Kosovo May Explode -- Here

CNSNews.com Commentary ^ | March 16, 2006 | Julia Gorin

[tgambill]

The War on Terror suffered a major blow three years before it was ever announced. It happened when the people of this democracy were misled into attacking the sovereign, emerging post-Communist democracy of Yugoslavia, over rumors of genocide and ethnic cleansing that proved false. In so doing, we delivered the Balkans to al Qaeda.

Today we are being asked to seal that historical blunder, the repercussions of which are still escalating seven years later. The people we "rescued" have turned their weapons against United Nations and NATO forces.

While NATO spends most of its time rooting out terror cells in Kosovo and Bosnia, which served as the planning bases for the London and Madrid bombings, the 2006 deadline to complete our eagerly forgotten debacle and determine the province's final status is fast approaching.

To persuade the international community that only one final status will be acceptable, our Albanian "rescuees" have been stepping up the violence. This is a message to the West that it has only one possible exit strategy: grant unconditional independence -- without border compromises with Serbia and without protection guarantees for what's left of the non-Albanian minorities.

Here is the size of that hole so far: In November, 2001, what should have been an explosive article appeared in the European edition of the Wall St. Journal. Headlined "Al Qaeda's Balkan Links," it read: "For the past 10 years ... Ayman al-Zawahiri (bin Laden's second in command) has operated terrorist training camps [and] weapons of mass destruction factories throughout Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Turkey and Bosnia ... Though the Clinton administration had been briefed extensively by the State Department in 1993 on the growing Islamist threat in former Yugoslavia, little was done to follow through ...".......

(continued)

[bkepley]

I'm rubber and you're glue.

[horse_doc]

Just to clarify Christianne Amanpour's connection to the White House - her husband was Jaimie Rubin, Asst. Secretary of State. The Clinton Whitehouse set the scenario, and Rubin's wife delivered the phony stories.

I remember it all so well, because it was the first war that I was ever against . . .

[Aliska]

I think we made a grievous mistake in hindsight and was never comfortable with what we were doing at the time. People in-the-know seemed to think it was the right thing to do. Now I believe they were wrong.

Most ordinary Americans probably didn't care about one side or the other since neither had much of a presence in America. Few of us knew the historical conflicts in the region other than Sarajevo that sparked WWI.

I can't remember where the pope was on this one. Certainly nothing like with Iraq.

I don't know where it will end. I see our troops getting out of Iraq before troops leave that region. You simply cannot force people to get along together who have ethnic conflicts with guns and bombs. You just kill a bunch of people and make their life harder than it already was. The resentments are worse than ever AFAIAC.

[glowworm]

I hope you are right. When you read the history of the Muslims and the Serbs we had no right to interfere. It wasn't just like "Bill" told us. It, IMHO was a wag the dog scenario. The Serbs will need some one to back them up and from the way our State Dept. and the President [I back him ALMOST 100%]are talking they are not taking the Serbs side nor is any of the EU countries.

I never believe anything I hear.. or half of what I see. Anyway.. I can't figure why Socialists from the West and those from the East don't care for each other. Maybe family fued?? Inquiring minds would like to know..

[bayouranger]

Bush veto any handover and grant authority to the Yugoslav army to resume operational juridiction in the province. With the Serbs tearing al qaeda a new a$$hole in Kosovo, this would create a 3rd front in the WOT and draw back a lot of the jihadist vermin from Iraq and Afghanistan to fight the Serbs...

..Thereby vindicating Slobodan's position on the war against the islamists. That would be a very fitting sign of our acceptance to admit our failure by the Clinton admins foreign policy.

I wouldn't mind seeing some hanging from the gallows though...

[Proctor]

God bless you for handing over your documents to this good people.

[Proctor]

fyi

[F-117A]

clinton Legacy Bump!

[Fruitbat]

For the past four years The Hague's International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia has been finding what multiple international forensics teams have found, that claims of Serb "atrocities" were exaggerated and often invented. It turns out we confused an attempt to create an Islamic "Greater Albania" with one to create a "Greater Serbia."

Imagine that...

[blinachka]

Ugh! Excuse me while I vomit!

[LjubivojeRadosavljevic]

[Russia and China pledge not to block new Kosovo...Russia and China have told the US that they will not block the independence of Kosovo...]

Okay, then let's fight fire with fire and push for the independence of Taiwan and Chechnya and see how China and Russia they like that.

LIBO

[tgambill]

The violence towards the Serbs has been completely intolerant and restrictive to the point of being criminal. The International community there have tried but failed to protect the Serbs.

It has been very restrictive for the minorities........

[tgambill]

Good article. Will be good for two or three reads.....

[tgambill]

Actually, they never had designs to create a Greater Serbia. They were fighting just to keep the Islamic Fundies from separating the other states.......

[tgambill]

We have a way to go......thanks. Tom

[tgambill]

Now you're talking............

[livius]

Good article and very disturbing.

IMHO, the Serbian situation has always been a little complicated and there were definitely times when they were not the good guys; but in this conflict, the Albanians (or at any rate, the Muslims) were the aggressors, and had been stirring things up for years. They had been tightly controlled under Communism, and when that collapsed, their dreams of taking over revived immediately.

Bill Clinton, quite simply, hated Christians in particular and the West in general and took any opportunity to side with anybody who also hated them. His siding with the Albanians was essentially his way of telling the world what side he was on. I think the message was pretty clear, and the fact that his actions created a terrorist training center for attacks on the West doesn't bother him - or people such as Albright - at all.

Sadly, I don't see our current administration having either the nerve or the will to do anything to change the outcome of Bill's War.

[Fred Nerks]

Will be good for two or three reads.....

Do you mean you will read it two or three times or that two or three people will read it?

It's sad, but anything of a historical nature just doesn't attract very much interest.

[Beckwith]

Clinton involved us in the Balkans and Kosovo

... and on the wrong side.

[A. Pole]

[...]
To persuade the international community that only one final status will be acceptable, our Albanian "rescuees" have been stepping up the violence. This is a message to the West that it has only one possible exit strategy: grant unconditional independence -- without border compromises with Serbia and without protection guarantees for what's left of the non-Albanian minorities.
[...]
How many Americans know that the terrorists who carried out a spate of suicide attacks in Iraq in August 2004 were trained in Bosnia, or that al Qaeda's top Balkans operative -- al-Zawahiri's brother Mohammed -- had a high position with our terrorist KLA "allies"? [...] in Bosnia we fought alongside at least two of the 9/11 hijackers
[...]
Milosevic's sudden death this week spares us from the worldwide riots that would have ensued had the tribunal mustered the courage to issue a verdict based on the evidence.
[...]

Bump