Free Republic

What has to be the most pro-American country on the globe outside of North America celebrated its first birthday on February 17. If George W. Bush ever needs a near fully-friendly venue, he can travel to Kosovo. As can Bill Clinton, whose giant visage beams down on Bill Clinton Boulevard in the capitol city of Pristina. Kosovars love America and Americans, or at least the vast, vast majority of them do. I spent three days with the men and women of the 40th Infantry Division at its base at Camp Bondsteel this past week, and in long travels with various...

As Judge Fernando Andreu of Spain's National Court decided on Monday to push on with the inquiry into a 2002 IAF bombing in Gaza that killed Hamas terrorist Salah Shehadeh and 14 others, Almagor, the Terror Victims Association, was finalizing a lawsuit against NATO personnel who approved bombings in Yugoslavia in the 1990s that killed some 2,500 civilians. In this July 23, 2002 photo, people sift through the rubble of a Gaza house destroyed in an IAF strike, in which Hamas military wing head Salah Shehadeh and 14 other people were killed. Photo: AP [file] SLIDESHOW: Israel & Region |...

An international human rights group demanded Thursday that NATO be held accountable for civilian casualties in the bombing of Serbia's state television headquarters a decade ago, calling the attack a "war crime." Sixteen civilians were killed and 16 others injured during the attack on April 23, 1999, on the headquarters and studios of Radio Television Serbia in central Belgrade. Amnesty International called on NATO and its member states to ensure independent investigations, full accountability and redress for victims and their families.... ....The bombing was a part of a 78-day air-raid campaign against then-President Slobodan Milosevic to halt his onslaught against...

Michael Montgomery BBC Radio 4, Crossing Continents The man spoke plainly as he explained the horrors he lived through in a Kosovo Liberation Army prison camp 10 years ago. He told me about how he watched people beaten with steel pipes, cut with knives, left for days without food, and shot and killed. Civilians were detained by the KLA and kept in prisons where some were killed "What can you feel when you see those things?" he said. "It's something that is stuck in my mind for the rest of my life. You cannot do those things to people, not...

The successful demonization of the Serbs, making them largely responsible for the Yugoslav wars, and as unique and genocidal killers, was one of the great propaganda triumphs of our era. It was done so quickly, with such uniformity and uncritical zeal in the mainstream Western media, that disinformation had (and still has, after almost two decades) a field day.The demonization flowed from the gullibility of Western interests and media (and intellectuals). With Yugoslavia no longer useful as an ally after the fall of the Soviet Union, and actually an obstacle as an independent state with a still social democratic bent,...

VINA DEL MAR, Chile (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said on Saturday his country's relationship with Spain went beyond disagreement over a Spanish decision to pull troops out of Kosovo. Biden and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero held bilateral talks during a pre-G20 warm-up meeting of center-left leaders in the Chilean coastal resort of Vina del Mar on Saturday. "The relationship we have with Spain exceeds whatever disagreement we may have over Kosovo," Biden said at the end of the summit. "We talked about the need for expanding communications." .... Spain confirmed on Sunday it would...

SERBIANS marked the 10th anniversary of the start of a NATO blitz on the former federal republic of Yugoslavia on Tuesday with commemorations honouring over 3,000 victims. Air-raid sirens sounded at noon throughout the country, while schools opened classes with a minute's silence for the 89 children who were killed in the 78-day bombing campaign, which was initiated without UN security council backing. NATO claimed that it had launched Operation Allied Force in order to force then president Slobodan Milosevic to stop a military crackdown against Western-backed separatist insurgents in Kosovo province and pull out his troops. But the US...

The United States is issuing unusually strong criticism of NATO ally Spain by expressing surprise at its decision to pull out its troops from the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Kosovo. State Department spokesman Robert Wood says the United States was "deeply disappointed" by the decision. He says Washington only learned of the move shortly before Spain announced it publicly. Defense Minister Carme Chacon made the announcement Thursday, saying, "The mission has been completed and it is time to return home." Asked if the United States shared that assessment, Wood said, "Not at all."

Press release Tuesday, March 10, 2009. (Belgrade, 10. March 2009) Ten years after the NATO bombing of Serbia, unexploded cluster munitions still represent a deadly threat to tens of thousands of people living in 16 municipalities in Serbia. A survey implemented by Norwegian People’s Aid for the first time details the scope of the impact of cluster bombs in the country. The results of the survey were presented at a press conference in Belgrade today. Regional Director of NPA in southeast Europe Emil Jeremic explained that ”with the comprehensive survey Serbia now has a tool for solving the problems of...

