tried to exploit with help from Clintoon, but it exploded on our soil too. Now EU is using the Islamists against US, hoping to gain economic supremacy. But at the same time they have been culturally conqured by the Islamists. That's why Reuters (oil money) is trying to downplay the religious connection. Everyone who trusts these skunks deserve their fate.

[1rudeboy]

Haven't tried to post an excerpt before.

You did just fine. Now, can you please go back to posting articles in their entirety?