Why aren't they asking the Balkans questions at the 9-11 hearings?

Recently, retired Canadian General Lewis MacKenzie declared that “we bombed the wrong side” in the 1999 Kosovo War. MacKenzie’s disclosure followed as a logical conclusion to another recent remark by the current NATO Commander for Southern Europe, Admiral Gergory Johnson, who accused the Albanian Muslims of committing “ethnic cleansing” against the Serbs.

Columnist George Jonas, in his March 22, 2004 National Post (Canadian) article, even managed to connect the dots from Osama bin Laden’s “financial and logistic” stronghold in Albania and Kosovo…to the U.S./NATO bombing and occupation on behalf of the KLA—a narcoterrorist/Islamic-extremist organization sponsored by Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda…and, from there, to the heinous kamikaze raids against the Twin Towers.

It has taken five years, but people are finally beginning to notice what Alida and I have been writing about since March, 1999.

Unfortunately, none of the people who are ready to face facts about the ongoing catastrophe in the Balkans are on the 9-11 hearing commission. Obviously, the 9-11 hearings are a sham and could not possibly be anything other than a sham. These hearings are being conducted in 2004 for one reason and one reason only: because it is a presidential election year, and a Republican president is up for reelection. The Democrats want to deflect the blame from themselves, and to find something that will make the president look bad.

Any reasonably objective hearing would begin, not with American’s lack of preparation for an al-Qaeda attack, but with America’s misadventures in the Balkans that paved the way for such an attack.

Recalling the Bosnian conflict of the mid-1990s, we find Muslim after Muslim complaining that non-Muslims in general, and the Serbs in particular, were bound to oppress Muslims, and to favor Christians over Muslims, at every possible opportunity. These “poor Muslims” knew exactly how to portray themselves as the victims, and how to play the picture of outraged innocence whenever the video crews of the “Clinton News Network”—or the BBC or the ITN—were on the scene. Somewhere—in terrorist training facilities or the like—key operatives learned how to fill in the missing details by means of carefully coached fake witnesses, phony translators, fabricated evidence, and incidents elaborately stage-managed to create the totally false impression that these hapless Muslims were being driven off their rightfully-owned property or that those horrible Serbs were slaughtering Muslims en masse. Considering all of those claims of oppression and persecution, it was surprising to see how many Muslims still remained in the Balkans so long after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

As the 1990s progressed, the news stories clearly revealed that the Muslim population was, and is, large and rapidly increasing, while the beleaguered Serb population is nowhere numerous and has long been dwindling.

We are aware that anchorpersons, correspondents, pundits, and other blow-dried and over-promoted media mannequins are not being paid megabucks just to show up on camera and look cute. No, they are being paid handsomely for their ability to continue delivering the most egregious propaganda with a straight face and an authoritative tone. Even so, it must have taken unusual talent in that regard for them to be able to accuse the Serbs of genocide against Muslims, while their own programs continually showed ever-increasing throngs of Muslims, and fewer and fewer Serbs! What kind of genocide was that? Even in 1999, the answer should have been obvious.

During the early 1990s, with the outbreak of war in Croatia that accompanied the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia, Americans suddenly started to hear accusations against the Serbs. Of course, no one followed up on who was making those accusations and why, nor did anyone trouble to verify the facts. Once the long civil war in Bosnia was under way, we were taking the word of the Islamic extremists as “gospel”—or perhaps we should say “koran”. At this point, Clinton had found a new friend in Alija Izetbegovic, who had been a Nazi in World War II—someone who would probably have been unable to get lawful permanent residence in the United States for that very reason. One could hardly even have called him a “former” Nazi, in that he remained unrepentant.

Fast-forward a few years to 1999. The KLA have been taken off the U.S. State Department’s list of “terrorist organizations.” That pesky restriction no longer stands in the way of casting them in a real-life version of “Wag the Dog.” Suddenly, Clinton is in impeachmentville. He somehow intimidates the Senate into letting him off, but now it’s time for damage control. He takes advantage of his status as Commander-in-Chief to show how presidential he can be. However, only his incredible tales about the Serbs seem to get any traction with the American public. The Chief Perjuror played it so well that he had the American people beliving that a new Holocaust was on the horizon, and that we could stop it just by bombing the Serbs sufficiently long and hard.

Clinton’s support of radical Islam was a form of appeasement. Clinton was so anxious to create a “legacy” other than the Monica Lewinsky scandal that—to make a long story short—he ended up leaving us with Ground Zero instead.

