The War We Haven't Finished (Kosovo)

NY Times ^ | February 22, 2005 | FRANK C. CARLUCCI

[neverdem]

The Russkies are going to love this idea.

[Gumption]

The world reacted in horror six years ago when the Serbian regime of Slobodan Milosevic embarked on an ethnic cleansing operation against Kosovo's Albanians, forcing 700,000 people, nearly half the population, to flee the province. Reports of massacres and images of mileslong lines of refugees fleeing into neighboring Albania and Macedonia compelled the world to act. The NATO air campaign against Serbia that followed convinced Belgrade to give up its brutal assault, and Kosovo was put under United Nations administration.

All lies.

[oilfieldtrash]

They should split it. Serbs get the northern half and the shiptars the south. The only fair way.

Who finances the Carlyle group? Soros?

[RJL]

The War We Haven't Finished (Kosovo)

Where is the Clinton/Democrat exit strategy?

Clinton promised "one year" and out.

[malia]

bttt

[Carry_Okie]

What a load of crap. We never should have gone to Kosovo in the first place. One wonders what Carlucci owes to George Soros.

Here's a thread on the start of that little debacle in Kosovo.

[RockAgainsttheLeft04]

RE: "Where is the Clinton/Democrat exit strategy?

Clinton promised "one year" and out."


Exit strategy, HA! Kosovo was another "Bite lip, act tough, get the photo op and forget about it" foreign policy blunder on behalf of the Klintoons, useful as a means of wagging the dog during his Senate trial in early '99 and meaning nothing more to him. Who cares if Clinton chose to bomb the hell out of a potential ally at the REQUEST of a Muslim seperatist organization that was on the state Dept. list of terrorist groups until early 1998 (and aggravate an already dreary situation by facillitating a reverse-ethnic cleansing against the Serbs in Kosovo)? Not BC, not so long as he could have a war to build up his shoddy legacy.

Kosovo-- the disaster that made antiwar activists out of even the most conservative of us, if only for a time.

[MarMema]

Thanks for posting. But you forgot the hurl alert.

[neverdem]

Clinton promised "one year" and out.

IIRC, I thought that was the promise for Bosnia. By the time Kosovo happened, I don't believe he made any promises. We were still in Bosnia. IIRC, we finally exited Bosnia a few months ago.

One of the few things that Kosovo did was confirm was that NATO was good for little more than peacekeeping after hostilities.

[neverdem]

What are the lies? How is a former pubbie Secretary of Defense, chairman emeritus of the Carlyle Group, an investment firm specializing in the evil, capitalist, military-industrial complex,(/sarcasm) get on the take from Soros? All that I can read into this guest OpEd is that the ball needs to get rolling to a political settlement.

[Carry_Okie]

The Racak Massacre was an outright fraud.

[Incorrigible]

Wow! New York Times attention. Must be something big coming. Jomini! Please let us know!

Sorry MarMema, don't know why you weren't part of my ping list already but you are now.

[RJL]

Clinton promised "one year" and out.

IIRC, I thought that was the promise for Bosnia. By the time Kosovo happened, I don't believe he made any promises.

Mea culpa, I believe you are correct.

[Destro]

Who finances the Carlyle group? The Saudis and Bin Ladens among others.

[Destro]

The Carlyle Group has zero to do with Soros! Bin Laden money, yes - Soros - no.

[FormerLib]

Surrendering Kosovo to the invading Albanians would result in one final anti-Serb orgy that would see the remaining Serbs murdered and their remaining churches and monasteries in flames.

And that would make many of our anti-Serb shills here on FR smile, I'm quite sure.

This would create a permanent state of war on Serbia's border that would only end after the foreigners leave and the Serbian/Montenegrin Army returned and corrected the situation.

And this time, the narco-terrorists wouldn't have Clinton (getting serviced by his latest intern, perhaps) to save them.

[A. Pole]

The War We Haven't Finished

Some Serbs are still alive and the Muslims do not whole the whole Kosovo yet? O horror, we need to renew the bombing! Put more sanctions on Belgrade, send more Serbian leaders to the Hague!

[Wraith]

It would be easy to assume that the powers to be wish to settle the never ending story of Kosovo and redeploy much needed troops elsewhere. This brings up the question what did NATO get themselves into and in trying to get out of it what will be Kosovo's new reality? Not hard to imagine that the Serbs are not going to sit quietly and let part of Serbia become an official part of the KLA criminal empire which by the way is nothing more than another drug cartel. The Serbs also know how to fight a gorilla war. Tito showed them.

The only real solution would be to let the Serb authorities take back kosovo and administer law there with the international community providing monitoring. No doubt there would be unhappy Albanians but once the KLA thugs start to kill more UNMIK Police (sound familiar) as well as NATO soldiers, the Serb option will be the only route to take. The general Albanian population is as equally fearful of the KLA. I believe the Serbs who are under a new administration will be Kosovo's only option.

If Kosovo was to become an indipendantAlbanian state or become part of Albania what next? The end result will be a civil war spilling into a regional war involving Greece, Macedonia and Serbia not to mention the Russians will certainly be in the background providing support. This will happen folks. The best option is to let the Serbs back into Kosovo under UN monitoring. Better a small mess than a big one.

[Oplenac]

Reports of massacres and images of mileslong lines of refugees fleeing into neighboring Albania and Macedonia compelled the world to act.

In this statement the former U.S. Secretary of Defense frames history in the exact mold as presented by the the US Defense and State Departments and the U.S. Media: That is, by extreme distortion, and by outright lies.

Of course, he knows more accurately what occurred: that a sovereign State was threatened with violence (Rambouillet), and that bombs were dropped in the middle of a major Capital (Belgrade) and other targets beforethe long refugee columns and rumors of massacres made excellent copy for the media= The "reports of massacres": Sec. Cohen's "600,000 boys and men, missing and feared dead." The desperate lies that were needed to bring on the other Nato signatories, so that the real violence could begin: the "humanitarian violence" against civilians of all ages, whether on simple little commuter trains (Grdilica), convalescent homes (Surdilica), or innocent ethnic Albanian refugees returning to their homes (Djakovica): All of this violence occurred because of the Rambouillet threat! An article such as Carlucci's is an attempt to create a climate; it seems in this case, an attempt to create markets--and World Bank debt, in the form of tiny statelets that will have to serve a master.

[ma bell]

wraith, carlucci is either naive or foolish to spew that think tanks policy line talk.

Splitting Kosovo would be akin to the Irish splitting Ireland into two. Yes, there would be peace and civility among the Serbian Kosovo. Within the "albanian" half, there would be lawlessness, illicit trafficking of who knows what, murder/mayhem. HOw do i know? Look at what is happening already!

In northern Kosovo where the Serbs were given back, very little crime/murder etc... in the shiptari controlled region, civil war lawlessness. Makes you wonder why there are ZERO KFOR/UNMIK patrolling Northern Kosovo? No need to restore order when people there respect authority and the convening administrative govt.

The non-KLA affiliated Albanians are quietly trading with the local Serbs. If you notice on the roads of Kosovo, trucks going back and forth to Novi Pazar via backroads, minus KFOR/UNMIK patrols etc...

Lastly, EVERY Albanian regardless of age, recieves from UNMIK about 7,000 Euros each year whereas the Serbs recieve zero.