Posted on 08/21/2003 8:46:16 AM PDT by Destro
THE BALKANS: Gangsters and Albanian Nationalism
August 17, 2003: It appears the new spate of violence in Kosovo that began in late June has yet to taper off. The Albanian National Army (ANA) is now back to shooting at Kosovar police. This incident took place inside Serbia, across the Kosovo border. The ANA fired on a Serb police post. No one was killed. The attack on the police post follows two other attacks across the Serb-Kosovo border where the ANA claimed to have fired mortars at a Serb military compound and fired at a police patrol. Also on August 17, in the Kosovo village of Gorazdevak, two Serb children were shot at by a sniper. The children--fortunately-- were not hit. However, since June several similar attacks have occurred, with fatalities. Call it what it is --- a continued low-level civil war with "ethnic cleansing." This time the Serbs are the victims. UNMIK is trying to stop it. What keeps the ANA in business? Crime --mostly smuggling and corruption.
August 18, 2003: Someone, probably Albanians, opened fire on a group of Serbian children in Kosovo. No one was hurt. Many Albanians expect Kosovo to become an independent state, or merge with Albania, and are armed and willing to fight for this. But they will have to fight Kosovo Serbs and NATO peacekeepers to make this happen.
August 17, 2003: The Albanian National Army (ANA) has taken credit for a recent attack on Serbian police (which hurt no one).
August 14, 2003: UNMIK reported two Kosovo Serb teenagers were shot to death in the village of Zahac. Five people were wounded, including a Kosovar Albanian woman. Witnesses reported attackers opened fired with machine guns on the teenagers as they were swimming in the Bistrica River. It was feared that this incident would trigger another round of fighting between armed Serbs and Albanians.
Rise to the argument.
Stop lowering yourself to the Serbs' weakest point of view or forever be labeled a joke.
Racially, Albanians are no different than any other European. The only way one might tell them apart from anyone else, is if they are taking your car on a stormy night in Dusseldorf, or Oslo, or any other European city.
Surely, even a non-bigot such as yourself finds it at least a bit odd that an entire nation's largest (and by a huge percentage) foreign currency earner is stolen cars, parts, and heroin. Even Colombia exports oil and coffee to balance out the cocaine trade. No such luck from Albania. Why their energy is directed outwards, and not toward developing Albania, which has vast economic potential, is just a cosmic mystery. I believe in international understanding. But with the Albanians, someone is going to have to first get their attention, with the international equivalent of a very hard slap up the side of the head. That is going to happen. It's not going to be pretty, and it may involve the US, NATO, and Russia getting into a very bad mess. But nonetheless, it will happen.
Speaking of racism, you ought to read up on Albanian treatment of the Gypsies (excuse me, The ROM people). You are of course, entitled to join in the Albanian megalomaniacal jihad for the "Greater Albania." Their leaders realize that if this strange and feral people were to be restricted to their true homeland, they would only continue to kill each other in the senseless round of blood feuds, the dismal record of which is their tragic history.
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