Our readers may recall Clinton’s ill-conceived, haphazard, and megalomaniacal efforts to bring “peace in the Middle East.” Clinton’s “peacemaking” efforts foundered on many obstacles. One of them seemed to be the often-stated perception that the U.S. constantly favors Israel with military and other aid at the expense of the Muslim world.

If anything, the U.S. has given a far greater amount of “foreign aid”—and military interventions—on behalf of predominantly Muslim countries than it has ever given to Israel. Too often, such aid is rendered in a futile attempt to “buy peace” from adversaries who won’t stay bought. For the same reason, the U.S. constantly hamstrings Israel’s efforts to defend itself against terrorism, so much so that Israel—not to mention the American taxpayer and soldier—would arguably be in a much better position if the U.S. were to refrain from “assisting” or “influencing” either side.

Clinton evidently thought that, by allowing radical Islamists free rein to set up a stronghold in Europe, governments of other predominantly Muslim nations would figure that Clinton was on their side after all, and would go along with whatever grandstanding he wanted to do with regard to Israel.

Shades of Neville Chamberlain, who thought he had achieved “peace in our time.” It never works that way.

Every so often, an unguarded remark on the part of some Muslim warlord or government official reveals that all of this talk of favoritism toward Israel is just a smoke screen for their real enmity, which is aimed at the very existence of Israel and of its Jewish inhabitants.

Not so long ago, visitors to Yellowstone National Park would return to their cars only to find them surrounded by bears. Not only were the bears losing their natural fear of human beings, but also, as time went on, these clever animals even began to devise distinct techniques for breaking into each brand of automobile to retrieve the food that their noses told them was inside. Eventually, mother bears were even observed teaching those skills to their cubs.

Some decades ago, the standard “stupid human trick” for a departing tourist was to feed the bears a few crackers to get them to move away from the car so that the owner can get in and drive away.

The obvious problem is: when do you stop? Only if the driver is able to lure the bears away from the car with crackers, and hurry back to the driver’s seat while the bears are still eating, will the ploy work. Otherwise, the bears may turn on the tourist as soon as the crackers run out.

Today, park officials vehemently discourage tourists from feeding the bears, and from leaving any food where bears can get it—and well they should. Park rangers and naturalists realized that appeasement does not work with bears or any other dangerous predators. It only whets their appetite, dispels their fear of human beings, and makes them horribly dangerous. Unfortunately, too few of our government officials have learned the same vital lesson.

So when the supply of “crackers” (i.e., military aid) began to run out for al-Qaeda in the Balkans, there was no more Mr. Nice Guy from Osama bin Laden.

It seems to be a tradition: Democrats are always given carte blanche to use or misuse the American military for whatever fool’s errand they have in mind. Woodrow Wilson—who promised to stay out of World War I if reelected—not only broke that promise, but also jailed those who opposed American involvement in that war. Franklin Roosevelt was given a free pass for setting up the chain of events that led up to Pearl Harbor. A recent political cartoon demonstrated the folly of the 9-11 hearings by putting the same criticism to Roosevelt’s actions in World War II, by suggesting that FDR invaded Germany to take the public’s mind off his failure to make progress against the Japanese. Truman remained relatively popular during the Korean War, and it took several years before LBJ’s Vietnam War became his undoing.

Likewise, no one seems to want to apply the same standard of questioning to Clinton, regarding his military actions and his policies regarding terrorists, as they are doing to Bush. Let’s see what I would be asking Clinton if I were on 9-11 hearing committee:

Q. Mr. Clinton, isn’t true that you were given the opportunity to have bin Laden extradited to US custody, but you declined the offer?

After he does his usual song and dance about not being sure whether he could hold bin Laden, I would ask:

Q. Isn’t it true that your administration had already issued two indictments against bin Laden?

Q. Isn’t it true that, until 1998, the Kosovo Liberation Army, or KLA, was on the U.S. State Department’s list as a terrorist organization closely affiliated with bin Laden’s al-Qaeda organization?

Q. Isn’t it true that you supported the KLA war effort in Kosovo, while knowing full well that bin Laden was also supporting the KLA?

Q. Isn’t it true that, during your entire adminstration, you made it a point to support only those persons and organizations who act as though there is no difference between right and wrong?

Assuming that question survived the predictable objection of Mr. Clinton’s counsel, I would follow up by asking:

Q. Can you give us an example of anyone among your associates—other than Monica Lewinski—who seemed to know right from wrong?

