Free Republic

One of those moments you never forget: 18 years ago, before the dawn on March 25, 1999, I stepped outside the door to find The New York Times there on the ground with the headline announcing that NATO had begun its bombing campaign against the Serbs in the former Yugoslavia on March 24, 1999. I remember looking at that front page of the paper before picking it up and thinking - "They are really doing it... It's no longer a threat... It's real... It's real... What a mistake... What a mistake..." Then I picked up the paper and went back...

Victims of Croatia's pro-Nazi World War II regime and their relatives are seeking $3.5 billion in damages in a suit filed in the US.Visitor walks past display at US Holocaust Memorial Museum (Reuters) Victims of Croatia's pro-Nazi World War II regime and their relatives are seeking $3.5 billion in damages in a suit filed in the United States, local media and officials said Monday. The group wants compensation from the Croatian government for property seized from ethnic Serbs, Roma and Jews, as well as for their suffering during the war, state-run HRT television reported. The suit was filed in a...

Melania Trump will become the first foreign-born wife of an American president in almost 200 years. On January 20, her husband, Donald Trump, will be inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States. Most Americans do not know much about 46-year-old Melania Trump. She was born in the former Yugoslav republic of Slovenia. It is a small country surrounded by Austria, Hungary, Italy and Croatia. It has a small coastline on the Adriatic Sea. Slovenia also has castles that are hundreds of years old, large forests and clear rivers. VOA recently traveled to the country to learn about Melania...

Aleksandra's Note: I sure wish OSS veterans George "Guv" Musulin, Arthur "Jibby" Jibilian, Nick Lalich and others were alive to see this!A great step forward in "official recognition" of rescue operations such as the HALYARD MISSION in WWII Yugoslavia which was made possible by General Draza Mihailovich, his Chetniks, and the Serbian people loyal to them.Bravo!Sincerely,Aleksandra Rebic***** Congressman Latta with OSS Veterans and their families House Passes Legislation to Honor OSS Veterans with Congressional Gold MedalPassage applauded by legislation authors, Congressman Latta, Senator Blunt, and Senator WarnerLegislation to honor veterans of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) with a Congressional...

SEVNICA, Slovenia — When Melania Trump was born in 1970, her small industrial hometown on the banks of the Sava River was part of Communist Yugoslavia. Forty-six years later, she is married to the next leader of the free world and the rural Slovenian town of Sevnica is embracing the success of its most famous citizen.

Montenegro says an investigation has shown that Russian nationalists were behind an alleged coup attempt on election day because of the government's bid to join NATO. Chief Special Prosecutor Milivoje Katnic said Sunday that the investigation leads to the conclusion that "nationalists from Russia" organized a criminal group that planned to break into Parliament and cause violence in the tiny Balkan country. Some 20 Serbian and Montenegrin citizens, including a former commander of Serbia's special police forces, were arrested in Montenegro during the Oct. 16 election.

Montenegro's chief special prosecutor has said "nationalists from Russia" were behind an attempt to assassinate the PM and carry out a coup. Milivoje Katnic said the plot involved killing pro-Western PM Milo Djukanovic with a professional long-distance sharpshooter. The plotters are accused of planning to break into parliament and bring a pro-Russian government to power.

It's been nearly half a century since the term "agony of defeat" joined the lexicon of American sports. To this day, the phrase remains a broadcasting staple, whether it's coverage of the Olympics or any number of sports. A Google search for "agony of defeat" returns nearly 500,000 results. With that in mind, we revisit the viral video that made an indelible mark on the sports world long before the era of social media -- the frightful ski jumping crash from the opening montage of "ABC's Wide World of Sports."

Authorities say a 25-year-old described as an Islamic extremist was arrested in a plot to attack sites around Tampa, Florida, after taking possession of disabled guns and bombs The U.S. Department of Justice announced the arrest of Sami Osmakac on Monday. Authorities say Osmakac is a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in the former Yugoslavia. He has been charged with one count of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction. His first appearance in federal court is scheduled for Monday afternoon. Federal officials say a confidential source told them that Osmakac wanted Al Qaeda flags. The federal complaint...

General Draza Mihailovich Belgrade 1946 The famous bridge over the Drina River in Visegrad, Bosnia. Photo: Creative Commons Aleksandra's note: 70 years ago, on the night of March 12-13, 1946 near Visegrad in Bosnia, the town made famous by Ivo Andric's classic novel "The Bridge on the Drina" published in 1945, the most decorated Serbian military officer and leader of the first successful uprising against the Nazis in all of occupied Europe was finally captured by the Yugoslav communist special security agents (OZNA) loyal to Marshal Josip Broz Tito after a long manhunt. A short time later the Yugoslav communists...

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called on opposition lawmakers in Kosovo on Wednesday to stop setting off tear gas in parliament, and on the young country to combat corruption, Islamic radicalism and ethnic division. In the Balkans for the first time as secretary of state, Kerry's brief stop in Kosovo underscored Western concern over the slow pace of progress 16 years after a U.S.-led NATO air war set the former Serbian province on the road to independence.

