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Albania tells Washington of willingness to send more troops to Iraq
AP | 4/19/04

Posted on 04/19/2004 7:47:13 AM PDT by kattracks

TIRANA, Albania (AP) -- Albania, a predominantly Muslim country, told the United States it was prepared to send more non-combat troops to Iraq, the government said Monday, in a possible expansion of the 71-member-strong contingent patrolling the northern city of Mosul under U.S. command.

Despite the small number of Albanian forces, the public commitment from Tirana was bound to be welcome news to the United States after Spain's weekend announcement that it was withdrawing its 1,300-member contingent as soon as possible.

Albanian Foreign Minister Kastriot Islami made the offer Friday in a letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell.

The statement did not say what the increase would be. But earlier this month the defense ministry said it was considering increasing its commitment to 200 soldiers, despite the recent terrorist attacks against members of the U.S.-led coalition.

"We have expressed our readiness to positively respond to the request for additional forces and we are working to set the practical details to achieve that," the minister was quoted as telling Powell.

Albania was one of the most vocal backers of the U.S.-led war in Iraq. Although it was unable to provide significant military support, it opened its airspace and offered U.S.-led forces the use of its bases.



TOPICS: Heated Discussion
KEYWORDS: albania; allies; balkans; friends; waronterror
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To: Alter Kaker
Guns to the Albanians!

Why guns? They seem to do fine with matches alone.

81 posted on 04/20/2004 4:17:44 PM PDT by MarMema (next year in Constantinople!)
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To: Lion in Winter
FYI, my dad served in Korea in 1952, I was born in America, and the utter vile of your stupidity requires me to reiterate: When your paws turn black from frostbite, cut them the hell off!

Quick Language lesson: How do you say a**hole in Albanian?
ANSWER: Lion in Winter. --natenmire
82 posted on 04/20/2004 4:17:56 PM PDT by Shqipo
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To: Shqipo
Quick Language lesson: How do you say a**hole in Albanian? ANSWER: Lion in Winter. --natenmire

QUICK NEWBIE LESSON
Learn some manners or earn a vacation.

83 posted on 04/20/2004 4:32:23 PM PDT by MarMema (next year in Constantinople!)
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To: Remole
Albania . . . Albania . . . It borders on the Ad-ri-atic . . ." Anyone know the rest of the verse?

I don't know....something about being the largest heroin running country in Europe?

84 posted on 04/20/2004 4:37:42 PM PDT by MarMema (next year in Constantinople!)
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To: Destro
Now if they could just keep their own killer mobs under control at home.
85 posted on 04/20/2004 4:38:37 PM PDT by MarMema (next year in Constantinople!)
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To: eleni121
Albanian Christians experienced the severest persecution under communism of all the countries in Eastern Europe.

Not likely. Russia and Romania, way, way before Albania.

86 posted on 04/20/2004 4:39:48 PM PDT by MarMema (next year in Constantinople!)
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To: nicollo
Is Albania today a Soviet client state?

"Intelligence documents show it has aligned itself with an extensive organized crime network in Albania that smuggles heroin to buyers throughout Western Europe and the United States. Drug agents in five countries believe the cartel is one of the most powerful heroin smuggling organizations in the world."

"Jane's Intelligence Review estimated in March that drug sales could have netted the KLA profits in the "high tens of millions of dollars." It said the KLA had rearmed itself for a spring offensive with the aid of drug money, along with donations from Albanians in Western Europe and the United States."

There is ample evidence to be suspect of Albanians here in the US. Lots of naive posters here, with good hearts, but they aren't as knowledgeable as some of us.

87 posted on 04/20/2004 4:47:35 PM PDT by MarMema (next year in Constantinople!)
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To: Shqipo; Hermann the Cherusker
While the rest of Europe sat on their asses, the Albanians fought off the mightiest Islamic Armies of Mehmed and Murad II, saving Rome and the papacy before finally being overrun.

Got a link to that?

Who said you did us any favors by saving Rome and the papacy? LOL. Is this true, Hermann? You were saved by the Albanians?

88 posted on 04/20/2004 4:51:01 PM PDT by MarMema (next year in Constantinople!)
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To: Alter Kaker
The KLA are not our allies, they are the enemy.
89 posted on 04/20/2004 4:52:13 PM PDT by FormerLib ("Homosexual marriage" is nothing more than another route to anarchy.)
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To: nicollo
No, but the Albanian KLA is an al Qaeda ally.