After drawing everyone’s attention to the connection between his amoral personal life and his equally amoral conduct of public affairs, I would ask:

No doubt, at this point, Clinton would give his song and dance about “ethnic cleansing.” So, my next question would be:

Q. Exactly what do you mean by “ethnic cleansing,” and how did you know it was occurring?

This would leave the former president in a box. He could either back-pedal by trying to define “ethnic cleansing” broadly enough to include something benign, and thus implicate himself as starting a senseless war.

Alternatively, he could try to explain that another Holocaust was already n progress, dramatizing it further with his tales of “mass graves.”

The Democrats have been shrieking that no one has found any “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq. That is no surprise, as Hussein was given plenty of time to hide them very carefully, or to export them for use by other organizations or regimes. He may even have been totally disarmed by the time of the war. So what!

Our position from the get-go has been that Iraq was not the best target. Hussein did have a nasty habit of paying a few thousand dollars to the families of terrorists who went on successful suicide missions. He was certainly no friend of the U.S.

However, there are a number of other countries, including two in the Balkans, that pose a far greater threat in their support of al-Qaeda and its ilk.

Yet, the decade of the 1990s was a new low in American foreign policy. We vilified and bombed one of the most consistent US allies to support an enemy against whom we have taken arms far back as the Jefferson administration. The Serbs have been our allies, both in general and on the battlefield during each world war. Radical Islam was the creed of the Barbary Pirates whom Jefferson’s Marines fought. It was the creed of our WW I enemy, the Ottoman Turks. During WW II, the Muslims of the Balkans and much of the Middle East were part of the Nazi-Fascist Axis. The Iranian kidnappers, who invaded the US Embassy in Tehran, in 1979, were radical Muslims.

Yet, no investigative committee is asking the right people any serious questions about why we supported radical Islam in Bosnia and Kosovo. Certainly those who decided to commit the power and might of the U.S. government and military—and its NATO allies—to act on behalf of radical Islamic terrorism in the Balkans, are far more culpable than those in the new administration who may or may not have done all they could to prevent the 9-11 kamikaze attacks.

Well...JCB I guess, you'll tell me now this is all "serbian propaganda":

http://www.senate.gov/~rpc/releases/1997/iran.htm

http://www.senate.gov/~rpc/releases/1998/kosovo.htm

http://www.senate.gov/~rpc/releases/1999/fr033199.htm

"Serbian officials say Mujahideen have formed groups that remained behind in Bosnia. Groups from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Chechnya are also involved in Albanian guerrilla operations. A document found on the body of Alija Rabic, an Albanian UCK member killed in a border crossing incident last July, indicated he was guiding a 50-man group from Albania into Kosovo. The group included one Yemeni and 16 Saudis, six of whom bore passports with Macedonian Albanian names. Other UCK rebels killed crossing the Albanian frontier have carried Bosnian Muslim Federation papers." [Jane's International Defense Review, "Unhealthy Climate in Kosovo as Guerrillas Gear Up for a Summer Confrontation," 2/1/99]

"Mujahidin fighters have joined the Kosovo Liberation Army, dimming prospects of a peaceful solution to the conflict and fuelling fears of heightened violence next spring.. . . . Their arrival in Kosovo may force Washington to review its policy in the Serbian province and will deepen Western dismay with the KLA and its tactics. . . . 'Captain Dula', the local KLA commander, was clearly embarrassed at the unexpected presence of foreign journalists and said that he had little idea who was sending the Mujahidin or where they came from; only that it was neither Kosovo nor Albania. 'I've got no information about them,' Captain Dula said. 'We don't talk about it.' . . . American diplomats in the region, especially Robert Gelbard, the special envoy, have often expressed fears of an Islamic hardline infiltration into the Kosovo independence movement. . . . American intelligence has raised the possibility of a link between Osama bin Laden, the Saudi expatriate blamed for the bombing in August of US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, and the KLA. Several of Bin Laden's supporters were arrested in Tirana, the Albanian capital, and deported this summer, and the chaotic conditions in the country have allowed Muslim extremists to settle there, often under the guise of humanitarian workers. . . . 'I interviewed one guy from Saudi Arabia who said that it was his eighth jihad,' a Dutch journalist said." ["U.S. Alarmed as Mujahidin Join Kosovo Rebels," The Times (London), 11/26/98]

