Posted on 12/04/2005 7:44:18 PM PST by Hunden
Kosovo has been home to many peoples. It has often served as a buffer between hostile groups. However, the truth is that it reached its peak as a European political and cultural center under the Serbians from the 12th to the 14th centuries. It is now viewed by Serbians as the cradle of their nation. The maintenance of Kosovo as part of Serbia has become a cornerstone of the appeals of the nationalists and ultranationalists who have come to dominate Serbia's politics following the disintegration of Yugoslavia.
The Illyrians, Thracians, and Celts lived in the Kosovo area in the 2nd century AD, when Rome finished incorporating what was to become Yugoslavia into its empire. The Albanians claim that the Illyrians are their descendents; however, the only remote evidence is the similar dialects and these are few. Rome's hold was relatively short lived, however. Late in the 4th century, Slavs moving south from the Carpathian Mountains attacked and conquered Roman strongholds in the area. Two centuries later, Slavic groups began to settle permanently by the 10th century. The region's Slavic tribes had become three discernible groups: Croatians, Slovenians, and Serbians. The Serbians became dominant in Kosovo as well as in what are now Serbia, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. While Croatians and Slovenians were Christianized by Rome, thus becoming Roman Catholics, Serbs were largely Christianized through Byzantium, becoming Eastern Orthodox.
Kosovo and the other lands controlled by the Serbians and repeatedly was a point of contention among Bulgarian, Hungarian, Byzantine, and Roman leaders into the 12h century. Then over the next two centuries, Serbians enjoyed independence under the Nemanje dynasty; the reigns of Stephen (1169-89), Milutin (1281-1321), and Dusan (1331-55) were particularly golden eras. Kosovo and settlements immediately to the north became the political and cultural heartland of the Serbians during this period.
The economy prospered–largely as a result of the use of migrant labor brought in from Transylvania to exploit the minerals of the region–and the royal court came to rival that of other monarchies in Europe in both its power and splendor. After the death of Dusan, the Serbian kingdom came on bad times. Turkish raiders defeated the internally bickering Serbians in the battle of Kosovo Polje–on
the plains west of what is now Pristina–on 28 June 1389. Because this marked the end of the glory days and the beginning of centuries of struggle against neighbors bent on dominating Serbia, no date is more significant and no place dearer to Serbians.
Nevertheless, Turkey's preoccupation with the Mongol threat from the east allowed Serbia to remain more or less independent for another 70 years. In 1459, Serbia finally fell to the Turks. For the next 250 years, what are today Kosovo, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Macedonia were part of the Ottoman Empire.
Concerning the Greater Albanian theme and how this got started and is going on "TODAY".....well, I have been doing research in the history of Kosovo for a good while. I have discovered that “history books” post dated 1991 -1992 are fabricated and full of incorrect historical assertions. To many people not familiar with Balkan history, the violence and bloodshed that took place in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990’s is incomprehensible. So, we can ask ourselves just how is it possible that such atrocities could occur in Europe on the eve of the new millennium and continue under our noses? The answer to this is to be found in the events that took place in Yugoslavia during the Second World War. Following the invasion of Yugoslavia, the country was dismembered and divided among the axis powers, Germany, Italy, Hungary and Bulgaria. Croatia was granted independence as an axis puppet state and ruled by Ante Pavelic, the Fascist Ustashi leader. Croatia was awarded by Hitler all of Bosnia-Hercegovina with its large Serbian and Jewish population. Pavelic and the Ustashi proceeded with a campaign of genocide directed against the Serbian and Jewish populations of Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina. Frightful massacres took place.
Ustashi gangs savagely slaughtered tens of thousands of Serbs in Croatia, often forcing them into their Orthodox Churches and burning them alive. Other Serbs were given the choice of conversion to Roman Catholicism or death. Yet others were driven out of Croatia into Bosnia or Serbia. Thousands of Jews, Serbs and Gypsies were exterminated in Croatian camps. At the most infamous of these, Jasenovac, close to 100,000 victims was killed-and not by gas- but by the bullet, the club or knife. In Bosnia, similar massacres of Serbs took place. The Muslims of Bosnia often assisted the Ustashi killers. Later in the war, the Germans recruited a Muslim SS Division, which gained notoriety for its atrocities against the Serbian civilian population.
