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Posted on 01/11/2004 4:09:44 AM PST by Doctor13
In the midst of conflicts in Southwest Asia and the Middle East, I cannot help but wonder: Whatever happened to the Balkans?
We Americans spent more than a decade listening to and watching CNN and BBC clips of the war-torn region and the countless war crimes that had taken place at the hands of various ethnic groups.
What about Kosovo? A 78-day bombing campaign was undertaken to "liberate Kosovo's ethnic Albanian population" from the hands of "terror-invoking Serbs."
Why was there no media follow- up of the accomplishments of peace-loving and newly liberated Kosovo Albanians? Quite simply, because there are no accomplishments.
Could it be because the international community made a grave mistake and has now found itself in a quagmire with no solution in sight? Is it possible that some of the very people NATO was trying to "protect" have turned out, in fact, to be terrorists? Yes!
After spending a grueling 27 months working in Serbia's Kosovo province, I learned and witnessed far more than I had bargained for. Although I was fully versed in the rich and blood- soaked history of the region, I was not prepared for all that took place.
Albanian rebel offensives resulted in bus explosions of NATO- escorted civilian convoys, brutal murders of civilians tending their fields, random sniper attacks, shootings of children swimming in lakes, night beatings and torture of the elderly, and arson - all against Serbian civilians and all under the watchful eyes of the U.S. and international community.
I once asked a NATO commanding general why ethnic Albanian extremists were not unmasked for what they truly are - bloodthirsty, war-waging terrorists. He looked at me, paused, and replied, "How do you begin to go against the very group you supposedly came to help? We obviously did not know who we were dealing with. We bombed the wrong side."
I stared at him in disbelief while he merely looked down at his freshly shined boots, straightened his shoulders and turned to walk away. Not quite the response I had expected.
Observations in Kosovo recorded chilling acts from the "peacekeepers" as well. Germany's military contingent used bright yellow tape to mark large Xs on Serbian homes throughout their designated area of responsibility. Similar to the 1940s Nazi-style branding of Jews and other minorities deemed unworthy of life.
Strangely enough, I was the only one who questioned this and personally brought it to the attention of a senior member of the U.S. Army Command Group.
But let's focus on something near and dear to all Americans: attacks on U.S. Army and media personnel. While on a border patrol, monitoring Albanian rebel insurgency, the U.S. unit I was working with came under direct mortar fire in a village named Krivenik. An Associated Press journalist, Kerim Lawton, was seriously injured. I administered first aid and attempted to stop the bleeding from the dozens of shrapnel wounds he incurred, to no avail. He died shortly afterward.
How was this incident portrayed to the media? In a noncommittal diplomatic fashion, officials announced that, "An investigation will take place as to the day's chain of events," from all sides, U.S. Army, NATO and U.N.
Does this seem all too familiar? Is this not mere repetition of scenarios that got the United States involved in both Bosnia and Kosovo in the first place - only later to discover that "smoking gun" incidences were staged? It is interesting how concrete evidence has surfaced, that incidences were staged by the very groups claiming to have been wronged.
Perhaps the international community should be more forthcoming as to who the real Balkans' terrorists are and how they are draining our tax dollars, manpower and resources.
The public has a right to know what is happening in the Balkans.
Gavrilovic served as a civilian subcontractor with the U.S. Army in the capacity of assistant project manager, cross-cultural specialist and linguist in Kosovo.
It is my belief, however, that although Bosnia does not have oil, per se, the war against the Serbs was exactly for that reason. The Saudis had signed a letter of intent to buy $6 billion dollars worth of Boeing aircraft. The day after we bombed the Serbs in 1995 based on a self-inflicted massacre committed by Bosnian Muslim forces at Sarajevo's main market place, the Markale, the Saudis' signed on the dotted line. A coincidence? I don't think so. Saudi Arabia wanted the first Islamic state in the belly of Europe, and we wanted Saudi oil and money. What we now have is that Bosnia has become Islam's corridor into Europe, along with al-Qaeda terrorists.
As for Djindjic, it appears that it was a gangland-type murder with which he had previously been involved. Other Serbs regarded him as selling them to the West.
Much is written about the "ultra-nationalist Milosevitas" coming back into power (although it will thankfully never happen), almost nothing is mentioned to the fact that the former Croatian "ultra nationalist" party of Franjo Tudjman has also been elected back into power with no outrage from the West's media. Tudjman is quoted as saying, "Thank God my wife is neither a Serb nor a Jew," referring to the one and a half million who were exterminated in Croatia's death camps so brutally that even the German Gestapo were appalled. Hitler had rewarded his loyal ally, the Croats, by recognizing them as the "Independent State of Croatia" in 1941. With U.S. military aid and technology, the Croats today have their pure Croatian state that Hitler could only promise.
Maybe for the same reason the media has been strangely reluctant to report on the paradise we created in South Africa?
In his book, "The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War and Peace, 1989-1992," former Secretary of State James Baker significantly wrote, "After the meeting, I had Larry Eagleburger take [Haris] Silajdzic [former Bosnian Prime Minister] to see the EC troika political directors (who happened to be visiting the Department) and asked Margaret Tutwiler to talk to the foreign minister about the importance of using Western mass media to build support in Europe and North America for the Bosnian cause. I also had her talk to her contacts at the four television networks, The Washington Post, and the New York Times to get more attention focused on the story."
In other words, President George Bush, the First, Mr. Baker, Mr. Eagleburger, et. al, never intended to be impartial in theBosnian civil war and were willing, if necessary, to present a distorted, anti-Serbian bias to the American people and a favorable image of the Bosnian Muslims regardless of their shadowy part in the war. This, then, was to be our foreign policy and we are reaping what we have sown.
To admit to our role in the unnecessary deaths of all innocent civilians in a Balkan civil war would land us at The War Crimes Tribunal. We must remember that at the Lisbon Agreement in 1992 whereby all sides agreed to divide Bosnia up into three regions, our then U.S. ambassador, Warren Zimmermann went to Bosnian President, Alija Izetbegovic, and said that if he didn't like it, "why sign it?" They knew right then and there, they had Uncle Sam where they wanted him (you can use your own imagination)to fight their jihad for them.
Anybody paying attention knew we were bombing the wrong side.
You also seem to put the entire blame on Milosevic without commenting on the role of the Bosnian Muslims, the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo (KLA, an army that was armed and trained by Osama bin Laden) and the fascist Croats. Tudjman was worst because he wished to continue his thoughts of Hitler's fascism against the Serbs, Jews and Gypsies, and Izetbegovic is undoubtedly the worse, for he slaughtered his own people in order to turn Bosnia into an Islamic state. "Muslims 'slaughter their own own people'" The Independent, (Also Toronto Star, 1992). "Serbs 'not guilty' of massacre," "The Sunday Times, 1 Oct. 1995.
Must continue later. I've run out of time, for now.
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