"Diplomats in the region say Bosnia was the first bastion of Islamic power. The autonomous Yugoslav region of Kosovo promises to be the second. During the current rebellion against the Yugoslav army, the ethnic Albanians in the province, most of whom are Moslem, have been provided with financial and military support from Islamic countries. They are being bolstered by hundreds of Iranian fighters, or Mujahadeen, who infiltrate from nearby Albania and call themselves the Kosovo Liberation Army. US defense officials say the support includes that of Osama Bin Laden, the Saudi terrorist accused of masterminding the bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. A Defense Department statement on August 20 said Bin Laden's Al Qa'ida organization supports Moslem fighters in both Bosnia and Kosovo. . . . The KLA strength was not the southern Kosovo region, which over the centuries turned from a majority of Serbs to ethnic Albanians. The KLA, however, was strong in neighboring Albania, which today has virtually no central government. The crisis in Albania led Iran to quickly move in to fill the vacuum. Iranian Revolutionary Guards began to train KLA members. . . . Selected groups of Albanians were sent to Iran to study that country's version of militant Islam. So far, Yugoslav officials and Western diplomats agree that millions of dollars have been funnelled through Bosnia and Albania to buy arms for the KLA. The money is raised from both Islamic governments and from Islamic communities in Western Europe, particularly Germany. . . . 'Iran has been active in helping out the Kosovo rebels,' Ephraim Kam, deputy director of Tel Aviv University's Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, said. 'Iran sees Kosovo and Albania as containing Moslem communities that require help and Teheran is willing to do it.' But much of the training of the KLA remains based in Bosnia. Intelligence sources say mercenaries and volunteers for the separatist movement have been recruited and paid handsome salaries. . . . The trainers and fighters in the KLA include many of the Iranians who fought in Bosnia in the early 1990s. Intelligence sources place their number at 7,000, many of whom have married Bosnian women. There are also Afghans, Algerians, Chechens, and Egyptians." ["Kosovo Seen as New Islamic Bastion," Jerusalem Post, 9/14/98]

". . . By late 1997, the Tehran-sponsored training and preparations of the Liberation Army of Kosovo (UCK -- Ushtria Clirimtare e Kosoves -- in Albanian, OVK in Serbian), as well as the transfer of weapons and experts via Albania, were being increased. Significantly, Tehran's primary objective in Kosovo has evolved from merely assisting a Muslim minority in distress to furthering the consolidation of the Islamic strategic axis along the Sarajevo-to-Tirane line. And only by expanding and escalating subversive and Islamist-political presence can this objective be attained. . . In the Fall of 1997, the uppermost leadership in Tehran ordered the IRGC [Revolutionary Guards] High Command to launch a major program for shipping large quantities of weapons and other military supplies to the Albanian clandestine organisations in Kosovo. [The supreme Iranian spiritual leader, the Ayatollah] Khamene'i's instructions specifically stipulated that the comprehensive military assistance was aimed to enable the Muslims 'to achieve the independence' of the province of Kosovo. . . . [B]y early December 1997, Iranian intelligence had already delivered the first shipments of hand grenades, machine-guns, assault rifles, night vision equipment, and communications gear from stockpiles in Albania into Kosovo. The mere fact that the Iranians could despatch the first supplies within a few days and in absolute secrecy reflect extensive advance preparations made in Albania in anticipation for such instructions from Tehran. Moreover, the Iranians began sending promising Albanian and UCK commanders for advanced military training in al-Quds [special] forces and IRGC camps in Iran. Meanwhile, weapons shipments continue. Thus, Tehran is well on its way to establishing a bridgehead in Kosovo. . . The liberation army was to be only the first phase in building military power. Ultimately, the Kosovo Albanians must field such heavy weapons as tanks, armoured personnel carriers, artillery, and rocket launchers, if they hope to evict the Serbian forces from Kosovo. . . . The spate of UCK terrorism during the Fall of 1997, . . . should be considered intentional provocations against the Serbian police aimed to elicit a massive retaliation that would in turn lead to a popular uprising. Thus, the ongoing terrorism campaign in Kosovo should be considered the initial phases in implementing the call for an uprising. Iran-sponsored activists have already spread the word through Kosovo that the liberation war has already broken out. If current trends prevail, the increasingly Islamist UCK will soon become the main factor in overturning the long-term status quo in the region. Concurrently, the terrorist activities have become part of everyday life throughout Kosovo. Given the extent of the propaganda campaign and the assistance provided by Iran, the spread of terrorism should indeed be considered the beginning of an armed rebellion that threatens a major escalation." ["Italy Becomes Iran's New Base for Terrorist Operations," by Yossef Bodansky, Defense and Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy (London), February 1998. Bodansky is Director of the House Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare. This report was written in late 1997, before the KLA's offensive in early 1998.]

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