SKOPJE -- Skopje has no official information on the claims that there was trafficking of Albanians' organs through Macedonia during the Kosovo conflict. Albanian language media in Kosovo recently picked up articles in Macedonian papers in Albanian that the organs of Kosovo Albanians listed missing were "harvested and sold to Russians by Serbs". The Macedonian Interior Ministry (MUP) told the Beta news agency that this is the first time they have heard these allegations, and that there have been no demands for investigations. A similar statement was given by the Macedonian Foreign Ministry as well. The Albanian language daily Lajm,...

This excellent documentary was banned in Czech Republic by Czech TV, and most probably in all mainstream globalist media in western countries. It will reveal to you the horrifying story of Kosovo that nobody ever wanted to tell you... (from the description on YouTube) part1part2part3part4part5part6

PRISTINA-- Kosovo’s president and prime minister have been invited to meet with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Feb. 26, says the U.S. embassy in Priština. “The secretary of state is looking forward to the meeting with Kosovo’s president and prime minister on Feb. 26, in order to reassure them of the U.S. promise of friendship and support for Kosovo,” said State Department spokesman Robert Wood in a statement issued by the American embassy last night. Additionally, it is stated that last year “Kosovo took quick steps forwards toward building democratic institutions and carrying out the basic principles of...

BELGRADE -- An group calling itself the Army of the Republic of Kosovo has claimed responsibility for the bombing of the International Civilian Office (ICO) in Priština (on November 14th). Three German nationals were arrested on November 14 over the incident, but will probably be released due to a lack of evidence. The Albanian group sent a message via a personal e-mail account, threatening the Kosovo government, media and international organizations in the province. “As long as the UN plan is in force, we will attack with full might and there will be no security for Serbs that live in...

The statement by Yuriy Buligin, a representative of the Russian chamber of commerce, that the ratification of the natural gas and oil agreement by the Serbian Assembly does not also mean that the construction of South Stream will begin has once more raised the question of what the actual future is of that alternative gas pipeline, which is supposed to be an energy link between Russia and Europe. Buligin's position is interpreted as an effort to occupy a better starting position on the eve of the resumption of Serbia's negotiations with Gazprom concerning the construction of South Stream and the...

National Post, April 08, 2004 We bombed the wrong side? by Lewis MacKenzie 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...

BELGRADE - They sit like open sores at the heart of this turbulent eastern European nation. Long before international fugitive Miladin Kovacevic revived tensions between the U.S. and Serbia, NATO bombs reduced a row of once formidable government buildings here to hulking shells. The ravaged red-brick and concrete buildings are still standing nearly 10 years after the American-led aerial assault. They represent a wound that, many Serbians say, still runs deep. "Our people look at America like it's an enemy," said Niko Percovic, 30, a reporter based in the northern city of Novi Sad. That is one of the reasons,...

The United States will pledge $400 million in aid to Kosovo next week at a donors conference expected to raise more than $1 billion for the newly independent state, a senior U.S. official said on Wednesday..... The Bush administration requested the bulk of its pledge from the U.S. Congress more than a year ago, well before Kosovo declared independence, out of a certainty that the region would need financial help whenever it declared independence.

American Deputy Secretary of State John Bolton believes the United States committed a serious mistake when it recognized the independence of Kosovo. He fears such policy may escalate tensions in the Balkans. In an interview for the Russian news agency Interfax, Mr. Bolton remarked that Washington’s policy was on autopilot since the regime of the late Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic. But the situation has changed considerably after the democratic government took over, which, in Mr. Bolton’s opinion, makes support for Kosovo’s independence a pointless atavism.

GNJILANE, Kosovo, April 17, 2008 – Thronged sidewalks and cafes, jammed roads and packed store shelves suggest progress in this former war zone where National Guard troops play a key role in an international effort to keep the world’s newest country on the path of peace. Army Maj. Gen. Larry Shellito, adjutant general of the Minnesota National Guard; Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty; and Army Brig. Gen. John Davoren, commander of Kosovo Force’s Multinational Task Force East, tour Kosovo on April 12, 2008. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Jim Greenhill, National Guard Bureau   (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image...

Carla del Ponte, the former chief prosecutor for war crimes in former Yugoslavia, has unleashed a storm of recrimination with allegations of a trade in human body parts in Kosovo and Albania after Nato bombed Serbia in 1999. Del Ponte claims, based on what she describes as credible reports and witnesses, that Kosovan Albanian guerrillas transported hundreds of Serbian prisoners into northern Albania where they were killed, and their organs "harvested" and trafficked out of Tirana airport. The Kosovan government, now headed by the former guerrilla leader Hashim Thaci, dismisses the claims as untrue, while Serbia and Russia are demanding...