Case closed, as you say.
90 posted on 04/20/2004 4:56:06 PM PDT by FormerLib ("Homosexual marriage" is nothing more than another route to anarchy.)
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To: eleni121
Now if we could only keep the Albanians from destroying all of those centuries-old Serbian Orthodox Churches in Kosovo.
91 posted on 04/20/2004 4:58:34 PM PDT by FormerLib ("Homosexual marriage" is nothing more than another route to anarchy.)
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To: Alter Kaker
Yes, point the guns to the Albanians! That's the only way to be safe.
92 posted on 04/20/2004 5:01:15 PM PDT by FormerLib (Feja e shqiptarit eshte terorizm.)
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To: AdmSmith
No, this is like having more Jordanians join our forces in Kosovo (hint, hint).
93 posted on 04/20/2004 5:02:30 PM PDT by FormerLib (Feja e shqiptarit eshte terorizm.)
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To: GeraldP
Somebody must have cloned me!!

What, another bored eskimo?

Damn. There goes the nanookborhood.

94 posted on 04/20/2004 5:16:31 PM PDT by Hoplite
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To: ValerieUSA
And you are personally excused from my statement about naive posters.
95 posted on 04/20/2004 5:25:49 PM PDT by MarMema (next year in Constantinople!)
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To: Hoplite
But we're all happy to see you made your way here, nonetheless.

Settle in, enjoy yourself, have a drink. I know you will find this to be a cozy thread.

96 posted on 04/20/2004 5:27:32 PM PDT by MarMema (next year in Constantinople!)
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To: Becki
God really needs to bless Albania. It is a strong contender for the largest host country in Europe when it comes to drugs/heroin, child prostitution supplies, and crime gangs who "run" a basically lawless country.

Both Italy and Greece are very concerned with the number of prostitutes they keep returning and the crime gangs from Albania running heroin from their ports.

Albania is a main source of crime in Europe.

97 posted on 04/20/2004 5:41:28 PM PDT by MarMema (next year in Constantinople!)
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To: MarMema; FormerLib; Destro; Shqipo
Who said you did us any favors by saving Rome and the papacy? LOL. Is this true, Hermann? You were saved by the Albanians?

No more true than us being saved by the Serbs or the Romans of Constantinople or any number of other supposed saviors of the west.

The historical vignette provided in #13 is flawed in several respects. First, for example, it was the Serbs who "liberated" Albania in 1912, and then had the countryside of Albania "liberated" from them by the British/Austrian dominated peace conference and handed over to a group of Albanians who had never even considered revolting from the Ottoman Commonwealth.

Second, since the Albanians (and also Roman Greeks and Serbs and Hungarians) all failed in their quest to stop the Turk, its a little fatuous to pose them as saviors of the West. The West didn't spend the time the Turks wasted conquering the Balkans preparing its defences. Rather, it suffered the same catastrophic losses as the rest until the First and Second Battles of Vienna, and the Naval Battle of Lepanto, precisely because of its unprepared defences. The miracle of Lepanto was considered even more of a miracle because the Christian fleet was so much outgunned by the Muslims. The heterodox Bogomil tendencies of the people who would become Bosnak Muslims did not help either. They were a group of traitors in the midst.

Third, Rome was not an immediate target of Muslim operations. The Turks were more interested in expansion via land than overwater journies, being a steppe people, and not seafarers like the Greeks and Italians. Therefore, any route to Rome would need to first pass through Budapest, Vienna, then the Po Valley of Italy (Milan-Bologna-Venice). Seeing that the Turks never made it past the first obstacle out of the Balkans - Vienna -, its difficult to posit anyone but those who stopped them at Vienna - the German/Polish armies, as the saviors of the west. They were very likely also hindered by their ever expanding lines coming up out of the Balkans. The extension of Turkish rule further north and west than the roughly Trieste-Odessa line required an exponentially larger frontier for every mile of forward advance. The Turk simply was not capable of this considering his paucity of numbers (most of those who would become Turks in the future were then still Greek Romans not yet Islamicized and Turkified). Its simply a fact that the lines achieved were as far as they could logistically go, just as the similar lines achieved by the Romans in the Balkans were circa AD 100.

Some other Balkans historians are pinged for concurrence, amendment, reemphasis, etc.

98 posted on 04/20/2004 6:19:11 PM PDT by Hermann the Cherusker
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To: Hermann the Cherusker
I knew you would have this answer handy. Thank you.
99 posted on 04/20/2004 7:17:50 PM PDT by MarMema (next year in Constantinople!)
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To: Hoplite
>>>What, another bored eskimo?

Yeah didn't you know? The KLA has infiltrated the EAF (Eskimo Armed Forces) as part of its concerted and diabolical effort to take over the world. Go find out all about it at www.srpska_somethingoranother.com.
100 posted on 04/20/2004 9:08:59 PM PDT by GeraldP (From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.)
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