Free Republic

The conflict that raged throughout the former Yugoslavia was met by a wall of silence when it came to important issues. These important issues apply to America and the United Kingdom supporting Islamists in a brutal civil war in Bosnia and then installing a new nation by ignoring international law in Kosovo. Also, is it credible to believe that the vast majority of major news agencies and national governments did not know about thousands of Islamists in Europe who were sent to slit the throats and behead Orthodox Christians? Shoeless Holbrooke sits with Muslim Albanian gunmen that ran the organ...

This week, the Globe and Mail asked General Lewis McKenzie (Retired) to write the obituary of American diplomat Richard Holbrooke. It was a good idea. The two men had crossed paths more than once on the global stage of the Great Game. McKenzie declined. Holbrooke had just died and the general knew that what he had to say would hardly produce the standard panegyric. When I caught up with McKenzie, he was shoveling snow after a spell away from home. I asked for an interview and to my surprise, he agreed. “I’m just going to tell you what I thought...

PARIS — A two-year international inquiry has concluded that the prime minister of Kosovo led a clan of criminal entrepreneurs whose activities included trafficking in organs extracted from Serbian prisoners executed during the Kosovo conflict in 1999. The inquiry, prepared for the Council of Europe, names the prime minister, Hashim Thaci, as the boss of the Drenica Group, an organized crime network that flourished in Kosovo and Albania after the war and exerted control over numerous rackets, including the heroin trade, and six secret detention centers in Albania, some used in a black market in human organs.

Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke collapsed today during a meeting in Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's office, officials said. According to Democratic sources, Ambassador Holbrooke, Secretary Clinton's top aide for the region, gasped and was clearly undergoing a medical situation when he collapsed. He is said to have walked out of her office on his own power and was tended to by medical personnel at the State Department before being transported to George Washington University Hospital where to be treated for a blood clot. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley refused to confirm Ambassador Holbrooke's condition, but confirmed...

“Conservative” Joseph DioGuardi’s “sensational” election as the GOP Senate candidate in New York has shaken up the Republican Party, gloats the Tropoja-based Albanian Minerals President M. Mujaj in the Wall Street Journal Blog. “The American people have spoken,” this self-styled compatriot of ours is telling us. “The American way of life needs to be rebalanced. Households need to stop spending what they don’t have. Local and state governments need to slash their budgets to live off whatever tax revenues they generate [...] The American people voted for change.” What Mr. Mujaj does not mention is that former Congressman DioGuardi is...

On the same day the anti-illegal immigration group Americans for Legal Immigration endorsed former Congressman J.D. Hayworth in his bid to unseat Senator John McCain as the GOP candidate for Senate, the McCain campaign is calling on Hayworth to disavow the endorsement. "J.D. Hayworth's lavish praise for the social theories of noted anti-Semite and xenophobe Henry Ford sparked a major controversy during his losing 2006 campaign, causing many Arizonans to question Mr. Hayworth's judgment. It is astounding that Mr. Hayworth would today accept the endorsement of a group that the Anti-Defamation League reports is backed by white supremacists, neo-Nazis and...

BILLINGS - American Police Force officials showed up in Mercedes SUV's that had "Hardin Police" stenciled on the vehicles. The twist, the city of Hardin doesn't have a police department. Two Rivers Authority officials say having APF patrol the streets was never part of their agenda. "I have no idea. I really don't because that's not been a part of any of the discussions we've had with any of them," said Two Rivers Authority's Al Peterson. As it stands now the Big Horn County Sheriff's Department is contracted to patrol the city and APF has no jurisdiction. If that was...

2009-07-16 18:57:55 Former fighters from the Kosovo Liberation staged Thursday a protest demonstration in the capital of the Kosovo Republic Prishtina. About 50 men who fought in the KLA in 1998-1999 rallied in demand of an increase of their government pensions, BGNES reported. The demonstrators even threw a hand-made bomb and two explosives in the yard of the Cabinet headquarters in Prishtina but they failed to go off. NATO troops from KFOR arrived at the spot of the incident in order to remove the explosives, and the police isolated the whole quarter. The leaders of the KLA protesters have vowed...

I first laid eyes on Richard Holbrooke (he won't remember) on Monday evening, September 21, 1992. Some ridiculously wealthy Manhattan socialite had thrown a party for Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic, then the new cause du jour, and some boutique human rights group — a bogus one, I realized in retrospect, now defunct, though its chieftain has since moved to greener pastures and is still active — had decided that I might be useful and had flown me up for the soirée. As it was, nobody was interested in me, I had a drink or two, ate some peanuts, and went...

Want someone murdered? Albanian hitmen are touting for business in London, apparently without any fear of the law are we living in Chicago or a scene of the "Goodfellas" News Desk The London Daily News has discovered that professional Albanian assassins are "touting" for business in the capital claiming to be able to "take out" targets for as little as £5,000. In an under cover investigation into criminal gangs operating in north London Albanians who fought in the KLA during the bloody Balkans conflict against Serbia, now have now established themselves as formidable figures in the London's underworld. Experienced users...