Many companies and business publish internal newsletters or magazines, and America’s intelligence services are no different. The CIA runs the pulpy fount of weirdness that is Studies in Intelligence while the NSA puts out the Cryptologic Quarterly. The agencies often declassify and digitize back issues of these magazines for the public. The articles are a wealth of weird, wonderful and fascinating takes on historic and current events written by people who have access to secret information not privy to the public. A recently declassified article from a 2000 issue of Cryptologic Quarterly is a doozy.

Serbia is this Wednesday marking a day of remembrance for the Serbs who were killed or exiled in the wars during the 1990s.A convoy of ethnic Serb refugees expelled from Croatia 20 yearsa ago (Tanjug, file) The government also declared today a day of mourning for the victims of Croatia's Operation Storm that took place 20 years ago and resulted in the expulsion of over 200,000 Serbs, while more than 2,000 were listed as killed or missing. A memorial service for the victims in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina will be held in St. Marko's Church in Belgrade. At noon, bells will...

Croatia's Operation Storm was a joint criminal enterprise whose goal was to expel the Serb people in Croatia from the areas they lived in for centuries.This has been stated by the head of the Coalition of Refugee Associations Miodrag Linta. He spoke for Serbia's state broadcaster RTS on the occasion of the upcoming 20th anniversary of Croatia's military and police campaign. Linta said that over 220,000 Serbs were expelled from Croatia during Operation Storm, while around 2,000 were killed - 1,200 of them civilians. At the same time more than 40,000 residential and business premises owned by Serbs were set...

Portrait of General Mihailovich by Wisconsin artist Jim Pollard. JUSTICE PREVAILS EVEN IN DEATH - A VICTORIOUS VINDICATION FOR GENERAL DRAZA MIHAILOVICH! On May 14, 2015 what so many of us have been hoping and praying for all these years finally came to pass! As the world marked the 70th anniversary of the end of World War Two, one of the war's greatest heroes and martyrs was officially rehabilitated by the Higher Court in Belgrade, Serbia! The historic decision was final, reversing one of the most unjust convictions in the history of mankind, and restored all civil rights to Serbian...

The U.N. Security Council delayed a vote on a British-drafted resolution that would condemn the 1995 massacre at Srebrenica during the Bosnian war as “a crime of genocide” until Wednesday after Russia informed council members it would veto the measure. Supporters of the resolution had been hoping for its unanimous approval to mark the 20th anniversary of the slaughter by Bosnian Serbs of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys who had sought refuge at what was supposed to be a U.N.-protected site. But leaders of the Bosnian Serbs and Serbia, who have close religious and cultural ties to Russia, have...

According to Italian media reports, the Vatican congregation concluded June 24 that the alleged Marian apparitions are inauthentic, but recognized the site as a place of prayer.If reports in Italian media outlets are to be believed, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith met June 24 to discuss the alleged Marian apparitions in Medjugorje, reaching the conclusion that they are inauthentic, but recognizing the site as a place of prayer. On Thursday, Vatican watcher Gianluca Barile wrote that, “for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in fact, the ‘apparitions’ do not have any supernatural character; therefore,...

And you thought Sidney Blumenthal was shady. Few people have heard of Cody Shearer, the unsanctioned diplomat, private eye, and Clinton flunky whose name surfaced in connection with the so-called intelligence reports Sidney Blumenthal was channeling to Hillary Clinton during her time at the State Department. But this shadowy fixture of the Clinton machine was everywhere in the 1990s — including war-torn Bosnia, where he became the subject of a State Department investigation after he represented himself as an agent of the U.S. government and took cash from a genocidal warlord. Now evidence suggests Shearer, working with his partner Blumenthal,...

(Aug 2, 2012) POLISH officials have unveiled a statue of former President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II, honouring two men widely credited in this Eastern European country with helping to topple communism 23 years ago. The statue was unveiled in Gdansk, the birthplace of Lech Walesa's Solidarity movement, in the presence of about 120 former Solidarity activists, many of whom were imprisoned in the 1980s for their roles in organising or taking part in strikes against the communist regime. The bronze statue, erected in the lush seaside President Ronald Reagan Park, is a slightly larger-than-life rendering of the...

Soviet Communism, the dark tyranny that controlled nearly 40 nations and was responsible for the deaths of an estimated 100 million victims during the 20th century, suddenly collapsed 20 years ago without a shot being fired. In just two years--from 1989 to 1991--the Berlin Wall fell, the Soviet Union disintegrated, and Marxism- Leninism was dumped unceremoniously on the ash heap of history. There was dancing in the street and champagne toasts on top of the Brandenburg Gate. For 40 years, the United States and the West had been following a policy of containment, détente, accommodation. Ronald Reagan decided it was...