After the invasion of Yugoslavia the Italians occupied Kosovo and when Italy dropped out of the war in 1943, the Germans entered Kosovo and promised the province independence. They raised a SS Division from among the Albanian population; the infamous Skenderberg Division, which set about methodically to slaughter Serbs in Kosovo.
Guess what!!!! Today, as I write, December 15, 2005, the Skenderburg Division is operating in Macedonia as a unit of the ANA. They formed during the last 90’s.
The SS high Comm in WWII, planned to create a mountain division of 10.000 men. The Higher SS and Police Command in Albania, in conjuction with the Albanian National Committee, listed 11.398 possible recruits for the Waffen SS mountain division. Most of these recruits were "kossovars", shqiptar Ghegs from Kosovo Metohija in Serbia. The Shqiptar Tosks were found mainly in southern Albania. Most of the Shqiptar collaborators with the nazi forces were theNazi forces were the so-called Kossovars, ethnic Shqiptars from the Kosmet of Serbia. The Nazi German-sponsored Albanian gendarmes, special police and para-military units were made up by Kossovars. The Kossovars were under the direct control of the Albanian Interior Minister Xhafer Deva.
The Skanderbeg Division of WWII, not to be confused with the current unit, was formed and trained in Kosovo and was made up mostly of muslim Shqiptar Kossovars. There were only a small number of Albanians from Albania proper in the division. The Skanderbeg Mountain Division of the Wafen SS was thus essentially a Kosovo or Kosmet Division. The Division was stationed and operated in Kosovo and other Serbian regions almost exclusively.
The Skanderbeg division engaged in a policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Serbian Orthodox Christian populations of the regions under occupation by the division in Kosovo Metohija, Montenegro, and southern Serbia. Balkan Historian Robert Lee Wolff, in the "Balkans in Our time", described the genocide committed against Kosovo Serbs by the Shqiptar 21st Waffen Gebirgs Division der SS Skenderbeg as follows:
In the regions annexed by the Albanians, their so-called Skanderbeg division, made up of members of the Albanian minority in Yugoslavia, massacred Serbs with impunity.
Historian L.H. Stavrianos, in "The Balkan Since 1453", described the genocide committed against Orthodox Serbs by the Shqiptar Skanderbeg Division in these terms: Yugoslav Albanians, organized in their fascist Skanderbeg Division, conducted an indiscriminate massacre of Serbians.
The Skanderbeg Division played a role in the Holocaust, the genocide if European Jewry, by rounding up scores of Kosovo Jews in a group roughly 500 persons deemed enemies of the Third Reich when the division occupied Prizren in Kosovo Metohija. The division sought to create ethnically pure Kosovo, ethnically cleansed of Orthodox Serbs, Jews and Gypsies the untermenschen (subhuman), who were targeted for extermination.
The Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal declared the Shutzstaffel or SS criminal organization and every individual member of SS was found to Be a war criminal guilty of "planning and carrying out crimes against humanity". The Shqiptar Kosovars in the 21st Waffen Gebirgs Division "Skanderbeg" committed war crimes and genocide against the Orthodox Serbian population of Kosovo. The Shqiptar planned and carried out crimes against humanity in Kosovo. Orthodox Serbians of Kosovo were the victims of ethnic cleansing and genocide. This genocide would contribute in the Shqiptar goal and policy to create an ethnically pure, Shqiptar Kosovo, in an attempt to create a greater Shqiperia or greater Albania. Following World war II, the Yugoslav Communist dictatorship allowed the policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Orthodox Serbs to continue, and indeed, gave greater impetus and legitimacy to the policy.
Ironically, the UN, USA and NATO are finishing where the Nazi’s left off in WWII.