Julia Gorin's unpublished letter to the Washington Times: The Washington Times recently gave print space to William Walker, described as a retired U.S. Foreign Service officer and former ambassador. But Walker is much more than that. In Kosovo, he remains a hands-on operative who has trained, and implemented the demands of, our terrorist ally the KLA — which as predicted now controls the Serbian province as its “legitimate” rulers. The piece (“A Separate Take from Serbia”, Feb. 24) was presented as a response to an op-ed by Serbian President Boris Tadic, when in fact it was an attempt by essentially...

"He (McCain) did everything that we asked of him, including arming the KLA", said Albanian lobbyist Joe DioGuardi. The Albanians collected one million dollars for the presidential campaign of this senator.Americans of Albanian heritage collected a million dollars in one evening for the presidential campaign of Republican Senator John McCain, said the Albanian American Civic League yesterday, the lobby group headed by former Congressman Joe DioGuardi. A reception for McCain was held January 22 at the Saint Regis Hotel in Manhattan, and the senator, who is now leading in the runoff for the Republican party candidacy in the November elections,...

PRISTINA, Kosovo -- Kosovo armed forces took over security duties on Wednesday, less than a year after the territory declared independence from Serbia, officials said. The Kosovo Protection Force replaces a 3,000-strong civilian emergency organization formed out of the disbanded ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army that fought Serbia in the 1998-99 war. New commander Lt. Gen. Sylejman Selimi, a former rebel fighter, said the 2,500 lightly armed troops would fulfill security duties in the fledgling nation, but would remain under the supervision of NATO's 15,000 peacekeepers in charge of overall security. It will be trained by British NATO officers, wear...

PRISTINA (Reuters) - Germany declined to comment on Saturday on reports that three Germans arrested on suspicion of throwing explosives at an EU office in Kosovo were intelligence officers. The explosive charge was thrown on November 14 at the International Civilian Office (ICO), the office of EU Special Representative Pieter Feith, who oversees Kosovo's governance, but caused only minor damage. The men were detained on Thursday. The three were questioned on Saturday by a Pristina district court judge who ordered them to be detained until December 22. A defense lawyer told reporters that the three were suspected of having committed...

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain has enjoyed strong support from a lobbyist group that backs the Kosovo Liberation Army despite allegations the KLA is a Muslim terrorist group with ties to criminal drug networks and al-Qaida. The Albanian American Civic League, or AACL, regards the KLA as "freedom fighters," said the AACL's president, former Republican congressman Joe DioGuardi of New York. They're "not terrorist, like the Serbs and Greeks say," DioGuardi insisted in an interview with WND. But Islam expert Robert Spencer, editor of the popular website Jihad Watch, contends radical Islam is the driving force behind the Kosovo...

John McCain armed Kosovo Islamic terrorists February 13, 2008 Source: Svet Americans of Albanian heritage collected a million dollars in one evening for the presidential campaign of Republican Senator John McCain, said the Albanian American Civic League yesterday, the lobby group headed by former Congressman Joe DioGuardi. A reception for McCain was held January 22 at the Saint Regis Hotel in Manhatten, and the senator, who is now leading in the runoff for the Republican party candidacy in the November elections, cut his campaign in Florida by one day to attend this gathering. "Even in 1998 when we had problems...

“He did everything that we asked of him, including arming the KLA”, said Albanian lobbyist Joe DioGuardi. The Albanians collected one million dollars for the presidential campaign of this senator. Americans of Albanian heritage collected a million dollars in one evening for the presidential campaign of Republican Senator John McCain, said the Albanian American Civic League yesterday, the lobby group headed by former Congressman Joe DioGuardi. A reception for McCain was held January 22 at the Saint Regis Hotel in Manhatten, and the senator, who is now leading in the runoff for the Republican party candidacy in the November elections,...

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain has enjoyed strong support from a lobbyist group that backs the Kosovo Liberation Army despite allegations the KLA is a Muslim terrorist group with ties to criminal drug networks and al-Qaida. The Albanian American Civic League, or AACL, regards the KLA as "freedom fighters," said the AACL's president, former Republican congressman Joe DioGuardi of New York. They're "not terrorist, like the Serbs and Greeks say," DioGuardi insisted in an interview with WND. But Islam expert Robert Spencer, editor of the popular website Jihad Watch, contends radical Islam is the driving force behind the Kosovo...

The Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), since its inception in 1993 has been assailed by many as a NATO political instrument to justify dismemberment of Yugoslavia and NATO aggressions. It has been essentially a rogue court with rigged rules and scandalous protocol to achieve political objective to convict. Some judges did not hear about the Balkans until they arrived in The Hague. John Laughland wrote: “It is not victor’s justice; it is no justice at all.” The Tribunal’s verdict for the Serbs was predetermined –all would be found guilty. Over its 15 years of existence, the Tribunal has indicted...

I have written in today's paper about the revelations from Carla del Ponte's new book "The Hunt: Me and War criminals". I wanted to talk to her before writing the piece, but was unable to get an interview. Some readers of this blog have already posted snippets of the book in their comments. Most of these excerpts - translated from the original Italian - have come from Serb media outlets - perhaps not the most objective source for a story about Serbs being tortured. So with the help of our Rome correspondent, Malcolm Moore, I have put together a transcription...