U.S. and Albanians sign accord on ICC court

The United States struck another blow against the new International Criminal Court on Friday by signing an agreement with Albania to exempt each other's citizens from prosecution.

Secretary of State Colin Powell signed the agreement with the Albanian prime minister, Fatos Nano, in Tirana, where he also thanked Albanian leaders for supporting the war in Iraq. It sent 70 soldiers to Iraq.

Albania was the 32d country, most of them small states, to agree to the U.S. demand for exemption of its soldiers and civilians from the court's jurisdiction. Israel and India have also signed exemption agreements with the United States.

Do not confuse ethnic Albanian extremists in the former Yugoslavia with the Albanians in Albania proper. The
Albanian government and people are the most pro-USA in Europe; and very few of them have been involved in the political violence in neighboring countries. The ethnic Albanians in Montenegro, Kosova, Presevo, & Macedonia are the source of the violence & unrest in those places. The last thing Albania wants or needs is more war and economic turmoil; plus they understand that support for ethnic Albanian movements in neighboring countries will cost them foreign aid, membership in NATO, and membership in the EU. While Albania has more than its share of gangsters who are often linked with their distant Albanian cousins in the former Yugoslavia, do not overestimate those connections. Remember, Albania was completely isolated for fifty years--to include from Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, and the rest of the Warsaw Pact countries for most of that time. Borders were fenced, mined and guarded with those crossing--to include in or out of Yugoslavia--shot or imprisoned. As a result, cross border ethnic Albanian relationships were severed. Even after the fall of communism in the 1990s, the main ethnic Albanian linkages in the former Yugoslavia do not run thru Albania proper, but between southern Montenegro-Kosova-Presevo-northern & western Macedonia. There is an Albanian Army unit in Iraq right now. So many Albanian soldiers volunteered to go that their Army held a competition to select the members of that unit. We should only wish that we had more allies with their willingness to help.

So, if Albanians decide to commit a crime against Americans, we won't prosecute them?

Albania was completely isolated for fifty years--to include from Yugoslavia

Except that the little bastards were crossing into "Kosova" wth impunity for decades..thanks to the unparalleld autonomy they enjoyed under their "opressors" in Yugoslavia. In today's Kosovo, the new "democratic" and "multiethnic" Imperial creation, one may not even speak Serbian in public. Human rights at their best -- a la Turkey, where Kurdish is not allowed. Oviously, we are really bad judges of character -- making friends with the likes of Papa Doc, Gen. Pinochet, Osama bin Ladin, Gen. Noriega, Saddam Hussein (when he was on CIA's payroll), Izetbegovic's Islamic fundamentalists, or Kosovo Albanian drug traffikers. Gee, the company we keep...does it get any smellier?

Albanian government and people are the most pro-USA in Europe

Do they have a choice? Who else would want them? In Europe they are known as drug trafficking sex peddlers. As for their support, I wouldn't put too much substance in it. They are like all the other spineless countries incapable of self-respect -- always following the "winner," for a while at least. Besides, I think the Bulgarians outdid themselves in "proving" who's most pro-US, and Poland didn't lag behind. We provide the crutches and they just love us. Isn't that precious?

kosta50: "So, if Albanians decide to commit a crime against Americans, we won't prosecute them?"

Reply: The bilateral agreements the USA is making with other countries in regard to the International Criminal Court (ICC) simply stipulate that neither country will turn over the other country's citizens to the ICC. So if an Albanian commits a crime against an American, this agreement does nothing to prevent prosecution or extradition or any other legal procedure within the American or Albanian courts.

kosta50: …making friends with the likes of Papa Doc, Gen. Pinochet, Osama bin Ladin, Gen. Noriega, Saddam Hussein (when he was on CIA's payroll), Izetbegovic's Islamic fundamentalists, or Kosovo Albanian drug traffikers. Gee, the company we keep...does it get any smellier?

Reply: The USA made common cause in limited ways with some unsavory characters in the past, but during that time the USA was faced with a real threat in the Soviet Union--a truly "Imperial" power. Communist regimes were responsible for 70-100 million deaths in the 20th Century along with uncountable misery and privation. In order to contain the greatest danger, America sometimes had to work with a lesser evil. And yes, by the way, the company we kept could have gotten much smellier—try Castro, Che, Ortega, Ho Chi Minh, Pol Pot, Kim il Sung, Chairman Mao, Hoxha, Ceausescu, Tito, Qaddafi, Abu Nidal and whoever was standing center-front in the reviewing stand on Red Square at the annual May Day parade.

As for the KLA, they were guerillas/terrorists fighting against the legitimate government. The Yugo military was clearly justified in using force against them. Atrocities were being committed on both sides, but nothing was going on, however, of a severity and scale to justify US or NATO military intervention. My personal view is that President Clinton wanted to achieve a legacy of peacemaking, but through a series of blunders and miscalculations, the situation escalated from negotiations to threats to air strikes against the Yugo military to a bombing campaign that targeted Serbian governmental and civilian infrastructure. The initial objective of a negotiated peace bringing everlasting glory to the Clinton presidency was quickly overcome by an objective of maintaining credibility as Milosevic inconveniently refused to roll over to the demands and threats of Clinton and Albright. Which is a long way of saying that I do not think that President Clinton was interested in helping the KLA—they were simply one of the parties involved in Clinton’s narcissistic attempt to establish his legacy. Whether the KLA or the Serbs were helped or hurt was incidental to his personal agenda. A sad statement about one of our ex-presidents, but I believe it to be true.

Pip PiP: "How do you know this? (the source of the problems line). I am curious to hear your explanation please."

Had a job requiring me to learn what I could about the Balkans situation and then had a year+ on the ground.

I have no sympathy for the ethnic Albanian extremists who are cleansing the Serbs from Kosovo, attacking the police in Macedonia & the PMB region, and desecrating churches in those places. I do not believe KFOR has done enough to solve those problems; nor have they done enough to stop the movement of weapons & ammunition on the main Montenegro-Kosova-Macedonia route.

However, many of the posters clearly do not understand the major differences between those situations and what is taking place in Albania--a very supportive ally that has offered bases to the US in the past and now again, volunteered to send troops to Iraq, has arrested and extradited Al Qaeda operatives starting back in 97/98 (to include sending some to Egypt where they were executed), that after 9/11 completely cooperated with the U.S. to include detaining & questioning everyone requested and then some, and that scrupulously has stayed out of the conflicts in the neighboring countries with the exception of the Kosovo crisis in which they became involved when the U.S. government & NATO asked for their cooperation. We should be thanking them and encouraging them to continue as much as we should be combatting the extremism of some of the Albanians in neighboring countries.

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