During World War II, the Axis powers dismembered and occupied Yugoslavia and created a greater Albania by annexing the Serbian region of Kosovo-Metohija by Nazi Germany, Germany formed a Shqiptar "Kosovar" Waffen SS Division, the 21st Waffen Gebirgs Division der SS "Skanderbeg" which engaged in a policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Orthodox Serbian population of Kosovo. The result was that the Shqiptars, with the help of Germany, were able to virtually exterminate the Serbian and Jews populations of Kosovo, thereby creating an ethnically pure, Nazi German-sponsored Greater Albania or Greater Shqiperia.
The Albanian Committee of Kosovo organized massive campaigns of ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Orthodox Serbian inhabitants of Kosovo-Metohija. A contemporary report described the ethnic cleansing and genocide of Serbs as follows:
“Armed with material supplied by the Italians, the Albanians hurled themselves against the helpless settlers in their homes and villages. Accoring to the most reliables sources the Albanians burned many Serbian settlements, killing some of the people and driving out others who escaped to the mountains. At present other Serbian settlements are being attacked and the property of indviduals and of communities is either being confiscated or destroyed. It is not possible to ascertain at the present the exact number of victims of those atrocities, but it may be estimated that at least between 30,000 and 50,000 perished.”
Bedri Pejani, the Muslim leader of the Albanian National Committee, called for the extermination of Orthodox Serbian Christians in Kosovo-Metohija and for a union of a Greater Albania with Bosnia-Hercegovina and the Rashka (Sandzak) region of Serbia into a Greater Islamic State. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el Husseini, was presented the Pejani plan which he approved as being in the interest of Islam. The Germans,however, rejected the plan.
As the war progressed Serb guerilla bands retaliated against the perpetrators of these crimes with counter massacres of their own. The horrors committed in Yugoslavia during the war, where over a million people perished, were not forgotten. In Croatia, Bosnia or Kosovo, there were few Serbs who had not lost friends or relatives during the Second World War.
I know that they (Muslims) have the Balkans targeted for population and conversion, as well as the U.S. The number of Mosques are increasing, the Saudi Prince donated 40 million USD to Harvard and GWU to study Islam (waste of money), and the Imams have populated the prisons to teach Islam and convert those in prison. :)
Once again, like the Japanese of WWII and Nazi's, the Muslims are going to underestimate our resolve. True, it is very clever what they are doing. Invading the U.S. without firing a shot. However, have you ever stuck your hand into the cage of a sleeping Pit Bull. Then all of a sudden the Pit Bull wakes, promise you, you will pull back a nub.......This is exactly the case here. Americans do not convert, will not subjucate, and won't pay a cent. A Jihad here in the USA will result in more blood than any one can imagine. It would make the crusuades look like a Boy Scout Jamboree.........100% for sure.
No wonder the American left loves him!
And the lights, what few of them there were in Iran, go out across the country. This ahmedi-nijad is The Beast.
"...I will end Christianity in this country..."
...Caligula, Claudius, Nero....
Of course to the "enlightened" Left, only Christians are guilty of 'hate crimes.'
Christ Jesus defeated death. You are nothing against His majesty and power. You are Hell made flesh, and you will not prevail, you will not be permitted to prevail.
If they keep it up they can kiss good by their industrial and oil capability. That may be the only way to shut 'em down,
And from all the other bogus 'Human Rights' commissions organizations.
Iran's "leadership" is begging to commit national suicide....
Some cooler heads had better prevail soon and a successful coup imminent or else they are going to be done in...and quick.
No they aren't, but thank you for playing. Tito tried using that logic but communism is dead and so is he.
Well, he's right - Kosovo IS monoethnic. The other ethnic communities have been murdered or terrorized into moving out/ethnically cleansed.
I get the impression that said "student rebellion", as heroic as it might have been, has been put down hard by the new Lunatic in Charge over there.
And the vast majority of Iranians seem to be victims of their own repressive regime, much as Iraquis were victims of Saddam the Terrible.
Sadly, it's probably the Iranian People who would love to be free and prosperous under some form of democracy who will bear the brunt of the suffering when Muchmadwhackki (or whatever his name is) brings a pre-emptive strike down on their heads from Israel or US for all of his threatening rhetoric.
Since he has or soon will have nukes, we pretty much have to take him seriously when he promises to start throwing them around and "wipe Israel off of the map".
If Iraq is really going to be a democracy and while we have our troops there, he'll probably reserve a couple for Iraq, too.
We can't wait until then, really.
For a while there it seemed that change from within might be possible for Iran - but the whackko terrorist president seems to have crushed whatever resistance / hope that there might have been.
Pity, too; the average Iranian is probably not all that bad a person once you get to know them.
It sure would be a shame to have to vaporize or crispify most or all of them and turn their cities into huge bowls of radioactive glass in the desert.
And make no mistake about it; if one Iranian nuke goes off in Israel, Iran will be no more.
Wow!! That's gnarly...
>>>Since he has or soon will have nukes, we pretty much have to take him seriously when he promises to start throwing them around and "wipe Israel off of the map".
http://inhonor.net/videos/uped/fl_video.php?f_num=52900
Iran's royal presentation
Iranian soldiers showing-off their artistic side.
Zoroastrians do not accept converts. You must be born one to be one. It is highly doubtful that millions of Iranians are going to leave Islam because of the mullahs. Human nature doesn't work that way. Christians cleaned up Christianity during the protestant reformation. Expect the Iranians to do the same.
You've gotta hand it to 'em; they sure are creative, and have their choreography right down pat.
Snazzy outfits, too.
They certainly sing and dance well....
But can they fight?
If those are FN-FALs they are carrying and that is the standard infantry issue as opposed to the ol' Soviet standby AK, then US or Israeli Infantry will be seriously outgunned on the ground. "Jammin Jenny" the M-16 and it's derivatives are no match for the tough and battle-proven FN, IMHO, nor is the 5.56mm round any match for the 7.62 X 51mm.
I suspect that a ground war will not be the cakewalk that the taking of Bagdhad was (relatively), and unless superior air assetts are used sufficiently and without political restraint to pretty much level the infrastructure, regardless of the outrage of the "World Community", the UN, and our own 5th collumn turncoats in Congress, then casualties I predict will make current losses in Iraq pale by comparison.
That would probably save thousands of coallition lives - but Iranian losses could well be in the millions... the vast majority of them innocent civilians.
Either way, it ain't gonna play well back home, is it?
Nor are there any other choices we really want to think about too much, are there?
I'd be interested to hear about any.
But push comes to shove; either way a lot of stuff is going to get broken and a lot of people are going to get hurt.
That's usually how war works, isn't it?
Let's hope and pray that Iranians who wish to live in some sort of self-determination and prosperity... or for that matter LIVE at all, for much longer... rise up and take down this insane facist empire from within while they still might at least try.
'Cause if it comes down to the national survival of "Us" vs. "Them", then it's gonna come down HARD.
It'll be horribly hard on all parties involved; even for those in the surrounding neighborhood, in all probablility.
And that's even if Russia decides not to draw their sword and plow a line around their new Islammic "ally" Iran and back it up with what's left of the old Soviet arsenal.
Our warming relationship with Russia could turn on a dime, IMHO.
A lot of Americans flat don't trust Putin, and they may have some valid reasons for their suspicion.
We could find ourselves back in the 1960's nuclear superpower standoff in a flash.
Only this time there is another superpower catching up with both of us; the Old Dragon China is lurking in the wings; keenly, quietly, observing developments with unblinking eyes and picking his daggerlike teeth.
And he plays his cards pretty close to his silken vest.
Interesting times we live in, aren't they?
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This has nothing to do with Communism.
Only, Communism, like all possible sets of beliefs but one, isn't Serb pseudo-nationalism.
Kosovo became monoethnic when the native Albanians became 90 percent of the population, long before a third of the Serbs left in 1999. The Serbs left during the war of liberation, not after it. But they had indeed tried to expel the majority of the native Albanians.
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